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Aroogah
Time will tell on the topic of my bodged chain job. Either way we can all agree its been a great opportunity to learn and if my chain snaps whilst I'm out on an 'epic tour' I'll at least have some confidence to fix it. Also I'll try carrying some of those quick links you guys are talking about. Hopefully I'll replace this entire drivetrain at some point in the foreseeable.
To business:
I attached the front wheel, front brake and screwed on the rear derailleur (visible as a grey smudge in the image below)
Ecstatic that the chain tension and front brake meant that the bike was in all manners except for gearing, identifiable as a bike I took it out for a little spin. It was OK frankly! I wonder how the steering will be affected when I put my tiny canti stud mounted rack on it? I don't really understand any trail/a2c/whatever stuff. Maybe I'll watch a youtube video about it today at work instead of whatever I'm being paid to do.
After doing the above I told myself that the next thing I would do is cable up the derailleur, which seemed like the kind of thing that would be a big learning opportunity as I don't know anything about rear derailleurs, cable routing, etc. But when it came down to it I got a serious flare up of CBA syndrome (has plagued me from my youth) and instead I did something easy like attaching mudguards:
Which went really well! Mudguards are easy when you have absolute buckets of clearance like you do on a mtb frame with narrow tyres. There's only one hitch:
Absolutely no chance of that gap being breached, and frankly I don't have a lot of faith in that cable tie so I'm not going to ride until I figure it out. I know that problem solvers have that widget that you can use but #16 for a widget seems a bit extravagant for a ride such as this one. I guess I could try and find a piece of metal and drill holes in it? I do have a drill but frankly whenever I try to bodge something like this myself I end up with something that works fine for about twenty minutes and then stress fractures. Any other ideas? Obviously doesn't really need to look good on a ride like this.
So todo:
fix mudguard
sort rear derailleur
shorten front brake cable
replace rear brake pads (thought they were fine but actually one of them is fine and the other is way past its use mark so I guess they were set up wrong)