Bicycle Parts Make Every Home Project Better

So I have something to admit. Living as a renter out here in a maintenance-free home has softened me up to home improvement projects. Compared to living in Monona where I was spending an average of a couple of hours per week either pushing a mower, cleaning a gutter or painting a wall, the living out here is pretty easy.

As a renter I am not expected to lift so much as a hammer to tack in some loose trim or to screw in a light bulb. The (tiny) front yard is all maintained by the HOA to private country club standards. The back yard is mostly rock and low-maintenance gardens.

But I enjoy most home projects. Not the big jobs like tearing a bathroom down to the studs and rebuilding (I did that last year), but the small things that can make a big difference.

One of those very minor projects I tackled this weekend on the rental home was to repair the simple gate latches. Yeah, big deal, right? But as I mentioned above, it vastly improved our place since we were tired of reaching over the gate and jiggling a rusty and bent latch.

So where do bike parts come in? Inspired by the gate I saw at my friends Don and Stacey's San Jose place, I hit one of the tub o' bike bits and grabbed a smooth Teflon-covered braided stainless steel brake cable and a cantilever straddle wire hanger nut and bolt to function as a remote.

Nicely capped with an alloy cable end and well-lubed with a coat of marine grease on both the latch and the hinges, it is quiet and functions great. Good enough that I hit the other gate with a similar setup. Wow, that's a lot of copy for something so trivial. Maybe I should be working on a home project...