Sad to say, my prediction about COVID making a roaring comeback this fall was correct, and we're now losing more people to it in 2 days than we did in an entire YEAR of the Vietnam war. Forget the politics. Save your life. Wear a mask, but know that's not enough. 4:5 biggest venues for spreading COVID are bars, restaurants, cafes, and churches. God knows where you are, and knows if you love him, he doesn't need a building to find you. The rest you can do online. Learn to cook. It's so gratifying and really, how pathetic is it that most Americans can't even feed themselves bc they can't cook? Besides, you'll save so much money you can buy a new bike every year or two.
Don't go into any enclosed spaces, especially not with central heating where the air is circulated throughout the entire building, but generally, stay in the sun and the wind and in the company of your own household. In winter the "Noontime" sun strength that kills COVID in less than 3 minutes is only from 9-3 at best. Don't ride in pacelines, period. DO keep riding, or whatever kind of exercise you do, even in the cold of winter, and enjoy the Great Outdoors with your household.
California has been doing a pretty good job managing COVID, but even we are now over 500/1M deaths. That's 1 chance in 2,000 of dying of COVID. Skydiving is less than 1 chance in 100,000, so if you go skydiving 50 times in a row you have the same chance of dying as with COVID - so far. Every passing day is another day jumping out of a perfectly good airplane with COVID - on and on and on.
I'll move on from the grim warnings now, but please do be safe.
My "Gearhead" at Competitive Cyclist, where I bought my Pinarello Prince, finally got me a new pair of mechanical R8000 shifters as I agreed to do the warranty work myself at no cost to CC. The L-Side was defective AFAICT, and has been malfunctioning since April, so very happy to report a successful R&R on the pair (Kyle said they only come in pairs, though you can buy just the L or the R online for a small premium) Shimano is back-ordered for months, and any discounts are a distant memory - $350/pair is the going rate even on-line these days.
This deserves its own post, which will follow when the weather gets too cold or wet to ride, but long story short, the cable sheathing made routing the cables much easier. I had lots of sheathing, and a brand new pair of cable cutters (a rare splurge to get over the $$$ hurdle for free shipping ~ June IIRC), so I cut clean ends that would slide inside the sheathing cleanly and placed all the sheathing en'masse before pulling the shifters. I labeled them and put them in a 4" piece of PVC pipe in the garage for next time.
I taped the sheathing in place with electrical tape at both ends to make damned sure an end didn't slide back inside, and the short piece between the chain-stays and front derailleur didn't slide out completely. There's a small grommet/dust-cap where the cable comes up through the chain-stays that got pushed into the frame while I was trying to pull it out with a needle-nose pliers, so I ended up pulling the crank and the seat, but did get it to drop out of the seat-tube. Cleaned and R&R the crank and seat post. At least I didn't have to pull the fork this time!
I surpassed my mileage goal for the week AND the year on Strava yesterday, doing a beautiful warm ride along the Mojave River Walk and around Spring Valley Lake. The sun glistening off the water was just gorgeous. Sometime in late 2007 I just couldn't force myself to walk into a gym anymore. After 20yrs I realized being fit enough to exercise outdoors had an expiration date, and until that day, I wasn't going to spend one more minute coped up in a box. Best decision of my life!
My PI bib-tights circa 2011 are a little much for this climate, so thick they restrict my legs and slow my cadence. I haven't used them since I moved back to SoCal, but knee socks, leg warmers and shorts that leave my glutes frozen just got tedious, so I bought some lighter weight tights meant to be knickers+ from Castelli which have no water-resistant treatment. It (almost) never rains here, and if it did I wouldn't ride in the stuff bc motorist can't see through rain-spattered windows.
The LW 2 Bib Tights are constructed using Castelli's signature Thermoflex brushed fabric on the upper portion to keep your thighs and sensitive areas warm. Considering that these tights are designed to be one step above a knicker as far as coverage goes, the lower leg is made of a non-insulated Lycra called Nano Flex Light. This is done to prevent overheating, while at the same time protecting your lower legs from road spray if conditions are a bit wet. Castelli omits ankle zippers to preserve the lightweight feel, but they put in their flagship Progetto X2 Air seamless seat insert which has one of the softest surfaces we've ever felt in a chamois.
I wear 8" wool socks on "warm" days, and thick snowboarding knee socks on cold days, so the usual thickness everywhere but below the knee is really flexible for me, and if really cold, I'll wear leg-warmers under the tights. It usually makes it into the 60s here on winter days, it's the start that's the problem. These should work well here I think.
Finally, my quest to learn more about grease (grease failures are far, far more common than I, and I suspect, most people realize) continues. I happened upon a blog written by a guy from the Czech Republic, who is probably a bike mech, and maybe a lubrication engineer too. We've been arguing out a lot of useful points and when that gets distilled down I will write a proper blog post about it, but so far I'm happy with all my RX-es here.
We do agree on one thing vehemently, the people who make grease are selling snake oil, as there are no labeling requirements, and that seems to be the preference of the industry. The only exception I have found is AmsOil. It's outrageous to buy grease for $100/oz and you aren't given a damned thing but the mfg's rep to go on. Oh, and that especially in cold weather, greasing shifer cables is a BAD idea. Us a thin oil. I prefer Mobil-1 0W20 Annual Protection from a repurposed Visine bottle.
Looking forward to snow-capped mountains around here soon, and hoping you all have some special holiday treat you're looking forward to. Merry Christmas, be safe, and I'll see you next year (or sooner)!
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