himespau 

Congrats. That sounds like a much better situation for you.

carpediemracing 

Thanks. I was telling someone that I won't say anything until it's definite - they were calling me for a week asking for a start date, and I hadn't yet passed drug or background checks. I mean, okay, I appreciate their confidence in me. But I compared it to bike racing. "I'm not going to post up until I cross the line first". lol. And pointed out that my last win was by a couple seconds but I was so scared of losing it that I threw my bike at the line anyway, just in case. So it's time to post up.

big john

I'm not clear on what bike/crankset you are riding but 2 friends had trouble dropping the chain on 1x set-ups and a shop recommended Wolf Tooth Drop Stop rings and neither one of them has dropped the chain since.

I have an XT derailleur on my mtb with a 1x and the derailleur has a clutch you can engage/disengage. It tightens up things for a rough descent but takes away from the crispness of the shifting so I rarely use it and that bike never drops the chain, anyway. It does quiet things down but you have to get off the bike to reach the lever.

burnthesheep

Zero current issues, existing factory 1x never drops. Bike has an included chain catcher from factory and 1x ring from factory. But it is a 36t. 36/33 is difficult on 20% gravel gradients. Locally, it's never an issue.

I was asking as my vacation the house is on a gravel mountain road, that has some 20% sections.

big john

Can you put the 30 tooth ring on that crank? These days there are lots of different bolt circles that we didn't have years ago, and even direct mount rings.
I expect you will shorten the chain a bit if you go to 30.

burnthesheep

I have uncut chains at the house. It will fit a 30 inner as when setup 2x with a FD that bike/crankset comes with a 42/30 or something like that. So know a 30 will go on the inner.

Meh, I could try it. If it doesn't work then buy the FD and the outer ring also. Then go back 1x for cross racing.

himespau 

If you've got a built in drop guard on the inside and the crankset is a 2x, why not just buy a bash guard for the outer ring that's big enough that it'll prevent the chain from falling off to the outside?

Enthalpic

Walk the bike?

Call it a cross run up.

TMonk

I'm always envious of people that can ride and work at the same time. This happens to me on rare occasion, today is one of those days. 90 minutes z1/2 on the trainer, fairly mindless.

Dealing w COVID Close Contact communications (fun) for my reports/team, and editing performance review documents for said individuals. I should get to some actual science (on site) this afternoon in the lab. All about that balance.

TheKillerPenguin

Talent! I've attended zoom talks while riding but never worked on anything that requires active attention.

ridethecliche

Fantastic news!

Flatballer

New baby is here. In the NICU because she keeps not breathing and turning blue, but they don't seem super concerned and she's improving and doing it less frequently. She's hanging out with us at least, so it's not like pure NICU, just needs to be hooked up.

ridethecliche

Congratulations!

Unlike adults that usually show lots of signs as they get worse, kids look great till they don't. Point being, peds tends to be pretty conservative and cautious with watching.

But again, congrats! I hope it's nothing but a little delay.
🤞🏾You can bring the nugget home shortly🤞🏾

Flatballer

Thanks. She actually finally made it home today. MRI and EKG ultra were both perfect, so hopefully she just grows out of it and keeps breathing.

carpediemracing 

Nice, and congrats!

carpediemracing 

Ironically my SoCal training camp host works for the same company. He does a "deep dive" when he works for someone, learns a lot about the company. We haven't talked in a while but we spent a couple hours on the phone the other night, talking about the company. He's making me look forward to this a lot. Tomorrow is the first day.

carpediemracing 

First day. Brain is mush. Hard to say how it will go but signs are positive. Edward Jones, an investment company. I'll be the branch office administrator for one of the branches (each branch is basically two people, the financial advisor and the BOA).

carpediemracing 

Really cool so far. Great financial advisor ("FA"). There's a branch office administrator (BOA) class group, and it's been good, we help each other out with various things pertaining to lessons or tasks. Like today I ordered business cards for me, and coincidentally right after that a few people asked how to order business cards because they page they landed on didn't have BOA cards (or something). I was able to help them out. So although we're separated because we're in two to four person branches, we're working together virtually.

Spending a lot of time after work with the Missus and Junior. I feel like more of a family unit, preparing dinner together, eating together, and cleaning up together. And then Junior has his things he has to do, etc. But we're hanging out. It's like one of my days off but now it's every night.

ridethecliche

Living the family man dream!

ridethecliche

Uhhhh anyone have a 5x-42-30 triple crank and BB for cheap? Don't care if it's square taper or octalink or whatever.
Trying to use it on a commuter and replacing the outer ring with a bash guard.

burnthesheep

I just unloaded on some cross bike parts. Front derailleur, rings, new wider range cassette, and an alloy cross wheelset.

I'm going to put the cross race tires on that set and either keep the gravel 35's on the other set or put road tires on the other set. I'll probably put road tires on it for training.

I just enjoy riding it more as an electronic bike than the road bike. Plus disc brakes changed things, I appreciate those.

End of day will go 1x for racing cross, obviously. But the 2x go on for training when not around races.

furiousferret

Past few years the Tour has been depressing for us Americans. Outside Sepp Kuss, there really hasn't been much to be excited about. This year we're not lighting up the stage, but Americans are always in the break or doing something. Its a nice change to feel relevant again even though it doesn't look like it will look good on the results (hopefully that changes).

burnthesheep

I'm not sure what, but for a true step change I guess it's a different development pipeline needed. Total random guess that the US pipeline is both smaller and just different.

I feel like a blind spot for US development is that as the eastern half and far western Cali part of the US gets more and more developed and pushes folks further and further out to try to ride..............either it will be upcoming Zwift generations or we may stand to lose out.

US car culture already sucks, and as suburbs expand from areas that are more cyclist "rich" it'll get worse.

I live in Raleigh and have ridden locally for about 5 or 6 years now. I cannot imagine the depressing "suck" riders feel who have ridden here for 20 years.

big john

I've been riding in the L.A. area for nearly 40 years, but mostly in the suburbs and outlying areas. This is car central but it seems to me drivers are a lot more accommodating to us than they were, say, 25 years ago. Sure, there are still dufuses and drunks and distracted drivers, but drivers in general seem kinder, even with large groups of riders who don't mind pissing off drivers.
It's almost as if they understand we are human beings.

burnthesheep

A very weird phenomenon I've seemed to start to believe is the faster the rider the more leeway they give you. If you're tooling along a busy area at 10 to 15mph on the flat and downhill, you don't get as much pity as if you're going 20+ mph. It's almost like the drivers equate your speed to your sense of urgency or something.

When going uphill I'll look for a driveway if cars are behind and wave folks for a few seconds then proceed. Downhill I don't do the whole freewheel at 25mph thing. I put power into the pedals until I hit like 110rpm in the 53/11 on the roadie or the 56/11 on the TT..........which isn't very often. Haha.