Parbold hill

Posted on 30th Sep 2012 by essiep

12°C , brisk westerly, light cloud. CK55 miles.
Saturday ride on the fixed, a good few hours ride that started with some difficulty- perhaps I didn’t have enough for supper before.
Anyway, I got up Parbold hill on the 42×16 gear without stopping. While not a very blog-worthy point, I get a lot of satisfaction from this first. Last winter, I could only make the summit with the last part on foot. Then in the 17 tooth gear I gasped to the top.
It seems that my physical energy has been liberated by that drop in work-stress.

Momentary misjudgement

Posted on 27th Sep 2012 by essiep

12C clear.
It was only a tiny slice of time, it was enough for the axe to swing its errant path. The hit only took a thin slice from my thumb. Lucky it wasn’t worse, or unlucky to happen in the first place. That makes me luck-neutral.
A cut from a sharp edge is usually less painful, and less prone to infection. My only grumble is the site of the injury- it’s on the side of my the joint just where I normally apply pressure when changing gear on the commuting bike.
Perhaps change gear like a good fixed-gear rider.

Profile of a commute

Posted on 20th Sep 2012 by essiep

this profile show works on the left and home on the right.

14°C westerly
Mapmyride has updated their app. Now a week has passed and no broken routes appear in the gps tracking.
For 10 years I have ridden this route to and from work. In all that time I have never been certain why it takes of consistently longer to ride in than back home. Now I know. There is both a general climb in altitude and prevailing SW winds to make the morning route harder. Home is closer to sea-level than work.

Tracked 47 miles

Posted on 17th Sep 2012 by essiep

17°C westerly breeze, brisk
Used an app to track my Sunday bike ride. It ran alright to start with. I admit that it takes a while to learn the program, but it did raise other problems. It missed 11 miles off the route, also I can’t see how to pause it during a cafe stop. Still, there is some promise. The missing section was a loss of gps signal I’d say. Either that or some space warp/hyper-space effect occured.

Bearing in

Posted on 22nd Aug 2012 by essiep

New school/old school crankset (credit: Wikipedia)

17°C, cloudy & light westerlies

It is in, the fix is in. This morning I put a new bottom bracket bearing in the race-bike. Will ride soon to test it out and try out the larger inner-chainring. It’s now 42-53, a smaller jump than before. That should put an end to the triple shifts that I often am forced to do when shifting chainring.

Continue reading →

Bearings

Posted on 1st Aug 2012 by essiep

18°C, clear but some showers. CR:44.5 miles

It’s no real dilemma, the choice between watching sport on TV (Olympics or Tour De France) and going out for a ride in the sunshine. This year’s Olympics is different; the events are on during the day unlike the last few where we woke in the morning to find ay results we’re interested in. Bradley Wiggins got his gold medal while I was pedalling alone in the lanes of Leicestershire. I can’t deny the thrill I got on arriving home and putting the radio on: he got it! He got gold.

The ride was good, I felt strong and would have a better average speed if the wind was less fierce. Incidentally, I’m still procrastinating putting in that new bottom bracket bearing. It’s still making horrible crunching sounds but running smoothly. Well, I say smoothly, it has started making odd noises when I push uphill in the saddle. That bike will be so nice when the bearing is replaced, and I should change the inner chain-ring to a larger one too. 39-53 is too much of a jump for me, it forces double shifts on the rear 8 most of the time. there is a 42 tooth ring in the shed. Maybe when I get back.

Another 30 miler

Posted on 26th Jul 2012 by essiep

25°C, sun & light wind. feels hot & close. CR:30.7 miles

Same route as last time, but slightly slower. The bike is running well if rather clunky. Should I get up and change the bottom bracket bearing or pack hiking gear?

Summer spirit

Posted on 22nd Jul 2012 by essiep

23°C bright sun & winds. CR:33 miles.

What are these things I pass on my ride so often? The girders seem to be aligned north-south and are on a pivoting support. Will solar panels be fitted sometime soon? There are just the two structures pictured here, both connected to a trough dig into the grass.

It’s Sunday, the first after we broke up for the summer holiday. I feel the spirit of the holiday already which normally I don’t count until we get to Monday. We don’t work Sundays any time of the year but today is different. There is none of the pre-work nerves that so often blight this day of rest. So, let’s count today.

The Tour De France– Haven’t watched this for years, but the prospect of a possible British win drew me in. Bradley Wiggins & Mark Cavedish took 1, 2 this afternoon in Paris. An unbelievable result. I raise an imaginary toast.Can’t say I give a damn about the Olympics yet though.

38 miles without falling off.

Posted on 25th Jun 2012 by essiep

18°C, NW winds CR:38.5 miles

I daren’t ride the race bike on that chain, it looks like another pin is pulling out so I have binned it. The replacement is the same type- a SRAM 870. This time I did not risk joining any links and took off spares in stages before finally using the power-link to finally join the ends. The ride was okay, but unexpected gear changes still happen on the 17t cog.
I bet the derailleur hangar needs aligning- that’s a job for the shop though. the tool is too expensive for occasional use. I imagine that such a fault would allow good gear changes on some sprokets, and not on others. If I adjust the cables, then it merely change which cogs skip about. On this ride, the top & bottom ratios are okay, and the lower-middle ones play up.
Another contributory cause might be bearing wear on the freehub. The Campy service centre said they could fix that.

SRAM Power Link (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Continue reading →

Bad end to a mediocre ride

Posted on 17th Jun 2012 by essiep

14°C, showers, CR54 miles

A chain break can lead to a bruised bum- I learnt today.

Riding the last mile towards home is s steep hill. On this hill, I was thrown to the road after a sharp crunch and landed on my coccyx. Oh, boy that really did hurt, I had no choice but to swear quite a bit. But then, it could have been worse- I could have crashed down on the cross-bar and you all know what that would mean:

the pain is enough to make a shy boy Buddhist reflect and plan a mass murder

The chain was broken. That chain has been a problem since new- the very same on that tightened up a month ago which made the bike almost unridable. I shall replace it with a new one. Anyway, I walked the last mile & half home, at least I could coast along the downhill bits which cut off about ½ mile.

Not a great ride then.

Micycle

Mike thinks b/hikes

Category Archives: Cycling