Drying Out and Shifting Gears

The weather this morning felt très approprié and I rode the old steel Cervelo out to meet the early levee ride. I know, of course, that it won't last too long since it's not even October yet, but a few days of Fall-like weather couldn't have come at a better time. Late last night I went down to the basement to survey the damage from the Six Gap weekend. When I'd arrived around midnight on Sunday, I had just dropped everything on the floor, thrown the wet clothes into the washer, and gone to sleep. Ordinarily, I would have taken a few more minutes to at least lube the chain on the bike, but I had already decided that Six Gap would be the last ride for that chain . Since I was going to change the chain anyway, and there's no more road racing (yeah, right. it's not a race....) for the immediate future, I though it would be a good time to give the Orbea a good going-over, especially after a six-hour ride in the rain. The old chain, completely washed clean of lubricant, already had a light film of rust forming on the rollers, and I knew for sure that some water must have found its way down the seat tube to the bottom bracket. So I cracked open the tool box, removed the chain (but kept it handy so I can make the new one the same length), removed the jockey wheels from the derailleur and the crank arms from the spindle, and pulled out the bottom bracket. Yeah, there was some water down in there. The bearing felt good, though, so I just cleaned it up and left it on the workbench. The jockey wheel bearings were stiff as usual, so I cleaned them up and re-lubed them. I still need to stop by the shop and pick up a set of brake and derailleur cables, so that's about as far as I went. I left the bike on the stand so it could fully dry out, so I'll probably be riding the Orbea for a couple more days until I can get everything I need. After all, there's no rush. It's about time to shift gears and start thinking about those long group rides in the country again.

You know it must be the start of the off-season when you see Woody showing up for the morning ride on his track bike. Well, despite his gear restriction, the speed got going pretty fast for the first part of the ride, but after a number of riders pulled off at the parish line, things settled down a bit. I am still feeling some soreness from my extended affair with the 27 tooth cog, so I was taking short pulls until we got to the bridge in Destrehan where I sat up and turned around. Luke and I rode easy back downriver until the group caught us on its way back just before The Dip. At that point, Donald had commandeered the front for a while, so I happily sat in the draft at the back. Even after the rotation got going again, I stayed on the back for most of the return trip today.

It was still wonderfully cool and dry at the end of the ride, so I just had to stop at Zotz for a cup of dark roast while I carefully peeled off the stick-on helmet number I'd acquired on Sunday. Those things always leave a lot of residue behind.