Wheel repair...

Remember my "dented" rear wheel on my F700? Yeah... about that. Well I took an adjustable wrench and gently coaxed the rim hook back into shape. And then it just broke. A big chunk. Right out.

Yeah-- there's no fixing that.

Fortunately I managed to score a "new to me" set of wheels. Mavic X139 rims with a Deore rear hub and... zuh? A Specialized "Stout" front hub with some sort of crazy-ass skewer... axle... thing. Oh wait-- I get it. So it's a big fat skewer/axle. A skaxle. A skewrle. So I guess the deal is that it makes the whole thing stronger and capable of putting some serious squeeze (skweze?) on the fork drop-outs. A good thing with disc brakes, I suppose. Although damn, it's got that stupid external cam design. Jeeze. I put some REAL Shimano quick-releases on there not too long ago. (Real as in-- internal cam.) Not these cursed scrotty externally cammed things that are impossible to close properly because they rely on those stupid little plastic meniscus things that deform under load and don't really do anything else besides annoy the heck out of me and why are they the only deal now? Cheaper to make? Lighter?

Sherman, set the WayBack machine...

Once upon a time (like 1991??), some teensy company thought that there wasn't enough color in our quick-release world and decided to churn out CNC'd bits. What on earth was their name? Man... that's bugging me. Anyway-- the stupid levers (externally cammed like most of the levers today) were a pain in the ass to get sufficiently tight and even harder to open! Stupid things. So guess what? After a year or so they re-released them called "Twist-Flips" or "Flip-Twists". The idea was that first you flip them closed to get them initially tight and then twist the lever to snug it down. How retarded. It's still stupid.

Don't believe me? Well, here's what Sheldon had to say about the damned things. "Despite the marketing hype associated with these "boutique" skewers, they are actually considerably inferior in functionality to the traditional type."

So now what.

I guess I need to find a new front hub-- a Shimano.