On Tuesday, December 31, 2019 at 8:51:25 AM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/31/2019 6:13 AM, wrote:
Tom should ask himself what 'training for power' means to him as a 75 year old. If he means training with varying power blocks he needs a goal, a trainings plan and a power meter to know what he is doing. Him mentioning that he already sees an effect after 1 or 2 rides based on average speed make me suspicious. I hope that when I am at that age I'm satisfied by just riding the best I can without worrying that it gets downhill with age. I think Tom has a hard time to accept that.

I agree with all that, especially the part about riding the best I can.

To expand on that a bit: Not only is aging inevitable, but for many
people, life complications seem to be increasingly inevitable as one
ages. For any number of reasons it can become much harder to do long
rides, intense rides, or even to ride as regularly as you once did.

I think it's important to find a way to both keep moving, and to be
reasonably content with moving not as briskly as before.

Happy new year to you all.

And to you, Lou.

--
- Frank Krygowski

OK, ready to ride, the Colnago carbon fiber Taiwanese bike weighs in at 20 lbs. I rapidly completed the Basso last night and rode it today. Ready to ride, it is 4 1/2 lbs heavier. I did a familiar ride and the total time on a 3,700 ft 37 mile ride was zero difference. Since my 185 lbs and the Colnago's 20 lbs makes an increase of 4 lbs only a little more than 2% I wouldn't expect to see any difference.

I might even have been a bit faster since I had a slightly loose rear wheel which turned and locked against the left chain stay on a steep part leaving me to sort that out and try to get moving again. And I passed what was quite clearly a stolen SUV and reported it to the Park Police. Then on the return trip the Sheriff was there so I stopped and gave him the information that just around the next turn from that car had been a pickup stopped and as I passed I had a funny feeling and looking in there were two people with hoodies on with their faces totally obscured. The motor was running and there wasn't any steam coming out the exhaust so they most obviously had a heater (the windshield wasn't frosted over either) and were covering their faces for a reason. I considered calling the cops after I saw the stolen SUV but thought it better to get out of gun range first. Down the hill is a Golf course so they have a camera recording their front gate which covers passing traffic.

Now although I did the ride in the same time, I am pretty tired but I write that off to doing nothing but short flat rides for the last three weeks.

The test ride also showed that the mechanic overpacked the bearings so they settled as the extra grease squished out. The front derailleur was a standard and threw the chain twice but Amazon delivered a Compact so I installed that.

I must be getting very good at eye-balling the rear derailleur adjustment since it too, like the LeMond I just set up, worked absolutely perfectly including the shift from the lower half of the cassette to the upper loose cogs.