Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Middleboro that Wasn't

So I rushed all around to get myself to Middleboro. Got lost in Middleboro and in some other town next to it. Found the venue after getting tailgated twice and flipped off once. Took out my bike and rode it around. Rear has a flat - wasn't flat the other day but it's flat now and I haven't ridden it since I got it back. Whatever, easy to fix. I put on my new cross tubular wheel I was going to ride anyway and it felt "fresh."

I'm all psyched to ride and to "attempt" to race this thing. (I'm kinda out of race shape and suck at cross anyway). So then I decide that I'm going to shift. Nothing happens. Hmmm? Why? Well the housing which the cable presses against - from the derailleur itself to the rear stay was not attached? OK. I can fix this - so I reattached it. Now, I haven't ridden this thing since I got it back from the shop on Monday which was a mistake. Shifters still don't work. Lube the hell out of them. Nothing except a pair of lubricated hands (some of the bike lube actually took the glue that was still on my hands from gluing up that tubular last night). Shit. So I can either race tonight in my 36x13 or maybe the 50x13 (yeah, right) or I can sit it out and maybe not risk any injury. I totally could have raced but I really didn't want to at this point - especially in that gear ratio.

So solution number 1 is to buy a new shifter set for my road bike and attach the old road shifters to my cross bike (I don't give a fuck about cross...its just something to do for me). Solution two is to simply create a single speed by breaking the chain. I think this might be the solution. Anyone else have any solutions?

Apart from this I've been running. I did 4.5 miles last PM, easy and I'm not sore. Saturday was one hour - which is a personal record. (you bet I was sore after that). I don't know how people manage to run marathons - I give them credit. Before this winter is over I'm going to do my own personal half ironman w/o the swim (maybe I'll use my rowing machine instead). Lets say a 60 mile ride and then a 13 mile run. Should be possible. On tap this weekend is a 10 mile run. I've taken on a lot of new stuff at work and running fits in way better to my schedule anyway.

Thanks for reading my complaints. Well, maybe some racing next week. The time off thinking about racing has been good for me. I'm starting to think about road again (with excitement) even though its far off.

1 comment:

Brendan said...

Singlespeed that thing! It'll be lighter at least and you'll go fast. If it's a 36t up front now maybe go with a 16t in the rear.