johnridley | Chain cleaned

I'm going to try to remember to clean my chain whenever it gets particularly dirty (essentially, whenever I ride in the rain or when it's been raining, and dirt from the gravel road gets on it). I want to see if it makes the chain last longer. I've tried before but I never was very prompt about cleaning, and I think I used a different cleaning method before.

Anyway, now I'm taking the chain off, putting it in a jar of mineral spirits, and giving it a good shake, drying it off and relubing it. On average I'll probably have to do this about once a month in the summer, but it'll just have to be done as needed.

I also determined that I could take a full link out of the chain, and did that.

I found the tire inflator for the air compressor, so I can top my tires up more often - it's not only a ton easier, but since it just pushes on rather than clamps on, it doesn't run any risk of damaging the valve stem when I pull it off as the floor pump's nozzle does. I'm keeping the tires at 90 PSI; they were down to about 65 today, and I was definitely noticing it the last day or two; a lot smoother ride but also noticeably slower and harder.

I also found the emergency kit - I thought I'd left it at the meeting I went to last Friday in the coat check room, but I just found it under some stuff in the bedroom. No harm, I had just tossed another spare tube in my pannier and bought another set of plastic tire levers at Meijers. So I think I have about 6 tire levers now, I can lever the heck out of those tires, hell yeah! I was going to buy another cheap multitool, but Meijers doesn't have much bike stuff out now while they're rebuilding the Scio store, and I hadn't gotten anywhere else to buy one.

Odometer: 17462

Chain cleaned

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