Keeping the Wheels Turning

Sunday was "get as much shit done as fast as possible so I could get in the hammock outside for as long as possible" day.

Priorities.  The Fastest Bike in the World... otherwise known as The Most Neglected Tarck Bike in the World.

New tires... because this:

is nowhere near as fast as this:

The good and the bad thing about these tires, they last way too long.  Very few flats, but when I ride them all the way down... s-l-o-w as fuck.  Slow enough to feel it robbing fifty of my potential one hundred and eight watts.

Go to install a smaller cog, drop the chain off the ring, check the crank, feel that it's loose, adjust the bearings, find what I shoulda remembered from the last rebuild (the bottom bracket is indexed toast), clean the chain in the sink, measure the chain, find that it's worn out, throw away the freshly-cleaned chain, install a new one... and done.

The tarck bike is ready for early season "training."

Time to work on the funner bikes (after washing the mud off of them).

Next, fix the issues with the By:Stickel.  Let some air out of the fjork and adjust the brake levers.  Repeat the mistake I made when I set all that up wrong last time by just checking my work in the bike room and NOT outside IRL.  I'm sure it will be fine.  Or it won't.

Start getting the Vertigo Meatplow V.7 ready for the "season."  New tire time means new sealant time.

Finally a chance to try out the TruckerCo Cream sealant.  Obviously, I'll have no idea how well it works until it has to or how long it lasts until I pull the tires off the rims... which will be a month from now when the bike goes from 6 Hours of Warrior Creek mode to Pisgah Productions PMBAR and Pisgah 111/55.5K mode.  Ikon 2.35/2.2 off, Ardent 2.4/Ardent Race 2.2 on.

While I had it up on the stand, I took the time to swap the 18 tooth Endless cog for a 19 and install the Superlight Alloy organic brake pads from TruckerCo (middle). 

Excited about high performance.  Stoked on noise elimination.  My only concern is that they won't last as long as the Sintered Metallic.  If it looks like rain before any Pisgah race, I might have to swap.

Conjecture.  Hearsay.  Guesswork.  Success on race day.  Or not.

I also took the time to swap the Race Face Cinch chainring for a new one and to put the rigid frok back on because one ride was enough to tune the Brain™ fjork to my "liking."

A certain sense of peace when everything is right about this bike.

I wondered what normal people with normal bikes do... I mean, I spent three hours working on single speeds.  I can't imagine how much time keeping a geared bike going would take, but I imagine it would be more. 

Done.  Time to follow through with part two of the plan.

I spent the entire afternoon in the backyard hammock with The Pie, staring at the sky, drinking beer, listening to birds... doing what I think people call "relaxing."

It wasn't that bad.