Sunday, December 18, 2011

Sunday Final

Yikes!
Double Yikes!
More on this later.
So anyways, I went out today and took the Rockhopper on a short cruise.
Cruise is the word, for running them 1.95 inch tires is like plowing through the sand. I mean I put in like 60 lbs of pressure in them, but they still felt like they were flat!
The Rockhopper also has them oldfangled Biopace rings, the ones I have a hard time spinning with, so for the most part I was just pedaling along at about 30 rpms.
No really.
The good thing about them fat knobbies is that I can ride on the grass again without worrying about falling over.
Makes taking short cuts through the part a breeze.
So I stopped off for the obligatory winter picture:



You can't really tell from the picture, but the wind was blowing a bitter cold!
Blew my bicycle down like three times!
That's the first yikes!
I also forgot about my broken spoke.
I remembered when I heard it go ping!




That was the second yikes!
Luckily, this being an oldfangled bicycle, there were about 67 spokes left so the wheel was still ridable.
All that low rpm spinning was making the thirsty so off to the cream soda place I went:



I tell you, running around on a mountain bike feels strange now after all them miles on the a road bike.
I mean there's the low rpms and all the resistance coming from the tires. I tried to hit the gas a couple of times but all it did was propel me from slower to just slow.
I mean even when you're going sort of fast, it still feels slow.
If you know what I mean.
So anyways, some storm clouds were heading in my direction so off I went!
Time to head for home.
I stopped off at the LBS for some cables and a new spoke, but somehow I lost the broken one between there and there.
Luckily, I stopped off just in time: snow storm!
The melted snow in the road:



Maybe I need some studded tires or some tire chains or whatever it is you folks on the Continent use.
The nice thing about them knobbies is that they don't track too much water.
You know, like the in your face water.
There are a few things that need attention like them said knobbies. I guess they're so old, the sidewalls don't look too good. I'll need to take care of that before I go on any off road expeditions.
Hopefully I'll be able to get one in during the break, maybe after Christmas.
Stay tuned.

2 comments:

John Romeo Alpha said...

I wonder if that's how they come up with the "reduced spoke count" wheels, first go down to 67, see if that works, then 66, 65...(drink a cream soda) 64..,

limom said...

Them Obermeyer folks must gone through some cases of soda.
Their front wheel has only twelve spokes.
Then again, maybe it was some other cold frosty beverage that got them down to twelve.