Rear Derailleurs Are A Pain In My Ass

The last time I rode my mountain bike was last January when Scott and I decided to do some excruciatingly cold trail riding. The end result was a very, very dirty, muddy, grimy bike that sat in my basement. Last week on one of the nice days, I went to bust it out only to find it in a similar condition as I left it. (Imagine my surprise at discovering bikes do not lick themselves clean.)

So, today, with the temperature in the 70's and not quite yet raining, I decided to do some cleaning. It began simple enough. I hosed it top-down to remove the larger clumps of mud. I pulled the front wheel off and gave that a good spraying. I, then, went to remove the chain rings only to discover the hex bolts were completely stripped. They were now perfect circles with no toe hold for any device. I fumbled around for a while, cursed my bike, cursed Shimano, and finally settled wiping them, the bottom bracket, and the crankset as clean as possible.

Moving onto the rear, I un-gracefully managed to get the rear derailleur off and removed the rear wheel. Going through another round of spraying the wheel clean and wiping the other components free of dirt, I then had to put the rear derailleur back on. This involved a lot of getting my hand clamped in between various portions of the chain, gears, and derailleur. Finally, wrestling everything into an awkward position and holding the derailleur very precariously with one hand desperately hoping it was not going to convert its potential energy into my pain, I was able to fasten it back on.

Those little buggers are a pain in my ass.