Soma Love

After a long, snowy winter, my Soma was a mess. Road salt, grit and grime, and corrosion. The chain, chainrings, and cogs were coated with a thick, black, gooey, muck. Some of the aluminum parts were crusted with white corrosion, and the steel parts red. The cables didn't look shiny anymore. Since it had just crossed the 5,000 mile mark, and was looking very neglected, I decided it was time for a thorough cleaning.

So I took it apart. I simply started taking stuff off until there was nothing left but a frame. I cleaned the frame with a degreaser. Then I washed it with water, inside and out, to rinse out the salt. I dried it in the sun. When it was nice and clean, I waxed it. But all of that was the easy part.

The components I pulled off were a mess. Some of them were worn out. The middle chain ring, the one I use the most, had waves instead of teeth. The chain, which had about 1500 miles on it, was considerably longer than it was when it was new. The break arms, once I cleaned them, flopped loosely on their posts, the bushings worn to an oversize diameter. The cable housings were rusty inside, and in some spots the outer layer was worn through from rubbing on the frame. The bar tape was thin and falling apart.

So I bought it some new brakes, new cables and housings, new bar tape, a new chain, a new middle chain ring, a new rear cassette with a little narrower gearing than the old one for more choices of gears in my normal riding range. And I got a new rear rack. All for the cost of a couple of tanks of gas. Well, maybe three tanks of gas. I took apart the hubs and headset and cleaned and greased the the bearings. Some of the bearing seats in the hubs are worn and won't likely make past the next 5,000 miles, but they spin smoothly for now. The Soma seatpost was original black, but the anodizing, if that's what it was, was fading to gray. It looked pretty ugly, so I took the anodizing off with a wire brush on my drill. Now it's a shiny brushed aluminum seatpost. It looks a little better to me, anyway. The only thing I didn't change that I considered was the somewhat clunky fender setup I have up front. It looks a little strange, but it's functional.

It took a couple of months for me to find time to put it all back together (in the mean time I logged more than 200 miles commuting on the green Cannondale tandem), but once it was done it felt like a new bike. Soft and smooth and quiet. The difference was amazing. The new brakes and pads are a huge improvement. The routing of the wires for the headlight is much improved. I ran them on the bottom tube rather than the top. The new cassette gives me single-tooth difference in my primary riding speed range, and shifting with the new chain, cassettes, and clean derailer is incredibly smooth. The first day I rode to work on it, anyone who noticed probably wondered why I was wearing such a big smile!