Making the earth shift on its asses

I probably wont talk about Lance again after this.  70% of my twitter feed and 50% of my facebook is covered in Lance'isms right now, so I'm getting a little tired of the news.  Then again, a lot of this is probably due to the fact that I asked Lance's big supporters to drop him in my blog post Monday.  I had no idea I could be so influential, and it looks like there are very few Lance fans left right now.

Just as I asked, Trek and Nike have dropped out.  They didn't really make the statement I was hoping for, but at least they stopped being dumb asses.  Also Anheuser-Busch (Mich Ultra), Radio Shack, Honey Stinger, FRS... it looks like all of them EXCEPT Oakley, which is waiting for the UCI's final decision.  Good call.  Verbruggen might take a match to the only copy of USADA's 1,000 page report making this whole icky mess go away... for the right price.

Oh yeah, and what about Chris Carmichael?  But what can he say now?  I'm thinking he should ask Allen Lim for some advice.

And that's that.

On to something else.

After I raced 57 wet miles of the Shenandoah 100, I hosed off my bike, took a shower, stowed my bike on the rack, and drank beer.  I woke up the next morning to a rusty chain.  Knowing that it would just get worse on the rainy five hour drive home, I doused it with schwag lube that I keep in the back of my car for just this purpose.  No sense in wasting good Pro Link if I was just gonna wash it off when I got home.

But I didn't.

I never got around to washing the bike.   I rode it a few more times, just wiping it down and then adding more lube.  I even raced three hours this weekend without addressing the issue.  Something like 7-8 more hours of riding without really cleaning it.

I shoulda took a picture.  I didn't.  It was the kinda black gook that normally requires some chiseling with a screwdriver to remove.  There were leaf chucks stuck in the whole mess.  Probably the worst conditions I've allowed to happen on my SS drivetrain.  I haven't seen anything this bad since my drive train negligent noobie days.  Fortunately Dick Bruceman had just sent me another care package.

I did not read the directions on the can of Blast Off.  I thought those were the directions.

Blast

Off

I soaked the chain with Blast Off, washed the rest of the bike, and came back at the chain, ring, and cog with a spraying vengeance.  The black gook flew off and the chain rinsed totally clean... as in no scrubbing, no effort, no nothing.  So much so, that when I neglected to dry it or reapply some lube, it was bone dry rattling the next morning.  Sweet.

I wonder how much better it would work if I followed the directions, which after reading them, I think that probably woulda been the better route.  Since I normally don't let my chain get this bad AND I've had plenty of success with Pro Link's Degreaser + Wash, I'm gonna keep this can in reserve for worst case scenario situations.

Maybe Lance could use a can of Blast Off to blow off all the shit that's sticking to him lately...

Maybe I'm not done with that topic after all.