22 August 2014

Totally tubular

Wednesday, August 20th

#344 / #148

Ha.
I'll bet you thought I'd forgotten about the ride numbers. Nope.

Anyway, Red Leader and I got tired of the extra short valve stems on the cheap tubes we bought earlier this year. And we've had enough flats (thank you, goatheads!) that we were running low on tubes. I read up on Presta valves (did you know they come in different lengths? I did not) and searched Amazon for a good price and free shipping for some Schwalbe tubes.

Why Schwalbe? Because they are one of the few tube manufacturers who state how long the stem is on a given tube. That's why.

It might be our Park Tools floor pump, but neither of us can start a tube from 0 pressure with that thing. So we are always busting out our mini-pumps. We had hoped to avoid the multi-pump tango with the longer stems, but it was not the case. I had another flat starting out (3 in the last 4 rides) and RL decided to change out one of his old tubes (Kenda) for a new one.

Interestingly, to me anyway, Red Leader's tube in his Schwalbe Marathon tires did not want to fill out the tire in the area of the valve. So I told him to stop trying to pull every last millimeter of the valve through the rim, deflated the tube, checked it was not twisted, and did it again. All OK. Now, these tubes are the narrowest that his tires will take, so maybe that was it. But I still think it was his yanking on the valve.

After all that tube-fun, we had a nice ride along the American River Parkway, chatting with one of the usual Saturday Recumbent riders whom I have not seen in ages. He left us in the dust after our chat.

Red Leader might head out on his own on Saturday, or we might ride together today (Friday). We'll see.

14 August 2014

IOU2

Ok, ok. So we've been riding, but not very much. And I owe all-you-alls FOUR, count 'em 4, posts.
So here goes...

23 July
Weather, continuing to Armageddon. Hot hot hot. We rode anyway. How long, I can't remember. It was either on the American River Parkway or the American River Parkway. Take your choice.

2 August
See above.

10 August
See above.

13 August
Ok. The real deal. It is finally below 90 today, and we are ON FIRE. Not us, although there was a small fire on the other side of the river from the bike trail. We watched a helicopter with a water thing suck up water from the river at a wide spot, then fly in a big loop to the hot spot and spray water in the general area of the fire while the ground crew dealt with the burning shrubs.
Actually, Red Leader was on fire, I was merely smoldering. I went for a swim in the morning, and I was remarkably tired on the bike ride. So I kept up on the way out to Wm Pond, then loafed on the way back.
Also, I'm upping my protein and dropping a little bit of the carbs I love so much (30% calories from carbs, 35% from protein, and 30% from fats). So I had no fuel for the ride. I guess I have to go back to making up goo and bringing that along. Sigh.

CU L8er