It's Not Fog

Wildlife Encounter: Peloton of turkeys.

It's not fog - it's steam coming off the weeds as the sun warms up the Earth and evaporates the dew... kewl.

THAT GUY passed me before the Gate, he was in shorts already.

Then JB and I did the Hole. It was a little colder on the South Side.

Windiest Day of the Year

Much less foggy though.

Met Rick and JB at the Church and visibility was pretty good. By the time we got to the Dumpster Gate it was clear and almost warm. Then the wind picked up and it was kind of a warm wind that made me want to take off my jacket. When we got past the Bump, the wind was so strong it made riding close together pretty tricky... three to a lane was just making me a little nervous, so we spread out a little.

At the Junction, other riders arrived with similar experiences. I didn't park my bike because the wind would have blown it out of the rack. Then Mark, one of Rick's team mates, came up from the South and we decided to go up some more. Mark had a female companion (in white on the bench) was a good rider but didn't talk much. Rick and I stopped at Juniper but they kept going.

Coming back down was challenging too - I almost had to pedal down the Bump the wind was so stiff.

NOTE: Starbucks at the Encina Safeway still has peppermint lattes!

Classic January Ride Redux

Pretty much just like last week.

Even got pretty much the same photos - LOL.

Fog ceiling was a little lower.






Almost 70°F at the Junction.

This chunk of road is doomed. For a little perspective...

OBTW - I've added a favorite blog to my list: Fast Eddy's Flandria Cafe for lovers of Flemish cycling past and present. Really great stuff over there.

Classic January Morning Ride

JB and I were both about 10 minutes late so that worked out great.

Fog was thick and got thicker as we got higher. I wasn't sure we'd ever climb out of it.

Just about Chainbuster though was the ceiling, just as JB had predicted, and it was glorious. Sunny and blue skies, dry and (sorta) warm.

Re-washout is getting worse. I suspect contractor malfeasance.

After a short break at Junction we went on up to Juniper. Got warm enough to take off gloves and JB even took off his jacket.

Coming back down was pretty miserable though... I double gloved it and still my fingers had that lovely frozen numbness, plus visibility was close to zero so it wasn't that much fun either.

A quintessential January morning on The Mountain. Can't wait to do it again.

New Crank in Slop

Surprised this morning that it wasn't raining harder... forecast was for heavy precip. I was prepared to cancel when I woke up but when I looked outside I decided to go for it. Got my new crank on earlier this week but I needed to put on the chain and pedals before the ride.

New and clean... that won't last long.

No one at the Gate, I put up the rock. Nice to hear the creeks burbling.



One nice thing about riding alone... you can stop whenever you want for a photo.

Wildlife Encounter: pair of coyotes at Burma Road... ran off before I could get my camera out.



Hardly anyone on the Mountain. Saw two riders coming down, and a ranger sweeping rocks off the road.

Oh oh... what's this???

Dayum.... they just repaired this section.

Hope they got a warranty.

Pavement hasn't broken off yet, but it's undercut bad and deep.

Saw a couple more cyclists at Junction.


Not really very cold today, just wet and a little windy... probably about 1.5 Belgian Hardman® Points.

Funky fungus at Big Shady Oak

Le Befoure Chotte

Le Afteur Chotte

I may have found a work-around on the photo blogging thing... crop all my photos to be tall and skinny... like 9w and 12h... that seems reasonable.

Foggy Mountain

Hit "snooze" a few too many times this morning. Was late to the Gate and the rock was on the post.

Stopped to watch a hawk (?) eat a rat (?) on the power lines near the Loading Dock, but he (?) wouldn't let me get close enough for a good photo.

North Gate pavement is getting pretty bad... some combination of age, construction, and weather I guess.

Up past Chainbuster the fog started to clear a little and I was treated to a show by "That Guy".








Still don't have the photo blog thing figured out. The issue is trying to manage the photos in my blog through the Picasa web album where the photos actually get stored. If I upload the photos from the blogging software they all go to the same folder which now has like 700 photos in there making it hard to find what I'm looking for. When I save them in easily managed folders within the Picasa web album they import funny into my blog and you readers don't see the whole image unless you click on it. So if you see a big photo (pavement, Guy) you should click on it to see the whole thing, and if you see a small photo (hawk) clicking on it won't make it any bigger. You can always go to my Picasa site to see all my photos, see the link in the sidebar. And if any other blogspot users want to tell me how to handle this better I'd really appreciate it.



Adventures in crank replacement:

Saturday: Crank breaks. Went to Encina; they don’t have an Italian BB and can’t help, suggest I order a new crank and BB on line and then have them install it. Here are some close ups of the break:

Sunday: Found a good deal on a Shimano 105 compact crank from PerformanceBike.com so I order it along with AN ITALIAN BOTTOM BRACKET and the special wrench. Paid extra for 2-day FedEx so I’d get it and have time to install it before next Saturday.

Monday: Tried to remove my old busted crankarm, but it’s a self-extracting style and the self-extracting doodad is missing so I take it to Sports Basement and ask them to remove the old BB and chase the treads and face the shell to get it ready for my new BB.

Tuesday: Sports Basement calls and says they got the old BB out but they don’t have AN ITALIAN BOTTOM BRACKET thread chaser/facer tool. I brought the bike home and cleaned him up and it looks like the threads are pretty good anyway so I decide not to have it done.

Wednesday: Performance package comes and I unpack it. I admire the beauty of the crank, solid feeling of the wrench, and simplicity of the BB outboard bearings. Hey, there are little arrows on there telling which way to tighten in case some newb doesn’t know that ITALIAN BOTTOM BRACKETS are righty-tighty on both sides. Hey wait a minute, the arrow on this one is pointing the wrong way, which can only mean one thing… this is not AN ITALIAN BOTTOM BRACKET. Bastards at Performance sent me an English BB. I inspect the box and see that the place to indicate English or Italian threads has no indication. I check the website see that Performance has taken down the option to order a 105 ITALIAN BOTTOM BRACKET; some guy knew he was sending me the wrong piece and to cover up his mistake he eliminated the choice.

Thursday: I call the Performance store in Walnut Creek hoping they have AN ITALIAN BOTTOM BRACKET that I can trade for my English version and they have none. Jeez these things are not obsolete, the industry has standardized on English but there are still a lot of bikes around with ITALIAN BOTTOM BRACKETS. So I called Performance customer service and the nice lady says she’ll refund my extra postage for two-day FedEx, refund the English BB including return shipping, and offer free shipping on a replacement - and by the way Ultegra bottom brackets are now on sale for cheaper than 105 bottom brackets (huh?). She checked with tech support who apparently told her that 105 bottom brackets aren’t offered with Italian threads. I was pretty sure this was bullshit (and have since verified) but no sense arguing with a customer support person about that. Besides, weather for Saturday looks good and I’ll be happy riding my Klein. My new Ultegra ITALIAN BOTTOM BRACKET should arrive on Tuesday.

So Eddy still is sans cranque. I considered giving him a real good cleaning since there are so many otherwise inaccessible areas that were now exposed … but he’s my foul weather bike and he’s going to get all sloppy on his next ride… I decided on just a quick wipedown.

Fail!

JB told me he wouldn't be coming... he's got some kind of throat bug. So I gladly slept an extra half hour and prep'ed for a solo ride. Forecast was for rain so I was expecting some Belgian Hardman points.

CLICK ON THE PHOTOS! Blogger software is clipping them so you're only seeing half the shot... I'll get this figured out before my next post.

The weather was holding out though and things were going better than expected up until just past the Bump when my cleat appeared to come loose. I stopped to inspect and couldn't find anything wrong, then started up again. But something was definitely wonky so I stopped and pulled on my crank and tweaked on my cleat and still couldn't find anything wrong. Started up again and SNAP... my crank arm just broke off.

You have to click on these photos to see the whole thing... Blogger is cropping them in a weird way.

Limped my way to Encina where Tim told me he didn't have anything that would fit my Italian BB and suggested I buy something on-line and they'd install it for me. Managed to one-foot it back the rest of the way home.

A little looking around gave me some serious sticker shock on crank prices but I did find a good deal on a 105 version. Life's too short to ride crappy cranks but the crap line isn't always clear. In the end, I'm glad this didn't happen while I was sprinting up the Dips because broken cranks usually equal pain.

Rain Cape

Second ride of the season requiring my full jacket, first ride with my winter gloves and rain jacket.

Some blue sky mixed in with black rain clouds... I knew I was going to get wet at some point.

Met Peter and JB at the Gate. After the Bump I quit watching my watch and just plugged along. Always nice to see other riders unafraid of a little precip.

Put the rain jacket on near the Upper Washout, pretty solid drizzle the rest of the way to Junction.

Didn't get too cold, managed to stay reasonably comfortable the whole ride. Wish I'd brought glove liners for the way down though.