Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Fine Art of Recovering

This week has me wondering what I'd do without cycling. On the face, rest and recovery should be simple, eh? But sometimes NOT doing something is harder than actually doing what you're passionate about. The body has different ideas. It needs the recovery time. I've slept a ton this week. I was more fatigued than I thought. Training fatigue can be very deceptive.

I often get the blues during rest periods. I attribute it to a lack of endorphins and hormonal changes. It can really mess with your head if you are unprepared. My friend likens it to what women go through monthly. I'm sure that's much more dramatic. It explains a lot! Gotta respect that.

I have found some things to do other than riding. On my last ride the front derailler started acting up on the Addicks levee. It wouldn't drop from the big ring to mid-ring. I didn't stop to fix it, instead forcing the shift with a swift kick. Well, I hoisted the Stumpy into the stand to find this...



A little rock trapped into the linkage. Luckily I didn't break anything with my percussive shifting method. It was an easy fix.

A friend recently broke a crank spindle. It was very rusty. It's a good idea to grease these every once in a while to keep corrosion at bay. I removed the crank arm...



cleaned and greased it up...



I also replaced my bottle holder. This is an Arundel side loader. It's asymettrical, so the bottle comes out of the side. A bottle fits with a regular holder in the Stumpjumper frame, but just barely. And it's ackward getting it in an out. I hope this works better. I'm a bit skeptical it will hold securely enough on rough terrain.



I replaced my bars too. The spec bars didn't never me fit very well. I cut them down a while back. That helped. Still, the bars didn't fall across my knuckles very well. Hard on my wrists. Too much upsweep and backsweep. I wanted to lower the bars just a bit more, too.

A flat bar with 3° backsweep was the solution. This bar is perfect. It was the same width as my cut bars, so I didn't have to cut them. They fall on my knuckles perfectly. They are indeed lower. Dramatically. Maybe too low. But that's fine, because I can ditch the negative rise stem I have on there now. I hate the way neg rise stems look.



I didn't negelect the chi-chi bike. The dang seat post has always squawked. Loudly. It sounds like someone practicing with a goose call! I've finally had enough. Since you can't grease a carbon post, I used some Tacx carbon assembly paste. Supposedly this stuff helps. If not I'm ditching the seat post...


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