seypat

My brother in WF called this morning. An 8 year old girl in Henrietta died awaiting virus test results. The test was negative. She might have been the granddaughter of a person I went to school with. She was his son's niece. I don't know if it was the daughter of the son's sibling or the DIL's sibling. Tough times. Be safe everyone.

TXsailor

We hadn't heard about this but haven't had the TV on all day and haven't left the house. I'll try to catch the news tonight. Sad Sad Sad.
We haven't gone out much but Bowie was hopping last night. They decided to Bring Back The Drag. Probably 100 vehicles making the drag and parked uptown watching. No one got out windows were up but stir crazy people got out of the house...including us in the Corvette
UPDATE
According to our local news the girl died from pneumonia and tested negative for covid-19

canklecat

My Ironman has morphed a bit over the years. I rode it with the standard configuration the first year: 52/42 chainrings, 7-speed 13-24 Suntour freewheel. Took awhile to get strong enough to handle the 42/24 gear for some climbs. Mostly I was dissatisfied with the shifting and drivetrain noise.

Eventually I settled on Vuelta 50/39 chainrings and SunRace 13-25 chromed freewheel. Ran quietly, shifted crisply, good gear spacing and fine for everything except blasting downhill with tailwind assist -- I'd be spun out around 130 rpm in the 50/13 gear.

After my injury in 2018 I needed a bit more help on climbs when I got back into shape, so I switched to a 38T small ring. Helped enough.

When I got the Trekenstein from Tony in spring 2019 it came with 52/42 Biopace and 7-speed 14-28 Shimano freewheel. I later switched to a SunRace 13-28 freewheel because those chromed SunRace freewheels run so smoothly and shift crisply. The Trek was light enough and I was strong enough to handle the 52/42 chainrings, and the Biopace felt like it offered a bit of leverage on slow cadence climbs.

In January I disassembled the Trekenstein for an overhaul and swapped the drivetrain over to the Ironman: 52/42 Biopace, 13-28 freewheel. But Instead of also swapping over the 170 cranks from the Trek, I used the Ironman's original 172.5 cranks. Within a week my knees were aching a bit. Switching to the 170 cranks solved that problem. First time I realized crank arm length can matter. Some quirk of the Biopace eccentric chainrings.

After I finish overhauling the Trekenstein (waiting for the Chris King headset to be serviced, although I have a cheaper Origin8 Pro headset to replace it temporarily), I'm gonna put the Biopace and 13-28 freewheel back on it. And I'll probably restore the Ironman to the Vuelta 50/39 or /38 chainrings and 13-25 SunRace freewheel. I usually don't shoot for KOMs or PRs on the Ironman, it's more of a steady tempo pace and sociable ride bike for days when I don't feel like working out.

I also have a newer Diamondback Podium carbon frame I'm building up. Haven't decided on a drivetrain yet. Depends on the wheelset. It came with nice Ultegra 53/34 chainrings and 175 crank. I can't replace the cranks without also replacing the 53 chainring, so I haven't decided yet. It'll depend on how my knees feel with the 175 cranks. I'm kinda leaning toward an entry level Mavic tubeless ready wheelset with 10 or 11 speed. Probably 11-32 cassette.

seypat

I need to edit that post. She was 8 and died before her test results came back I just read the test result was negative.

TXsailor

The post mortem test came back negitive. Evidently she had pneumonia

markwesti

At first I got excited about this but then I got un excited . No more scratch and dents !
https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sf...098801147.html

seypat

Nice color, though.

seypat

In other news, I went to the office to get my van this morning around 9am. I noticed a lady in my neighborhood out on a run with another runner. She is on the same Marathon training team that I am on but is on a different sub team. Probably about the same age as I am. I got back from the office around 11 and noticed her go by with a different running buddy. I ate lunch, then went outside to prune back some boxwoods in my yard. The lady and some running buddies kept coming by about every 10-15 minutes. I asked if she was doing a marathon. She said she had started at 6 and was attempting a 50 miler. She was at 39.3 miles. I got a cowbell out and gave her some love/inspiration every time her entourage passed. She went by for the last time around 5 as I was finishing up. She had .4 mile left. I followed at a safe distance cheering/cowbelling her back to her house/finishing line. It made for a great afternoon!

TriBiker19 

Can anyone point me to a guide on how to determine which chainring and gear ratios work with different terrain? I'm in a hilly area. I have a 70" gain in just the first quarter mile getting from my home to anywhere. I have a couple of bikes--my Shogun 500 and the Fuji that are stock and I'd like to dabble in swapping gears to make them more efficient. My son also has a Trek 24" bike and I'd like to teach him about ratios, even though he's only 9, he's a smart kid and would probably catch on. (Can I upgrade a kids' MTB? We're disassembling for paint soon and he's going to ride this until we get to the point that he's riding an adult bike.)

seypat

You can look up Mike Sherman gear calculator. That is a good one. Sheldon Brown's gear calculator is another.

Classtime 

@TriBiker19
I think your new 10 speed IM has a compact 34-50 in the front with a 11-28 in the back. That gives you pretty good uphill gears. Compare that with normal IM gears: 42-52 in the front and 13-24 in the back which is for "real" Ironpeople. Hit that hill near your house a few time and switch bikes each time to feel what's what. Then for the ratio lesson, Put each bike on the trainer and work through the gears while your son turns the cranks by hand. Start from a dead stop with each gear change.

texaspandj

High of 64 today cloudy and 30% chance of rain. Basically not my favorite kind of weather but close enough for me to finally ride again, since it's been raining . My favorite type of weather is 80° and above, blue sky and puffy white (cumulus)clouds. By the time I head out it'll be about 58°. I think I'll ride my straight up road bike otherwise known as the only bike I own with regular road bars.
Thursday I was ready to ride, but about 15 min before my wife got home it started to rain and it was cold. Then it continued to rain friday. Friday I was set to run outside but rain, no big deal. But when my wife gets home she said I can't run in the rain, too risky, I could get sick, compromise my immune system, the works. First I don't believe you get sick from cold or raining weather but maybe it does make my body work harder to regulate temp and thereby making my body susceptible to illness...maybe. But since shes the only one bringing home the bacon (literally and figuratively) I just said yes dear. My wife is the designated person in our household to go to the store or anywhere for that matter. Although I'm NOT high risk, I Do Not have diabetes, high blood pressure, or any health issues. However, I'm 56 and she's 21 years younger than me and the Onus is on her (and unfortunate stress) and btw that was her decision. But her argument was she's still working out in the world, I'm home with my 5 yo daughter (as usual) and she falls in the safest age range statistically speaking. All I know is she's been our Hero and we let her know that ...daily.
Back to riding, I think I'll be on my '89 Summertime Blues Ironman. It's the one I only ride when I'm riding with my bike buddy. But since we're not riding together I'll take it out for a good spin. Shoot, I might even ride 26 today.
Oh the subject of gear ratios, I have not a clue what those numbers by inches or whatever mean. I just go by feel. However, I do remember BITD when I was good, I generally was in the 52x15 or 17 and have no idea what or how many inches. But it sure was the sweet spot for me. Now a days it's more 42x something easy.
later IronKids.

67tony 

Yup, I'm 66 years young and this about sums it up for me.
I'm usually in the 42 x 15-19 range.

seypat

I'm watching movies today....................and building/truing a new set of wheels for the Turbo.

rccardr 

'Gear inches' are just a more precise way of expressing how easy or difficult a gear combination is:
Rear gear teeth divided by chain ring teeth times diameter of the tire (if you multiply this times Pi, 3.14, then you get the actual number of inches traversed per full crankshaft rotation, but nobody does that cuz it just makes all the resulting numbers larger).
The higher the gear inch result, the harder it is to turn the crank arms and the faster you go. Note that this is more precise than just using the gear ratio because it takes into account the actual size of the wheel/tire combination.
So, a 52/14 on a bike with 700X23 tires is different than riding 52/14 on a bike with 700X32 tires. Even between tires of the same nominal size, there are differences in the diameter when actually mounted.

Interesting fact: on the same bike using the same rims and tires, a 42/16 is pretty much the same as a 52/20. Is one better than the other? Discuss!

madpogue 

I'll give you a topic -- a "gear inch" is neither a gear, nor, per se, an inch -- discuss!

Classtime 

If I'm on a climb, the 42/16 allows me easy down shifting. The 52/20 is better on the flats as I can up shift easier. Shifting in the opposite direction, quickly deteriorates to cross chaining.

seypat

It's also about the same as the upper 2 cogs with a 30T chainring. Which one is the best? That depends on what the terrain looks like coming up. I like being on the big ring, generally. But, a couple of shifts of the FD gets me mountain goat mode. One shift back the other way with the FD and I can go either way. I always have options. It just depends on what's down the road.

TXsailor

Here are some pictures. I rode 51 Socially Distant miles.





The grasshoppers are out the schools shut down and Texas is blooming. People are wearing masks but don't seem to be staying home. Strange times but getting out helps.

dmark 

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...7720510415190/

$50 Long Island NY

TXsailor

The first picture wasn't really about the sign it was supposed to show the school which should be a beehive of activity was dark and no one there. If it offended anyone it wasn't meant to.

TXsailor

Wow that's a nice little LeMans. 50 cm? Is anyone getting out in N.Y. to buy bikes?

seypat

High schools are still using 4 letter spirit acronyms! What does BOJO stand for? I'm guessing the J is for Jackrabbits. WF Rider HS, which is close to the original start/finish line of the Hotter N Hell, used/uses ROHO. They are the Rider Raiders.
Ride
On
Honorable
One

TXsailor

From what I understand the RR designation for the stop in Bowie was BOJO . Somehow it morphed into Boosting our Jackrabbits Onward.

valve_timing

I love this man what size is it I just picked up one of these in 58cm I gotta get a shorter stem though it’s like 120mm