A Forked Up Situation...

So, yesterday, while moving some stuff around in my basement (i.e. bike lair), I decide to get my TT bike ready for the upcoming season...

I swapped the pedals out (I must have last done a duathlon because I had platforms/straps on there and I'm too lazy to change my shoes in a transition area...), and I had some new tires to put on... some nice new Michelin tires. Swapping tires out only takes a few minutes right? That's what I thought...

I put the new tires on, but the bright green color clashed horribly with the red stickers on my rims.

I'm not fast, so I have to at least look good...

I decided to see how hard it would be to remove the stickers.... one came right off pretty easily, as did another, and then, each subsequent sticker was harder and harder to remove. Each wheel now had these long sticky messes of sticker glue, and stickers that would come off in millimeter strips. I took the tires back off, and got busy with some alcohol (rubbing, not drinking), Goo-Gone, S.O.S. pads and lots of scrubbing. Finally, after about an hour and half, the rims were clean. I popped the tires back on and popped the wheels back into the bike. But, the front wheel didn't go into the dropouts smoothly. Hmmm...

Upon closer inspection, I found a crack in the dropout. So much for quickly changing the tires out! Of course, I'm glad I found this crack while working on the bike in the basement, as opposed to when I'm dropping the hammer, fully tucked, and slaying some ribbons of asphalt in a race against the clock (or, in my case, against the sun dial). I wouldn't have wanted to have scratched my pretty aero helmet.