your daily bicycle log

NBS, if it's any help, cranksets seem to be the most heavily discounted things for sale by online retailers. I got a £350 crankset for £60 a while back and it was a massive upgrade even on my best bike.

mileage fell off a cliff in june, but maybe the break was good for me. 60 miles, 4k feet of climb, felt good. pulled our bikes into a pho spot at the end and inhaled everything.

My front mech problem still hadn't been resolved, despite buying a new big chainring (see post upthread from 2-3 weeks ago). Most of the time when I changed down from the big ring to the small ring it would get stuck in between: almost on the small ring, but kind of floating over it rather than gripping the teeth, leaving me fruitlessly spinning.

At the end of today's (28-mile) ride I went back to the bike shop. The guy had a look at it and said that the problem was that the two rings were slighlty too far apart (because the design of the new one made it stick out maybe 2mm further than the old one had) and that there wasn't much he could do about it, but that I didn't need to worry as it wasn't unsafe. I'm not really one to argue my case much in shops, but even I didn't think this was a satisfactory response - I pointed out that I could hardly race if it was going to take me 20 seconds of freewheeling to sort out every gear change. Eventually he hit on the solution of flipping my inner ring inside out* as this would bring the gap down slightly - seems to have done the trick. I hope so, it's been driving me mad.

*not a euphemism

My club's Saturday morning ride ends at a cafe about 8 miles away from where it starts. I was spinning easy, strictly zone 2, ya know, making it way back to the start to pick up my car and go home when I rolled up on an old guy in the club kit who I didn't know. I gave him a little 'what's up' chit-chat and out of absolutely nowhere he immediately starts telling me about a website that has news reports going back 12 years and is 'not that unfair and unbalanced fox news' and how corporate ownership of media empires is leading the country towards fascism. I give him a 'right on and a nod' and he continues on, saying how this country is taking the same path that Nazi Germany and Italy went down. I kind of back off on the chat at this point and he gives me (no kidding): "Yeah and I don't trust the flouride they're putting in water these days. Hitler did that in Germany...." I couldn't believe I was hearing this and had to stifle an open-mouthed scoff. I wanted to tell him something about keeping his Purity of Essence or something but instead I slowed a bit to let him get up the road, and HE sits up too to come back and continue talking. Luckily the ride came to a little bit of an incline and I was able to subtly pick up the pace enough to leave him behind without looking like I was trying to sprint away from him. Amazing.

Are you meeting up with him next week too?

45 miles in 3hrs 26mins yesterday, through rolling Devonshire countryside in sweltering heat. Fastest mile was 2:30: slowest was 10 minutes, up a steep 600 foot ascent. Exeter, Aunk, Ottery, Sidmouth, Budleigh, Exmouth, Exeter again. Great day.

With the day off, a few guys from the club and I headed out into the boonies (north/eastern Escondido, CA) for a ride. I rode like complete crap, got dropped significantly on every climb. Nearly heat-stroked out at the end. Brutal. Post-ride In-N-Out (maybe why I get dropped? hmm...) was righteous though.

http://app.strava.com/rides/871163

did the same mtn loop in two different directions sat and sun- 47 mi, about 4100 ft climbing total. on sunday it was nearly 100 deg down low, but still pretty hot up high.

at 8000 ft when your garmin says 16% slope, 98 deg, and youre looking at the snowfields on the high mountains way off to your right~ you know that if you could reach them, you'd scorch a big steaming fat mantis shaped hole in the snowbank, and a leave a big cloud of steam on your way to the bottom. and it would feel awesome.

instead, you keep going, and you buy gatorade from _both_ stands of totally adorable 7 year olds selling gatorade up the way.

beautiful commute this morning, just warm enough, legs felt strong (maybe even had a bit of awesome in them), scalped a few fully lycra-ed roadies and despite doing an extra mile, was only a minute and a half off my PB. And I didn't have to use my AK.

It was nice, wasn't it, though apparently my average speed was under 9mph which seems unliely even for traffic! Might do the Hampstead Heath loop again tonight, get some climbing in (though not much if I'm honest - anyone know how high the Heath is?).

if you're doing that you may as well do Swains Lane..... or did you do West Hill? > http://www.goinggoingbike.com/blog/the-great-road-climbs-of-london-2-highgate-west-hill/

That looked like a nice loop though, Willesden Green/Harlesden excepted.

I got a tweet calling me a wuss for not doing Swain's Lane! I'm hardly a local, though, I didn't know I was missing out. I'll try one or t'other tonight maybe.

finally tried playing around with strava. all of my good "results" are downhill :\

i think i need to go on a 'real' ride today but man i am just lazy as heck

^ this. until saturday, i hadn't been on my bike in over a month. texted a friend to do a ride today (i have today off too!) or else i would have been too lazy to do anything. also, sf is having a 'real' summer right now (at least until it turns back into winter)

just had a swell little ride around the city, just under 20mi.

bike is super janky at the moment, though, wondering if it might be time for a new frame

my bike is still in a box from removal to deutschland :-(

is it true that front and back brakes are on opposite handlebars in left-hand drive countries? i have borrowed bikes in europe/the us and did not die, so i feel like this must be rot, but maybe i wasn't paying attention?

i dunno i always thought it was a moto v. cycling thing? i think some cx'ers switch it up. and i'm pretty sure sheldon brown has an opinion on it somewhere

apparently it is to do with indicating when turning against traffic. maybe i should swap mine when i rebuild it.

i have always switched my levers for cross.

so with cx in the us which side is the front brake?

right

yeah that's how bikes are set up normally in the uk

i can't think of anyone i knew who switched as i did.

so, do front calipers in europe have the clamps on the opposite side? because wouldnt switching your levers w/ calipers make the cable routing on front kinda shitty?

i guess in mainland europe they are the same as in the us.

will check my uk bike tomorrow. struggling to picture it.

i guess in mainland europe they are the same as in the us

You know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese, though?

a sheldon brown?

went on said ride w/friend. we're going pretty fast, him in front. car makes u turn in front of us. we're in the bike lane, and my friend was riding sorta aggressively, so i thought he'd keep going, but he didn't, and he didn't tell me he was stopping. i hit the breaks and did a super endo. i couldn't clip out and fell. knee is totally raspberried, but i did a crazy roll out of it directly to standing and nothing else on myself or my bike is hurt. it was on the beginning of a 2hr ride and luckily it didn't hurt until i got home and had to clean the rocks out of it.

god I need a "real" road bike

we got that front brake = right lever thing goin on down here, u kno

yep, countries that drive on the left (and cx) apparently

best countries imo

Did 30 damp and windy miles round Devon lanes last night in a little over 2 hours.

bunch of bros (there were at least 10 of us) met up at a state park outside of the city and did a blazing lap of singletrack, like 12 miles. insanely fun, and something i think we're gonna do every week

finally hit my goal of climbing 3000 ft - i started trying to get back into riding shape in april after devolving into a slovenly pile of crap the prior 6-12 months. today was a big milestone - the grades were pretty steep, with 2000 feet coming in the first 7-8 miles. hooray for me! okay carry on with y'all's logs.

i've done nothing outside commuting all week and now i'm sick. -_-

Pro tip: on flying ant day, don't worry about expensive protein bars, simply be out of shape and cycle with your mouth open :/

I managed to squeeze in 16 miles after work today (my first non-weekend ride for nearly a month due to work, work, work) and can confirm that today was FLYING ANT DAY. The air was thick with them. I managed to avoid eating them, but I have accidentally swallowed at least three flies in the last month.

Dirty great flying ant hitting back of great as I hit barnes commOn crossroads just perfectly was a highlight, fucker nearly knocked me off.

great = throat?

That's the feller. Posting while cooking = dud

You know what's also good? Cycling on flying ant day while sporting a moustache.

Got hit by a car today. Was headed south on PCH through Leucadia, CA at about 6:00pm. Friday + rush hour meant traffic was backed up on the 2-lane road for a long ways. My cousin and I were filtering down the right hand side of the road at about 15mph when a car in front of us decided to make a quick unsignaled right-turn right in front of me. I hit his rear quarter panel pretty square on, bumped off to the right, and went down onto my (helmeted) head. Cracked the right rear of my helmet (second one this year :( :( ), scraped up both knees, and my neck feels pretty stiff but other than that I guess I'm OK? I feel a little woozy, possible concussion symptoms? Bike was totally fine, and I wasn't hurting too bad, and I was kind of on the spot and a little worried that it was possibly partly our fault for overtaking the long line of cars on the right, so I told the driver that it was all cool and he could go. Kind of regretting that now.

Next Sunday was my 'A' goal race of the year, and I had a long weekend of training planned for it, and now that's pretty much shot. Damn.

8[

that's terrible, man. hope/glad you're okay!

: (

get well soon, slp

^^echo all of this

rode out to round two of the CX comp, but just decided to watch this one as have been sick on and off during the week. (good excuse to have some drinx and heckle imo.) hooked up with some B-graders for the ride home along the same bike path by the creek that i'd dawdled out there on, then found myself in the BIG RING for the entire time as the group of seven wound it up to warp factor 9 (in bike path terms anyway). training for next month started, i guess!

another get well soon

had a great run out today. Felt so good, so strong, 542m of climbing. Had new red bib, so it's true Red is faster.

Biked over 30 miles today, all in the city. SO IRRATIONALLY ANGRY AT STOPLIGHTS STOPPING ME EVERY 200 FEET GOD.

got in 100 mi of road, 9 or so mi of singletrack, 10,000 ft of climbing. only prob was yesterday's ride was over 100 deg, it was killing me.