Saturday December 18th
Weekends are always a bit slow so I'm just sitting down to write this now at 7:12 so it will be a condensed version. This morning I cleaned my cross bike finally and then started to think more over what bike I'm bringing to Taiwan with me. I'm somewhat concerned about the gearing on the bike, being a 1x9 and all, plus the brakes on it. As you cross racers well know, cross brakes kinda sorta work, most of the time. The thing I'm thinking about is the bad gearing going up, and brakes going down, when I do something like this:
That's 8000 vertical feet in about 40 miles. I'm not sure the 1x9 with a 42x26 as my easiest gear is going to cut it. Then going down, I really want to have the confidence that if I need to stop, I can. The downside to that is rather The Suck, like falling into a ravine and so on. Not really into that.
I was stuck on the trainer this morning and I used the Fuji which I cleaned and got into reasonably working order with the old Can O' Beans wheels on them. For those of you who don't remember, Can O' Beans is the old Trek road bike that's been more or less stripped down to parts and laying all over my basement. In the literary industry, this is called foreshadowing.
So I'm on the trainer and at the 31 minute mark work calls so it turns out that it was the right thing to do in not going outside to ride. It all works out that way and by 10:00 work seems to be quiet, I got my ride in, and I was showered. Just before 1:00 we went to the Mom's Club Christmas Party which was about as exciting as it sounds. Men are just useless appendages at these gatherings. So I hung out with Julia the whole time. When Santa showed she was scared as shit and wanted to go home. Can't say I blame her.
But that's when it hit me. Why not bring Can 'O Beans on a reunion tour to Taiwan with me? I really have no use for it here, it's got road brakes which will work better than cross brakes, and it has a triple. This thing is like the perfect bike for Taiwan. And what the hell, I will probably just leave it there when I come home. If I can find a viable place to leave it then why not? It really has no run here, with Magic Bike for good weather, and the Fuji serving as my bad weather backup, I'll never actually ride it again. And it will be good to know I'll have a bike there for future trips. Now I just have to make sure I can find a place to stow it.
As a bonus, I've mostly stripped the paint off, so it looks totally ghetto and much less likely to get stolen. Seriously, would you steal that thing?
If I leave the seat off that might even be less likely to get swiped. I have a few things that need work, like a steerer tube extender and the rear hub. But in all, it's probably not going to be too difficult to get in running order and won't really cost me much of anything. And another bonus is that if it gets "lost" in shipping I really won't be all that bent about it. Finally, it will be an easy swap to bring the power wheel with me as well. If that got "lost" however, I'd kind miss that one.
So for now, that's my plan. I managed to land a bike suitcase thanks to Kirt and a super heavy-duty Modone box thanks to both Bill and Jim. I'm going to check my options and if I do plan on leaving the bike there I'll take it in the Madone box and then just leave it there so I don't need to pay to ship an empty bike carrier back. This just feels right. This bike has been looking for a purpose for 6 months, and I think it finally found one. Tomorrow I may change my tune.
Speaking of tomorrow, I've got the mountain bike loaded up on the car. It appears that I'm actually going to go for a mountain bike ride up at Allamuchy tomorrow morning. Bill and Utah are in with another 5-6 possible. This is kinda how I roll these days which is totally last second.
Bill says he ripped his tongue off or something today. We've been texting and I think I'm going to try to get him to ride consistently this year. He says I got him out last year but I think he needs a little more push to make it happen more regularly. The problem is, he really has no targets he wants to hit. He admitted that the DH40 result makes him more lax in regards to training, since he can get away with doing such random riding and still have good results. I need to find a way to motivate him better.
I'm sitting right next to the Full Tilt Boogie and I just need to remind everyone that this bike is really beautiful. It agrees that the ghetto cruiser across the basement needs to go. Magic Bike on the other side of the basement agrees as well. Fuji sees their point, but fears that once Can O' Beans goes, it becomes the de facto ugliest bike in the house. So in a sense, it likes the idea of keeping the ugly friend around.
I think that's all I have tonight.
Weekends are always a bit slow so I'm just sitting down to write this now at 7:12 so it will be a condensed version. This morning I cleaned my cross bike finally and then started to think more over what bike I'm bringing to Taiwan with me. I'm somewhat concerned about the gearing on the bike, being a 1x9 and all, plus the brakes on it. As you cross racers well know, cross brakes kinda sorta work, most of the time. The thing I'm thinking about is the bad gearing going up, and brakes going down, when I do something like this:
That's 8000 vertical feet in about 40 miles. I'm not sure the 1x9 with a 42x26 as my easiest gear is going to cut it. Then going down, I really want to have the confidence that if I need to stop, I can. The downside to that is rather The Suck, like falling into a ravine and so on. Not really into that.
I was stuck on the trainer this morning and I used the Fuji which I cleaned and got into reasonably working order with the old Can O' Beans wheels on them. For those of you who don't remember, Can O' Beans is the old Trek road bike that's been more or less stripped down to parts and laying all over my basement. In the literary industry, this is called foreshadowing.
So I'm on the trainer and at the 31 minute mark work calls so it turns out that it was the right thing to do in not going outside to ride. It all works out that way and by 10:00 work seems to be quiet, I got my ride in, and I was showered. Just before 1:00 we went to the Mom's Club Christmas Party which was about as exciting as it sounds. Men are just useless appendages at these gatherings. So I hung out with Julia the whole time. When Santa showed she was scared as shit and wanted to go home. Can't say I blame her.
But that's when it hit me. Why not bring Can 'O Beans on a reunion tour to Taiwan with me? I really have no use for it here, it's got road brakes which will work better than cross brakes, and it has a triple. This thing is like the perfect bike for Taiwan. And what the hell, I will probably just leave it there when I come home. If I can find a viable place to leave it then why not? It really has no run here, with Magic Bike for good weather, and the Fuji serving as my bad weather backup, I'll never actually ride it again. And it will be good to know I'll have a bike there for future trips. Now I just have to make sure I can find a place to stow it.
As a bonus, I've mostly stripped the paint off, so it looks totally ghetto and much less likely to get stolen. Seriously, would you steal that thing?
If I leave the seat off that might even be less likely to get swiped. I have a few things that need work, like a steerer tube extender and the rear hub. But in all, it's probably not going to be too difficult to get in running order and won't really cost me much of anything. And another bonus is that if it gets "lost" in shipping I really won't be all that bent about it. Finally, it will be an easy swap to bring the power wheel with me as well. If that got "lost" however, I'd kind miss that one.
So for now, that's my plan. I managed to land a bike suitcase thanks to Kirt and a super heavy-duty Modone box thanks to both Bill and Jim. I'm going to check my options and if I do plan on leaving the bike there I'll take it in the Madone box and then just leave it there so I don't need to pay to ship an empty bike carrier back. This just feels right. This bike has been looking for a purpose for 6 months, and I think it finally found one. Tomorrow I may change my tune.
Speaking of tomorrow, I've got the mountain bike loaded up on the car. It appears that I'm actually going to go for a mountain bike ride up at Allamuchy tomorrow morning. Bill and Utah are in with another 5-6 possible. This is kinda how I roll these days which is totally last second.
Bill says he ripped his tongue off or something today. We've been texting and I think I'm going to try to get him to ride consistently this year. He says I got him out last year but I think he needs a little more push to make it happen more regularly. The problem is, he really has no targets he wants to hit. He admitted that the DH40 result makes him more lax in regards to training, since he can get away with doing such random riding and still have good results. I need to find a way to motivate him better.
I'm sitting right next to the Full Tilt Boogie and I just need to remind everyone that this bike is really beautiful. It agrees that the ghetto cruiser across the basement needs to go. Magic Bike on the other side of the basement agrees as well. Fuji sees their point, but fears that once Can O' Beans goes, it becomes the de facto ugliest bike in the house. So in a sense, it likes the idea of keeping the ugly friend around.
I think that's all I have tonight.
