Life, Lust, and Silly Puns

Left Saturday morning, around 10-10:30. Jasper couldn't come, but we still rode. There were a ton of road bikers today. We only saw 2 or 3 other mountain bikes, but all the other bikes were road bikes. Some noteworthy bikes: 2 Cervelos, 2 Scattante (rofl), and a Specialized Allez -__- . We saw a couple pack riders, but otherwise they were biking alone or in pairs. We went a little farther than Saratoga High, which was a 5 mile point, then we headed back. It was really windy, and my hair kept on coming out of my gigantic helmet vent. That was really annoying. On a better note, I didn't have to use any of the tools I had brought. In the end, we finished 2 Clif bars, half a bottle of powder-mix Gatorade, and some water. My dad was exhausted, but I wasn't as tired. I also mentioned that I could bike farther, and with the addition of all the road bikes we saw today, I think he may be more convinced on getting me a road bike ;] Just maybe.

Not too many pics, there wasn't much scenery. Just roads and stuff. In one picture, I blinked, and in the other picture, I looked retarded. So none of that for you.

Oh, and a side note, my dad and I hit 23.2 on a slight downhill slope. I wonder what I could hit... hm. Maybe later I'll temporarily mount that cyclometer on my bike and hammer it. :P





Oh yeah.


Edit: You know how I said I wasn't as tired? Apparently it kicks in several hours later...

So before school ended, I called CBS to see if they had the Crank Brothers Multi-10. They didn't. I knew Evolution had them, cuz I saw them last time I was there.

And thus began my commute. Going there was easy, as it was mostly downhill, and the wind was blowing to the side of me, or at times behind me. I was on 3-8 the entire time, except for the stoplights. Yeah, it was really windy today, and there was lots of dust. My the time I go to Evolution, my eyes were red. I bought my M10 and admired it. It was a little hard to open, though. The way back was windy hell. I had a headwind the entire way, although there were brief periods of no wind. I had to stop at Target to rest. One time while hammering through the wind, it was really hard to pedal, but I glanced at my shifter. 3-5. It felt like 3-7 or 3-8 on flat ground, and I wasn't moving very fast. Total trip time: a little less than 45 min. To sum it up...



Credit to Rick Smith of yehudamoon.com for the comic. I love it.

Afterwards, I spent 5 minutes adding teflon lube to my new M10 and now it opens smoothly.



Gotta unflip my stem cuz tomorrow I'm riding 10-15 miles with my dad and Jasper. I'll try to remember to take pictures ;)

So me 'n Maiko went to CBS today to get a floor pump. They had Specialized floor pumps, but the only one I brought enough money for was the Sport model, but it had a plastic barrel. The metal barrel version was $10 dollars more, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend the extra money. I'm not working in a bike shop, so the most I'll use it is like, once a week. But the thing that sold me was the free one-year warranty, so if it did break, I could pay an extra $10 then to get the metal version, or just get another plastic barrel version.







Heehee.


Oh, and afterwards, we went to the media training. Last year, robotics was pretty fun partly because of the small size of the club, where you felt like you knew everyone. This year, (not to be racist) the club is ~60% Indian, ~75% of which are freshmen. Also, ~30% of the robotics members probably don't know anything about engineering at all. They probably joined because "Oh robotics sounds fun, and my mommy tells me I'm talented, so I must be a useful contribution to the team." Not that I'm saying robotics has no good people, but I just feel that the addition of so many people isn't necessarily beneficial.



freshmen.

Well I talked to the guy at Evolution, and even he said he points most of road customers to CBS... and they mainly deal with mountain bikes... so I guess I'll take the hint. CBS builds the bike too, but I guess quality will suffer a little, but it should be fine I suppose. And the fact that CBS actually gets people with road bikes. And their inventory is more than half full of road bikes.

I'm paying MSRP in both shops, but since this is hypothetical it really doesn't matter. I'm not getting a road bike for a couple years anyway.



Sad face much?

Alliterations aside, I finally got a plier and took 5 minutes to remove the dork disc I had for way too long. (It's the plastic disc between your cassette and rear wheel spokes) Don't get me wrong though, you're supposed to keep it for the first couple of weeks to make sure your rear derailleur is aligned.

Pics!







And you should consider it. ;)

So me 'n Jasper went on a bike shop tour (actually only CBS and Evo., but whatever) and as it turns out, Evolution is pretty good. They order bikes from certain companies, among them, Specialized, Giant, Marin, a few others. So I asked around, and it turns out that I may not need a cyclocross bike. For the price I'm paying, the 'cross bike will be total crap, so I may as well just buy an entry level road bike and put the thickest knobbies I can on the bike.

So blah blah blah and a pizza later, I'm at Jasper's house and we decide the Specialized Allez (Al-lay btw ;]) is my best bet. For the price, I can get decent components. Bikeforums says to ask for a front derailleur upgrade, LBS (local bike shop) should only charge about $15 ish... but I'm not sure.




Why can't I get it now?

Edit: CBS says they'll charge ~$40 to upgrade Sora to Tiagra front derailleur.

A win win situation, really. Jasper gets a higher end fork, and I get a stiffer fork. I should have took pictures of the process, too bad I didn't. :P

Edit: So I took pictures a while ago, but I forgot to put them up here. So I got my camera and downloaded the pictures onto my computer and looked at them. I don't know what the hell happened (maybe I've spent too much time in the 'cross and road bike sections of bikeforums) but my bike looked UGLY. GAH. Geometry, color, whatever. Yeah I've probably spoiled my eyes on bikes I can't afford for a couple of years, but wow, yeah I was shocked at how bad my bike looked.

No pics for you guys.

Edit2: Never mind, my bike doesn't look that bad in reality... does it? I must be a terrible photographer.


Someday, somehow, I'm getting a rigid fork.


And a 'cross bike.

sigh.

So I cleaned by rear disc brake today, cuz it was squeaking every time I applied the brakes. Took apart my brakes, cleaned and sanded my pads and rotor a bit. It was pretty dirty.

Sorry no pics... didn't come to mind.

I didn't really like the look of the spacers on top, so I decided to try flipping the stem. It looks GREAT.



Fork looks weird... I realllllly want a rigid fork.