Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Scrambled Eggs
A short run down of stuff:
Brakes. The one thing you really don't want to spend any time thinking about on your bike. You want them to just work, require little care and don't want to hear a peep out of them. Sadly that's not how the stock brakes on Beast have been. They've required a readjustment every time I removed and replaced a wheel, the feel has been poor, as has been the overall power. Frankly it was pissing me off. I decided to do something about it, and replaced the front brake with a new Deore BR-M590 in black. Amazing! Really, since I'm running the odd combo of a bar end lever, v brake and Problem Solvers to make them compatible, this may be the most awesome combo ever. The old brakes had longer arms (even though the M590 says "New! Longer Arms!" the old were even longer) which meant the lever/problem solver combo was a bit short on pull and therefore stopping power. The M590 is really an awesome brake for very little money. I should have gotten both front and rear.
Work. I now have a second part-time job. I'm working a couple days a week at one of the local bike shops. It's not a ton of money, but every little bit helps. It seems weird working on plastic bikes. It's a nice commute, with nearly 1000' of climbing on the way in and 1500' for the 22 mile round trip.
Heck of the North. Currently it's beginning to look like it may not happen for me this year. While I think the race will be fun, and I'm in decent enough shape to complete inside the time limits, in reality the main part of the trip was the fact that I'd get to go visit friends that live up that way. Sadly, it doesn't look like it will be a good time for a visit and I don't want to spend the money to travel up there if I'm not going to get to see them.
The next Populaire is this Sunday. The route is not finished, as my first attempt to drive it was today, and a closed road, with a large construction area blocking it, meant it's back to the drawing board. I could make it a very fast route by staying on the main roads, and there is a chance it may come to that, but I'm trying to get it on at least some side roads, but in that area there's a good risk those are gravel. While I'm fine with that, most of the people coming out for the ride wouldn't be.
Brakes. The one thing you really don't want to spend any time thinking about on your bike. You want them to just work, require little care and don't want to hear a peep out of them. Sadly that's not how the stock brakes on Beast have been. They've required a readjustment every time I removed and replaced a wheel, the feel has been poor, as has been the overall power. Frankly it was pissing me off. I decided to do something about it, and replaced the front brake with a new Deore BR-M590 in black. Amazing! Really, since I'm running the odd combo of a bar end lever, v brake and Problem Solvers to make them compatible, this may be the most awesome combo ever. The old brakes had longer arms (even though the M590 says "New! Longer Arms!" the old were even longer) which meant the lever/problem solver combo was a bit short on pull and therefore stopping power. The M590 is really an awesome brake for very little money. I should have gotten both front and rear.
Work. I now have a second part-time job. I'm working a couple days a week at one of the local bike shops. It's not a ton of money, but every little bit helps. It seems weird working on plastic bikes. It's a nice commute, with nearly 1000' of climbing on the way in and 1500' for the 22 mile round trip.
Heck of the North. Currently it's beginning to look like it may not happen for me this year. While I think the race will be fun, and I'm in decent enough shape to complete inside the time limits, in reality the main part of the trip was the fact that I'd get to go visit friends that live up that way. Sadly, it doesn't look like it will be a good time for a visit and I don't want to spend the money to travel up there if I'm not going to get to see them.
The next Populaire is this Sunday. The route is not finished, as my first attempt to drive it was today, and a closed road, with a large construction area blocking it, meant it's back to the drawing board. I could make it a very fast route by staying on the main roads, and there is a chance it may come to that, but I'm trying to get it on at least some side roads, but in that area there's a good risk those are gravel. While I'm fine with that, most of the people coming out for the ride wouldn't be.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Ridin' Around
Took Beast out for a spin yesterday. I had made a couple minor changes: removing the front rack/bag and the rear fender. This lightens it a bit, maybe 3 lbs, and cleans up the aerodynamics a good deal. It also lightens the steering and lets a bit more road vibe through. Oh, and because it was raining a bit when I was out, means the tire throws a lot more crud in my face, off the top of the tire, and the downtube crud guard does a decent enough job keeping my bottles clean.
On the flats, with no headwind, I can keep a pretty consistent 18-19mph as it was. Honestly that seems pretty similar to the speeds I run with the bag, rack and fender. The front crud guard really does catch a good deal of air, and I remember it slowing me a good 1.5mph when i installed it. But for the gravel event it needs to be on, and I see no reason to not train with it.
I ended up with a pretty flat 71miles, and a moving average of 14.9mph. I rocked out my first 8.3 miles at 17.8mph. Probably my best sprint on Beast.
In all, training is going well. I'm not quite where I'd like to be, with a proven loaded, sub 8hr century. Madison will be my benchmark for that, and I should get out and ride it again soon, loaded. Last attempt was 8:37, it got warm that day, with my GPS showing highs of 96 (not counting the stupid temps seen when stopped)
On the flats, with no headwind, I can keep a pretty consistent 18-19mph as it was. Honestly that seems pretty similar to the speeds I run with the bag, rack and fender. The front crud guard really does catch a good deal of air, and I remember it slowing me a good 1.5mph when i installed it. But for the gravel event it needs to be on, and I see no reason to not train with it.
I ended up with a pretty flat 71miles, and a moving average of 14.9mph. I rocked out my first 8.3 miles at 17.8mph. Probably my best sprint on Beast.
In all, training is going well. I'm not quite where I'd like to be, with a proven loaded, sub 8hr century. Madison will be my benchmark for that, and I should get out and ride it again soon, loaded. Last attempt was 8:37, it got warm that day, with my GPS showing highs of 96 (not counting the stupid temps seen when stopped)
Sunday, August 14, 2011
I Scream Populaire
Today was the second of the trail run of LBC sponsored Populaires. It was also the first route I had designed entirely from scratch. I think I aimed too high, as the response from the five people who showed up was overwhelmingly positive! Five people was about half as many as I had hoped for, but it was a good group. I had been warning people that it was pretty climby, and I might have scared a few people off who might have come otherwise, and would have been fine. Depending on what you use to measure it, it comes in @3700, 4800 or 5200 ft of climbing. My Garmin 500 is at the low end. RidewithGPS is at the high end.
I couldn't have even hoped for as fine of weather as what we had today, with highs around 80F, cloudy skies and pretty light winds. Skies threatened rain, but other than a few sprinkles, held off. It made me very sad that I was driving a van from control to control to do the paperwork, as I could schedule this every weekend and not manage to luck into the kind of weather we had today. When I had scheduled it way back in May, I had expected a mid-August Populaire to be hellishly hot and humid.
The riders are asking me to put this on again, and no doubt considering the amount of time and effort I put into designing it, I will. However, I don't think I'll put it on too often, as I think it's special enough to dole out sparingly. Perhaps twice a year at most, probably once as a Populaire and another time as a club ride. I'm really tempted to see if I can continue to schedule it as a "Picnic-Alternative", and use it as a Populaire at some other point of the season, perhaps in Spring as soon as Polly Freeze opens. Trying to do it when the leaves are turning is problematic as a Populaire, as I have to schedule so far in advance that I could end up scheduling it on top of Harvest Homecoming, and the route overlap in enough sections to be confusing, which could endanger the HH riders.
I couldn't have even hoped for as fine of weather as what we had today, with highs around 80F, cloudy skies and pretty light winds. Skies threatened rain, but other than a few sprinkles, held off. It made me very sad that I was driving a van from control to control to do the paperwork, as I could schedule this every weekend and not manage to luck into the kind of weather we had today. When I had scheduled it way back in May, I had expected a mid-August Populaire to be hellishly hot and humid.
The riders are asking me to put this on again, and no doubt considering the amount of time and effort I put into designing it, I will. However, I don't think I'll put it on too often, as I think it's special enough to dole out sparingly. Perhaps twice a year at most, probably once as a Populaire and another time as a club ride. I'm really tempted to see if I can continue to schedule it as a "Picnic-Alternative", and use it as a Populaire at some other point of the season, perhaps in Spring as soon as Polly Freeze opens. Trying to do it when the leaves are turning is problematic as a Populaire, as I have to schedule so far in advance that I could end up scheduling it on top of Harvest Homecoming, and the route overlap in enough sections to be confusing, which could endanger the HH riders.
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