I’m not one to mind getting my hands a little dirty… as long as there’s a towel close by to keep wiping ‘em down. In Colorado and now in California I’ve become pretty good at putting up shelves using every man’s best friend (after his dog)… the power drill. This past weekend I tried going in another direction to get my hands dirty by working on my bike. While living at Mariners Village the road bike spent a lot of time outside and, with the ocean air helping things along, the whole chain got rusted. Rather than bringing the bike to the shop to get it changed I decided to go buy a new chain and chain tool. The process to get the old chain off wasn’t too difficult. The process to remove extra chain links to make the new chain the same size wasn’t too difficult either. However, getting the new chain on was annoying. An hour or so after starting on Saturday I couldn’t figure it out, so I decided to take a break… until yesterday. Within minutes I was able to figure it out and get the new chain on… or so I thought. With the bike upside down I gave the pedal a few rotations and heard the chain rubbing against some metal. Turns out I didn’t fit the chain through a space in the rear derailleur. Now I’m not sure what to do. Can I just take apart the chain, put the chain on the right way, then put the pin back in? Can I just buy a new pin, take apart the chain, then put it back together? Do I buy a new chain because I screwed this one up? I think these are all good questions to bring to the bike shop. Would have been nice if they were open when I stopped about a little after 7 PM today. Oh well, maybe later in the week.