Amber on my Brompton

For technical reasons I drove to Playa Del Rey and met Amber and Edger there to ride up and down the beach path between Santa Monica and Torrance. Amber's still thinking about buying a Brompton so I lent her mine to ride for a week.

Here's some video of her looking pretty solid on it.

REI has a good deal on a green M6R right now about $100 less than I've seen elsewhere. With her 10% membership discount, she gets $186 credit on her next purchase making it under $1700.

Green M6R for $1700 after membership credit

I'm really liking Rouvy and my wife is using it too so that helps assuage the guilt of spending $500 on a smart trainer and $600 on a dedicated computer. I definitely think this was a good decision. My hip is completely healed so I'm able to add some climbing to my workouts.

Story of a chain ring

The last ride on my Serotta I had just replaced my chain because I keep a close eye on my chain's wear. Unfortunately my middle chain ring had worn and started slipping with the new chain. So I had to buy a new one. It's a Campagnolo Racing T middle chain ring 40 tooth with 135mm BCD. My LBS couldn't lay their hands on one and Amazon was no use either.

I Googled it and found very little online. The few options I found were $70 or more plus shipping. I found one at bikerecyclery.com but when I tried to order it their website said it was out of stock even though the webpage said there was one. I tried calling them but the person who answered wasn't interested in helping. The photo looks like it was used anyway - I should have guessed it from the name.

In the end I found it on Wiggle.com which is a popular online bike store in the UK. Several people on Cyclechat.com had mentioned them and they have a good reputation. The only problem is, the image doesn't match the description. They have an image of an outer chain ring alongside the middle chain ring description.

It says 40 tooth but the image is the wrong chain ring

So I don't know what they're going to ship, plus I hate the high pressure Hurry message. It's probably right, though, there were three and I ordered two of them.  I took a chance and they shipped almost immediately and arrived in the USA in two days. Then they sat in Arlington for five more days until FedEx picked them up and got them to me in two more days. If Arlington had done their job faster I could have had them in 4-5 days.

The good new is the description is correct and I fitted it on the Serotta last night. They're from a cheaper group set than the Chorus I had before, but beggars can't be choosers. Plus I have a spare 😀

I also received the new rear wheel from Peter White (far less drama there) and so my Serotta is ready to ride with the Redlands Bike Club tomorrow.

Third time's a charm

A month ago, while riding the 50 mile route from Anaheim to Seal Beach and back, I was knocked off my bike by an inattentive pedestrian and managed the fracture my hip. Even though I was not moving very fast, I just fell badly. So I didn't get to finish that ride.

Last week, Amber, Edgar, and I rode the same route. I kept flatting and, while fixing the second one, I realized my rim had split and the jagged edge was eating inner tubes every five miles. I booted the rim and the third tube got us back to the cars. On top of that, I had replaced the chain and found I also need to replace the middle chainring. Attempt number two had failed.

I had already ordered a new rear wheel from Peter White but finding a replacement chainring turned out to be impossible. I eventually found replacements from Wiggle.com in the UK. They should be here next week.

Last night I got the Brompton out and tried to ride to Seal Beach for the third time after work. I finally made it. Poutine at the Bistro St. Germain was a real treat. I finished at about 10:15pm. Lovely ride, but I'm pretty sore this morning. Longest real bike ride in a month, so not surprised there.

Zwift review

I recently bought a Wahoo Kickr Snap smart bicycle trainer and started a subscription to Zwift. I like what Zwift does and the app works well, although it's hard to know whether to go to the app, the companion app, or the website to do things. Fortunately I bought a one month subscription instead of saving money and buying a whole year.

I'm running the Zwift app on a Dell laptop with 8gb ram, 256gb SSD, Intel I3 processor and although it takes a while to get going, it runs the cycling simulator well. When I'm done with a ride I have to go my main computer, download a FIT file, and upload it to RideWithGPS. This is a bit of a pain, and it doesn't look like Zwift is going to make this any easier.

Zwift is cartoonish

Here's a screenshot from the Zwift simulator. It's adequate but not great. The big problem is the website which has had two major bugs creep into production in the last few days, both of which prevented me from uploading my results to ridewithgps. I also found you could configure the screen above to some extent, but it doesn't remember your settings so it goes back to the defaults on the next ride. 

Zwift has plenty of routes, but only three "countries" are available at any time. I'd really like to ride what I want, when I want.

So I checked out rouvy.com.

Rouvy is photo-realistic

It looks gorgeous. Running the app on my Dell laptop looks fantastic, but it exceeds the capability of a low-end laptop and lags occasionally. Running it on my mid-level Samsung tablet is smooth as silk. I may replace the laptop with a mid-level desktop.

Rouvy also has a large number of routes and I can ride any of them whenever I want. I've only looked at three so far, but they look fantastic. Once you have an account you can preview any course you want. The courses are categorized and, as I'm using the trainer for physical therapy right now, I can view just the flat courses if I want.

I have configured my account to automatically upload my workouts to ridewithgps. Here's a link to the tutorial ride I did. No more fooling around with FIT files.

Rouvy is a little cheaper than Zwift at $144/year vs $14.99/month. It ticks all my boxes.

Walking again

It has been two weeks since I fractured my hip and I can finally kind of walk without crutches. I've been doing self-physio (by the time I can see my doctor, I'll be dead or cured) by riding flat Zwift courses on my trainer. It also works as therapy, because if I can't workout I get irritable. My power and miles are down, but it's better than nothing and it really helps mentally.

I tried going to the BBC website and watching shows on their iPlayer at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer while I'm working out but it only works if you're in the UK. I have similar problems with GCN+ and their territory restrictions. So I got a subscription to NordVPN which, among other things, lets me pretend to be in a part of the world where I am not. It lets me watch BBC content which is restricted to the UK and races that are not available in the US. I'm so naughty.

On the plus side, I was going to drop my GCN+ subscription but now I can watch all their race coverage, I'm going to continue it. So it seems GCN comes out ahead from all this.

Hoping to go for an easy bike ride with Amber next weekend.

I bought one of those ultrasonic cleaning machines and tried cleaning a chain ring. It is rubbish. After 18 minutes of ultrasonics in a warm 5% simple green solution I still could not tell which half had been immersed. It would have been quicker to clean it manually. It's going back.

Can you tell which half has been cleaned (it's the top half)

While I had it apart I hand cleaned the cassette and the two bigger chainrings. I can't get the smallest one off without pulling the bottom bracket and the tool to do that is unreachable until I can walk better. I also replaced the chain because I had broken the last one too short. Stupid mistake, and expensive. But my bike is a lot cleaner now.

I also wired up the taillight on my Brompton because when I installed the rack the light sits further back and the old wire was too short. It has been a busy day. It's amazing what you can do when you don't need to use crutches. Need to clean the Brompton tomorrow.

Crashed Friday night :-(

So every ten years or so I seem to have an accident that keeps me off the bike for a while. I went for an after-work ride to Seal Beach Friday evening and as I was riding along the beach path, there was a pedestrian and his girlfriend walking up the middle of the trail with a walker coming the other way on my left so I went to pass them on their right.

As I always do I clearly called out "I'm going to pass you on your right". His brain wasn't working properly so he moved to his right. His girlfriend stayed where she was, clearly the smarter of the two, but this left me with nowhere to go. I rode into him, bounced into a wall, and then went down. Fortunately I wasn't going very fast, but still managed to badly sprain or fracture my hip. I also got some road rash on my elbow which bled a lot.

The pain wasn't that bad while cycling so I kept riding and turned around only at the end of the beach path. I rode 30 miles after the accident and didn't realize how bad my hip was. When I got back to the car I realized my right leg would not support my weight. I couldn't walk. Driving home was a bit painful, but getting down the steps to my house took at least ten minutes and a lot of pain.

I  bought some crutches from Walmart of all places, but they were the only local store with crutches in stock so kudos to them. They've really helped and I was able to go to work yesterday but it was exhausting so, as there's snow predicted today, I had to take to day off. I'm not sure when I'll be back on the bike, but it's looking like at least a week before I can even get on the trainer.

Yeah, I'm bummed. Hopefully this won't affect Lejog.

Wheels, racks, and Zwift

I had to get Sherry's rear wheel trued and that, together with a new tire, fixed the thumping problem on the trainer. But while her wheel was in the shop I mounted my Serotta on the trainer and noticed my rear wheel needed truing too. Unfortunately the shop noticed one of my spokes pulling through the rim so I need a new rear wheel. They offered to rebuild the wheel on the existing hub for $340 but I decided to look for a quote from Peter White, who builds amazing wheels.

He built my front dynamo hub wheel about eight years ago and it has never needed to be trued. This is impressive. I called them up this morning and I'm getting a new Campy Record 10 speed hub, a solid touring rim, spokes, rim tape, and build for $385. After shipping it will be a little over $400. I'm expecting this to be the last rear wheel I will ever need.

Hopefully the old rear wheel will last until the new one arrives.

I got a rear rack for my Brompton from Perennial Bicycles and installed it Tuesday. It took about an hour to install with no blood, tears, or cussing. I used my new Topeak torque wrench which made it easier. The new mudguard sits very close to the tire. I hope that isn't going to be a problem.

I needed to remove the wheel to install everything. I can always use the practice because one day I will get a rear wheel flat and fixing them on a Brompton is not a trivial exercise. The only tricky part about the rack installation is that both the bolts that attach the rack stays to the frame are installed with the head to the left as you look at them from behind. Fortunately the old bolts and the excellent instructions both made this obvious.

I had a great workout yesterday setting a personal best 821 Watts and getting 10th place on the London sprint 30 day best times. Of all the riders that have ridden the sprint in the past 30 days, I placed 10th. I'm pretty chuffed about that. How many Watts am I going to have to generate to get 1st place? It doesn't bear thinking about.