Showing posts with label Barter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barter. Show all posts

Friday 27 September 2013

Falling Leaves





Been a productive but tough couple of weeks, “Belgian Mix” has been satisfactorily reworked, so I’ve turned my attentions to some children’s fiction since I’m on a mission to explore additional horizons and opportunity presents. Autumn is showing visible signs of its imminent arrival and with it, renewal of the workshop roof in favour of something more substantial before renewal becomes urgent.

Other creative opportunities have presented themselves and are being pursued with renewed tenacity coupled with a sense of tentative optimism. Not exclusive to the “creative” industries but seemingly endemic is the expectation that people will supply goods and services for nothing- I’ve had several encounters of this nature recently, treating them with the contempt they deserve. I have often accepted payment in kind, or on a barter basis but refuse to indulge in the sweat shop mentality-doing so, encourages a downward spiral, rather akin to buying stolen goods and wondering why one’s home/business becomes a target for theft. Remunerate fairly and skilled people will reciprocate. 

Commissioning solely on price has major repercussions-many an “Uncle Bob” with “professional looking equipment” has shot their niece’s wedding with disastrously second-rate results, copious tears and family rifts. Sure you can get a gas combi boiler refit for £500 but don’t expect to find recompense when carbon monoxide or major explosion rips through your lives-said contractor will have saddled their horse, ridden off into the sunset without so much as a tax code, let alone public liability cover and Corgi accreditation. Never mind, household insurers are bound to be sympathetic…

For the time being I have shelved the idea of qualifying as a masseuse, since singular, professionally recognised qualifications seem rare as the proverbial rocking horse dropping and I don’t want to pursue a three year beauty therapy route, only for my extended skillset to be mooted by gender. However, opportunities can materialise unexpectedly so I’ll continue along other paths for now.

Toyed with re configuring the Univega’s front end to include an Alpina dynohub with disc mounts but the practical advantages are outweighed by unnecessary retirement of perfectly good components, while serving to increase its theft appeal. Nonetheless, I’ve invested in another Dcup lower race and Weldtite have sent me their steerer cutter, so front end surgery is definitely on the cards. Thirty thousand miles and countless shifts later it’s eight speed LX rear mech has been pensioned off in favour of this remarkably competent Microshift M45, an 8/9spd unit broadly on terms with the Japanese giant’s Alivio but a wee bit cheaper.

Ours was the long cage model for seriously wide ratios (11-34 teeth anyone) though, there’s a shorter cage sibling, which will save scarce few grams but might canter across the block fractionally faster. No surprise to see its now sporting the LX crankset, which is better finished not to mention (258g) lighter than its Alivio predecessor’s drive side alone, largely attributable to aluminium alloy rings. 

So then, we now have an eclectic ensemble of eight/nine speed mech, commanded by 8/9speed brifters, 9speed crankset, eight speed chain, cassette and fifteen year old STX front mech.  Everything was pretty much plug n’ play, save for the latter but even this this complied when fed a fresh cable and tweaked judiciously. Quintessentially crude, models of similar calibre appear pretty tolerant of mixing n’ matching and serves to scotch popular lore suggesting such configurations will never work to genuinely acceptable standards.


We’ll see how far it lags behind in another fifteen hundred miles or so, by which point I shall put the existing Sun Race and KMC consumables out to pasture, marking 108,000 miles on the tubby tourer and its continued evolution into nine speed-by default, rather than design. Well, that brings this entry to a natural conclusion-time I drafted a few pitches and copied my late father’s Open University series from VHS cassette to DVD.