I rode 112 miles with 4300' of climbing yesterday - my first century since I hurt my hip. It felt great. It took nine hours, which is a bit on the long side, but I'm very happy.
I was cleaning my Brompton and it occurred to me that I should clean my Parks chain cleaning tool. I thought simmering in hot, soapy water would clean it really well.
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| I've had better ideas |
Now it looks like it was designed by Dali. So I just ordered a new one. LOL
Amber has been having a lot of truck problems lately and has been thinking about buying a Brompton as her commute is only 8.5 miles and fairly bicycle friendly. REI has good prices on a limited range of Bromptons and if that range includes one you want, it's a good deal. Plus, if you're a member you get 10% back. That makes the price less than $1700 (plus tax).
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| Amber's green M6R |
She surprised me with it yesterday. Edgar was riding my Brompton so we were two Bromptons and a Serotta to the Bistro St Germain and back. Edgar drives a tiny Toyota FRS so carrying two adults and two bicycles is quite impressive.
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| Two bicycles and two adults in this car |
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| Two bicycles not in the car |
After the 50 mile ride, Amber is making new grips a high priority. I recommended the Ergon GP4 grips. After that comes clip-in pedals. As she doesn't need a compact fold, I suggested getting a regular pair of SPDs. She's OK with the saddle at this point, but might upgrade to a Selle Anatomica at some point.
She also needs to practice removing and installing the rear wheel. Even with Schwalbe Marathon tires, flats can still happen. If this bike can extend the life of her truck by a year, it will pay for itself.
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.
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.
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.
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| 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.
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.
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.
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| Zwift is cartoonish |
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| 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.
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.
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| 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.
