your daily bicycle log

Get a lawyer!!!

btw me upthread not being sympathetic to shasta = we already spoke about it on IM

let's all wish cutty best of luck on his first race. godspeed.

i was in the front of the field killing it until my chain jumped! pulled off and put it back on but could never catch back up to the pack. next time that won't happen cause i'm not going to shift out of my 53.

That is sucky. What were your opponents like?

I did 24 miles earlier, including my fastest 2-laps of Richmond Park. It felt great, though according to my heart rate monitor (on its debut outing), I spent most of the time at about 90-95% of my max. Is this bad? I never felt like I was at absolute full stretch.

This afternoon, I cleaned my bike.

cutty was that yr first first race? tough luck. you probly know but unless the chain gets seriously f'd up you can often downshift yr front and slow pedal it back on. its nice if, when you put your hand up and start to drift back, you have a teammate to push you along while you sort it out. oh yes, you WILL scatch up those beautiful cranks. same technique with dropping the chain to the inside, but sometimes that problem is more resistant to getting back up on the rings. course, sometimes yr just fucked.

75 degrees yesterday, i did my first leisure ride in yonks, 45 miles, about 3000 feet of climbing straight shot. i was so ill afterwards i had to lie down for half an hour ;_;

today-snowing 3"-6", back to the couch/desk.

I'm about to go riding in the snow for the first time ever (meeting some folks at the park for brosnowdown). Wish me luck!

Had a great time riding back in the neighborhood but I got on the road and hit one slippery patch and got scared and rode straight home (then went right back outside on foot).

Love the give of fresh snow under tire though.

New chainring (now running 44x15, was running 48x15 which was a bit much). I had to take the bike by the shop, because the chain became too long and the bolts were way back on the track ends. They took out a link and charged me $10. Also put on some Powergrips on my MKS Touring pedals, which are great so far. I've heard some bad things about the hardware, but it seems pretty sturdy. Finally, I removed the ugly looking metal collar thing on the TT. See picture for ugly metal collar reference:

http://www.raleighusa.com/images/items/Road/main/2008/RAL08-RushHour_Blue.jpg

I now consider my bike officially awesome.

What is the ugly metal collar for, in theory?

I believe it's to prevent the handlebars from dinging the tube. The bike has no decals, which is great, so the metal collar thing also included a Raleigh 'r' and the model name "Rush Hour." It wasn't all that ugly really, but I'm glad it's gone.

Here's a nice looking top tube protector:

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/yhst-84224226242177_1990_5689786

Swinley Forest, 16k in 1.5 hours actual riding time, muddy and slidy, rode like old granny all the way round terrified of slipping on tree roots or in the mud, and we were all exhausted, which doesn't bode well for a whole weekend in wales at easter.

Oh. God. I lost the tiny locking clip from the master link on my 3-spd's chain. Now it's overhauled, clean and re-tensioned and GRATE but I cannot ride it until I get a) a used, salvaged replacement clip (miraculously) or b) a new chain (dammit).

I think it went down the drain when I poured out the cleaning sl'n. I are an idiot.

My fucking cog is slipping. Not happy.

it was a coldish morning (24 deg), but supposed to be beautiful and 65 this afternoon for the ride home hurrah. plus i wont need my lights.

64 here and bright cloudless skies today. This morning I took my bike out to this lake/park and halfway around the bike trail I bumped into a buddy...we got high and rode around the lake singing damn it feels good to be a gangsta. And giggling. I hadn't ridden high for a long time. It was fun!

Next time I'm there though I'm renting a paddleboat.

wow, I miss that kind of thing. I go to work - work hard - go home and play with my baby boy and talk with the wife. No going to the park on a workday. No getting high.

It is 75-90 degress year round and almost always sunny though.

So today I discovered that being on a bike doesn't really make canvassing a town with flyers go that much quicker than on foot.

90 minutes this morning in the wind and rain - but at least a circular course means the wind's only a problem half the time. That said my extremities still haven't warmed up and I've been inside for 20 minutes.

MY LEGS ARE PAINFUL WET NOODLES.

MY BIKE THAT WAS STOLEN...I FOUND IT AND STOLE IT THE FUCK BACK. SHE IS MINE AGAIN. I WILL NOW GO RIDE HER SOME MOAR!!!

MY LEGS ARE PAINFUL WET NOODLES.

^^^ 4 hour ride with this guy on saturday. he gets the spirit award. i almost had to carry him across the 59th st bridge though.

NOTE TO SELF: EASE UP ON THE BIG RING...U R GASSING YRSELF BRO!

RPMs, EVER HEARD OF THEM?

what you pushing ddb?

i downgraded to 46x17 this summer and it was the opposite of rong

but my knee hurt today because i went RUNNING last night

I WAS ON THE ROAD BIKE, AND SPENT THE FIRST HALF OF THE DAY ON THE BIG RING AND WAS WONDERING WHY I WAS SO TIRED...WENT TO THE SMALLER RING AND STARTED FEELING MUCH BETTER....MODERATE ON THE BIG RING.

THE FIX IS RUNNING 48 x 15...WHICH WAS RUFF ON THE HILLS SO I SWITCHED TO 48 x 16 AND FELT LIKE I WAS SPINNING TO FAST...SO BACK TO 48 x 15.

i'm going to change out my 49x16 to 49x15 when i hop on the track this summer

i've also vowed never to ride a track bike on the street for as long as i live

btw this morning i did 20x20secs uphill sprints at 90-100rpms, then rode z2 for 90 mins

Nicka nicka, I want to know how you stole your bike back!

I was walking home, waiting at a light, and there it was just sitting there across the street. It was chained up...with MY chain! Chained to a BUSH haha. I guess maybe they picked the lock or something? I unlocked it with the KEY and rode it home!

Odd turn of events: last night my bag got stolen. It had hat/gloves/jacket and snacks and cds and weed and CHECKS from my mtg co.

:-/

decent mileage today. drizzly rain was a bummer, but the temp was nice. then i went to the climbing gym (FABULOUS MUSCLES) and now i am debating going to a BAR to meet a GIRL

'debating', pfft., you are not the Don juan I thought you were.

Really frustrated by not biking to work. But have finally found a local place I can shower pre-work. I think I will try to see how much can be shaved off the TFL time of 67 minutes.

commutes are just getting better and better with more light and nicer weather.

dont go to the hangs or climbing gym anymore, since i go so infrequently that, when i do go, im in agony the next day-forearms so ravaged that i cant keyboard

this is my first post on this board, so hi everyone!

i rode my bike 5 miles to/from work, like i do every day. 20MPH headwind on the way home wasn't fun.

that's a great story about getting the bike back- i love hearing stuff like that. bummer about the bag, though.

hi, ytth.

Hi ytth! You're in Oakland, is that right? What's it like for cycling there?

90 mins including 3x12mins z3 + 8x20secs shprintz

i gotta get my wattage numbers up on the sprints :/

The bag really isn't that big a deal; I called and had the checks cancelled and resent. I love thinking about the look on the thieves face when they opened to bag to, rather than a laptop or something equally pawnable, a notebook full of shitty lyrics and a probably overripe orange.

After a month and a half on that shitty, tiny Huffy, it is like utter joy over the familiarity and comfort of my stolen back ride.

Between errands, joyriding, the to-and-from band practice, I logged about 5 hours total today! Jesus.

Then I DANCED to CRAPPY HIPPY TECHNO!

Nick get a new lock!

so yesterday a car 20 yards in front of me on 14th st blew the red at welton at medium speed and tboned another car, which promptly spun out at like 30 mph thru the rest of the intersection. that was it, no real carnage but it was just like bumper cars. i dont think ive ever seen a car accident from my bike before.

ha Mark, I did...one of those metal clampy dealies

did 4 hours with 3x30 in Z3 (142-150bpms)

my numbers are kind of ridiculous right now, i'm averaging around 250 watts and 148bpm during those tempo intervals

I rode in the snow yesterday (just stuff falling from the sky, none on the ground) - it would have been pretty apart from the blizzard. Note to self - if you forget to have dinner the night before, try having breakfast before you go riding.

riding in oakland is okay... the further east i go, the worse the honking and yelling gets (i work near the coliseum, near international and seminary).

today, i rode from the castro valley bart to some fire roads (and a couple little singeltracks) and rode them all the way back to downtown oakland. it was about 30 miles.

Sounds fun - certainly more so than my morning. I didn't learn from Saturday and did another 20 miles in snow/hail/sleet/frozen rain/snow, in that order. WHY WON'T MY BUTTOCKS WARM UP

Weekend in Wales, 3 days, 3 rides - Cwm Carn, and White's Level and Penhydd trails at Afan. Could have done another today but bad weather and aching limbs nixed that idea. About 90k riding in total, over 2k of climbing, max heart rate 179, average 131.

squiggly lines:
http://i30.tinypic.com/30kt8g5.gif

Last time I did these trails was two years ago on a hardtail. I found them sooo much easier this time - either I've got better or full sus just takes all the skill out of it ;)