ARGGHHHH!#$@$!@!! DAMNIT!@#$#@#!!

Chalk this one up to stupidity... damnit! My back wheel had some play in it (rode with it throughout the end of last Fall) and while I was doing some winter-cleaning, I decided to take a shot at "fixing" it. I took apart most of the hub on my back wheel, even peaking inside to see the bearings for the first time. After everything on the outside was all shiny and new, I put it back together and tightened it all up.

BIG MISTAKE.

Little did I know, you don't tighten the cones. BAD! Of course, since I didn't know that I proceeded to tighten them up niiiiiiiice and snug. I mean, they were lose, my wheel was wobbly so I figured, "what would it hurt if I snugged it up a bit, right?" STUPID.

After it was all cleaned and put back together I put the wheel back on my bike only to find that it would make a 1/4 rotation in either direction and then just seize up. Thinking I had over-tightened the cone and only needed to find that happy medium of tightness, I screwed around a bit more, only finding the same result each time. I called a local bike shop, who thought I had done the same, and they told me to just bring the wheel in today and they'll show me how it should be.

Fast forward to today at lunch where the bike-mechanic is shining a flashlight down into my hub showing me where a huge chunk of the cup is "missing." It turns out my tightening down on the cone was applying pressure which led to the snapping off of pieces of the cup itself.

It says BALLS!

So, instead of a cheap tightening-fix, which I thought I was dealing with, the dude at the shop told me that I'm now going to need a whole new wheel. Of course, he said I could just buy a hub if I wanted, but after the cost of labor to install it, new spokes, etc, it would work out to just about the same amount. Nice, huh? F@#$@#!!

Well, if anyone out there has a serviceable wheel laying around in their garage that could compete with what I was formerly running and would love to sell it to me on the cheap out of pity, that'd be great! In the meantime, I guess it's time for me to start learning about what makes one wheel better than another, and continue to sit on my nuts on those ridiculously uncomfortable seats on the spinning bikes at the gym.