I *did* update earlier! Really! 7/30/2006 09:15:00 PM

Now I'm dead to me.

I actually posted (well, attempted to post, if you want to get technical about it) yesterday (that would be Saturday for all you Monday morning readers), but for some reason Cingular doesn't want to allow me to send emails to flickr anymore. I think they found me out. But that's another story.

As you may or may not know, Dana left on Thursday for the greener pastures (and lower altitude) of Denver for her Sports Medicine boards, which were early Friday morning. Latest reports are that she "has no idea" how she did, which means she probably aced them. After the test, she hopped on a plane to Kansas City for proof that there is a team out there actually worse than the Cubs. (Kidding! My Cubbies just swept evil St. Louis for the first time in like 30-some years. Well, the first time in that long for a four-game sweep. Anyway).

Actually, she went to visit Missy and DJ and the newest addition to their family, Edy (Edie? I never know). Because of the momentous occasion, Dana deprived me of the camera, so you don't get to see any of the cool stuff I did this weekend. Sigh.

So I've been alone here since Thursday afternoon. I know, I know, it's rough to be me.

My only REAL goal for the weekend was to finish putting Dana's green bike back together (gormerly known as TK's early-90's Fuji). I swear, the bike hadn't been serviced since TK got it new when we were Juniors in High School (that's a guess), so I literally removed everything from it, cleaned/replaced everything, and put it all back together. New bottom bracket, new cables and housing, new brake pads (they still squeak, damnit, and are the bane of my existance right now), and a new saddle for Dana's precious posterior. The thing is probably cleaner than it has been in a decade. Oh, and I took off the Kryptonite mount and put some bottle cages on there. Goal #1 complete. Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures of it in all its pieces since Dana took the camera to KC with her - and she admitted last evening on the phone that she hasn't taken a single picture. Probably better that way, but I would have liked to have documented the bike in all its disparate parts.

I also spent some quality time with the fixie this weekend, as I ordered new parts for that as well (can you tell I buy myself birthday presents?). A new cog for the back (because 42x14 is a little tough in the mountains, I got an 18-tooth cog for the back. If you have a mountain bike, that's like riding in the middle front ring and the middle gear in the back, basically - still no cakewalk, but one has to challenge oneself from time to time). I also got a PHAT new gold chain (note: that is not my bike, but it's pretty! and I have the same chain!) for the bike, in anticipation of ordering a new frame sometime in the coming weeks (my "found" fixie frame was always a bit small).

So now Dana and I both have cruising bikes (though her brakes make so much noise I'll have to ride away from her until I can get the damned things to toe in) to head into town and play...


...which is exactly what I did on Saturday morning. As usual, the sun woke me up a little after eight (it does pretty well at about 6:45 on weekdays), so I got a bag packed, had a CLIF bar and some Coke Zero for breakfast, and rode down to Howeleson Hill (aka Mt. Emerald). Then I hiked up it. All the way. Two hours up, one hour down (click the above image for my notes on the GPS route). I also got a profile up here, and there is a Google Earth KMZ if anyone is interested. Which means Pablo. :) Rather than uploading it and linking to it, I'll just email it to whoever might be interested...

Taking Dana's bike apart and putting it back together was really good for me (but it ate up almost all of my Simple Green, sadly; not to mention a ton of time) - I wasn't too worried about ruining it (it now has more money in new parts than we paid for it initially) - and everything came together very well. I'm pretty happy that it was so (relatively) simple. And I don't have too many extra pieces left over either, which is always a plus! :)

I also got a professional-grade wheelbuilding/truing stand for my birthday from my parents (thanks, mom and dad!) - I'm really excited about this. Wheelbuilding is so very zen. Very meditative. Very slow going, but once you're done, you've got this beautiful thing that is much greater than the sum of its parts. To get myself psyched up I'm reading all about the physics of wheelbuilding right now. Sounds totally geeky, no? I love it. Now I need to build a workbench, so I can mount the damn thing (and get about the only tool I don't have that I need to complete my garage-based bike shop: a vice grip).

OK, enough bike geekiness. I was also determined to clean this place up before Dana got back. Lucky for me, she doesn't get home until Monday evening, so I have a couples hours after work tomorrow to get things in order. Sigh. After I do a lot of housework I always just want to escape the house, but I know that after her trip she'll just want to hang out at home. Marriage is compromise, I guess. Maybe we can hang out in the driveway.

Oh, and the garage is a mess (though not quite THAT bad - but there are tools everywhere). Maybe I need to dedicate lunch and my after-work time to cleaning. Bummer.

Have a great week, everyone. No pot rack still, so no house pictures yet. But I did sneak up some pics on my picasaweb page of our new bed. So there. Maybe that counts as a blog update?
Permanent link

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Fuji:
Purchased in June of 1994
Serviced ONCE since then
Could never figure out why the brakes squeaked...

posted at 10:35 AM

 

Post a Comment

<< Home