Month: August 2019
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More tune, more up
The forecast was for rain today, and Nana and I made plans (including sitting at home waiting for a box of spokes). I thought it would be a good opportunity to tune up Kuroko a bit more. On last week’s ride the shifting worked fine, although the gears were still making a bit of noise.…
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Haven’t counted ’em yet
Spokes for Ol’ Paint’s new wheels. There should be 70 (six spares), and I had to pay for the nipples this time. Arrived today in the post from Germany — they’re Swiss: DT Swiss Revolution. Now I hope they’re the right length.
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On climbs and their (relative) steepness
Regarding this post about a steepish climb in my near future, the following conversation took place. Fearless Leader Joe: You can handle that. It looks vertical on a map, but for 20m I bet that horrible one in Devon was worse – the one that I said as we were freewheeling down, “thank goodness we’re…
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Maybe there’ll be an escalator
That’s the course for this year’s Tour de Tohoku, coming up in just two weeks. There’s a fair amount of climbing there, but not more than I did on any given day of Lejog. But what’s this little blip near the beginning of the ride? Just to the right of that vertical line: It’s not…
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A tale of two BBs
The replacement bottom bracket for Kuroko arrived today, and I’m still debating whether I want to attempt the swap before the upcoming Tour de Tohoku. It’s making some noise now and not spinning as freely as it should. But when I last tried to remove the crankset from the BB, it was stuck. If anything…
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That’s a lotta bull
Fearless Leader Joe and I crossed a lot of cattle guards as we made our way across England. Each time we did, I was curious why — were we riding into a grazing area? I had a few seconds to contemplate this each time because FLJ would usually dismount to cross the guards. (I just…
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Return to Otarumi Touge
With the upcoming Tour de Tohoku having so much climbing, I thought it was important today to have some practice. Otarumi Touge (pass), near Takaosan, is perfect for this. There’s a gradual rise of almost 200m over the more than 40km from Tokyo to Takaosan Guchi, and then a 6% rise over the last few…
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Tuning up for tomorrow’s ride
I spent time today tuning up Kuroko for tomorrow’s ride — wherever that may take me. I received a new saddle bag this week. Fedex and Seino put their heads together and attempted to deliver it twice while I was at work before I called them and said it was OK to leave it in…
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The rims have arrived
I got notice yesterday that the rims had shipped, and to expect them today. Then the driver tried to deliver them yesterday, while we were out. When we got home I found the missed delivery note in the box. This morning I asked Nana to contact the company to arrange delivery, and she asked them…