I had to do the same thing to my handlebars when I got my bike so I didn't have to hunch over. (I'm still thinking about getting some sort of extender) I didn't have any problems with shifting afterwards though.

Unless your cables have been worked on before and been shortened for some reason, I still think it's just going to come down to adjusting some screws and cable positions that takes minutes.

Well, I forgot to mention that I had to buy and add an extender to be able to raise my handle bars. So that made my cables not the right length anymore. Because of the extension I can see the cable being pulled when I turn my handle bars to the right...

Ahhh.

Well, an old-school (as in 10-15 years ago) cable used to only take about 5 minutes to replace and adjust because you just had to size the cable, cut it, adjust it, and strap it in place. But newer bikes sometimes route cables through holes in the frame and specialized guides under the frame. Mine has these little rubber ring separators on bare parts of the line that don't look fun to replace.

I could see it taking in the neighborhood of an hour to replace a set of complicated cables that go through the frame and bare-cable guides going to the gears and back brakes if someone's taking their time and making sure everything's done right.

My bike is an older bike so hopefully it will still be simple to fix. It is a 1998 Specialized Rockhopper. So that makes it about 11 years old.

Here is a photo. Mine looks just like this, except it is blue.

Yeah that looks simple. An established bike shop should probably be able to replace cables in that pretty quick.

You could always ride it up to the shop and ask them to take a look at it.

I'm going to try something like this one of these days.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 17UF9Q.DTL

That looks fun! I want to try something like that someday too. I've only done one big race... an Olympic size triathlon... other than that I've done a couple 5k's and that's about it. I need to try some more stuff like this SF to LA race!

I wonder how long does that race take an average person?!?

I guess this specific event is not technically a race. They call it:

I wonder how long the life-changing ride would take the average person?

So I decided to ride with my brother yesterday around noon to the grocery store he works at to get his check because two of my buddies were wrestling the night before and one is now missing a small piece of his ear and needed some first-aid stuff.

Well I follow my brother because they moved him to a new store, I have no clue where it is and besides, he makes the ride almost every day anyways so he knows the route to go.

Even though I have a mountain bike I don't like to ride off road in the city because there's usually where all the stuff that will pop your tire is.
I've had a LOT of flat bike tires in my life.
So while my brother is riding in the grass on the side of the road I'm riding in traffic and taking short rides out of my way where the sidewalk wraps around a wall or pole or something while he just cuts through the grass like everyone else.

Right around the corner from his store and about two blocks away, I hear a POW SHHH wah SHHH wah SHHH wah and 5 seconds later I'm riding on my rim. I'm dumbfounded because the road looks spotless. My brother who was about a half block ahead of me now heard it all the way up there and started heading back.

Come to find out the house I had the blowout in front of has been getting remodeled for a month or so now. Somehow, my brother's been riding past it all this time with no problems, I ride by one time and hit what had to be the only thing in the road.

So I walk the 1-2 miles back to my apartment in the sweltering noon day sun pushing a disabled bike that doesn't want to stand up on the kick stand when the tire is flat because I have a bike shop right next door to my apartment and we don't know where another one is, we just know there's not one in the strip mall we're going to.

Expecting to get a new tube and be on my way, the bike shop owner, and this is another reason I go to this guy, inspects my tire first rather than just tossing in a tube. I'm glad he did, because whatever gave me the flat also left a huge hole in my tire, I could look right through the hole and see the floor.

Anyway, since I pretty much keep to the streets on this bike he put a nice thick street tire without the knobbies on it. I never realized the difference a slick tire would make on the street. I don't feel as much subtle vibration when I'm riding with this tire. It's really nice actually. So I guess this flat worked out for the best.

And in case anyone's wondering, yes, we now call those two knuckleheads Tyson and Holyfield.

Wow, good story! I can't believe you hit the only thing in the street to get a flat tire, but like you said, it was for the best. I did a triathlon, gosh, like 5 years ago and the bike portion of it was like a 23 miles road coarse. All I have is my mountain bike so I started training on that. We were training as part of a group to raise money for a charity so we had a coach. Not after very much time he offered to let me borrow his wife's old road bike to train and use in the race. Boy did that make a difference!!! The small road tires do make it so much easier to go faster on the road rather than those thick mountain bike tires so I know what you mean! Do you have the smaller tire on just the tire that got a hole in it? Or did you get them for both front and back?

On anther note, how did your friend lose part of his ear? Was their biting???

Actually the new tire is wider than the old one was, but instead of having little knobies sticking off the tire, it has a thicker piece of rubber between the road and tube with a few treads cut into it for traction and to displace water on the road.





Nah, no biting. There was a piece of wood in the corner of the couch behind the cushions and his ear apparently got torn on it somehow because we found blood on that wood and nothing else there.
These two guys get drunk and beat the hell out of eachother now and then.

Ahh, I see, so less friction on the road to deal with when riding. Still a good deal!

Sounds like the Duvall brothers, JR and Coco, in this true crime murder case story I am reading right now...Darker Than Night!! Except JR and Coco beat the "heck" out of everyone else, not each other.