The Tuesday Nighter

I've got five bikes, each with its own purpose. There's my the first bike that I bought as an adult, which I've turned into a time trial bike, the Black Bike, which replaced the older bike as my regular ride, a mountain bike, a fixed gear bike, and the Delta Bike.

The Delta Bike is the "classic sports car" of my bicycle stable. I'd always liked the Campagnolo Delta brakes, and when I bought a set of them on EBay, I built a bike around it, using a classic steel Colnago frame, and all parts were from the same early '90s era.


Since the 1970's, there has been a Tuesday night training race in Austin, called the Tuesday Nighter. It's a non-sanctioned race, with no entry fee, no prize money, and no organization. Everyone just shows up, the 'A' group goes off for their three laps, and the slower 'B' group starts a few minutes later for their two laps.

I'd never done this race, mostly because I'd heard that it could get a bit crazy (i.e. non-sanctioned, no organization) and because it wouldn't be easy to get down to South Austin after work for the 6pm start.

Last night, my friend Greg and asked me if I'd be interested in doing this week's Tuesday Nighter, because he was going to try it out. It sounded good to me, but since my Black Bike is in pieces (I'm rebuilding the shifters), I'd have to use the Delta Bike. I've been riding the Delta Bike for the past week or so, so that wasn't a big issue. I told Greg that I didn't want to crash the Delta Bike, so I'd just hang in the back of the peloton.

I drove over to Hammerhead Bikes to meet up with Greg, Cody, and a few others, and we rode down to Mellow Johnny's, where we picked up another 20 or so folks, then rode to the start of the Tuesday Nighter. It was a pretty mellow ride, and I had 20 miles in by the time we arrived at the race. I was having some problems with the shifting of the rear derailleur, but I just put that off to a tuning issue.

We waited for a few minutes, then the 'A' group rolled out. We followed shortly thereafter. At the bottom of the first hill, we hit a rough spot, and my chain got hung up in my rear derailleur. It's done this before, and I was able to get it straightened out while still being able to stay with the pack. A minute later, the chain was hanging again. This time, however, as I was trying to get it straightened out, it got much louder, and the rear wheel locked up and started skidding.

This couldn't be good.

I was able to keep the bike up, and bring it safely to a stop. When I looked, I saw that the piece of the frame to which the rear derailleur is attached (called, coincidentally enough, the derailleur hanger) had broken, and the derailleur was dangling on the cable.


This was not good. The two pieces pointed to in the following picture should be one piece (See? They're the same color!)


The bike was now not rideable, and I had to walk back to the start. I didn't want the derailleur to drag on the ground, so I walked the bike, leaning over it to hold the derailleur, which was a pain. I tried a couple of different ways to push the bike, including holding the rear wheel off the ground, and just rolling it on the front wheel, but this was hard to control. I carried the bike for a while, too, but it wasn't fun.

Several cars drove past me, but none stopped to help. One car did stop, and the driver asked me how I was doing. When I told him, "I've been better," he proceeded to ask me if I knew where the nearby car junkyard was. He went on to tell me how he'd driven all around, but couldn't find it.

Thank you for your concern, sir. Yes, I know where is the place for which you search, but I'm going to let you find it yourowndamnself.

Finally, a woman in a minivan, going in the other direction, stopped and asked me if I needed a ride. She then went down the road to turn around, came back, loaded me up, and took me to the start of the race, where I thanked her profusely.

Luckily, a Violet Crown rider, Robert, had driven to the race, and agreed to take me and my bike back to Hammerhead.

I'm hoping that Cody and the good folks at True Fabrications can replace the rear dropout on my bike.

Really?

My grocery store prints coupons at the checkout, on products related to what you've purchased, for use on your next shopping trip.

Here's my receipt from today:



Here are the coupons that I received:





So, my question to you is, what was it that I bought that led them to believe that I have a pussy?

Blogs for the ADD-enhanced.

The Rules are:

1) Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2) Pass the award to 15 other blogs (or whatever, cause I don’t have 15!) that you’ve discovered. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

Thank you, Ladies, but what is "Jologs na Yuppie"?

I ain't gonna pass this on, though, because that's the kind of rule breaker I am.
I will, however, introduce you to some of the blogs that I follow, because I was gonna do that anyhows. I like these blogs because they take about 3 seconds to read, which is great for those of us with the attention span of a gnat fart.

You probably already know about the FAIL blog:

Picture is Unrelated is my favorite source for profile pictures:

This is Photobomb has pictures of people which are enhanced by others (sometimes other people, sometimes animals) in the background (click on pic for full effect):

Mostly Awkward Family Photos, but also the occasional awkward family story (click on pic for full effect):

Pictures of people who really shouldn't be having kids (click on pic for full effect):

Pictures of hipsters are usually good for a laugh:

What happens when you parents join Facebook (click on pic for full effect):

People caught looking:

Need something repaired, don't look to these guys:

Likewise for tattoos:


Other blogs, that actually have stuff you have to read (but not much!) that I enjoy:

Stuff that's overheard at the office and in New York, as well as stuff that's said in bed and texted last night.

United Breaks Guitars

On a trip to Nebraska for a week of shows, Dave Carroll peered out of his airplane window and saw his guitar being thrown around by the baggage handlers. Surprisingly enough, the guitar was broken when he got to his destination. After nine months of getting the runaround from United Airlines, he came up with this song.

Hey Comedy Central Dot Com!

If you're looking for more blogs to sponsor, you'd better snatch this one up quick, before someone else does!

One from my own vault

I recently bought a new printer/fax/scanner, and wanted to try out the scanner. So, taking a cue from Bev, I dug out my third class photo. (I'm younger older than Bev, we only had black and white back then.)




My teacher's name, BTW, was Mrs. Franks.

Does this make my back tire look flat?

Today, I was the Ride Starter for the Austin Cycling Association's Krause Kruze ride. This is one of my favorite ACA rides, mostly for the hills in the last 10 miles of the 43 mile loop.



About fifteen folks showed up for the ride, a good turnout, considering that the ride starts in Spicewood, about a 45-minute drive from my house. Most people had signed up for the 43 mile loop, with a couple doing the longer 63 mile loop and a couple opting for the 23 mile out and back. I forgot to group people by the route that they were riding, so we just kind of haphazardly left the parking lot. I was on the "Tank" (my steel framed Colnago), so I was just taking it easy. Eventually, there were three of us riding together, and the rest were behind.

Heading down a hill just before the turn onto Dead Man's Hole Road, I hit a rock in the road. "Ouch," I thought, "I'm glad that rock didn't blow my tire."

"Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst," went my rear tire.

We found some shade and stopped so that I could put in a spare tube. I pumped it up and, as I was putting the wheel back on the bike, I noticed that something didn't look right on the rear wheel. Either the hub was having an issue, or my freewheel (the set of gears) was trying to come off. As we were only 11.5 miles into the ride, I decided that I would turn around and go home. I got on my bike and made two pedal strokes.

"Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst," went my rear tire.

Aaargh! Taking the tire off again, and looking at the tube to see where the hole was, I was able to find that the tire itself had been torn by the rock, and the new tube had pinched itself in the tear. I employed the old bicyclists' trick of using a dollar bill to place on the inside of the tear, to act as a boot and keep the tube from finding the tear, and Steve gave me one of his two spare tubes. The other guy with us told me that he had a $20 bill that I could use, if the $1 bill wasn't enough to do the trick. We laughed, and now have an old bicyclists' joke about an old bicyclists' trick.

I re-inflated the tire, putting in less pressure than before, to try to help to prevent another blowout, and the three of us parted ways. I asked them to come looking for me if my truck was still in the parking lot when they finished.

I got about a quarter mile into my return trip when...

"Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst," went my rear tire. (Less pressure, fewer "s"s.)

Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! Oh, well, I resigned myself to walking the 11 miles back, and hoping to either catch a lift from a passing truck or wait for Steve to come looking for me. Then I decided that I didn't really care if I tore up the rear tire, since I was going to throw it away anyhows, so I got back on the bike and gingerly pedaled my way onward. I tried to keep most of my weight over the handlebars and front wheel, to preserve my back tire the best I could; I didn't want the tire to come off and ruin the rim. This meant that I was standing a lot, leaning on my arms, and they were getting tired.

Another old bicyclists' trick, when the dollar bill trick doesn't work, is to stuff the tire with grass. Because we haven't seen any rain since the Nixon Administration, all of the grass by the roadside was pretty dry, and I thought that even if I was able to stuff the tire with it, I'd worry about it catching fire. I thought about what else I could stuff the tire with, and realized that I had something that was made for stuffing into tires: two tubes! I found another shady spot, and stopped to add the two tubes to the inside of the tire. This didn't do a whole lot to increase the volume of the tire, but I hoped that it would at least help to keep the tire on the rim. My biggest fear was the tire coming off.

The ride was anything but smooth, and made me feel like I was riding one of these:


I did eventually make it back to the truck, with no further incidents, and clocked 23 miles at a whopping 13.5mph.