Edinburgh

Aaaah, Edinburgh. What a beautiful city. After spending a few days in the rain, camping in somewhat "wild" places, and showerless, a day of tourism on foot while our laundry was washing was well deserved.

We ate breakfast with Arie, and then we headed to a bike shop. Joshua's rear wheel was still making a creaking noise even after Ramona's excellent truing - in fact the mechanic said the wheel was perfectly true.














So here is a puzzle for all you mechanics.

• creaking noise coming from the back wheel on every rotation - sounds like spokes rubbing together

• wheel had many loose spokes and tightening/truing seems to reduce the volume and frequency of the noise

• creaking gets worse when cranking (climbing or accelerating)

• creaking can happen when the bicycle is being rolled

• the axle is not loose or bent (tested with wheel off the bike by 1. wiggling the axle and 2. observing the axle while spinning the wheel)

• there is a small (very slight) catch when rotating the wheel while holding the axle

• the noise is dramatically effected by how tight the skewer is. Tight skewer = worse: louder noise with less pressure. Loose skewer = better: small noise on every rotation and it take more force on the cranks to produce a creak.

Hints: There is one simple test I should have done which would have identified the problem and the bottom bracket is not at fault.

Post your answers as a comment. Maybe there will be a prize...

The mechanic and the floor staff were nice and wicked helpful. They agreed to wash the drive train on both our bicycles and to adjust/replace our brakes/pads. We have cleaned our chains only a couple of times over the last year, so we had forgotten that all the drive train components were silver and not black. These guys were super thorough. They took the cranks, chains, and cassettes off and ran them through the parts washer. When they took the bottom bracket off the Fargo a puddle of water poured out - probably from the IJsselmeer last summer.

The day was spent wandering around. Joshua got a new rain jacket. We saw some other bike shops. We walked through the golf... lawn.






and a couple of cemeteries. Edinburgh does a good creepy cemetery tour, but we didn't catch one.











Inventor of logarithms. Yeah.

This should be familiar to beer aficionados.










In the park.


There's an amazing view from right by the National Gallery.












And we checked out Edinburgh Castle. From below
























and from within. Worth the 15 quid each











At the end of the day we met up with Arie again and had a delicious Nepalese meal and great conversation.