i helped pau fix his bike this morning. he was having problems with it yesterday, but were ever already in boston by the time i found out. first, his seat needed to be adjusted (too much downward slope). second, he re-aligned his brake pads; his back brake wasn't even working yesterday. lastly, he needed to adjust his front derailleur, which was giving him just 7 speeds instead of the full range of 21. i got a chance to really take a look at the equipment, a trek 850 mountain bike. i was surprised to find it didn't have a single reflector (must've been stripped off at one point), and pau told me a car nearly hit him at an intersection last night when he came home. i also discovered the hard way not to stick my fingers into the spinning spokes to get the wheel to stop: it thwacked one of my fingernails leaving a bruise underneath the nail bed. after we were done pau took the bike on a test ride. everything worked except the middle gear got stuck again.