Expertise

This evening as I was leaving the office, a colleague stopped me in the bike shed…

"My shifter has been bent and is rubbing against my tire. Can you help me?"

Luckily, there is nothing too tricky to maintaining a bicycle. I work on my own and it is no big deal, assuming the repairs are not to major. "Let's have a look at it." I said.

"Ah, this isn't too bad, but I'll need some tools." I showed that the damage was luckily not too bad, someone had bumped the derailleur against something hard and it had shifted. The mounting was loose enough that the bump had caused the derailleur to twist without damaging it.

My colleague went and borrowed some tools from another cyclist (that is one of the things I love about living here… people cycle to work!) and it was short-order to loosen the fitting holding the derailleur on, re-position it to the proper place and do a bit of minor tuning to is so that it worked properly.

She left for home with an operable vehicle and I left with the feeling that I had done something nice for someone.

I hope that wherever you are today, you have the opportunity to do something nice for someone.

Don Bergquist - 26 April 2007 - Thames Ditton, Surrey, UK