material science

I have a road bike that's about 10 years old. I hung it up in the rafters of my primitive, detached garage when I smashed a clavicle a couple years ago. At the time, I expected that this elevation would have the same symbolic and practical impact as a retired jersey -- a memento to lost youth and vigor.

I pulled the bike down from the rafters last night and expected the worst. I was sure the bearings would be shot, the tires rotted, and the brake shoes glazed after years of summer heat and winter cold.
Instead, I put a hundred pounds in the tires and a few dozen miles under them. Everything was perfect.

Just one day earlier, I twisted a key in my old BMW station wagon and it sprang to life. That car hadn't moved since its replacement with an i3 last August. The car fired right up. The pads complained about a year of rust on the surface of the rotors but the car issued no other complaints.

I parked the wagon after it made an expensive-sounding noise. It stayed parked as the Takata airbag saga unfolded explosively. I got a letter from BMW many months ago telling me to sit tight and wait for replacement parts to be available. My official recall notice arrived Saturday.

I never feel completely at ease about car donation. I have driven a series of esoteric cars that deserve as long and happy a life as can be managed but they seem thoroughly done when I'm ready to part with them. I was reluctant to unload the wagon into a next life where service appointments at the BMW dealer were an improbability. I thought I would just wait and have the airbag replacement done myself.

It's completely amazing that these rides could be ridden hard, put away wet, and pulled out later without immediate consequence. I thought of the BMW wagon and the older 318ti it replaced as maintenance pigs and perhaps they were by modern standards. They still ate up about a half a million miles between them without even a clutch replacement.

Negative nabobs warned of the catastrophic costs of battery replacements for those foolhardy enough to buy the new 2004 Prius. Mine has about 175k miles on the clock and on the original battery, on the original brake pads, and on only three sets of tires.

I'm not sure what the wear items are on a car anymore. That dramatic change has probably improved my quality of life more than most of the little gadgets that come and go through reograph central but I think about it rarely.

My 1977 Fiat X1/9 has not moved under its own power or otherwise in many moons. I expect a fight
when it does wake. I changed oil in the BMWs and Prius at about 12k mile intervals. The i3 will have its first scheduled service appointment about two years after I bought it.

At 12k miles, the Fiat manual suggests recutting the commutator on the starter motor. There is a little sliding port on the starter body for just this purpose and a special sacramental commutator cutting saw that slides right in to take care of this essential ritual.

The wear items I know now are mostly in my own body. All I can do about that at the moment is keep the bike out of the rafters.