Friday, April 27, 2012

It's always sweet to ride on a newly tuned ride.  The speed of the shifts, the general quietness of the gears and chain meshing well.  It's really nice. 

And then you hit a branch/stick of minimal size that decides to dance in your chainline.  You pull it out and ride on but shifting is OFF.  Eventually  you stop and give it the evil eye.  OH!  The rear D is up at about 60 degrees above normal.  A swift kick and it's back in place.  A bit of grinding and an occasional ghost shift/pop now.  GRRRR.  Back to the lab tonight I guess. 

The bash guard I ordered yesterday is apparently out of stock, so I'm SOL on that for the moment.  Going to post up on the forums and see if anyone has a 34 or 36 T 104 BCD bash guard. 

Good ride though ended up with 15.5 miles logged so I figure close to 17 miles total.

Bad choice in clothes taking only the woolie.  It was WAY to warm and didn't cool down until later last night.  Trails were damp but not muddy at all.  Should be good by today.  Most of the mud I picked up was on the CCT and riding a construction path near the tennis courts at Wakefield. 

Thursday, April 26, 2012

A little bit of shopping, and a few more fixes.

Went out after work to get the vehicle a wash and wax. Damn thing was soooo clean I couldn't believe it. The front window was soooo clean it really didn't seem to be there almost, excluding the lack of wind on my face. Wow. I wish I could get the windows THAT clean. Off to Spokes then to pick up some parts and see what they had laying around. First I grabbed a new set of cleats and a new bottle of RnR Extreme lube for the bike. I prefer Gold in the bedroom personally, the ladies like it better! Then I started looking at bikes. Strangely enough they carry Trek and Specialized. I thought that was like carrying Chevy and Ford or Toyota and Honda. Hmmm. So after some browsing I notice they have 2 sets of CX Stuff in, Surly and Specialized. The Specialized was kinda neat as it was setup more for commuting but could handle up to 35's and had disc brakes (BB7). The Surly CC was the wrong size. I played around a bit with the high end Aluminum specialized but it was a harsh mistress I could tell. So then I noticed they had an LHT in 58 so I took that out. Whee! It was a blast. I do believe 58 is the right size for me on CX'ish style frames, though I still need to try the CC in 58. No joy on bash guards and they didn't have the specialized shoe I wanted to try on in my size in stock. So off I went again. Next stop. Performance. Initially I planned for a quick in and out, but in the end I tried out a Fuji CX Pro in 58 and REALLY liked it. It was running SRAM double tap and not bad. The carbon fork up front handled the bumps REALLY well, better than any other carbon front ended bike I'd ridden yet. Did feel a bit too in the race position. A guy there suggested the Fuji CX 2.0 instead as it has a more upright geometry and it has an ultegra rear derailleur. Didn't ride it as it was getting a bit late and I had some other stuff to do. On the way back I stoped at my home supply store and got a set of star drive bits for removing the outer chain ring to eventually put on a bash guard and some super insane glue to try and fix my spinning bottle cage things. I glued the hell out of the one that is out last night, hopefully it's well set and solid today. Otherwise I'll be ziptieing the water bottle cage outa the way. Weather tonight is looking like a mess with a chance of rain at 4 and 5 then t-storms after. Enjoyed a Bells Porter last night. Well done, very smooth and tasty porter that went down with an awesome Willards BBQ burrito with Pulled Pork. Damn good. I did also replace my very worn front break pads are now replaced, unfortunately I couldn't find organics locally so for now its metal scintillated. Noisier. Grrr. Also been working on the ride calendar on the MORE website getting some of the regular rides back on the listing that hadn't yet including 2 Tuesday Rides and 1 Alternating Saturday ride. Also the new map for FH is pimpin. Can't wait for it's official release. Weather is clearing up, looks like the ride is ON!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Spring Rebuilding and Rainy Days

Wow. It's been a while. Last few weeks have been really busy between extra work, going to the old house, and riding a bit. Bike's been showing some signs of un-happiness so last week I order a few major parts to fix a bunch of the crud. Including a new SLX crankset and a few other things. Last night I started the clean up and rebuild. I pulled the old crankset and the bb-30 PITA and cleaned the who set, before re-installing the BB30 and then installing the new SLX cranks. Felt a bit lighter, but I will say the arms while being HollowTech do feel more durable. The interesting bits I noticed is my m550 I pulled off is the same as whats on the SLX, just better spindle/arms I think. Also cleaned and lubed the cables, pulling the housings out and cleaning all the good bits of gunk out. Nasty. A new rear d-hanger was also on the menu, but that meant playing with shifting. Today I'm going to try and pickup a Bash Guard and some other stuff, and maybe a new chain setup specifically for 2x10. That means I've gotta pull the 42, install the BG, possible do the chain, and also need to replace the front disc pads. Again. They are nearly done I noticed. Stupid organics burn quick! Last week I had a good ride on Tuesday at Cabin John doing trailwork recon and Thursday had a decent ride at Wake-o-tink. Oh wait, no it sorta sucked. I was off my game and fell down 1x and nearly wiped out 3 others. My brain was either to active or the eyes/body/mind weren't connecting right. The groups pace was a mess and we had 3 mechanicals. I was done as of hitting the lot at 8:10. Usually I would have pushed on to 8:30. Had a Deviant Dales from Oskar Blues. Awesome. Had a couple others. Then this week I hit a few bars and enjoyed in addition Flying Dog's In Heat Wheat, Oskar Blues G'Knight Red on Draft, Mooseriver Porter, and an Oyster Stout from Ireland that was a bit too Oyster heavy. The porter was excellent. Pictures to come. Also I don't rave about food very often, but hot damn. Went to 8407 Kitchen bar the other night and had Duck Proscuitto wrapped Dates, stuffed with goat cheese. Yum. Yum. Yum. Off to pickup parts/etc.

Friday, April 06, 2012

Cool Ridings

Great night out on the trail last night, got out a bit late and spent a while shooting the breeze with Mark Cox in the parking lot before starting my ride so I only got in 5 or 6 miles before not the 10 or so I wanted. But it's all good. Had a huge ton of riders out I think near 30! Crazy! 4 Groups, a Casual Minus, the Casual (Plus'ish), Moderate, and a Mix Kids Ride.

Damn good.

Intermediate was huge with 14 riders, casual started with 6 but dropped to 5 after 1 member jumped ship to Intermediate.

The main ride covered almost 11 miles. So total I got near 16/17 I think. Weather was perfect at first, I was able to wear just a jersey on my top, but as sun went down I was very glad I added the tech-layer under. After the ride everyone was freezing and it wasn't quite 50. A lot of us forgot to take into account that it was cooler.

Joel K won the grand prize for turning a fleece blanket into a super warm cape. I should have taken a picture. It was hilarious. Especially with him in shorts and flip flops. If he had long hair he could have been the Super Lebowski!

Also scored one of my FAVORITE beers at Giant last night, Leffe Brune. I like it way better than the regular Leffe Blonde. More malty, less yeasty. Hoping to see some non-chilled so I can archive another 6 of it at least.

2 Shows at The Filmore that I want to see. The Cult on June 12 and The Big Faux 4 on June 8. A bunch of mostly chick bands covering metal bands. Supposed to be pretty damn cool.

Thursday, April 05, 2012

Sore and Tired

I felt all beat up yesterday, at first I thought from riding Fountainhead. But then I had an epiphany. Fountainhead isn't that rough anymore excluding 2 spots really. So why was I sore? I pondered this for many hours till my light bulb went on. Viola!

I spent about an hour and a half on Tuesday wrestling with our 2 big projects and trying to change the lamps in them. This involves human contortion-ism to climb under the screens, under the projects and then laying on the beams/supports at a VERY uncomfortable angle and then undoing the back plate, fans, and such. Due to issues with bulbs I got to do it 4 times. Argh. If I assume the standing version of the position I was in my body starts complaining loudly.

Fountainhead from where we parked was 11.03 miles. My gps only came up with 8.74. On the cyclecomputer I averaged just above 7.1 miles per hour. Not stunningly fast but not slow either.

Wake-o-Tink again today. Looking forward on trying to push maybe 20+ miles today but we'll see.

Gotta start getting ready for the Big PA trip in May.