a tough one, and a better one

 Today's September 15. I'm not going to write much about yesterday's ride, except to say that it was forty-ish miles with far more climb than I was ready for. A rider who was on that ride, as well as on today's, was joking that I was climbing like Pantani, but the truth was I was exhausted miles before the end of yesterday's ride; I felt nauseated from the exertion a few times, and thought I was getting tunnel vision near the end. I'm going to be 70 at my next birthday, and I may need to start thinking seriously about how much exertion I'm able to put myself through safely... and balancing that with not becoming a mere couch potato, unwilling to challenge myself in any way.

But two of our number DID wear matching F-Bomb socks on that one:

 I'd scheduled one of my regular Sunday rides for today, and I wasn't sure when I went to bed that I'd be able to do it. But I got up today with only some tiredness in my legs, and decided to do the ride. We started with thirteen.

I gotta remember to clean off my camera lens.

It was over one of my usual routes, with a stop at that Sweet Gourmet, that's open again on Sundays (apparently, they just don't make enough on summer Sundays to stay open). As usual with my rides, some went off the front and waited at the stops and turns, others went at a slower pace. A new woman came along, and the ride was maybe a bit more than she was ready for, but a few of the riders made sure she had company and was safe, and she did make it back at the end... whereupon she was deluged with suggestions about technique and particular leaders, and every other thing, and also buried in invitations to join the club when it became clear she wasn't yet a member. It was fun hearing from all the other riders, and I only hope we didn't scare her off.

It was a good day, better than the one before.

electric boots with an iphone app

 

Dave H posted a club ride for today out of Skillman Park, with what RideWithGPS said was gonna be about 1600' of climb. A number of my favorite club members were registered, and I decided to go. 

The first other person at the start was Heddy.

Heddy had a new toy for the cold weather: battery-driven heated socks, connected to an app on her phone for controls and reporting on the state of the batteries (one for each leg). Another rider remembered Elton John's lyric from Bennie and the Jets:

She's got electric boots, a mohair suit,
Y'know I read it in a magazine...

And the others:

Dave hadn't apparently planned on a stop, but the route passes the Boro Bean in Hopewell, and the sense of the meeting was to have a stop there. 

Shortly after we started, we turned west onto Skillman Road to face the perpetual headwind, for which Laura OLPH took credit (if there's not a wind from the west on Skillman Road, then something dire is happening with the weather). Then we started the climb up Hollow Road towards Zion, and then further up on Lindbergh... and I got the suspicion that the reported 1600' of climb at RideWithGPS might be an underestimate. My device was already reporting 900', and it told me we had three more rated climbs (the GPS device has a function that rates climbs if they are long and steep enough. I regularly have more of them than fellow riders on their devices; I tell them that this is because my device is in "old man mode"). I remember complaining that I was too old be be doing climbs like this; Heddy later pointed out that I was saying this as I was passing her on an uphill. (Don't worry: Heddy passed me often enough that I won't get a swollen head.)

A few of us at the Boro Bean:

And between us and a few other riders there, there was a gorgeous chaos of bikes.

I noticed Dave saddling up as if to go, and others doing the same. We got started on the route again, but we'd left several behind who weren't ready to come out with us yet. They pointed out the problem when they caught up with us. It shouldn't happen, and it can be a problem with large groups. Edit:  I have been confronted about the way I originally wrote about this. I have removed the offending language.

On we went. Dave had set the route so we avoided some of the worst short, sharp shock hills and the worst traffic; I may use some of these roads on my future rides. We went the other way on Opossum, which means we went DOWN the hill that's so unpleasant when you go UP it, and we went the right way across the one-way bridge. Laura pointed out that it was more pleasant this way... but that way doesn't go the way I usually want to go!

Ghina, Stacey, and EZ mugging at the end:

Yeah, and remember that reported 1600' of climb? The ride page says it was actually over 2000'. RideWithGPS routing climb estimates may have the reliability of Tiktok influencers. Just sayin'.

and all for the want of a horseshoe nail

 On the Yellow Maserati, my titanium bike, the rear brake wasn't stopping the wheel. The front brake was fine (which is probably why I never noticed it). but the rear brake wasn't doing the job.

Brake pads are cheap (even the specialty Kool-Stop salmon wet-weather ones I like), so I headed over to my usual supplier, Universal Cycles, to order a pair. (Ramblin' Wrench, my maintenance business, isn't big enough to have an account at QBP, and Universal has a huge inventory and reasonable prices.)

Well, the shipping cost is almost as much as the item. I'm going to need to change tires soon, so let's get a couple of Vittoria Rubino tires, too... and one of the bikes I expect to be called to work on soon has a barrel adjuster that's going to want to be replaced. They're cheap, so let's throw that in the cart, as long as I'm getting all this stuff anyway. 

These brake pads are getting expensive.

But I'm close to the free-shipping threshold, so what else can we throw in? Gloves are safe, and I like those Planet Bike ones, because the padding goes all the way across the palm, rather than being split right where I want to lean on the bars. And oh, my stars, there's a pair of socks with a dumpster fire on 'em. That kind of describes how I feel a lot of the time, and they'll get us over to free shipping.

Then, two or three days later, I remembered what Sheldon Brown said about oil and grease deposits on rim brake pads and braking surfaces, and I wondered, even though my brake conditions aren't what he described, whether the brake performance dropoff could have been caused by contaminant on the pads or braking surfaces. So I cleaned 'em up with Simple Green, and rinsed well... and the brakes work like new.

(The should. They've been on for about a year, and have plenty of meat left.)

So I didn't need that order. All that stuff will eventually be put to use, of course, but budgeting is budgeting, right?

Hrmph. I hate being reminded that I'm not as smart as I think I am.

And if the title of the post doesn't resonate with you, click here.

family values on a pair of socks

 It might be too small to read. The text on the sock says, "You look so disappointed. Are you my mother?"

Wait - you mean enough other people felt like that, that they decided to make socks about it?

Original here.