A Great Weekend With And A Problem To Solve

this past weekend i drove to my hometown to play in a charity golf tournament and spend time with my family and friends. i tell you it was good times. my friend dj, who now lives in waco, adam who still lives in burkburnett, and i, who live in lewisville all got to play golf, pool, ping-pong, poker, and trail ride together. with us all living a few hours apart and having lives to live and schedules to keep. we don't all three get together as much as we would like. i don't think all three of us have been together since christmas? when you've been best friends for 19 years, 9 months can seem like a long time.

right before the three of us went trail riding i discovered that the front suspension of my bike was broken. what broke was a plastic piece inside of the suspension that holds the spring and the tubing together. luckily i was still able to go trail riding even though it was broken. i just had to make sure that i didn't catch too much air. if i did my front suspension and front wheel would fall of my bike, causing me to crash to the ground rather hard. i'm happy to report i did not crash my bike.

over the last couple of days i've spent a lot of time online and at three different bike shops trying to find replacements for the broken pieces inside my suspension. what i've found is that my suspension is what the industry considers "entry level", and in turn they do not sell repair or rebuild kits for such a suspension. they tell you that you need to buy a new one. in most instances buying a new "entry level" part for anything should be rather inexpensive, right? well, not in the cycling world. in the cycling world "entry level" suspension runs $130 to $150.

with all the research i've done i've found that what the industry calls a decent suspension cost around $250 to $500, and the high end stuff goes all the way up to $2700! i recall spending $350ish dollars on my bike when i bought it about 4 years ago. so it is hard for me to swallow someone trying to sell me a $250 bike part. what kills me the most about it all is that the broken parts in my suspension, if they were sold retail, couldn't cost more than $20 to $30. with me not wanting to spend $130 on a set of "entry level" suspension forks i've decided to attempt to fix the suspension myself with 2 large headless bolts, 2 small headless bolts, 6 nuts, 8 washers, and some j-b weld. with a total cost that probably won't exceed $15. if i succeed my solution will be genius. if i fail i'm out $15 bucks and a couple hours of my life which i can chalk up to experience.