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Saturday, March 6, 2010

The Ball Cock Shank Washer

This showed up yesterday on the Classic Rendezvous list:


"For years I have admired those little rubber thingies that some hip bike
shop use to keep a fork in place in a frame when a headset is not present.
For years I just assumed they were some arcane part of the lore of the bike
business that us lesser mortals were, perhaps because of some lack in our
make ups, to be denied access to. Imagine my excitement when today I
learned that these magnificent little rubber thingies have a proper name.
They are properly called a 1" ball cock shank washer! I rushed to E-Mail
some friends with this precious little nugget of information. Bob Hovey
told me they have them at Home Depot and there's one in my toilet. I rushed
to the Amazon site where I learned they could be had for $.96, alas, the
shipping was $6.95, however! My suggestion to my wife of four plus decades
that we could part out the two toilets for the good of my bike collection
was met with such a steely stare that I realized that a fifth decade might
be in jeopardy if my madness drove me that far.

Drat! I can foresee another sleepless night while I burn to get away to
Home Depot first thing in the morning.

Imagine the nerve of the woman, suggesting that with Spring in the near
future I was getting compulsive about bikes all over again!"

Tom Sanders


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