Weekend in Sight

The Friday morning easy ride was just that today with only Joe and myself at the start. A rider in town from Dallas (Andrew) had said he'd meet us today, and we waited a couple of extra minutes, but eventually we rolled because when you go slow you get home late anyway. After a couple of miles I detected a third shadow and, sure enough, it was Andrew, so we chatted all the way out, eventually picking up Elliot as well. Since Andrew is a high school teacher, we took the tour through Tulane's campus on the way back. A little recruiting for Jesuit students never hurts!

Jason has kindly offered to drive across the lake to pick me up after work today so we don't get to Vicksburg, MS (staying with family) too late. I packed a bag last night - shoes, helmet, jersey, shorts, socks, a couple of T-shirts, some HammerGel, a couple of Powerbars, clip-ons for the TT, and a handful of allen wrenches. I decided to go ahead and try out the SpeedCific wheels that are now sporting a pair of new 190g Michelin Pro2 Light tires (which I wish were just plain black instead of blue). As if the 30 gram weight savings will really make a difference. If the road surfaces don't look real good, I'll probably use my regular Rolfs with the Michelin Pro2 Race tires anyway because the "Light" ones are light mainly because they have less rubber. I rode them this morning and they felt fine at 18 mph!

I started working on the Pugeot mixte bike that I want to build up into a commuter for The Wife. The photo is kind of what I'm going for except that this one will have fenders and the original blue paint. Being an older French bike, virtually everything is incompatible with modern stuff. I had a nice old semi-flat (guess you'd call them "risers" nowadays) handlebar and a classic old GB quill stem, but had to take sandpaper to the stem to take off a mm or so to get it to fit into the French steer tube. I'll probably set it up with a single-speed freewheel and will definitely need to buy some stuff, though, including 27" tires, rimstrips, grips, saddle, new cables, maybe brake levers, etc. Perhaps I will experiment a bit and see if I can get an old stronglight/TA crankset I have to work if I can find an old axle and make it all work with the existing cups. If not, I guess the existing steel crankset will have to do. I will also want to find a home for the other bike that came with it. It's a cheap off-brand French bike from the Bike Boom of the 70s, but could probably be built up into a nice city bike. Looks like about a 23" frame. I'll get a pic up next week and see if there's someone who's looking for a challenge. That one has rusty wheels and seems to be in relatively worse shape.