Yeah, I'll take it.

It is a gnarly gravel descent, about 1.2 miles long. At one point it goes off an edge which you can't see over until you are off it. I let gravity do its job and tried not to crash, that's all. Seemed to have worked, unlike UltraManDan who actually worked for his KOM.

-Tim-

Keeping the bike upright on a "gnarly gravel descent, about 1.2 miles long." Sure sounds like work to me! Nicely done!

My segment is part of my daily commute, so I hit it everyday. Strava says I have 133 efforts on it. Lol.

My first real attempt at it I rode 2:08 (.75mile segment) which was about 5 months ago. I finally broke 2:00 last week hitting 1:59, which was 1 sec off the KOM of 1:58. I took it the other day by 1 second with 1:57. Never thought shaving off 2 seconds would be so damn hard! Lol. This was also on my way to work so I had my backpack on. Now I want to try it again on a non-commute ride.

My Ritchey C260 stem has tiny T20 bolts and finding a multitool that has a T20 key on it is like pulling teeth. The logical solution seems to be buying a ti bolt kit on eBay that has 4mm allen heads instead of Torx.

Good source for high quality ti bolts is Toronto Cycles. Pricey but they are a legit business. I've ordered from them several times and many of the racer type folks order from them.



Proti is another reputable dealer catering mostly to the motorcycle market. Their products are works of art. I'd be surprised if Squid wasn't familiar with them.





Lots of forgeries and cheaply made parts in the fastener business. Be careful.

Proti used to have a bicycle "division" but I guess stopped. I like their stuff because it is forged rather than machined so it is going to be stronger.

I wish though someone would make a tool like the M10 from Crank Bros. that was fully customizable so you could get all the tools you wanted and leave the junk out and also it should have the option for a JIS screwdriver as all tools should have! Pound Sign: down with phillips

Thanks for the links. I'll probably just keep a regular T20 key in my tool bag since that stem is the only part I own that uses Torx at all. Maybe I'll swap bolts if I'm super bored some day.

Today I took my bike out of my shop behind my first home I've ever owned!

Same for my fixed gear. The Extralite stem uses T20 and they are already ti so I'm not in a rush to buy expensive bolts. Easier just to carry a key in the saddle bag.

That's a big deal. Congrats.

Today I did my longest ride to date as a solo metric century. Managed to maintain just over a 20mph average and my legs feel great. My lower back and my neck tho, they are feeling it.

Thank you very much.

nice ride!

Yeah, a metric at 20 MPH is nice.

And a new house is nice too. Congrats! Now get off my lawn!


-Tim-

Today I burnt popcorn in my microwave.

It was the kind with the cardboard container which expands as it pops. I put it in upside down and it popped some of the kernels but then burned the center into a charred, smoking cinder. I had run water from the sink to get it to stop smouldering. The smoke detector never went off but the whole house stinks.

This is just a continuation of my ride last night. I forgot to eat dinner and stopped to get some food on my ride but had forgotten to bring money so I'm standing in McDonalds in cycling gear like, "Duh?" The bar mount for my light switch got lost somewhere on the road and so I southern engineered it temporarily. I had mounted the light wrong and motorists kept flashing their bright lights and I'm like WTF till I realized. Luckily my multi-tool has a phillips head but then my speed sensor started reading zero and my average speed was like 9 MPH or something. I scared a cat which ran back and forth in front of my bike and I almost ran it over. Then it started to drizzle. I wanted to do 50+ miles but I just went home and had a sandwich and went to bed.

And the jersey I ordered is suuuuuuper nice but it doesn't fit.


-Tim-

Mazel Tov

Painted my wife's single speed cruiser. I paint cars for a living so I sanded it down and put it in the paint booth. Got a single speed cruiser for myself and swapped out some parts. Back into biking since about 8 years ago.

Today we opened with Castelli to ad to our collection of cycling apparel which includes Garneau and Pearl Izumi. Excited to have access to Castelli products at EP pricing!

Sounds like you had quite a day.

The night before last, I was jogging on an MUP. It's near some developed areas, but the stretch I was on had farm fields on one side and on the other, a big drainage ditch and tall grass and weeds. I startled a black cat that was crouched right at the edge of the path. He just froze and stared at me as I passed. A minute later, there was another one, and this time he and I both got startled. Except it wasn't a cat. Skunk! I stopped running very suddenly,* turned around, and went back the other direction. After getting a safe distance, I checked where he'd been. He seemed to have wandered away, so I approached again very cautiously and made it past without incident.

* 7.5 mph to zero in 4 feet.

Good move!

One got in my FIL's garage. It wasn't good.

I had a wilderness adventure in the garden state yesterday. My wife had a 3 hour appointment in Morristown NJ yesterday and she wanted me to drive her from our home in PA. I took is as an opportunity to explore. I plotted a 35 mile course on my Garmin

Great Swamp Park


Patriot's Path in Morristown


It got a bit sloppy on the trail

around the town using the popularity "heat map" as my guide.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2694639159


The first part of the ride took me on some nice roads and I was routed through the center of the Great Swamp national wildlife area. Then more nice roads and I was routed onto Patriot's Path, which turned out to be a challenging single track complete with rocks, roots and puddles. Not exactly the right place for an ex-track bike with 23c slicks at 125 psi. Lucky for me the part of NJ does not have mud, just wet sand and I did not sink in. I bumped and bounced my way along until I came out to a road. A little while longer I went back on the path and it went from paved, to sand, to rocks (ballast) and back to pavement. All tolled about 5 miles of trails with 1 mile of pure rocks. I did not fall and only had to walk on some really steep sections.

All in all it was a nice adventure.

Ride Safe,

Joe

We used to live up there not far from the Great Swamp. There are some nice loops you can take on the road around it, and it is mostly flat. I think there are some bald eagle nesting grounds nearby too. On a nice day, there is lots of road bike traffic too.

Dave

Today I, well actually it was yesterday
I got the fit dialed in on my new to me Vicious Cycles Motivator SS

First bike commute of 2018.

Yesterday I had a super workout on my Parallax.

I like to ride laps at a city park, for interval training. It's a 1.35 mile loop with one moderate and one short, steep climb, plus corresponding descents. About 3/4 of the distance is flat, but the two hills are tough enough to really jack up my heart rate and push my leg muscles to their limits. I usually do 10 laps, sometimes 8 and sometimes 12. My average speed is usually about 18.5 mph, which translates to 43 minutes and change over a 13.5 mile distance. My previous best was 19.0 mph average.

Yesterday I decided to push it and do an hour challenge. In exactly one hour, I got 14.4 laps. That's 19.5 mph, a new record for me. I'm really pleased with that. Now I plan to use it as a baseline and return every week or so to see if I can improve on it.

This bike is so much fun for this kind of workout! Because we don't have a velodrome in my area, I have to find the next best thing, with rides like the one I describe above. I cruise at moderate to high intensity through most of the workout. On the steep descent, I spin as fast as I can just to keep up with the crank. Every time a climb comes around... that's where I have a blast. I stand up and sprint as hard as I can--very exhausting but also very rewarding.

I feel sorry for those cyclists who never experience a light, stiff, responsive frame like this--most of you know what I'm talking about. Likewise those who have to fuss with extra gears, brakes, shifters, and so forth. I've passed lots of roadies in this park. Some of them actually look pretty strong, but I believe they waste too much time looking for the best gear, and some of them have simply never learned how to sprint.

I love my Parallax.

19.5 mph for an hour........ with hills......... impressive.