Monday, July 16, 2012

Riding bikes, working on bikes, etc...

I rode every style of bike that I own this week. That's road, time trial, MTB, CX and commuter. I don't know that I've ever done that before. I was kind of up and down this week. I went out and did some TT intervals on Tuesday and felt pretty good. I was feeling a bit tired , but had a hard workout planned for Thursday, so I decided to ride the MTB for a bit Wednesday. Fair enough, I didn't set any records Wed, just road a few laps on the trails at Wapahani park. Then Thursday I set out for 2x20min threshold intervals and really struggled through them. 2x20 TH is a very hard workout and sometimes you just don't have it. I was at the low end of my zone for both of them. I barely made it. But I made it. So although I wasn't as good as I wanted to be, it was mission accomplished.
Sunday I wanted to do something different. I haven't been out on the gravel roads on my CX bike in many months. So I decided to go out and do a couple hour "CX" ride. It's been so dry that a lot of the gravel is displaced and the silty powder underneath is exposed in a lot of places. This makes it nice on the flats, but on the hills since there's not a layer of gravel to absorb the car tires, the braking bumps are really bad. I noticed this early on while descending Gross road. I was being thrown all over and was borderline out of control. I looked down at my computer as I hit 43mph and knew if I braked it would just make things worse. So I just loosened my grip and rode it out. A little scary I will admit.
About an hour later I hit another big hill, but this time going up. It was completely cross-rutted with braking bumps as well. This hill is extremely to get up when conditions are perfect, so this was extra hard. But I made it up that bastard. And that's an accomplishment.
I also stared getting my "A" CX bike back together this week.     


I cleaned it real good before taking it apart last winter, but it still has some frozen parts that had to be overhauled. I enjoy detail work, so this is "fun" for me. I almost gave up on freeing this bearing. I had to soak it in the strongest penetrating agent know to man, the creeper (orange can), work it free w/ pliers (this took probably 5minutes of constant working of it), then once it started turning I gave it a bath in 711 general lube (silver can)  to clean out all the creeper. Once I had it cleaned/dried I filled it w/ Rock and Roll Super Web grease (white tube) and re-sealed it. Good as new; better actually.
So I'm getting my CX bikes ready and preparing for the State TT. I'm not sure if I've ,entioned this already, but a friend of mine is getting married this Saturday in Ft Wayne and the State TT is Sunday 20minutes away form Ft. Wayne. So it worked out perfect that I can go to both. Which is good because there's no fckn way I'd drive up to Ft Wayne two weekends in a row if it had been scheduled that way. I69 between Indy and Ft Wayne is a total shit drive. Once a year is enough for me.
I'm going to do another Morgan-Monroe TT this week, then my next report will be post-State TT. I am borrowing a friend's high zoot Zipp disc rear wheel, so hopefully I can tear it up (the course, not the wheel, I can't afford to replace the wheel so hopefully I don't tear it up).
See y'all!

No comments: