Two Things

Five years worth of sealant pulled from a 26" x 4" tire.

 Sprucing Up The Ti Mik 2:

This job I had to do had been hanging over my head now for a couple of years. I kept putting it off because it is not a fun job. Last year I just shrugged, put more sealant in, and said to myself, "I'll get around to it next year for sure." 

Actually, I knew I was long overdue to peel off the tires, clean out the sealant, replace valve stems, re-tape the rims, and reinstall everything with new sealant.  

Like I said, it is a big job, and with my having to replace the oil in my Rohloff Speed Hub as well as doing the tires, this became a major deal. Fortunately pulling off the rear wheel was made easier since the cables to run the Rohloff are attached to a metal box which when the shifter is put on "7" allows me to unscrew a thumbscrew, remove the box where the cables enter, and keep the hub indexed. The front has its own difficulties because it is a dynamo hub and I have wires to disconnect via spade connectors. 

Well, as you can see here, the sealant was dried up and came out in almost one pull. I had the rear tire cleaned out in well under 15 minutes. Not as bad as I was expecting it to be! The tape job, installing a brand new valve  stem, and re-installation of the rear  tire went pretty smoothly. I was a bit surprised the Cake Eater tire went on so well after being on the bike for so long. 

Replacing the oil in a Rohloff hub is pretty easy if you've done it once, and by my count, this is the fifth time I've done it. Gotta keep this hub running smoothly and well for many more years! As for the connectors on my dynamo hub, I'd sure like to get some of those fancy co-axial connectors, but I haven't done this as of yet. It would be easier to get the front wheel off, but then again, I do not take this wheel off very often. So, maybe it is a "why bother" situation. 

Image seen on Facebook

In The "Nothing Is New" File:

I follow several bicycle related accounts on Facebook, (it isn't all garbage if you can stay disciplined), and once in a while you end up learning something. In this case, it is an adaptation for a specific niche in cycling which has found its way into gravel events over the years. 

As you can see, this Bianchi cross bike is fitted with a factory installed pair of bosses which were meant to have this sling attached to them. This allowed the rider to portage the bicycle through ravines, across streams, and up or down steeps, back when cyclo-cross was not run on manicured courses with artificial barriers. 

I also noted the geometry of this bike, which is quite a bit unlike today's cyclo cross bikes, is something which looks good for gravel. And why wouldn't it be? Early cross bikes essentially were converted road bikes. The geometry was still fairly slack in the times before the mid-20th Century, and was exactly what would work with a gravel rider.  

But what about "aero" and frame storage and wireless, blah, blah, blah? Well, maybe we don't really need all that stuff. 

Something to think about.