jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, February 12, 2020 at 8:27:23 PM UTC-8, Tim McNamara wrote:
On Wed, 12 Feb 2020 18:53:54 -0800 (PST), Sir Ridesalot
wrote:

I'm really glad I'm comfortable riding when it's below freezing.
Otherwise I'd miss about 1/2 of the year riding here.

Good for you and keep it up! I have given up on winter riding, which
here means missing anywhere from 5-7 months of riding depending on the
vagaries of weather from year to year. It's dangerous enough in the
summer with motorized idiots who can't put their f*****g cell phones
away to drive for ten minutes, put those idiots on ice and holy s**t.

Yikes. Time for Wahoo and Zwift. We skipped winter this year, unless it
hits us later. A few icy mornings and the usual rain, but that's it. No
snow in town. I'm in Bend (central Oregon) on business, and its blue
skies and spring like. It's freaky.


A foot of melting snow in my driveway from the +1C yesterday and they’re
saying -24C tonight. I’ll need crampons to walk to the street. Sweating
on the trainer in the basement for the foreseeable future. At least when
I’m not skiing or snow shoeing. Getting too old for the cold though.

Tried Zwift but it’s too much like a video game. Tacx is the same price
and the films are ok. Plus I can load my rides from Strava or my Garmin
and practice them in GPS mode.

Bike things? Well, (1) it is f****** miserable getting tires off my
tubeless ready HED Ardennes wheels. Clincher tire beads stick hard to
tubeless rims. It took me ten minutes of hand calisthenics to get a rear
tire off the rim when I flatted last Saturday (giant glass shard). (2)
When you get clicking and creaking and think its the BB, always check the
rear QR and axle dropout interface. That's my only bike wisdom for the week.


My Ardennes SLs are getting near 40k kilometres. I’m not looking forward
to replacing them. The new ones are 25mm and it’s harder to find them not
tubeless ready. I like the 23mm rims with 23mm tires at 90 psi. The good
news is they still seem to be working fine. Never needed trueing, even on
Quebec roads. How do yours hold up? Which size?

Lots of stories from my son at Specialized -- he keeps buying all this
scratch and dent stuff for basically nothing. It's like giving a drug addict
a job in a methadone clinic. He also keeps me posted on new product
offerings like the new $15K Specialized super eBikes. I could get one
for like only $6K! Happy days are here again! If I hit the lottery, it
would be cool having a 20lb stealth eBike to torment the youngsters.

-- Jay Beattie.