Basikal Tua

Hi all! First day of school was interesting: funny lecturers and new paper-less grading format, among few things. It was fun. But they are stil a few things that didn't went as well as I wanted it to be.

This week my bicycle, which had been my loyal companion for 3 whole years, decided to give in on me. The morning on the first day of class I found that the inner tube of the back tire was punctured. Not the best way to start a day. Luckily there's a bike shop just a couple blocks from my house. I can easily walk over, buy a new tube and change it myself in less than the time I need to change my own pants.

I thought this was just a hiccup, so I was relieved that I was able to overcome it and made it to class on time. Unfortunately for me, the same thing happened to the bike right after class, the brand new tube that I just replaced that morning got busted. At that moment I was pissed and started throwing out sarcastic comments to myself. I had no choice but to walk my bike to the nearest bike shop again and have the tube replace the second time.

And as you might have guessed with the way things are going, the same thing happened the next morning. The was tube punctured the third time. At that point, I decided that I wasn't the best bike repairman, so I decided to seek professional help. Turn out, the rubber lining inside the wheel has already worn of. That is the reason why the tube keep getting punctured. The sharp edges inside the wheel was poking holes in my tube. I was glad that I finally gotten to the bottom of this, so I have them replace. I had my back tire replace as well because it was awfully worn off. Fuhh, glad the whole shenanigan is over.

"But wait, there's more." as any good infomercial salesman would say. On my way between classes on the same day, guess what happened. That's right, more shit happened. My right crank decided to fell off the bike. Sweet. Everything on this bike is falling apart.

At this point, I should have mentioned that my bike is already 34 years old. Yup, that's right. It is more than a decade older than I am. That's pretty old for the bike. And I also should mention why it made me say that it was falling apart. Well, two weeks prior to class, my back gear fell of the chasis in the middle of a traffic light. Yup, and I have to walk back and pickup a nut that fell off in the middle of the intersection.

With sudden realization, I was taken aback. I wasn't pissed anymore at the bike. I was feeling more in the line of pity. The same feeling you have when you are lining up on an ATM and there is a guy who are holding the line back. Your initial respond would be frustration but when you look over the line of people, you see a very old man who is struggling to operate the machine. You kinda take a step back an reevaluate your initial judgement.

I almost felt sorry for the bike. Maybe I've been working it too hard, knowing how old it has been. Well, without any choice, I have to walk the bike over to a shop for the third time of the week to have the crank replaced. When I arrived at the shop and had the owner look at the bike, the next thing that came out of his mouth surprises me.

Turn out the iron cast crank that was broken in half wasn't failing because of old age. It was caused by a manufacturing defect back from 1978 when bike was produce. Say what?

Apparently, there was a fault in the metal casting when they first manufacture the part. I was amazed. And here I thought it was breaking down because of old age. It is pretty intriguing how a faulty metal casting could last 34 year before it decided to snap in half.

Here is the picture of the broken crank taken by the shop owner. He took the picture because he have an engineer friend who studies and interested in iron casting defects. He have a whole gallery of years collecting pictures of metal defects.

Well, after spending a good bucks on a new crank, the bike is as good as new. It is going pretty strong for an old man. I hope it'll last for another year without any break down before I am letting it go to another hand. I really wanna see how strong this bike from 70s hold up.

I am counting on you buddy.


Syazwi Mazli was taking care of this trusty companion that day.