Beals: No Point

Scrambling to get the bike back together yesterday, I headed out the door (WITH a helmet on this time :-) to ride my Bread-N-Butter Beals ride, sans the climb. Never a good idea to push your luck too far the first time out with new equipment. About 3 miles into the ride there was a terrible clatter and the front derailleur slipped down about a half inch into the big ring.

I pulled off Fair Oaks before I got run over by a bus and rush-hour traffic to futz with it for 15 minutes, happy the derailleur cage wasn't twisted and mangled. I got a few strange looks riding back and forth on a stub-street about a half-block long, but it was the perfect setup for tweaking the gearing, so a lucky break there.

I started slow, but caught the wheel of a couple riding 2-up, and used them for pace until I got my legs under me. When I got to the Bicycles Plus/Karens Bakery parking lot I decided to turn around and head back the same way, instead of transitioning over the bridge and having to ride the brakes through the switchbacks on the far side of the river.

I am starting to notice that on the ARPT it matters which way you ride certain segments, so I will be riding the east side up and west side back from now on, as I had a blast coming back on the east side, and ROCKED the hills and hairpin turns. I decided to dub this East-Side Story on RideWithGps and look forward to a mechanical-free ride soon. 25 miles and 1,670 ft from Garmin Training Center stats.

Planning my ride for tomorrow, as SBHs is starting too late to finish before dark and get in any kind of serious miles. Will head up the east side of Lake Natoma, up the bottom Beals climb, then turn right to cross the Johnny Cash Bridge and the nice long climb that follows before returning again on the east side of the lake via Rodeo Pk. Should be 35 miles, or 45 if I return via WBP.

Did a little research this afternoon, and my new outer chainring was supposed to be silver, not gray. Just called AeBike and they are sending out a gray middle 39T ring express mail for half the normal shipping, so at least 2 of the rings will match. Not usually a big consideration on front chainrings, but it's never a good idea to run old gears with new chain. I also think the 38T might be just enough smaller that it is clipping the pins on the outer ring when cross-chaining down on the smallest gears in back.

Tired today, but in general, I am getting toughened in to the longer 100 mile weeks. Very happy about that. Hope to finish this season strong, as rain is forecast for the weekend, and it won't be long before seasonal rains will threaten the fun brigade.