Sep 30, 2013
That’s how long it takes for me to wear my rear tire (Resist Nomad 28mm) down to the cords. I put this tire on the midlifecrisismobile after I came back from riding Nestucca/Nestucca in June, and here it is the end of September and the tire is toast.
Not bad for $20; it’s a less painful consumable than burning through a rim in 4 months.
—orc Mon Sep 30 13:29:18 2013
Sep 29, 2013
Yesterday, while I was going through the festival of flat tires I didn’t try to patch any of the tubes, mainly because I couldn’t find the punctures in the rain and wind. But this morning I went forth to repair the tubes, and discovered, to my intense dismay, that every tube of so-called vulcanising fluid I had had dried up, including the tube that was in the MLCM’s tool roll.
Man, that would have bitten the wax tadpole if I’d run out of extra tubes halfway between Ripplebrook and Estacada – a 12 mile walk carrying 35 pounds of bicycle would have made me a very grumpy camper indeed.
So off to the hardware store to get a tube of contact cement (for at home repairs where waiting 15 minutes for the glue to set is acceptable) and a tube of rubber cement (which I guess I’ll reload into smaller containers) for patches out on the road. And 10 more patchkits from e*bay, just so I can have a pile of them in the basement again.
—orc Sun Sep 29 22:02:29 2013
Sep 28, 2013
After a considerable gap, I rode another 200k today (the traditional run up to Ripplebrook (& Pipeline Road so I could do a Bybee start)) but was much delayed by a collection of flats; three of ‘em, enough to run through both my spare tubes and end up limping home on the first tube, which at least was enough of a slow leak so I could go 8 miles before having to stop and pump it up again.
Annoyingly, the first two flats slowed me down enough so I ran into the weekend storm in Barton instead of Oregon City, which meant that I didn’t see the giant pothole on Washington St, which popped my second spare tube and dented the front rim.
Ugh.
But, other than that the play was excellent; the first 98 miles of the loop only had scattered showers and a couple of times the sun actually flirted with burning through the clouds before the next band of stormclouds swept over. And it seems like I’ve not last as much of my fitness as I thought; despite horrific headwinds (and a flat) I still made it down to Ripplebrook in 4h30, and back into Estacada from the Pipeline Road turnaround in 1h45 (including one flat) – if I hadn’t spent half an hour at Ripplebrook, had the third flat, or gotten monsooned on I might have been able to make in back in under 9 hours.
Though I really need to braze canti posts onto the seatstays on this bicycle; the caliper brake I’ve got on the rear wheel right now doesn’t do much in the department of stopping when it’s wet – when I descended River Road towards the Trolley Trail, the brakes didn’t on the ramp down to 99e and the only thing stopping me from doing a cyclocross dismount and two-foot stop was that the light turned green just as I unclipped for my panic stop (maybe I should take one of the spare Mafac Racers I’ve got and centerpull the rear wheel as a temporary fix?)
Oh, yeah, and this loop puts me over 10 Mm of completed permanents for the year (despite having 4 months of not being motivated to ride at all – I was hoping for 16 Mm for the year, but I’ll be happy to get 12 Mm now.)
—orc Sat Sep 28 21:56:35 2013
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 24, 2013
The weather forecast today was 70% chance of showers, and I thought, for the first 88k of this run at the Estacada 100, that I would be lucky rolling the dice. Alas, when I reached Oregon City and was only 35 minutes away from home, it started to rain, and then it rained as if it was making up for lost time and managed to soak me and the bicycle to the skin in that last 16k home.
The handlebat tape, which is not something that you would expect to get sodden, is (and still is 5 hours after the return.) I suppose I can thank the fenders for only getting soaked instead of getting soaked plus getting covered with road grime, horse poop, and mud from the 2 miles of unimproved road between Milo McIver park and Estacada.
—orc Tue Sep 24 19:21:32 2013
Sep 21, 2013
There’s a small pasture near the south end of River Lake Road across the river from Estacada, but every time I’ve gone past it before today it’s been bereft of livestock. Not today; this chestnut horse watched, with what looked like great curiosity, as I sailed past and up the short ramp that’s just out of sight to the right.
—orc Sat Sep 21 23:08:40 2013
Sep 20, 2013
Sep 19, 2013
It might be all green in the lowlands, but Mount Hood is starting to look a little more wintery
—orc Thu Sep 19 22:19:32 2013
Sep 18, 2013
Silas’s Shiromoto has been the odd bike out since I built it up, because it didn’t have a front rack or fenders. Well, that’s been fixed with the construction of a small 6×6 rando rack (big enough to hold one of my rando bags, and big enough to hold a grocery bag if it’s also bungee-corded to the handlebars) – no fenders yet, but having a rack is the important thing!
—orc Wed Sep 18 17:11:29 2013
Sep 14, 2013
The neighbor’s cat climbed up onto my lap (it’s a shy and aloof creature, as are all cats) and noticed my Hello Kitty iPhone case while I was taking cat-panda pictures.
—orc Sat Sep 14 20:37:13 2013
Sep 13, 2013
The project bike after running down to the Big Big Store on the test run of my new porteur bag. It didn’t explode, which is always a good sign.
—orc Fri Sep 13 07:15:19 2013
Sep 11, 2013
Taking the giant porteur bag theme to a ridiculous level – this one (a replacement for the one that was on the project bike) is 12×11.5×18 – almost 1.44 cubic feet without overloading. (It’s not finished just yet – this is a pre-assembly mockup because I’m in the throes of deciding whether to put a stiff lining behind the reflective front panel – but the final project will look much like this when it’s loaded down.)
—orc Wed Sep 11 20:09:32 2013
Sep 06, 2013
Look at the time!
(I was too busy watching “Shawn of the dead” to pay attention to the time!)
—orc Fri Sep 6 23:59:24 2013
Sep 04, 2013
I appear to have google-bombed flickr’s search results for Dust Mites – 9 of the first 10 photo results are for Dust Mite, not actual dust mites.
—orc Wed Sep 4 14:46:24 2013
Sep 03, 2013
Taking a break for a little snack during yesterday’s run up to Sauvie Island. The hummingbird feeder is an accidental inclusion, but adds a welcome touch of surrealism to the photo.
—orc Tue Sep 3 08:09:53 2013
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