A little over a month ago, after much warning, Caltech security collected all the abandoned bicycles that had been hanging out among the graduate student apartments. (There were a surprising number; I don't know how many years' worth it was.) Once collected, the bikes were moved to the parking garage next to the security office. There, they could be "tagged" by anyone at Caltech who needed/wanted a bike.

I found a nice little mountain bike there, affixed to it a piece of paper on which I wrote my name, and then came back after the requisite 30 days to see if it was still there, or if it turned out that it hadn't actually been abandoned after all. And there it was! Score, free bike.

The bike did have one major problem, though: the rear shock was disconnected, and some undetermined number of pieces seemed to be missing. I had to hold the seat of the bike up as I walked it back to my office, let it fall down on top of the rear wheel. Clunk. I parked the bike out of the way in our old lab while I figured out how to proceed.

Not long after, I was came across a near-identical model of bike while I was walking across campus, so I could examine what the shock might have looked like intact. It appeared as though the only thing missing was a metal disc for the end of the spring to rest on. Fortunately, we have a drawer in lab of enormous washers, so I appropriated one of those and got to work. Everything was going well, except that I couldn't get the shaft of the shock to screw back into the place it was supposed to go. I tried to do at a number of different relative orientations of me and the bike, but had no success. Finally, I decided to remove the pieces so I could get a better look.

Then I was able to see that the first couple rows of threads on the end of the shaft were rather mauled. They were squished together in a couple places, and overall disinclined to be screwed into anything. I got out some wire cutters and started carving. I was able to make some headway, but not enough. So I decided to try the band saw.

I wasn't entirely convinced that this was a good plan. After all, aren't threads delicate things that need to be perfectly aligned to work properly? I wouldn't have been surprised if my efforts had actually made the problem worse. But I was getting desperate. (Read: impatient.) So I held the shaft up to the band saw, aiming for the places where the bent threads needed to be coaxed back into position. Or turned into metal dust.

It did start looking better, so I tried screwing it into the piece to which it mates. And it worked! Soon, I had the bicycle reassembled and was riding around the hallway.

Good thing, too: now I'll have something to ride at the Rosarito-Ensenada in two weeks.