Monday, January 28, 2013

Iced Down

Tweak, clean, grease.....
The weather went upside down on us Sunday here and we got a good dose of ice. It essentially made our street look like it was made out of dark colored glass. The sidewalk was shiny and the grass was crunchy when I walked on it. Yep......all day. 

So, I spent most of the day dinking around in my shop. I cleaned, arranged, tweaked, assembled. Searched, swept, stacked, and retrieved. It needed it all badly, and the worst part is, I only made a dent in the necessarys.

I did find some more bits to assemble on to the Vaya project. It's going to start out as quite the "mutt" build. That's pretty typical of me when I have to make do with what I have around here. Well, anyway, I decided to use a 2 X 10 drive train, and it is going to be weird. I'll save that all for later, but for now the gearing is going to be 42/30 front, 11-36T cassette. That should make me go over anything I have in front of me out on the gravel roads. The wheels will be the tried and true Edge, (so old! Now they are called Enve), with American Classic hubs. Light weight, tough, and maybe even a bit aero!

The tires and a few bits and peices have to be sorted yet. I tried Nanoraptors, but the front was juuuust a bit too big! Oddly enough, the rear fits fine with a wee bit of room to spare. But that's okay, I'll have on some nice, voluminous tires soon.

It was kind of hard sticking around the house all day. I was itching for a ride, since I started feeling a wee bit better in the afternoon. However; the conditions never improved, and I couldn't even risk going on a short errand. It was just too slick. But I managed! Working on the Lab and on the bikes needed to be done. I felt good about accomplishing that much.

But I feel like it is time to buckle down on some training, getting riding in, and maintaining some forward progress with regard to fitness. The weather looks to be cooperative early in the week, but later we go back into the deep freeze for a few days. Blecch!  It's high time to either get a huge amount of snow so we can have Winter again, or let's just get on with Spring already. This iced down stuff and cold weather is not working for me.

1 comment:

RC said...

I am in agreement. 42x28 here, with a 11-28 in the back. I tried this a couple of years back and winter ended before I got a good ride on it-winter being my gravel season then. The rides I did do were very impressive!! I can't wait to get on the new build.