[paulg]

This one doesn’t rhyme but I still like it. It was painted on a retaining wall on a hairpin bend on a road leading up to Darjeeling in India

Better to be 15 minutes late in this world
Than 15 minutes early in the next

[paulg]

A friend had a similar problem with some older STI shifters not releasing the cable or indexing properly and I remembered a fix I’d read about on some bike forums:

Squirt some WD40 in the mechanism and see if it frees up, it worked like a charm for my friends bike.

I’m fairly sure that STI shifters cannot be dismantled without some serious effort and lots of small springs flying around the room!

Good luck.

[paulg]

Hate to be a harbinger of doom but it could be a crack in your frame. When the noise occurs “whether I’m coasting, pedaling, or shifting, in or out of the seat, under load and not under load, clipped in/not clipped in.” you’ve eliminated a lot of things with those tests. Have a look at all the joints in the frame to see if you can see anything, sometimes cracks are hard to spot. Turn the bike upside down, and if it’s a little dirty (I apologize, if you keep your bike clean:o) ) then cleaning helps with spotting cracks.

Anyway I really hope it’s not that, but a cracking sound doesn’t sound good. Pinging could be spokes but you said that noise went away.

Good luck

[paulg]

@peterw_diy 110963 wrote:

I’m looking forward to 2016 when you’ll have your Xtracycle for the entire contest.

paulg, IIRC the website only reloads old rides once a day, so you should appear tomorrow. If not, might need to contact our hero hozn.

Oh thanks! I was wondering if they would show up or not. I’ll wait until tomorrow to get in touch with the freezing saddles data guru.

It’s kind of amazing how many kid rides have been done altogether and in the freezing cold winter no less. We’ve got some hardy riders and hardy kids too.

[paulg]

I misread the instructions on this one and was adding the #kidical to the description not the title. I just fixed all of my kidical rides in strava so I’ll be magically popping up the leader board. Sorry about that!

[paulg]

My commute was done on 35mm tires with studs. I would have died a thousand deaths without the studs this AM!

Four mile run from Arlington Pollution Control plant to airport had some icy spots
Mount Vernon from 4MT to Old Town has a singletrack path through most of the snowy sections which could well thaw this afternoon but I assume will freeze again.
Wilson Bridge – trail was plowed so is free of snow but was of course sheet ice for the entire length.
National Harbor up to Oxon Hill road – basically clear of snow except for some icy spots, this trail is also plowed.
Oxon Hill Farm and Oxon Cove trail was tricky and not plowed. the road was plowed but had big sections of ice, the trail by the cove had a singletrack path from where a truck had driven through but lots of ice again. This was my first time riding through for about 2 weeks and I was expecting the worst, in the end i only had to walk a couple of spots.

Picture is of Oxon Cove Trail

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7977[/ATTACH]

[paulg]

If the chain is skipping in the big ring it’s probably time! You’ll have to replace everything from chain rings and/or crankset , chain and cassette. if you try to use one of those worn parts the new parts don’t play well with them and it skips like mad.

Make sure the speeds of your new cassette match the old one for shifter and possibly hub compatibility.

You can maybe get away with just changing the chain rings of the crankset but you still have to pull the crankset off the BB which you would need the a tool that you don’t have. A bike co-op type place might help you out with tools or you can probably get a crank puller fairly cheaply.

If you are replacing cables, it’s well worth getting a proper cable cutter with curved shears.

Lubing the chain every now and again helps too. :o)

[paulg]

A sleaze ride to a kids birthday party got a bit more serious when we left to go home! the 5 year old handled it well with no moaning at all except for asking me to clear the ice from his seat and handlebars.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7968[/ATTACH]

[paulg]

I guess I’d like to call these shots ‘Priorities’. As others have noticed the parking lots and roads are cleared but the major local trails remain unusable for traveling along with a bike.

I ran an errand to Crystal City on Saturday just before the snow hit and decided to ride home via the Mount Vernon Trail from the Crystal city connector to Four Mile Run. It took me about 20 minutes when 5 should have sufficed! I stopped to take these shots that highlight the Park Service’s Priorities. Cars get a nice safe run on the George Washington parkway which the Multi use trail adjacent is mostly unused.

I also got a shot of the cleared four mile run trail where it joins MVT. [ATTACH=CONFIG]7921[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]7922[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]7923[/ATTACH]

[paulg]

Just want to say a big thanks to Arlington County for plowing the Eads Street Bike lanes. I rode through there last night and it was great to have a snow free ride all the way. Very much appreciated. It’s safer riding the bike lane than some of the side streets that are quite narrow now due to the piled up snow.

[paulg]

@paulg 106060 wrote:

Just a quick note to say sorry about what will be a poor performance this week from me. I have to drop off and pick up the kids due to Wife on travel and therefore can’t bike commute. I CAN however, pick up the kids in the bike trailer so hopefully it won’t be zero points this week.

Back to normal next week.

Back in the saddle again! Sung to the tune of Back in the Highlife again was my tune for the morning commute. (quite mind numbing after the 20th time around and not knowing any other words!) I managed to ride every day last week mostly to pick up kids but this week hopefully I’ll get four 24 mile commuting days in again.

Major kudos to those who rode yesterday morning in the cold cold sleet and rain.

[paulg]

Just a quick note to say sorry about what will be a poor performance this week from me. I have to drop off and pick up the kids due to Wife on travel and therefore can’t bike commute. I CAN however, pick up the kids in the bike trailer so hopefully it won’t be zero points this week.

Back to normal next week.

[paulg]

I screwed up the re-authorization step. I fixed that about an hour ago. Looks like we are now in second place!

Paul g

[paulg]

@hozn 105048 wrote:

@paulg, did you reauthorize the application to read your data? (See original instructions for authorizing FS app.)

Thanks!! I hadn’t done that authorization step again… i now have and I see my name in the teams etc.

Much appreciated.

[paulg]

@hozn 104913 wrote:

FYI, I removed all athletes from my database that were not assigned to one of the configured strava team clubs. This undoubtedly removed some of the contestants from the system; they’ll just have to reauthorize the application. So the stats on the homepage will be a little lower.

Firstly: Thanks very much for all your hard work in making this come together. I love the layout of the summary website.

Secondly: I only signed up for my team this AM (Monday Jan 12th) due to being away for the weekend and it’s this afternoon now and I still don’t see my name on the leaderboard or team sheet. (Team 12 Doozy Dozers). I’m wondering if I missed the cut off and therefore need a special authorization? Sorry for being a pain.

Paul G

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