I Can Ride My Bike With No Handlebars…

Actually I can’t, but I do like the Flobots. But what I CAN do is change out my cassette! And obviously since I’m blogging about it I’m very excited about this. See, if you have race wheels, it’s good to put your cassette on your race wheels because your chain and cassette wear together. Some people keep a different cassette on their race wheels, but this can sometimes lead to shifting problems (chain skipping, etc). Marty has always changed out my cassette before races, even though he doesn’t really like bike type work. I know some guys love this stuff, but not him. But he loves me so he will do this for me with minimal grumbling ;) A few years ago he said, “Look Bri, you really should learn how to do this yourself. It’s simple, you take this chain whip (me: what the heck type of tool is that?) and you wrap it around your cassette, put the wheel between your legs, put this key in here, take a wrench…"(me: lalalalalalalalala) I claimed girly ignorance and never had to do it myself.

Enter a few weeks ago my good friend Alysia who recently bought some race wheels off of Stacey. Alysia wanted to learn how to do this so Marty held an impromptu cassette changing 101 for us. I figured if she was going to learn than I should too. Especially since she was learning at our house – I mean what was I going to do, claim girliness again and watch tv? We both watched Marty and it still seemed a bit confusing but I had seen it done several times now even though I never admitted to watching before. Last Friday Alysia came over again with her bike and race wheels and planned on changing out her cassette while Marty watched. She did it with little problem and then Marty said, “Bri, do you want to try?” I immediately answered no, but then decided I might as well step it up. And like my 3 year old niece would say, “I did it!” And just to be sure, I took my cassette back off yesterday morning before our ride and got it back on my regular wheel before Marty even came downstairs. I wonder what I should learn next.