First question – it’s 11 PM and I’m not asleep. Why? Have I learned nothing?
Got in 40 minutes on the trainer. Didn’t get on the bike ’till about minute 15. Cranked up the resistance one notch during each commercial break, did the highest (of 3) for two segments, and did the last segment in neutral. The trainer’s great to have for just mindless spinning, which is what I wanted to do tonight after hitting it relatively hard on Saturday and Sunday. But, I kind of wish I’d gone for the one with greater resistance and a handlebar mounted control. Suppose I can upgrade when I wear this one out.
I also think I’d likely be better off running gears instead of the singlespeed on the trainer – big ring, small cog on the highest resistance would be something. But, I like to think I’m saving wear and tear…
Oh, and it turns out that I’m likely the last one to whom you should come for bike mechanical advice. Sunday afternoon, as I pulled out of the drive, I noticed the bike was making a rubbing noise. Did a quick check, wasn’t the brake pads, so I went on wondering if the couple of semi-wet rides I’ve had were enough to fry the sealed bearings in the wheels. I’d convinced myself they were, and continued muscling along, listening to the scraping.
When I got home and was putting the bike away, I noticed the rear wheel wasn’t turning particularly well. Crap, I started to think, wondering if I’d ruined the entire wheelset. (in hindsight, there’s no way – if Ray doesn’t go through about a dozen hubs a month, no way did two rides in winter rain ruin mine).
Closer inspection revealed that I’m a bleepin’ idiot. There’s a reason that singlespeed types use bolts to hold the axles to the frames, and it’s not that, like deraileurs, shifters and three syllable words, quick releases are too complicated to use. No, when you’re dealing with a rider <sarcasm>as massively powerful as I am </sarcasm>, the skewer will sometimes shift, as it did in this case. The drive side moved a fraction of an inch closer to the pedals, causing the non-drive side tire to spend the entire ride rubbing gently on the inside of the nondrive chainstay.
D’oh.
The tire looks fine – it’s a specialized armadillo, with a ton of rubber and a thick kevlar belt. The frame looks fine – nothing 50 cents of Rust-O-Leum won’t fix. It’s just my pride that’s wounded.
On the upside, it was another week of avoiding springing for brake pads…
One last plug, since it’s still before Thursday – if you’re not watching “My Name is Earl”, you shouldn’t be watching television. Seriously. The show’s that good. Better even than “Desperate Housewives”, and I’m sayin’ that after seeing the episode complete with hot-model-wrestling-creepy-hot-nun-fu. Last week’s Earl episode kept me in stitches, even though my wife kind of panned it. Best lines?
(on entering like a real office building)”It’s like when Ted from Bill and Ted put on the magic sunglasses and went into the future…”
“I know some guys who run a counterfitting operation – they’ll give me $10,000 in twenties for (the big giant color copier)”
Go set the Tivo/VCR now. I’ll wait.
