During my recovery ride last night I kept hearing a clicking, or even a sort of squeaking noise. I couldn’t pinpoint the noise since it was intermittent but seemed to be more when I would go over rough pavement or pedaled.
Since it had been a few rides since I had cleaned my bike I thought it would be a good time to do it after my ride and see if I could investigate the odd noise.
As part of the process of cleaning the wheels I also wipe down each spoke. It was then that I realized on the rear wheel, opposite from the drive train, was a broken spoke, AHA! That was the source of the noise I heard! It’s weird that it was the sound of the broken spoke that made me check. Otherwise, I would have kept riding it. You see, the bike did not handle funny at all. I’ll attribute that to the integrity of my wheels – the team issue Zipp wheels.
I originally had them on my Aegis when we built it up. Then my husband bought another pair to put on the Scott, with the premise that I’d be able to swap the wheels between the two bikes. I must admit, these are incredible wheels and I’ve been very happy with them.
At any rate, I only proved that cleaning your bike after each ride is a good idea to give you a chance to inspect parts to make sure that all is in good working order. I only wish I had cleaned it earlier (over the weekend) because I fear I’ve been riding with this broken spoke for a few rides now. Shame on me and lesson learned!
I’ve been back on the bike more consistently lately. I’m starting to feel a bit more like myself on the bike, which is a relief because I was concerned I was losing a lot of fitness.
I almost missed out on a ride yesterday due to some thundershowers moving into the area around ride time. However, they never materialized so I headed out for a solo ride.
My timing was such that the CCCP ride group caught me about 200 meters down the street. I tagged on with them for a little while, as the pace was pretty moderate. I hung out in the back so I’d have an out if the pace did pick up, which it didn’t. So I turned off about 3 miles into the ride. I didn’t want the pace of the group ride dictating my training.
While I was on the ride an interesting thing happened to me – I dropped my chain when downshifting. That rarely happens to me. I know it also happened to another guy on the Saturday morning ride that I lead last weekend. He was able to get it back on while riding. Someone else commented that he was impressed he could do that. I told him it was pretty simple: shift up with the front deraileur and pedal.
So when it happened to me, my first thought was, “Oh crap!” Then my second was, “Don’t panic. Upshift and pedal.” I did and it worked like a charm. Of course that put me in a higher gear than I wanted going up the little rise where the chain fell off so I had to stand up to get back onto the group. Luckily they weren’t going that fast so my effort was just enough to put me on the back without redlining.
Hopefully this nice stretch of weather will continue so I can spend some nice days on the bike. If not, I’ll have to resort to riding in the rain. UGH!
My mentor, Stephanie Chase, has been conducting clinics for people looking to hone their riding skills. I took her clinic series in the spring and found it very helpful.
This is the hill climbing clinic that Stephanie just conducted with a new class:
Last night my husband and I joined out MeetUp group for dinner at Grace, a new restaurant in Portland. This restaurant is located in the former Methodist Church on Chestnut Street.
I had read a review by a local blogger about their experience before going. It wasn’t too terribly favorable, but wasn’t a horrible review either. They had also gone early in the opening so I was hopeful for a good experience.
We went early to grab a drink at the bar, which is the focal point of the restaurant. I ordered, what else, an apple martini. It certainly wasn’t the best I had had but I know that every bartender has their own style of making drinks such as these so I didn’t hold it against them.
I had checked out the menu online before going so I’d know what I was in for in terms of selections. I was really hoping for a couple specials that might be announced at the table but there were none. Unfortunately the when I had asked for a rice type substitution for the potato on some of the dishes I was told the chef does not like to make substitutions. Hmmm, that wasn’t a good sign for me. So I ordered the hanger steak anyway, with the potato, and passed the potato to my husband.
I won’t say we had a horrible experience. It was quite pleasant and all the dishes that came out looked very appetizing.
I’m sure we will go back again. My preference would be to go and have a drink at the bar with friends. If they change up the menu a bit I’d be inclined to go back for dinner again. However, with so many really outstanding restaurants in the Greater Portland area, this isn’t my favorite, save for the wonderful atmosphere.
I went out for a short bike ride tonight. I was really enjoying being on the bike when about 3 miles in I felt a rhythmical thumping with my bike. I stopped to investigate the situation but found nothing out of the ordinary.
Then I heard a loud boom. For a split second I didn’t know what it was because I had never experienced that sound before without it being some sort of fire arm. Then it dawned on me that my tire had blown. Actually, it was my tube. Good thing because I wouldn’t be able to easily replace my new limited edition white Grand Prix 4000 tires.
So I set about to change the tube. When I got ready to pump it up with my CO2 cartridge, it was empty. I’m not sure if it was a dud or what the situation was. Nevertheless, I had nothing to pump the tire up with so I had to call my husband for a lift.
When I spoke with him I indicated that he could bring me a CO2 cartridge or just come get me. I figured the latter would be the case and my ride would be over for today. I totally underestimated my husband. Not only had he brought some cartridges, but he brought another spare tube, had the pump in the car, in addition to my spare bike!! Wow! It was all there for whatever I chose so I could continue my ride. Now THAT’S service!
I chose to pump up the tire with the pump and be on my way. I’m so happy because it was a great afternoon to be on the bike, even if just for a little while.
There is a local race called the Yarmouth Clam Festival race that I look forward to going to watch every year. As you can imagine, it coincides with the Yarmouth Clam Festival. Even before I lost a lot of fitness over the last month, I knew I wouldn’t race this one. It’s an open women’s field and I’m sure I’d get dropped early on, not to mention there is a pretty technical right hand turn after a rough short descent. I wasn’t comfortable with that so I knew it wasn’t the race for me, at least not this year.
Since the race is sponsored by my club, Portland Velo Club, I volunteered to work registration, which was really fun! Then I was able to take video while my husband took photos of the race, and that allowed me to cheer on people I knew in the race. (It’s great to know many of the riders to cheers for.)
In the women’s race there was an early break with Rebecca Wellons, Danielle Ruane, and Anna McLoon:
The break was significant enough that I knew it was going to stick. Rebecca Wellons managed a significant break in the second to last lap to win the race easily. She also won this event last year.
The men’s race was a little different story. With a full field of 100 riders we saw a different break each lap for the first few laps of the race.
It was a great few hours of racing by both men and women and the action is never disappointing. Unfortunately there were a couple crashes in the men’s race, causing one rider to be taken away by ambulance. (I think he just busted up his knee/leg pretty well during a fall around the tight turn onto Lafayette Street.)
I just haven’t gotten around to commuting much by bike this year. I did it once for Green Streets day on June 26th.
Today was supposed to be a nice day and with no errands to run or a group/training ride tonight, it was a good opportunity to bike to work. The plan was to ride easy both to and from work as a recovery ride.
It was an uneventful ride with the exception of another commuter pulling up next to me. We started chatting and I realized it was a guy that I rode with along the same route early in the season two years ago. Even though we ride the route often, his commute is longer so he had to leave earlier, thus we don’t see each other along the way.
You just never know who, or what, you are going to see or meet along a ride.
It states: An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
With all the rain we’ve had lately I have been that object at rest. Occasionally I got in motion but I certainly didn’t stay that way. Did I just disprove Newton’s theory? No because even when I could have gotten out on the bike it seemed like a very daunting process. So I didn’t and managed to stay at rest.
I’m hopeful with a turn in the weather and a bit of sun that I’ll become more in motion and stay that way.
Tonight I was on the PVC Monday night ride (MNR) and it truly felt good. It wasn’t a complete hammer fest but a hard enough effort to feel like I was getting some decent exercise. My heart rate managed to push up to an uncomfortable level on a few climbs. It’s not a really hilly route but there are a couple short climbs.
As is the case with many group rides such as this, when I got home I thought to myself, “Gosh that felt good. I feel good. I should do more of this.”
So after tomorrow (because we have dinner plans with friends), I’m going to do my best to prove Newton’s theory of motion, by staying in motion.
A couple years ago my husband bought the Swagman 4-bike rack. You can purchase this rack to mount to a 1 1/4 or a 2-inch receiver for the rear of a vehicle.
This bike rack has served us very well. However, there have been a few issues with the use of this rack. That’s not to say that the rack is inferior because it’s not. It’s very well constructed and we have no complaints about the product itself. Sometimes you just find out that an item is a bit cumbersome to use when you start really using it a lot. Such was the case with this rack.
For example, because the bikes are right up next to one another on the rack we found it best to wrap any parts that touch another bike with pipe insulation. Wrapped items would include pedals, forks, chain stays, quick release levers, and an other item that might have an opportunity to rub against another bike. This method prevented any unnecessary rubbing to cause scratches, wear, or damage. It wasn’t hard to do, just required a little extra time and thought to mounthing the bikes.
Another example is the time it takes to turn down the nobs on the top that secure the top place and thus secures the bikes. It would require a lot of twisting of three nobs to get the plate completely secure or completely off. That’s not an issue when you are putting on or taking off all the bikes at once. Occassionally we would find that we would drop off one or more passengers at their home upon returning from an event. This meant going through the twisting process multiple times. It just wasn’t a quick process.
When we were looking at bike racks initially we had toyed with the idea of buying roof racks. We decided against it because of the fact that I know I would go through something like a garage that didn’t have enough clearance when I had bikes on the top. I’ve heard horror stories such as these and that was my big fear. Also at the time we did not have a vehicle that had a roof rack for this purpose and decided not to have one installed for this purpose.
However, we finally decided it was time to look into the roof mounted racks. We ended up purchasing the Inno fork lock rack because they would work with our current roof racks without having to purchase another system.
Not only are these racks easy to assemble and install, it will also be much faster for me to get the bikes on and off the vehicle. We purchased three because that’s all that we’d have room for on the top of the car.
The only issue with this system and our car is that the back hatch will not open with the trays on the top if it’s positioned in such a way that the forks are mounted facing the front of the car. But that’s an easy fix – just turn them around so that they are facing the back of the car. (This isn’t the same with all cars. It depends on the spacing of the racks on the individual car.)
The roof rack bike mounts won’t replace our Swagman rack completely. We’ll still have reasons to use it, especially since it works on both vehicles and the roof racks will only work on one. It’s just nice to have a couple options.
"To be a cyclist is to be a student of pain....at cycling's core lies pain, hard and bitter as the pit inside a juicy peach. It doesn't matter if you're sprinting for an Olympic medal, a town sign, a trailhead, or the rest stop with the homemade brownies. If you never confront pain, you're missing the essence of the sport. Without pain, there's no adversity. Without adversity, no challenge. Without challenge, no improvement. No improvement, no sense of accomplishment and no deep-down joy. Might as well be playing Tiddly-Winks." - Scott Martin
