Well, I thought it was gonna be a reasonably warm day, because the numbers predicted showed a warmer day than yesterday. But, like, wind.
A number of fast riders came out.
Those were some of 'em.
They scared off a couple of people who were afraid they'd be falling off the back, so those folks desided to ride part of the route on their own.
The rest of us took off on a ride to the Blawenburg Cafe, to support what has become the favorite cafe of The Excellent Wife (TEW) and her husband, me.
Remember that wind to which I alluded, above? Yeah, well, we rode into it for more-or-less the first 60% of the ride. When some of the fast folks were off the front, I switched up the route so that we rode along Sunset instead of Skillman Road, because the headwind on Skillman is, well, memorable. But at Hollow and 518, we turned and the wind was behind us, and we coasted to the Blawenburg Cafe.
(Many thanks to the folks who actually sent some money there!)
The wind cooperated, and mostly blew us home, except for the last turn before the parking lot. I felt like the wind was trying to get payment for having given us an easy ride home.
So when it's gonna be almost 70°F in February, and you're not working, you pretty much have to do something with the day.
Even though the start is a gazillion miles from my house, I decided to tag along on Joe M's "Team Social Security" ride, out of Northern Community Park in either Trenton or Bordentown, depending on whose map you're gonna believe.
As Al's ride did on Monday, this ride broke into a faster and a slower group (Ralph S-J, Jen O, and Peter F were among the fast folks; they allowed me to pretend I could keep up). I think this might be a more sensible idea than trying to keep a group together when there are riders of such disparate abilities, and nobody among the TSS people seems to complain or have a problem with it. I'm likely gonna try it on my Sunday rides; I'll make sure nobody is dropped (along with the capable help I can usually count on from the excellent Dave H), and we'll let the speedsters go off the front.
Joe had planned a route of 30+ miles, with the stop in Columbus at about mile 21. I'm not sure if he planned this, but, starting at about mile 9, we had a headwind... and every time we made a turn from there to the stop, we wound up turning into the wind. I was able to use almost all of my extensive vocabulary of expletives and abuse.
Recovering in Columbus:
Above, Joe's new bike. Joe has an eye for bike excellence, and even on this more-or-less stock Cannondale, he's attached the Lezyne Micro Floor Drive (a gorgeous pump, which, despite the name, is designed to be carried on the bike), and a Gilles Berthoud leather saddle from Rene Herse.
There are more important considerations than weight.
As for me, I did well for an old guy on this ride, according to the ride page.
I'm volunteering at the New Brunswick Bike Exchange, and my current project (other than the maintenance class I'm teaching) is a vintage steel-frame Atala, with Shimano components (not Campagnolo, as suggested by the Italian name on the frame). For a bike of its age, it's remarkable: the 2x6 indexed downtube shifters are perfectly in alignment, the brakes work and fit, neither the seatpost nor the 1" steerer tube are frozen into place. The bike is remarkably light.
I removed the old bar wrap, and found underneath this flexible, articulated protector for the brake housing. This was probably one of the first bikes on which housing was routed under the bar wrap along the handlebar, for better aerodynamics. Engineers might have thought hand pressure would affect braking performance, and arranged to have the reinforcer above. I'd never seen such a thing.
It's the second of two lovely old bikes I've had the opportunity to work on (the first has a "Performance" brand name and is labeled as the official bike of the US team). I got infatuated with that first one, and have a label on it that it is not to be sold until I have a chance to ride it. I'll get my ya-ya's out for a couple miles, and then be done with it.
There's a movement among friends and volunteers at the bike exchange to have me buy this Atala for myself, but The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I just don't have the room for another bike, with my two and TEW's road bike and hybrid. Laura OLPH has suggested that the Atala might take the place of the Krakow Monster, the Surly Cross Check frame I've built up to be a Monstercross bike. It's true I don't ride the Monster much, and I don't love it the way I do the titanium Yellow Maserati, but I don't think it would be a good plan to have two road bikes, and nothing I could ride on trails.
That Atala is a nifty bike, though. I hope it will go to someone who will love it.
There were two rides going out of Etra today, Al's C+ ride and a C ride. One of the riders on the C ride has a problem with his front shifter, which would not shift down from the big ring. Eventually, through magic and dumb luck, it went to the middle ring of his triple, and I warned him to lave it be; he'd be able to do the ride from his middle ring (I rode for years on that ring, except on the hilliest rides, when I had a triple), and there was no guarantee he'd be able to get the shifter onto the middle ring again if he moved it. I saw him later at the end, so, whether or not he had heeded my advice, he DID get back.
Now, Al P insists that he has no problems with his C+ ride breaking up into a fast and a slow group; he expects the faster folks to go off the front and meet up at the stop, and then again at the end.
This is so contrary to some other group rides I go on, that I asked him four or five times if he really meant it. It appears he really does.
So of the fourteen of us that reported for his C+ ride today, seven of us (yours truly included) took the first half, up to the stop, at a mid-B pace. The others got to the Minit Stop shortly after we got there; we were apparently not that far ahead of them.
Above: I am not generally a fan of plastic bikes... but that candy-apple red is niiiice.
On the way back, sensibility prevailed, and I let the mostly-younger and faster group go without me; I came back at a more conversational pace with Al P and his gang.
I'm finally gettin' some Team Social Security rides in. Retirement is beginning to feel like it might work for me.
Some notes after last night's maintenance class at the NBBEX:
A better explanation of the actual tire change:
(Most of the videos on this channel are nothing-in-particular, but they have a few from this mechanic. I like his style; I think he's who I wanna be when I grow up.)
Remember the process:
Remove the wheel from the bike. If it's a front wheel, there's likely to be some arrangement on the fork that will stop the wheel from just falling off the bike when you open the quick-release or remove the wheel nuts (remind me to talk about quick-release placement in one of these sessions). If it's a rear wheel, get the chain as loose as you can (on geared bikes, shift to the smallest gears front and back, and then probably drop the chain to the inside of the smaller front gear [the front gears are called "chainrings"]).
Remove one side of the tire from the rim. Do it by hand if you can; if you need to use tools (tire levers, or what-have-you), go carefully.
Remove the tube.
Pump up the tube to see if you can find the hole. Examine the inside and outside of the tire to see if you can find what caused the puncture, if it was a puncture. (Sometimes, tubes just give up the ghost because of weaknesses in manufacturing. Sometimes, the problem is a leaky valve.)
Put a little bit of air in the new or repaired tube to give it shape, and replace the tube into the wheel between the rim walls. The air is to help the tube stay put.
Replace the bead of the tire into the rim. It will go easy until the last little bit. When it gets harder, see if the tire bead is stuck in the hooks (that depression in the rim wall where the bead goes). If the tire is stuck there, push the bead out of the hooks and toward the center of the wheel, so it can drop into the "well", which will give you a little more slack. If you do need to use levers or other tools to get it back on, be careful; you can pinch the tube and puncture it... and then you gotta start the whole process over again. Guess how I learned that?
You might want to replace the wheel before you pump up the tire, to make sure it passes the brake.
Replace the wheel in the dropouts. In front, you'll need to deal with whatever it was that was keeping the wheel on in case the nuts or dropouts loosened. In the back, you'll want to pull the pulley wheel behind the gears as you put the wheel in (remember that you shifted to the smallest gear. The bike will fight you if you're trying to put the wheel back, with the chain wrapped on the wrong gear). Tighten the nuts or dropouts.
For rear wheels on bikes without derailleurs, the process is a little different. The rear dropout will be horizontal, and will have room to slide the wheel forward and back when you loosen the nuts. Slide the wheel forward to get the chain loose enough to get off the gear in the back (you may also have to take it off the chainring in the front). You'll then be able to slide the wheel back and out. After the tire change procedure, hook the chain over the right side of the wheel, slide the chain all the way forward in the dropout, replace the chain on the chainring and gear on the hub, and pull the wheel back. The wheel will want to go in crooked, with the right side forward, and the left side of the tire binding on the left chainstay. I find it works better for me to use my left hand to push the tire backwards in the dropout, and use the other to tighten the right nut in the correct place. Then, use my right hand to hold the wheel straight in the bike, and use the left to tighten the other nut. We should talk about this, too.
A discussion came up about what pumps to carry on the bike. I carry one on each.
That's my road bike, which I call the Yellow Maserati (because it is neither yellow nor a Maserati). The pump on it is the Lezyne HV Drive frame pump. Lezyne makes various pumps, tools, and the like. While all Lezyne's offerings are reliable and effective, many are jewelry, with expensive flash and gewgaws (like a rosewood handle on a chain tool, that's likely to get covered in grease). This was a gift.
On the gravel bike (called the Krakow Monster, you can find out why at this link... the Excellent Wife (TEW) was in Krakow at the time I was building it up), I carry the Acacia pump, with the pressure gauge. I had been taken with another Lezyne pump, which is gorgeous, but the $85 price tag was off-putting. The $28 cost of the Acacia suited me better, and it's almost as good-looking.
I'm a sucker for pretty bike things. (But I'm always afraid to use or carry them, out of fear that I'll screw 'em up. I need a lotta help...)
Finally, I was asked about what I carry on a ride. I carry far too much stuff; of the twenty pounds of bike-and-gear on the road bike, almost three pounds of it is the bag and the stuff in it. You will not need to carry all this; I go mostly on rides with my club, and I make it a point of pride that I have the stuff you need to get you home after most breakdowns.
That said:
You can click on the picture to enlarge. At top right is the seatbag I switch between the bikes. It's the Topeak Aero-wedge in the largest size they offer; I use the clip variety to facilitate switching it between bikes.
The other stuff, from upper left:
Two cut pieces of tire to use as tire boots. If you get a gash in the tire that's too big to just ride on, sometimes you can put something into the tire behind the gash to keep the tube from poking out and bursting.
Below that, in the pill bottle: various quick replacement links for 9- and 10-speed chains. I know from experience that I can use a 10-speed link to temporarily fix an 11-speed chain.
Next, two Park Tool tire boots, plastic, with adhesive on the inside. These were a gift. They probably work better than the pieces of tire, but I haven't needed to try 'em yet.
Next, a complete set of Allen wrenches (also called hex wrenches or Allen keys). While there are Allen wrenches on my multi-tool (see below), I found they were too short to reach some of the stuff I wanted to reach, and I have room for these in that voluminous seatbag.
Second row, left: a tire tool by VAR, a French company (the two blue things). This can be used as tire levers, and also (theoretically) to get a tight tire on a wheel. They may no longer be available, and may be more effective in theory than practice.
Two tubes. These are narrow enough for the tires I use on the road bike, but will expand to fit the wider tires on the gravel bike.
An organizer bag I sewed up to fit inside the seat bag; I made the pattern to fit the curve of the seatbag (did I tell you I was teaching myself to sew?).
Inside the organizer bag:
From top left: two CO2 cartridges. One has a removable rubber insulator, because the inflation process causes the cartridge to chill so quickly that frost will form on it and it can cause frostbite.
The CO2 "detonator", that punctures the cartridge and gets the gas into the tire. This one works. There are fancier ones; some work, some don't.
In a black rubber carrier, two Lezyne aluminum tire levers. I've broken plastic ones. These don't break. (They also don't have the hooks that hold them in place on the spokes, like the ones Anna used last night, so they're not ideal. But they're pretty!)
Below that, the Crank Brothers M19 Multi-Tool. It's got a chain tool and spoke wrenches in addition to the Allen keys, screwdrivers, and such that other multi-tools have. I have used the chain tool and the spoke wrenches to get riders going again. (You definitely want me along on your group rides!)
House keys. Of the many ways I'm a bit of a nutball, one of them has to do with keys: in addition to these, I keep extra keys in my wallet and in my car, and when I was working, I had them in my briefcase and in my desk at work. I have trauma about locking myself out of the house when I was in grade school. (As I so frequently say, it's not like I'm a &%$#ing wellspring of mental health...)
IN my pockets, I ride with a wallet with cash, credit card, and medical insurance stuff. You don't need your whole wallet, but I think you need at least that. I also carry my cell phone. Both of these are in weather-resistant bags.
Next week: Brakes! Are you sure you wanna go if you can't stop?
Prior to retirement, I was looking forward to riding regularly with "the old guys", "Team Social Security", the group of mostly-retired folks (not all of 'em guys, by any means) who ride together during the week. Weather and circumstances have conspired against this, but today I got the chance to roll along on Ed L's 30-miler out of Etra Park.
Of the ten on the ride, I knew eight reasonably well; I met the two who are new to me. As is common with the weekday group, I spent time chatting. When I spoke about the difficulty I'd had in the earliest days of my retirement, some mentioned either similar experiences or reasonable theories, so I feel a bit less foolish (and ungrateful) complaining about my idleness.
We spoke about that e-bike accident on Route 1. Some thought the person might have been suicidal or crazy; others just thought she was thoughtless. I think she just didn't know what to do with this new, in- between technology.
For a small group, we got separated quickly and more than once. The folks on the ride didn't think much of it, apparently; the folks in the back were known to have asthma and some other respiratory issue, and we made a point of waiting for 'em before (or just after) turns.
We stopped at Roy's.
Two notes about Roy's: first - why do we stop there? They hate us, they do nothing except complain about us, they lie about the damage we cause, they object to our using the plumbing. Why can't we find other places to go? How about Charleston Coffee? How about Stonebridge Bagels? I know there are few places that are actually happy to see us, but do we have to patronize a business that so obviously wishes we would not?
Second, there was a sign on the door that they will be closed on Mondays. Some of the All-Paces rides are on Monday holidays (Labor Day comes to mind). Ride leaders might have an excuse to pick different routes for those rides, that are not so dependent on Roy's for the stop, as they're likely to be closed.
After the stop, we stopped at the trail crossing to visit a porta-potty, and after that, Ernie and I got to talking about cadence; Ernie said that he's tried a higher cadence, but complains it wears out his legs. I pointed out that he's got a lot of riding years together, and what he's been doing appears to be working. (I think higher cadence is partly natural tendency, but I think it can be learned as well, at least to some extent.) (I also think my opinion on training, nutrition, and similar bike-y topics is next door to useless. I'm pretty good with a wrench, but I'm not a coach, nor a dietitian.)
And once again, as last time, I had a minor bonk near the end. I'm not eating enough prior to the ride. I need to ride more frequently to figure out what's gonna work.*
See what you can do to ease up on the extreme weather, so I can make that happen, OK? Let me know what you get.
I've had some interest recently in my practice of waxing my chain instead of using more common (and, admittedly, convenient). Blog post is linked in the previous sentence.
I've changed the cleaning procedure since, after re-reviewing the video from which I got the procedure (and got it wrong, apparently). The link goes directly to the part of the video where he explains the procedure.
He's an Aussie, which means at least two things:
He's completely bonkers, and
He refers to things using local Australian words, which might not be the same as the terms we 'Muricans use.
He uses "petrol" (gasoline) for his first step, which I'm not gonna do; I'm not gonna keep gas in the garage. I find mineral spirits to be just as effective for an initial clean, and, while it's not without its dangers, it's far safer than gas. Like him, I use a removable link*, and remove the chain from the bike. Put the chain in a plastic container, add enough mineral spirits to cover, and leave overnight.
*Most of the removable links are labelled "one use only". I suspect they're better-engineered than that, but why risk it, when you can get the Wipperman link, which is advertised for repeated use?
The next day, make up a solution of hot water and degreaser (I use this one). Put a squeeze of degreaser in the plastic container, add hot water to mostly fill (you'll get suds, which is important), put in the chain, swish around. The solution will get unbelievably mucky, and the suds will disappear, as the degreaser holds the gunk in solution. Rinse thoroughly (clean out the sink so your less-bikey
spouse doesn't complain about the wretched condition of the sink). Repeat three or four times, until (ideally) you actually have some suds left at the end of the procedure.
Then, to make sure you've got all the water out, put the chain in a plastic container and cover with denatured alcohol (which is what His Aussiness means when he says "methylated spirits"). Swish around, remove the chain, and hang up to dry overnight.
Yes, we're now on day three.
But at this point, the chain is pretty much down to bare metal, to which the paraffin will adhere nicely. Now you can retrieve the chain and add lube. Using this cleaning procedure and the paraffin lube, I've gotten over 7,000 miles on the two chains I alternate on the bike (so, 3,500 miles each), and the chains are still within the .050% chain stretch specification (using this gauge to verify).
Product links go to Universal Cycles. I don't make any money from them, but they have a reasonably comprehensive selection, and they've treated me very well on repeated orders.
Is it an earthquake or simply a shock? Is it the good turtle soup or merely the mock? Is it a cocktail, this feeling of joy? Or is what I feel the real McCoy?
Is it for all time or simply a lark? Is it Granada i see or only Asbury Park? Is it a fancy not worth thinking of? Or is it at long last love?
(Cole Porter, At Long Last Love)
I had this song in my head the whole ride today.
The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I have been under siege this week; we've been having the condo painted by contractors with effective technique, and apparent fond feelings for us, but with inefficient scheduling (I would have no problem recommending the quality of their work, and the price is reasonable, but plan for at least one late night or an extra day if you hire them). Laura OLPH had scheduled a ride for today, and I had built up my hopes to do it, and when the painters were running late, my mood got exceptionally sour. TEW, as she often does, managed to mitigate my crankiness and disappointment... but then, the painters were out by about 8pm last night, the clouds parted, birdsong was in the air, and I happily registered for Laura's promised 40-45 miles with some hills.
(I also got a particularly graceless picture of Heddy B; I will spare us both by not posting it.)
Laura decided on her usual route to Sergeantsville, over roads that we've done frequently enough that even I, with my hopeless sense of direction on a bike, more-or-less knew the way when we got to the usual turns. And for this early in the season, all of us seemed to be strong on the climbs.
I loved this ride. This was the real McCoy.
We greeted the girls in Mt Airy:
We stopped at the bagel place in Seargentsville instead of the general store. While there, a larger group from the Central Bucks club came in.
After the break, it seemed to get colder (I thought it might be a punishment from the gods of tardiness for taking too long on the break), but then the sun came out again.
About three or four miles from the end, I had a minor bonk; I completed the ride, but not at the pace I had been able to maintain earlier. I'm out of practice with knowing how to eat and to maintain weight; I need more riding to get that down (well, DUH!).
With all the cold, and occasional real-life interferences getting in the way of riding, at long last, I was glad to be able to do this one.
