Beer Drinker Appreciation Society - Open For Business (Page 120)

Sandi-Great job on the workouts! Amazing how location can boost your will to get out and suffer.  I am completely get it!

Dave-Keep going. see above. Location makes a world of difference...well that and summers off...haha. 

-I am in for a weight loss challenge for the fall. I think losing weight in the spring is all wrong as I rob myself of training calories to lose weight. For once I would like to go into spring at a good weight!

Justin-great job on the weight loss. That weigh loss should now let you tie your wife on the next 5k you do. 

Kate-Ouch! Sorry to hear about your husband. Sure it is not the first or last...crazy mountain bikers...

Gretchen-good job to realize you need a rest every now and then.

Scott-Was your sgt. exam mark good enough? I see you have more sgt. stuff coming up... If so congratulations!

Well it is my family's(less my son) "A" race this weekend. Apparently I have been on a month long taper according to my training log... Hoping my base will hold me through it. Lots of hills on the course. Including one brutal hill on the run. In a 1/4 of mile you go up a couple hundred feet. Came in 3rd in my age group last year and won a beer mug...going to be tough this year. It is about a 5 1/2 hour drive so we have rented a condo with the inlaws. Great location right at race. Can drop off bikes and walk back to condo for coffee. Still undecided on whether I am wearing a wetsuit...

My goals for the week.

1) eat clean

2) consistent short easy workouts.

3) research my celebration beer for Sunday

I've been MIA for a while, and I don't think I'm going to try to catch up on 500+ posts while I was away.

Good news though - I have found gainful employment; it isn't what I wanted, but it is acceptable and a job I should be good at.  Plus there's a gym on-site (corporate campus sort of thing) and the commute is an easy 10 miles one-way, which should make life pretty decent.  I start next Monday, so we will see how it goes.

With the job stuff settled and that stressor removed, I can finally start thinking about the future in a productive, non-dreadful way.

Sheesh, get a new bike shop or let them know when to bring it in. Change the tires yourself. Youtube has tons of video showing you how to do it.  1-2 weeks for a tune up is not acceptable...

good luck!

10miles...now you can sell your car and bike...

Like I always say...I work to live not live to work. Do what ya gotta to do live!

Dave, I won my age group in my last race...can I get a postdated beer for that....

I hate the whole concept of a "tune-up."  For me, it's right up there with elbow grease and blinker fluid.  It's such a generic term to be meaningless.  

Post pics of your tires and I can probably tell you to replace it or not.  One test I do is to inflate the tube all the way to maximum sidewall pressure, then go ride around the neighborhood, do a few bunny hops, ride off a few curbs, and see if it blows.  If not, then you're good.  If yes, get a new tire.  You can use a tyvek envelope (the plasticy ones) to cut a patch for a gash in the tire; Park Tool also makes patches that serve the same purpose.  However, if you can see any significant amount of the patch on the fully-inflated tire, get a new tire.  

On tire sizes:  run 25mm width.  23mm tires are obsolete now, from all perspectives (aero, rolling resistance, comfort), and for the few circumstances where that isn't true, if you know enough to debate about it, then you know enough to choose appropriately  If you prefer comfort over marginal speed gains, a set of fat 28mm tires are really cushy and take much more of a beating than the smaller ones, but will be noticeably slower.  

On tire choice:  25mm Contintental 4000s are the gold standard, but pricey.  I personally run 25mm gatorskins on my deep section carbon wheels, but I would swap to 4000s for a time trial or really fast race.  My spring/winter box section wheels  (i.e., slow, durable) run 28mm Performance Bike Strada kevlar tires.  

On tune-ups:  First, learn how to clean your chain and deraiiluers.  That's 80% of it.  And learn to listen to your bike - if it sounds wrong, or there are issues shifting (jumping multiple gears, not shifting quickly or properly), then it's time to fiddle with things.  If you aren't having problems, and it isn't noisy, and everything is clean, you don't need to fix anything.  If you are having problems shifting, then start by fiddling with the barrel adjusters (one turn or half a turn at a time), because it's probably cable stretch that is throwing things off, so a little adjust should fix it.

Chains, cassettes, and chainrings are wear items.  If you keep an eye on things and measure carefully, you can probably get three chains to a chainring and cassette.  At least.  If you don't pay any attention to it, you'll get uneven wear and have to replace the cassettes and chains as a set.  Since cassettes and chains cost about the same nowadays, that's not really a big deal.  

The only decent way to tell if a cassette is worn is either (a) the teeth look noticeably and significantly warn, or (b) the chain will skip a tooth on hard efforts.  Chain skip (jumping teeth) without any chain chatter (lateral movement caused by the derailleurs) is the only real true indicator.

The drop gauges used by bike shops are inaccurate and unreliable at best - most brand new chains will fail them.

Not to rag on the LBS, but there's a lot of really bad ones out there, and it's a tough, competitive, low-margin market, so there is a tendency to use any reasonable (or not-so-reasonable . . .) excuse to change parts (and make money).  

And well over half of a tune-up is cleaning and lubricating the bike.  Why would anyone pay $60 an hour on labor for something so simple?  Many shops offer a basic and usually free class on cleaning, lubrication, and tire changing - and most REI stores do as well.  If you don't know how, go to one of those classes, or better yet, ask a friendly bike guy for help.  The only skill-necessary parts of a tune-up are derailleur adjustments and brake checks.  

Here's how to check your brakes:  if the bike stops, and there is still some vertical groove left in the rubber pads, you're fine.  If not, have it fixed.  If you ride full-carbon wheels, well, that's another story.  

Bikes are tough, reliable machines, and if you aren't having problems, keep riding it.

I'd be tempted to simply email some of the freestylers on the swim team and ask if they'd take money for lessons.  A couple of hours of critique from a collegiate freestyler would probably make anyone a better swimmer.