Squatting

Wednesday and Thursday all I could think about was getting out onto the bike for a nice 4-5 hour ride. I had come up with a way to join to of my regular routes and called it the "Home visiting the sisters" loop. It would have me leaving from home, riding up through town to Ashland via the 3 sisters and then back home via my regular commuting route up Old Gun. The length looks like it will be just over 90 miles in length if I do not throw anything in to get over the mythical century number.

On Friday morning, I realized I had gotten the game time wrong in my head for the U.S. World Cup game. I was thinking it was the 2 p.m. game but in reality they were a bit anxious to play and they kicked off at 10 a.m. New plans! Watch the game then head out for a shorter 50ish mile loop.

Once out onto the road, my legs were feeling great. Very spanky indeed! About 10 miles in, it started to feel as if I was getting closer to the ground with every pedal stroke. I stopped to check my seat height and sure enough it had slipped. It would continue to slip and get readjusted until I found myself down by Pony Pasture.

The view of the river surrounded by the full green foliage definitely lifted my spirits. I decided to continue riding instead of turning back as it was the same distance either direction. While climbing Old Gun, the clamp finally gave out completely and the seat went slamming down. It reminded of me of the days back in elementary school when we would all pull or kick chairs out from underneath each other while we went to sit down. A quick ticket straight to ground level!

Once to the top, I used the good ole' gps on the phone to find some back-roads which would cut the 20 something miles back home in half. Sitting while pedaling started to take a toll on my knees so I would stand as long as I could then sit then repeat. Standing for so long felt as if I was running the bike without all the pounding of the joints.

Finally got home, took a shower started hydrating and started looking for the Salsa clamp I had purchased to pimp out Jenn's Gunnar when we first built it up. It was slightly too big for her frame and never got used. Thinking it was going to be too big for my frame as well, the plan was to strip it of its bolts and use them on my current Salsa clamp. The clamps turned out to be the same size and Le Antique had been bothering me to give it some flair to prove he was still a young stud who could keep up with anyone. Now Le Antique will be officially referred to as Le Antique with a metro flair.

The last couple of weeks have been a little tough to find consistent time in the saddle. Most of it is work related as the schedule continues to change almost daily. This week will be no different as I have had to switch a few shifts to accommodate some visitors. No worries though, I have still been riding just rarely on consecutive days.

Last week, I was able to get out into Powhatan with Wiggins. On the way back into town, we both had to get onto the brakes hard due to a car getting a little to close for comfort. Shortly there after I started to develop a hard knocking in the front end of the bike whenever I grabbed hold of the front brake.

Once home and after a brief stint on the couch, I put the bike up into the stand to have a look at it. My first thought, was the headset had worked itself loose. I wanted to take the opportunity to inspect the bearings at the same time, so I tore it down.

Dangling tidbits

I didn't find anything odd, so a fresh lube job and back together it went. I was glad to see the bearings hadn't gone bad just like my pedal bearing did recently. Speaking of pedals, the Light Actions are again off of the bike and this time for good. They have been replaced with a set of Look Keo Classics. With two rides on the Keos, it is nice to not have my feet sliding around on the pedals all the time.

A look ahead to the rest of this week has me off the bike probably until Friday when I will definitely be getting in a longer ride. To where you ask, that is a good question. I guess I'll just figure it out between now and then. Ideas?

Floating around

After Tuesday's slack attack I felt a bit down on myself because I didn't chamois up and ride. Wednesday was a different day in which I decided to try and make the most of getting out of work early. I left work and headed North with no route in mind just knew I had 3 hours to kill before Jenn got off of work. Nothing really exciting to report about the ride other than I hit 2 of the sisters and fire training hill before arriving in the center of the universe and heading back to the shop.

Yesterday, Wiggins came over to the house and with the intention of riding into Powhatan for a bit. We set off for one of my more frequented routes. What we didn't know was that we would be doing a 2.5 mile warmup before having to turn around and start yelling for the support vehicle (which didn't actually exist). I was in need of a pedal change. The bearings of the right pedal locked up and then began to screech like an alley cat.

Once back to the house I did a quick pedal change over to a set of Speedplay Light Actions which I had purchased for Jenn when she first started to ride. She hated them and have sat in the Keo box (which replaced them) ever since. A quick cleat change and we were back on the road.

The ride was nice with some rolling terrain, a few good climbs and a couple of flat sections in which Wiggins felt the need to stretch his legs. Moyer Rd is a short section of road I always enjoy, as it is fast and twisty and if you don't remember where the turn is you won't see it until it is too late and you will blow right by it. We blew right by :-/

Once we got back to within a few miles of the house, we slowed up a bit for a nice cool down of 3 or 4 miles. It was impossible to "cool down" though due to the upper 90 degree temps. The pedals seemed to work fine despite my inability to line the cleat and pedal up when trying to clip in at lights. I didn't take the time yesterday during the hasty cleat change to set the float limits and it showed. Going from 9 degrees of float to 15 made it seem as if I was skating on ice. It actually made it terribly sketchy when out of the saddle. I am not sure why anyone in the world would need that much float.

S-L-A-C-K

Wanted to ride yesterday but a last minute thunderstorm came through fast enough to get everything wet and my butt turned a bit wet saddle shy. Instead I futzed around on my phone for an hour while Jenn worked out. And now to prove just how big of a slacker I am this post will have none of my own work. A couple of weeks ago my parents bought themselves a little hand held video camera. Here is the video mom put together of the footage from Jenn's most recent tri.

Looking back...

Last week, I mentioned I had hooked up Le Antique with a little bit of extra weight by mounting for the first time the Go Pro Helmet Camera. I did this in hopes of possibly making the time in which you waste by reading this nonsense, a little more enjoyable. I also mentioned I had gone out with the TnT crew a few weeks back and there was an accident. As a result of the accident, one of our fellow riders has been off the bike with a broken clavicle.

Wiggins and I decided to go do that same ride last week and that is when I decided to hook up the camera. Here is the short unedited, no music added, no frills version of the decent. If you pay attention, you will notice the what is now dried mud/dirt at the bottom. At the time it was fresh, deeper and covering much more of the road. It forced everyone to the far left of the road unexpectedly.

Clavicle Claimer