The moisture in the air is so thick today. There is a frozen mist hanging over the bluff and the mountains to the West.
I've been off the bike since last Wednesday. I was leaving for a group ride and discovered that my bike had a flat. I threw a new tube in, but the valve stem broke as I was pumping it up. Bummer. When I finally got on the road I notice that I couldn't shift my rear derailler. The thumb lever would not engage. I messed around with it for a few minutes, until I decided to just ride downtown in my 53x23. I maybe got 2 miles out and became really frustrated. I called my expert mechanic, Eileen, who was in Monument park at the time. She gave me the diagnoses that I had a spring out of place, or broken, in my lever. She also discovered that the bolt holding the spring on my rear brake was broken, which meant I was riding around with added resistance.
The parts are in, and I was going to do a XC mountain bike race this weekend, but didn't feel motivated. Instead, I've been hitting the gym. (Stay away from the hip abductor machine, it's a forced to be reckoned with.) The time off has been nice, but I'm looking forward to getting back on the bike even though winter seems to already be setting in. I want to ride as much as possible in the off season.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Update.
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3 Comments:
See, thats why you should use shimano or sram. haha kidding.
I want to hear about this hip abductor incident.
A broken Campy shifter is still way better than a working Shimano shifter. I just ride really hard.
Hah. The hip abductor machine was the incident: it is brutal. My inner thighs hurt for a day after one minute on the thing.
Check out Friel's 'The cyclist training bible', it has a great chapter on lifting. You start out doing slow, high reps and eventually progress to more explosive movements.
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