I picked up a Cateye Stada computer (my first bike computer!!!) I'd ordered through a special sale on REI's website a couple weeks ago and went by to pick it up after work yesterday. 7 mile commute home turned into 16 w/ a fun stop along the way...
Picked up a new 7 speed chain and a couple Powerlink while at REI. Old chain was pretty worn. Installed the computer and replaced the chain (Powerlinks are AWESOME BTW). All excited to try it all out, I went for a quick ride around the neighborhood at 10 PM.
Well, turns out I probably should have gotten a new cassette, too, while I was at REI, b/c my current cassette is pretty badly worn, too, it turns out. Chain skip is awful. In the words of the immortal Sheldon Brown:
A new chain on a worn sprocket... Due to the pitch mismatch, the chain will not reliably mesh with the sprocket under load, and will tend to jump forward, skipping over the teeth.
Needless to say, I was disappointed b/c I had to slow foot it in this AM since I couldn't pedal as hard as I normally do w/o inducing chain slip. Hope to get a cassette by this evening. Tomorrow I should be able to get a better idea of what kind of speeds I'm normally doing.
Hopefully tomorrow won't be so DAMN hot either. 80* at 8:30 AM <> fun. Humid and w/ a headwind at that. Summer is here...
