Now this is frustrating. My Raven tour is now 1000 miles old. It would have been sooner but I had to take two weeks to move house so cycling got a bit neglected. My old bike celebrated it’s 1000 miles by having me buy it a new chain, it’s second set of brakes (which didn’t solve the awful noise any better than those before), and a Brooks saddle as the plastic one which came with it had broken.
I had wanted to upgrade the gears and the brake cantilevers as well but when you’re trying to demonstrate to ‘er indoors’ the cost effectiveness of cycling it don’t help your case one jot if you go spending half the cost of the bike after a couple of months.
That bike cost £410 so, as you can guess I wasn’t looking forward to the first 1000 milestone with a bike costing over three times the original.
Now the Raven Tour is my pride and joy and it gets a close inspection and clean every week. I like to pride myself that I can spot a loose screw or nut at twenty paces, just as any half decent cyclist can. So every week the tools are rolled out so I can tweak until my over suspicious mind is satisfied. Well, the truth is I actually can’t.
I’d love to give the brake lever bolts that bit of extra torque you know it needs, the crank bolt perhaps, and those nuts which hold on the mudguards – they must be hanging off by now. But they’re not. Everything is just as tight and functional as the day I got it out of the box. I haven’t even had to adjust the brakes at the lever end to take up the stretch of the cable and wear of the blocks. There isn’t any.
My old bike used to really enjoy having the back wheel up in the air and have me adjust the derailleur for an hour or so. It wouldn’t actually stop that noise which I always associated with that particular cog but we both seemed to get something out of it by the end of the afternoon. The Raven Tour is just the opposite. Wheels go on the floor if-you-please and I’ll-thank-you-for-leaving-those-adjusters-alone is very much the attitude from this bike. Nothing has moved. Every gear change is just as crisp, sharp and precise as the first I ever did.
So, the tools get put away for another week, the bucket and cleaning cloths beside them. Instead of sitting on the back yard with oil up to my elbows I’ll just have to go out for a ride.
I wonder if the brakes might need adjusting next week?
