I started overhauling the Trek 700 that I bought for my wife. I started with the rear hub. I started disassembly by removing the lock nut, spacer, and cone on the one side. The the axle didn’t slide out the other side as the dust cover was trapped by the freewheel. When trying to remove the freewheel, I broke the freewheel remover tool. Two trips to the local bike shop (they were closed my first trip) to buy a new freewheel tool, and I got the freewheel off. I soaked the guts of the hub in mineral spirits (paint thinner) to remove the old grease.
I took the wheel down to a utility sink, and cleaned it with a scrub brush and liquid dish soap and warm water. I let the wheel dry.
I put grease into the bearing races on the wheel, and placed the bearings one by one. I placed the the dust covers over the bearing to hold them in place. I assembled half the axle, inserted it into the hub, and screwed on the cone, spacer and lock nut on the other side. I installed the freewheel. I spun the wheel and it didn’t spin smoothly. After alot of the tweaking, I got it to spin smoother, but I wasn;t happy. I stuck it on the truing stand, and with some minor tweaking, I got it to run straighter than it had been.
I then overhauled the front wheel like I did the rear wheel, but I didn’t have to deal with the freewheel. The overhaul of the front wheel went nicely, and it spun smoothly.
One thing I noticed when overhauling the front wheel, was the the dust covers had the hollow part facing out. Hmmm… On the back wheel, I put it together with the hollow part facing in. I am not sure, but I think that was how they had been. I know there had been grease in the hollow part. I disassembled the rear hub again. I tried reversing the dust covers, and got the wheel turning much more smoothly. I threw it back on the truing stand, and tweeked it some more.
I started work on the Women’s Trek 700 that bought for my wife. I pulled off the rear wheel, and started to pull the hub apart. The cones were very tight! But I managed to get the cone and spacers and stuff off the non-freewheel side. The axle didn’t slide off. I think the freewheel was holding the dust cover on. I decided I needed to remove the freewheel which I had planned to do anyway.
I got out my handy dandy Shimano freewheel remover tool. It slid on easily. I lock my 12 inch inch crecent wrench on it the freewheel tool, and tried to turn it. It was not moving. Fine! I pulled harder, and harder, then finally it broke free. Ummm… well, not quite. I looked closer and found that the freewheel hadn’t broke loose. The freewheel remover tool broke!! I have had that tool for years. I don’t know what brand it was. It might have been some cheap generic tool.
I headed down to the local bike shop to buy a replacement tool. I was going to get a Park. But the shop was closed. They will open at noon. So I headed home. I will head back out there a little later. I hope the Park brand freewheel remover is more solidly built. In the meantime, I sprayed some WD-40 in and around the freewheel hoping to get it in the threads holding the freewheel on.
My wife decided to go for a ride along the canal path. I planned to go from Canal Park to Genesee Valley Park, a distance of just over 10 miles round trip. This would be my wife’s longest ride so far. So I mounted the bike rack, and loaded up the bikes.
When we got to the park, I was unloading the bikes. The bike rack is made by Bell. There are little rubber rests that the bikes sit on. They tend to slide, or at least one of them does. Anyway, I noticed my bike had slid into my wife’s bike, and a bolt on her brakes scratched the crap out of my frame in one spot! 
After getting over the scratches (well, mostly over…), we went for a leisurely 10.25 mile ride. We were passed often by other cyclists. That’s okay though. My wife did great. In fact, when we reached the halfway point, she seemed like she wanted to continue. But I told her let head back. I didn’t want her to overextend herself for one thing. Another thing was that I had worn shorts, and a muscle shirt, and it had gotten cold out. I wished I had worn pants and a sweatshirt. But oh well. We headed back to the starting spot and headed home.
I bought a new project bike! I have been looking for a road bike for my wife. I was thinking that she would be most comfortable on a hybrid for now. Maybe later down the road we will look at getting a true road bike with drop bars. So I have been watching ebay, and craigslist, etc. I saw an ad on Craigslist stating “Woman’s Bike For Sale”. There was a Free Spirit. Yuck! But the ad also listed Trek 700 with a 17 inch women’s frame. It needed a rear tube/tire, seat and front brakes. He was asking $75. It was up in the area where I work, so I sent him and email. I arranged to meet him after work.
So after work, I headed over to they guys house. The bike was in the condition that the guy said. It was actually in better shape than the Trek 700 that I bought for $50. Though it didn’t look great, it seemed solid. I checked to see if anything was bent, or broke. Everything seemed fine. The one thing I was concerned about was that the rear wheel was out of true. But it didn’t seem too bad. I will try to true it on my new truing stand. It didn’t look like the rim was bent or anything.
I think I may have paid a little high considering the parts that were missing, but amazingly, those parts were some of the same parts I took off of my Trek 700. I have a seat, front brakes, and a tire and a tube. The bike seriously needs an overhaul. The front wheel does spin as freely as it should, and neither does the back wheel. I will disassemble the hubs, clean them, re-pack them with grease, and put them back together. I will also do the bottom bracket, and headset. I will have the bike running like new when I am done!
I worked at installing the cross levers on my cyclocross project bike. I removed the handlebar tape back to the aero brake levers. I removed the cable from the housings. Next, I cut the housings to fit between the aero-brake levers and the cross levers. So far, so good. It was tricky getting the cable through the housing and into the cross lever. I needed to extend the cable out the the housing, and thread it into the cross lever, then slip the housing into place. I cut a section of housing to fit between the cross lever and the cable stops. I then slid the cable through, and connected it to the brakes, and rough adjusted them. I re-wrapped the handlebars. The tape comes right up to the cross levers.
Now comes the problem! The cable doesn’t slide through the housing smoothly enough. So when I retract the brakes, they engage. But when I release the brake levers, they don’t fully disengage. So I will probably take them apart again, and start over. This time I wont wrap the bars with tape until I got them working smoothly. Live and learn! 