topflightpro

My Silca pump was an unmitigated disaster. First the rubber gasket used in the pump wore out - basically threaded valves wear at the edges to the point air leaked. It was an easy thing to replace. Then the leather gasket inside the pump wore out. I bought a replacement. It worked OK, until the plastic piece that supports the leather gasket broke. I could not fine a replacement for that. I ended up buying a series of washers at the hardware store until I could make it more or less work. Still, it doesn't work great. I had always heard Silcas were supposed to be the last pump you buy, but I did not find that to be the case.

I hear the new $450 Silca is supposed to be awesome, and should I ever win the lottery, I might buy one.

echappist

England vs Wales in the morning, MNT vs Ecuador in the evening. I better get cracking working in the mean time. perhaps i should do some bike maintenance while watching

furiousferret

Meh. Still in it though.

carpediemracing 

The reason for that is the Silcas were the first pump where you could buy replacement parts without too much hassle. Shops had the gaskets and such. Even the frame pump pieces were sort of available, replacement heads and the like. Plus it seems that whenever a shop had a broken frame pump they cannibalized it for parts less readily available, and since the plastic Silcas broke pretty easily there was always an influx of "can you fix this pump?""No""What should I do with it""Can we keep it, give you a break on a new one?""Sure".

The thing about Silcas is that it's easy to MacGyver them to keep pumping air. You may not have any idea how much pressure, the hose may be 12" long because you cut it down a bazillion times after it split at the base, it could be on its 20th leather washer, but the damn things still pump air.

I still have a Silca floor pump. Gauge stopped working a long time ago, like 20 years ago. I used it to chip ice at the Spring Series one year, broke the base in two pieces. I haven't fixed it but I still have both pieces. I keep misplacing the broken off half of the base, find it every 5 or 7 years, then promptly forget about fixing it. It's my super back up pump.

I bought a trio of Bontrager base level floor pumps with the auto-adapting head. Not impressed. Gave one to some random person at a race that didn't have a floor pump. I bought 10 pump head valve gaskets because when they're not fresh they don't hold easily and it's a real pain pumping up a presta valve where less than 2 inches of valve isn't showing (the pump head won't lock on so you have to pull the valve out of the rim while you push down with the pump head).

I like my Blackburn floor pump from the mid-90s. I bought it when I broke my Silca, then bought at least 2 more. I probably sold 40 or 50 at the shop, it was my favorite floor pump. Double sided head, easy to lock on even if there's barely any valve showing - the act of locking it actually pulls the valve up out of the rim a bit. Hose loops over handle so handle doesn't extend when packing. Hose cracks at base every 7-8 years, probably because the base area gets stressed if you tug on the handle when it's packed up (because hose holds handle down). I've done 3 cracked hose repairs, each time shortened the hose by about 1-2 inches, and two of those times the hose split at races - in about a minute I was good to go because it's a tool free attachment hose->pump-body. I just pull the broken piece off and if the hose is even marginally square it will hold onto the pump body. It's my go-to pump, the one I bring to all the races.

spectastic

I signed up for a cycling study, where blood draw is involved. There are 4 "complete blood draws," each containing 2 tubes. Anyone who's done this type of stuff know what the process is like?

topflightpro

I went by the shop this morning to pick a new helmet and some tubes. They had an eTap group in - it was special ordered for another guy. I snapped a quick pic of it and texted it to my wife, telling her they had it in stock so I bought it. Ok.

She wrote back a few minutes later, saying, yeah, sounds great.

Anyway, it's a good thing I have self control, because my wife is terrible at telling me No, I cannot buy things.

hubcyclist

I went to a different shop (W.W for you Boston area folks) to look/maybe try some stuff. I'm hanging out like 15 mins by myself and then the sales guy finally comes and talks to me and I mention a couple of models I'm considering and then he says you ought to consider a BMC, and takes me over and shows one particular model it to me, and then just walks away lol I'm standing there with a jersey (and shorts under my sweatpants), clearly not my hanging around gear, and it doesn't even occur that I may want to try out some stuff? Weird interaction.

Ygduf

you probably ride on some ****ty computrainer in a lab and die of heat and they come every 15 minutes or whatever and steal your blood. If they want you to swallow a thermometer lead, run the other way! Not worth it!

hack

But you get free datas that are borderline unusable to you as a rider because they're not collected in an environment that is in any way consistent with how you'd really ride ...

topflightpro

The thermometer used in the study I had was like a small pill. I swallowed it, and I assume I pooped it out at some point.

spectastic

they use kickr as the trainer. I see those on strava all the time, and haven't really gotten to really use one before. and I'm sure the thermometer would be pretty inert, with some kind of plastic coating, encasing a small transmitter.

spectastic

so the blood samples aren't a lot, right? like 5mL per tube? do they have to poke a new hole every time? what blood values do they test for? I would gladly have my blood work done. always been curious what my hermatocrit level is, along with other stuff.

furiousferret

If you're near Austin, I know a guy that's very familiar with it!

spectastic

do tell.

does he race for elbowz or elevate?

carpediemracing 

When I get a physical done I get all that automatically. I just ask for a copy.

I had blood drawn for an A1C test, hopefully it'll have all that info (it did before but that was a general workup, not sure about the A1C specific test).

Flatballer

Soccer in this country is weird. Our national team is playing in the knockout stage of a kind of big deal international tournament, and the bar I went to watch it at didn't even know what I was talking about when I asked them to put it on. Crazy.

I've also read that the food here went downhill, but my server didn't even ask if I wanted food. I guess it is late, but still.

spectastic

I haven't had one of those since I've had to drop my drawers and cough

echappist

damn, first time i think i've ever had this much dislike of a team. all the dirty fouls.

Doge

Watching Pol-Ger as wife can't take the USA game.

Flatballer

I can't believe the US player got a straight red for barely touching a guy who was coming at him. Never should've been 10v10, and now the US is down like three good players for the semis. Oh well.

echappist

good choice. i need another beer to calm myself down enough to sleep...


thankfully, that ended up being a moot point as Jones was going to miss the next match regardless.

You are definitely right that it's a Pyrrhic victory. So Bedoya is out along with Bobby Wood and Jermaine Jones. Nagbe can probably replace one of them but doesn't seem to have that mean streak of Jones. Don't know who should replace the other mid-field player. Losing Wood also removes the excellent hold-up play, and i'm not sure Dempsey is cut out to play such a role... Now if we only had Johansson or Altidore...

Perhaps we should have brought in Alfredo Morales or Danny Williams

Flatballer

yeah, we're down three good players, and we're playing (almost certainly) Argentina and Messi. That probably won't go well. Making it that far already is super impressive though. They weren't supposed to make it out of that group.

Doge

This weekend Daniel is doing he real real last junior races (there is a crit the day before we fly to college next week but that is "out") - the Victorville RR and Crit.
He's been slacking on training, running in boots. So doing his first junior local races of the year.
As of this AM.
Sat - 17-18 RR - 3 entries. One kid has no ride history. Looks like first race. Supposed to be 93 degrees.
Sun - 17-18 Crit - 3 entries - ditto. Supposed to be 98 degrees.
Sun - P12 - 8 entries. Supposed to be 104 degrees.
Forecast for Mon is 109.

echappist

either way, we get two more matches to watch. Heck, there's even the possibility of a rematch of USA vs Mex in the 3rd place match

PepeM

Bad call, that match was horrible.