Yes, it is Spring here.  In fact, we just started day light savings this morning.  Springtime is a great time of year for cleaning and fork rebuilding. Yep, the Reba needed a rebuild.

But, instead of rebuilding the Reba I took the Gunnar out for a ride.  I started from home and rode north to the River Torrens, and then up the river towards Adelaide.  Normally these paths are quite crowded.  Fortunately, Katherine woke us up around 4:30AM, so I got an early start.  I didn’t really have a specific route in mind, so I just kept going.  Well, somewhere in the Adelaide Hills the paths along the river change to about 100m of gravel, and then about 10m of singletrack and then nothing.  The ride ended up being about 83km and 3 hours.  I did not bring a camera.  Speaking of trails, these cycling, walking and public transit maps from the South Australian Government have been very helpful.  The maps include dedicated cycling paths, shared paths, bike lanes, and even bike shops and bike lockers.  According to the maps, I rode through Paradise, and then off of the map to some unknown section of trail (probably the gravel).

Back to the fork.  Sometime during the last ride at Eagle, the Reba lost half of the normal travel and the poplock stopped working.  The symptoms were somewhat familiar, so I knew it was time.  I was able to locate the oil and o-ring kit locally.  Bio-Mechanis Cycles & Repairs in Adelaide had the o-rings in stock, and they even had parts from Surly, Salsa and some others I haven’t seen here.  The only difference I noticed between this rebuild and the last, was that the oil I used this time was blue, while it was previously red.  The only difference you’ll notice this time is that I don’t have any “during” photos of the process.  This is mainly due to the explosive and oil filled nature of Reba disassembly.

Here, in the “after” shot, you will notice that the fork looks exactly like it did in the “before” shot above.  This is good.  The now functional poplock and restored full travel are also good.

Tags: Eagle Park, Reba, River Torrens

This story was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 7:34 and is filed under Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.