Saturday Stuff

Boy, today was rough.
My heart rate didn't want to settle down and my legs felt like Bill Cosby's favorite snack.
Yet I soldiered on!
I must for today was packet pick up for the Haleiwa Metric Century, which is oh oh! next week.
Do not fear for me dear readers, for I am ready!
As ready as I'll ever be.
Okay, not really.
I could have put in more miles, but hey! I'm lazy.
Well, not that lazy, but lazy enough to be dangerous.
So anyways today, I tried out a new chain lube.



If you've been following along at home, you, the reader, know that I had some noise trouble with old chain lube.
Well, being sort of scientific and all, I went and cleaned the chain, and used the old stuff, Chain-l, again.
Well, the noise went away, and all was good for about 125 miles, when I cleaned the chain again.
This time though, I used that Rock N Roll stuff, Absolute Dry formula, not to be confused with the Extreme formula which is blue.
I used the blue stuff before and it worked pretty well, and I thought that this dry stuff would keep my chain from getting all black and gritty.
Well, it kept the chain and cassette clean:



So clean in fact it looks like there's nothing on there.
Seriously, I ran my finger on the chain and hardly anything came off:



Absolutely dry and absolutely not good.
My shifting went south and I spent half the ride adjusting the cable. There's also some drive train noise that wasn't there before.
From what I've been reading, this Campagnolo stuff is kinda tricky to set up though once you got it set up it's all good.
Well, I guess it sort of likes a certain type of lube and let me tell you it doesn't like this one.
The Campagnolo I mean, doesn't like the Rock N Roll red.
When I got home, I doused the chain with Pro Gold and went down the street. Shifting improved, back to normal.
So what's this all mean?
Nothing.
All it means is that this lube didn't work for me today.
Will I try it again?
Probably not for that clean chain looks a little too clean, sort of like I'm running around without any chain lube.
When it all comes down to it, I'd rather have a dirty looking clean shifting chain rather than a clean dirty shifting one.
If you get my drift.
So I cleaned my chain again, and tomorrow I'll try out the Boeshield again.
That's another dry lube but it worked well before, it just didn't last too long.
Something tells me though that I'm going to go back to the Chain-l eventually.
If it's quiet and shifts good, I'll take the grime.
Also, I got some new bar tape!
Yes, again.
That plain Cinelli cork tape was tough on the hands so I got me some gel tape.
More on that tomorrow.
Maybe.