Way to go Head, I took a restish day today. 9 miles of Mtn Biking. Just over an hour. Got caught out in the dark in the woods. Dug out my old Night Rider and charging that now. I'll carry that along for my Mtn Bike rides in the future. I hope it still holds a charge. Today is going to be a Skyline Drive ride after work. Gonna shoot for 30 miles. Should be a great way to get an intense work out. Just a wee bit of climbing should be involved. Keep riding Heidi... Nice bike Stinez, I thought about a Cross bike...
i would consider the Air Chuck SL for a CO2 inflator. extremely compact, light to carry and it works! only requirement is that you need threaded cartridges.
I understand the desire to eat less meat as the wife and I have changed our diet over the last several years in the same direction. The difference is that we still eat a little meat but we make sure that the bulk of our diet consists of things we consider better for us. I'm not sure how my body would react if I cut it off from ALL meat. I like the looks of that Quinoa that Pierce posted and I/we will be looking into adding it to our diet. (We already eat lots of Bob's Red Mill products) Thanks Steve - It's nice to see that you're very actively out and about. I though a cross bike was the best compromise between a commuter and a bike that I can do long road rides on. I was going to ride it to work today but it looks like that ride home would be ~105 degrees so I woosed out. IMO Riding in that kind of heat will do more harm than good. Kahoon- I like the looks of that VERY compact air chuck and they seem reasonably priced. Thanks.
Seattle is not that far, maybe 50 miles each way. If I can get to the Burke Gilman which I've done part of. Riding out the the Centennial trail seems like a bad idea the roads out toward there are narrow and shoulderless. Exploring last ngiht I found a pizza place close to the hotel that has wine. slowly exploring routing I can get to the interurban and just need to figure getting from that over to the Burke Gilman, and then form that to say Pike Place.
and one of these will pump up a skinny 100+ PSI tire in a few strokes. 8.6 oz, comes in sizes for different frames, fits parallel to the seat tube. there's even a carbon fiber version that saves a couple ounces more!
It sounded good to him too - was going to pick some up today and try it out..... I'll letcha know what he thinks and how it worked for him. He's got a century coming up this weekend so stay tuned. We eat a LOT of Bob's Red Mill products, too. That's good stuff!
But sadly, it has the dreaded direct connection to the valve. I really dislike them - I did look for something like this with a flexible adapter but I couldn't find one.
just hook your thumb over the wheel, with the tire valve at TDC, and your fingers around the grip of the pump barrel, hold that arm steady and do all the pumping with the other arm. they work great that way. the long pump barrel moves a lot more air at high pressure than a shorty (at an extreme 140psi, you need to squeeze that air down 10:1 before you move ANY air into the tire, not counting any static space, like the fitting...and hose. so if the pump has a 6" stroke, you're only moving air on that last 1/2"... if the pump has a 20" stroke like one of these frame pumps, you're moving air into the tire on the last 1.5-2". a 23C tire only needs a few dozen pumps from dead flat to 120psi.
I have one like that I take on long self-sufficient M/C trips because of the chance of multiple flats in the middle of nowere. I don't see multiple bicycle flats in the middle of nowhere as a likely issue. (Knock on wood and bring the cell phone. ) That's why I like the idea of a small CO2 filler.
Classically, its when you think you've fixed the flat, pump it up, only to discover you still have a slow leak, and have to patch it again. Once I ran over thumbtacks some vandal had strewn across a bike path and flatted both wheels at once. I had one spare tubular with me. oops. As I was 50+ miles from home, and living in a city I'd just moved to and knew no one I could call, I had to deal with a sewup patch on the side of the road. Luckily, I had a lot of practice patching those old Clement setas, heh, took me about 30 minutes to peel the tape off, unstitch the casing around the flat, pull out enough of the latex inner tube to patch, then stitched it back up, glued the rim tape back on with the tube of tubasti I had in my kit(*), then glued the rim back onto the wheel. I stopped a couple other cyclists from doing the same thing, and we cleaned the trail up before more carnage. one century, I had 3 flats but was only carrying two spares. that time, another rider traded me one of his spares for one of my flatted ones (mine were better tires). (*) emergency practice only. ruins the tire for the long run, you're supposed to use latex for this but that wasn't something I usually carried..
I only managed about an hour again. Though I did stay off the hills I rode pretty hard. Had to stop and re-thread the outer cogs back on the old freewheel they had come loose. The bars to stem interface is getting worse, I'll have to take it apart when the rain hits Thursday and see what I can do about it. Need to replace the tape again anyway. <a href="http://www.sportstracklive.com/track/map#renowels/Cycling/Muk82410/48573/full">Track map</a> Great weather light breeze to keep me cool and only about 46% humidity. A couple weeks of these laps I can go home and ride to the beach and back.
take the clamp bolt(s) out, clean and grease the threads and shoulder of the bolt carefully. degrease the stem-bar contact surfaces with a little alcohol or paint thinner or something, then reassemble. the greased bolt will torque down better.
I'll give that a try Thursday night. I'm waiting on crappy weather. I got it better last night. The bolt is worn a bit, (new in 1983...), the bike has a good many miles on it. I am hoping to ride the thing until the real bad weather and dark hit later this Fall. Then probably fleabay the thing in pieces. Back to playing with schedules...:huh
I did my first night ride, last night. I started out on the rail-to-trail for 12 miles then took off out through the country and made a loop back to town. I managed 35 miles. I met 1 car and had 1 pass me in 23 miles of road riding. I had a nice breeze, full moon, and plenty of tranquility. Definitely, one of my better rides. Unfortunately, lights don't give a good sense of terrain. Many of the country roads, around here, have extremely soft areas. I hit one of those and had to bail off the left side. I walked out of it, jumped on the bike, only to hit another one a hundred yards later. I wasn't so fortunate on that one and fell on my right side. Luckily, it was like falling on a beach of gravel. Another thing is, what looks like road patch can be a pothole. It's very hard to differentiate color in the darkness. Lastly, the trail is like a tunnel in the trees, in a lot of places. The critters like to build webs to catch other critters. Some of the webs spanned the whole trail, like 12'-15' across. I could see them, even with a limited light source. Worse yet I could see what had made them and managed to snag a couple critters while blowing through. I'm arachnophobic, so I won't be on the trail, in the future, at night. This was the first passenger I picked up, riding the aerobar (cell pic). My bike and myself were covered in webs, by the time I left the trail. Ugh! I didn't know I snagged this one. I felt something on my head and thought "Spider!!!!". I discovered this one, 12 miles after leaving the trail, so it'd been up there a while. It had a fly in its mouth. Creepy!
The blue and white Roubaix is nice looking, but I'll need a few months to wear out the 2010 I just got a couple of weeks ago, and only rode once.
That high end Sirrus has sure gone...high end. :huh PS I'm not arachnophobic but I'd still avoid riding through those webs if at all possible.
