LesterOfPuppets

Happy housewarming!!!

Has anyone brought you a ficus yet?

rjones28 

Safety. Pffft.

big john

Our club has at least 5 rides on the schedule every Saturday but these days it could be pared down to 3. The pandemic really changed the club. A lot of people never came back, especially "B" type riders. Turnout is much smaller than any time since I joined in 1989.

One guy puts the rides up on the web page and he picks from dozens of routes. When I joined a different guy controlled it. Everything was printed back then and he had to bring route slips to the ride start every Saturday and Sunday, then pick up the unused ones after everyone left. We also had a printed monthly newsletter mailed to members. We assembled the newsletter at our monthly meetings but once that was done the meetings were usually fun. We had guest speakers and free snacks, sometimes repair clinics and demonstrations.

We had separate rides for racers for years and they are starting back again. They aren't on the schedule and are very informal deals.

seedsbelize2

Mine apparently does that too. I’m getting kudos out of the blue. I kinda remember setting it up years ago

seedsbelize2

It was a dark and stormy night

seedsbelize2

I had planned to watch the Giro last evening but watched a long interview with a very active session guitarist from the early seventies. Can’t remember his name.

BillyD

Pffft, you're a young fella, you can handle it.

seedsbelize2

Can’t be both?

LesterOfPuppets

I was very close to getting Dark and Stormy fixin's last night, even had the 4-pack of fancy ginger ale in my hand but then thought about having to go through the extra step of buying the rum. If I was in Safeway where you can buy hard liquor in a regular checkout I would've gone through with it.

seedsbelize2

My thing is mtb routes. The road routes I have down pat. And frankly, the three or four routes I know well are fine routes. Those who could show me routes are at work during the day and ride in the evening. I ride in the morning when it’s relatively cool

seedsbelize2

No rest for the wicked. I find that drugs can help with these activities. Weed and coffee together are especially well suited.

genejockey 

Addicted to therapeutics?

I took the Ritchey, with its newly rebuilt wheels. I was expecting a volley of pops and pings when I started off, but it was just two soft *tic*s and that was all. I went 53 miles, being sensitive to it only being 2 weeks since COVID. But I've been feeling pretty much normal - apart from every so often coughing up little wads of mucous. When I started out I felt fine, then between miles 4 and 6, I was thinking, "Maybe I'll keep this under 40 miles", but then it started feeling better and better. But even though I'd had a pack of Skratch Labs energy chews at about 30 miles in, the last few miles I was running low on blood sugar. No bonk, but definitely pre-bonk feeling of fatigue. The fatigue is not surprising, though, given that there was about a 15-20 knot wind out of the NNW, right in my face the whole way North on Canada Rd. I ended up swapping pulls with another rider for about 4 miles, so that helped.

I haven't re-checked the wheels since i got back, but it seems possible that squeezing the everloving crap out of pairs of spokes, at least twice for each wheel, may have de-stressed the spokes enough. I've had custom built wheels that had to be re-trued after about 50 miles, and some that NEVER needed it, after 10,000 miles. I think the latter guy had a press for that.

The new rims are Velocity A23s, with 19mm internal width, whereas the wheels I had been using have an OUTER width of 19mm, and I think a 13mm inner width. The tires - Conti Grand Prix in 25mm - look really wide now, and not at all "lightbulb-y" They may be almost as wide as the 28s on the Canyon.

LesterOfPuppets

Tap on that "Unpaved" button. The paved/unpaved data is still pretty spotty in some areas though. Could always do it the ol' skool way. Split screen Strava Heat maps and google maps satellite view in order to find the most popular dirt roads in the area.

seedsbelize2

I have already deleted Strava from the phone. ****em. I also live in an area with few recreational riders of any stripe. I am the only rec road rider in a 30 km radius. That’s the distance to Merida in one direction. The rest of the radius could be 200 miles.

LesterOfPuppets

Most of my route planning is done in RWGPS on a computer. Log into the site and start planning. I switch basemaps a lot as needed. Google satellite works well for looking at stuff, and you can drag the street view guy onto the map in some places. Some areas aren't well mapped on google though, so I'll try OSM Cycling or OSM Outdoors. Sometimes I just click on "Draw Lines" instead of "Follow Roads" for tricky areas.

Then save your route, give it a good name, then click on "Send to Device". Grab your phone and make sure you download the route for offline use if you think you'll be without cell service.

seedsbelize2

Tks

DougRNS

did anybody yell?

DougRNS

also like. Dig the piano and the bass player laid down some funky grooves.

big john

No but I wanted to a few times.

DougRNS

I've been known to yell and drop large quantities of F bombs. As I've gotten older i notice i don't take much **** and don't have much of a filter. Stuff happens.

DougRNS

you sound like a bad person.

DougRNS

possibly.

big john

I wanted to yell at this one lady who kept putting herself in danger from cars, like on a narrow road with not enough room. She's such a sweet person I wouldn't do it but her husband was there and he should have said something.

Another one was the woman who didn't know the route but kept hammering off the front, getting lost twice. I tried to make the point that you shouldn't be on the front if you don't know where you're going. It's not like I could chase her down on a climb.

terrymorse 

From today's ride down a dirt road in Los Altos Hills, on a gate at the end of the road:



Rough translation:

- - -
German doggo

needs cuddles, full of love, courageous, gentle

love: 100%, hunting instinct: 75%, appetite: 100%
- - -

Not your standard "Beware of Dog" sign.

datlas 

Dougs don’t like filters?