*to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Κυνόσαργες

Saturday 11 May 2013

"Don't mention the war!"

That's what happens to forty dollars of second rate hardware made of aluminum when you stand on a wrench to get off a bike freewheel stuck with blue lock-tite*.  Oh, it didn't come off.

You want to do that you get a freewheel remover made of steel, from Park Tool or Shimano, and a long wrench for more leverage, also made of steel.  It makes a most satisfying 'ping!' as the threads free their grip.
This is a better wrench to go with the 1" fitting on most Park Tool pieces, but I couldn't see paying four times as much.
Thanks to Japan's witlessness, I have taught myself another skill and bought myself useful tools: never to need to ask a shop here or home to do it for me again.  Yet again, online ordering was the only useful solution: I'd foolishly wasted time looking in bike shops and even asking one to do the the job for me.  Rather, I asked my J-wife to translate for me what I wanted.  The idiot did what Japanese 'professionals' always do: pretend authority, yet know nothing.
There is no special tool for that.  I have to hammer it off.
As he reaches into a tool box of 100円 shop tools.  Yet again, I nearly had a fight with my wife telling her to be polite but we are leaving the shop because I know far more than this idiot.
But he's a bike mechanic.  Are you sure you know what you're talking about?
(I did not answer) Did you see the fucking tool chest or not?  I may not have taken 'the test', but I am Gaijin, I teach myself and I improvise.  I don't use the same broken codes for the whole war.

*Why would I have used lock-tite?  I'd had a fixed cog on that non-standard side, where it is possible to spin a cog off while riding: some lock-tite I'd had on as insurance must have remained.

3 comments:

  1. Look man, why don't you just lease a fucking car, you know, like an adult, and be done with it? If you can't make it work in Tokyo then yeah that's just another sign that it's time to leave this shit hole and never look back.
    Honestly, you got a talent of observing our little round headed buffoon friends, don't waste your time on adolescent bullshit like riding bikes as if it was some kind of manliness proof. Adults riding bikes maybe cool in Portland or Berlin Mitte but then again so is wearing suspenders and throwing away your trust fund on MDMA.
    I'm not mad at you but I hate to see talent going to waste. Understand this as a call to arms.

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    Replies
    1. I'll take this as sarcasm, or else I'd have to delete or argue, and neither's much fun. Hey, you have an online identity: make a blog!

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  2. Good call on passing up on the bike mechanic. I find online shopping here a lot more useful and affordable than going in person 9 times out of 10. Rakuten Amazon and Yahoo are my best shopping friends here. :)

    Usually if you know the specific model or part model you don't even really to bother with much Japanese. Having a wife helps a ton too I bet.

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