Saturday, May 5, 2012

on the road again

I know it's been a while since my last video but things have been busy for me lately, we're prepping the backyard for some fencing and it's been pretty labor intensive. Last Sunday alone Melinda and I cut down 8 trees, cut them up and hauled them to the curb. It's long over due that we built a fence to keep our dogs from dropping bombs in the neighbors yard but I guess better late than never.
I have been sorting through my footage for the next video, next on tap will be the Kokopelli Loops in the Canyon Lands Area of CO. It was definitely one of my favorite days and one of the longest on the bike in Colorado but I ran out of battery juice before the day was over. I had passed on the chance to pick up an extra battery before we left for $13 but the big dummy that I am I didn't go for it. The following day I spent $20 on a back up so I wouldn't have that problem again.




Before I bought the FROG a friend of mine had warned me of the creaking problems of Eccentric Bottom Brackets but I ignored the warnings. I'd read up on Niner's EBB, which works a bit different that the rest and was supposed to not have any creaking problems. I didn't at first when I used waterproof grease but had slipping issues. My next step was to use plumbers tape like instructed on Niner's webpage, that's when the creaking began. I scoured the web in search of a solution and found a mtbr post where Niner recommended a spray called CarboGrip designed for carbon parts. Well I couldn't find any locally so I tried what I could find, Finish Line's version which helped but didn't eliminate the noise completely. I broke down and order a bottle of CarboGrip and paid almost as much for shipping as the CarboGrip, meh. I finally got around to cleaning the EBB today and spraying down the BB shell with the new stuff. I slapped it all back together and headed out into the yard with only 15 minutes to spare before work and gave it a test run. Success! The only noise I heard were the Cicadas.




Speaking of bike fixes, I am now back in the road riding business. My replacement frame came in last week and I gave it, it's first test run Wednesday. I had all kinds of ideas on what I was going to ask for in means of a replacement but I never got the chance, I was either going to upgrade to carbon or go for steel but before I could place a request my frame was in. What I received was a 2 year old model, not much different from my old one but still brand new. I'm not complaining, I like it better than the old one, the color that is. My old frame was dark blue, my favorite t-shirt color but not my favorite bike color. My new frame is sparkly silver with white and black graphics. All of the parts from my old frame were transferred over to the new frame included the dark blue saddle that now looks out of place.


 


I'm thinking it needs a white saddle and white bar tape to match my white shoes.

So my first ride aboard the new roadie was not a ride of magical proportions but it didn't suck either. For one my legs were pretty much trashed from all the yard work and a singlespeed lap at Warriors the night before but I had to know how it would feel. I had some pretty serious thoughts of selling it to fund some fancier parts for my dirt sleds but I guess I've changed my mind again.


 


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