Went to my Dad's today. After the usual coffee and scones in the morning, we headed over to Halfords to get some new bits for my bike. We got some nice new squashy grips for the handlebars, and some bars to mount at the ends because I thought it might be nice to be able to change the position of my wrists from time to time as they were aching after the ride yesterday.
Once we started to pull it apart though we got ambitious and decided to change the handlebars entirely for the ones from my cousin's old bike, which are the sort of retro ones where they curve up. This went OK but we had to to put the gear shifters in a less than ideal place so, while it feels much better, not sure how long it will stay like that. What I might do is get a longer stem and put a new flat bar on it.
We adjusted the front derailleur so it now goes into top gear better, and sorted out the brakes which were all over the place yesterday.
Also the front tyre was being crap and not sitting on the rim properly even though it was supposedly the right size for the wheel, so we changed it for one that my Dad had spare. It's a touring tyre so quite skinny compared to the one that was on it. The rear was OK so we left that one alone. Due to all these new somewhat mismatched parts it looks a bit of a mongrel now, but it works OK.
Once I got home I took it for a little mile long jaunt and it went really well. The raised handlebars are brilliant, making it much more comfortable. The 8 miles yesterday were relatively flat so again I struggled a bit on the hills but it wasn't too bad really. Felt good after it though.
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