furiousferret

This is mildy infuriating:



It was about 5 miles from my house (I'm in SoCal), and now its not....

topflightpro

I've had the same issue with Amazon lately. Order arrived at the local distribution center, then left, then arrived at a farther distribution center, then left, and is now listed as delayed. In my experience, once Amazon tells me it's delayed, it's just not coming.

Flatballer

Same. Occasionally it'll show up eventually, but it's rare. I usually just take the refund as soon as they offer it.

Enthalpic

Or you get extra's...

I almost feel bad about how much free stuff I've got from Amazon.

gsteinb

my wife ordered padded envelopes from staples. A $13 order.

Staples sent 98 spray bottles (without tops) valued at around $1000

furiousferret

Caffeine doping is back on the menu boys!



I forgot how much better pure espresso tastes over drip coffee. Even Americanos (espresso with added water) are 10x better. Drip coffee is for the proleteriat...

Also thanks for the multimeter suggestion, now I kinda know how to fix this thing, and I'm going to make some modifications to it as well; some of the electronics really aren't waterproofed well, and a little bit of tape to redirect it should prevent this in the future. I'm also going to add walnut knobs and flow control but that's beyond the scope of the 33 (except maybe Doge )

ridethecliche

I think the Sphyre's are gonna be it. The lace up giro's I tried were way too small in what was the 'right' size by the charts. I might order up another size just to try those too since the shoes seem interesting but I'm a bit unimpressed by the lack of fore-aft cleat movement allowance.

Sphyre's felt like wearing slippers with their closure. Just awesome. The Specialized torch 3.0's felt pretty good as well but weren't the same as the sphyres. With the Sphyres and the Sworks at the same cost I feel like it's a bit of a no brainer right now. Might have to pick a color other than the highlighter green one though....and possibly keep an eye out for another pair on sale since I don't want to pay 300 bucks more for a set of shoes to have a backup.

Kinda debating stepping down to the shimano RC7 from the sphyre though. They've been reviewed to be pretty good and given the lower price, I might be able to grab a second pair to just leave at my GF's place or something. I like the idea of having the SPhyre's but realistically I doubt I need the top of the line shoes right now, esp with the price difference of about 100 bucks or so. Did I mention I hate buying shoes?

We have to get tested if we have a fever or other covid related symptoms even though we're vaccinated. You're put on the bench till your test comes back negative. Curious how they'll change the policy once that happens. I had to call out right after the 2nd shot and again the week after but the 2nd time they told me to quarantine till I got a negative test back.

burnthesheep

I got some angry faces on the FB for taking a dig at a LBS. Not a specific one mentioned, but it would apply to at least three in town. I dunno. I wanted to not have to wrench always with a hobby like bikes versus something like saving money on your family automobiles. I wrench those within reason. Saves me taking off work and cash. Just do it on 2 hours on a weekend, etc....

With the bike 5 years ago I had hoped it would be something I could pay for the service. Take a break.

Even pre-Covid times 5 years ago........LBS's couldn't give me a day to drop off the bike or pick it up. "Just leave it, it'll be about 2 weeks". WTF? How is that any way to run a service business? Every service I've ever paid for from HVAC to car repairs etc work by appointments, book hours, dates, times.

So I gave up and wrenched myself. Last year, pre-Covid, I inquired with the LBS's about dropping it off to have it recabled. I had the TT and cross bike to entertain me. Still same thing though. Couldn't give any reasonable range of time. "Just drop it off, it may be a while". If the bike works fine now, why am I going to sit without it for an unknown period of time? I had spare bikes to ride, but still that's annoying AF.

I can't imagine in Covid bike boom it's done anything but get worse.

Nobody appreciated the "dig". I get the whole "shop local" and "support local" thing. But if time and again I run into issues, what am I to say? Surrreeee.......run your bike on down to Joe's Bike Shack.....it'll sit there for a month and you won't know when you may pick it up.

I know not all shops are like that. I just don't get why it is a bit of an accurate stereotype in the bike world.

I wonder if this may be why you see a lot of the "less rabid" roadies that are B-group riders who lose a bunch of fitness and you see their Strava take a dive in activity. Without their bike for 3 weeks. Most "rabid" roadies I know wrench themselves.

furiousferret

We have a shop like that around here and it was a standard 8 days. Last time I dropped it off was to fix a Campy shifter, and they way they looked at it I knew....when I showed up on the pickup day, they gave it back to me in pieces and wondered why I was angry and wouldn't pay.

Shop I go to now is great, and if it goes over a day they'll call.

topflightpro

Do you have a relationship with any of those shops? I have a solid relationship with 4 or 5 shops in the area. It helps me get things when I need them.

Flatballer

That was the only way I could ever get anything done at a shop. I either hung around the shop and asked questions and was young and they took pity on me, or they were a sponsor and I rode with the owner and he liked me and would help me out.

The few times I've called a shop around here, where I don't know anyone, I immediately regretted bothering.

big john

I've been dealing with the same shop/owner since about 1987. He has given me great deals on bikes, frames, and parts. I can always count on him for a decent price on stuff. Now he's going to retire and I will be out in the cold, cruel world.

himespau 

I like the idea of wrenching (getting the right tools, assembling the parts, planning it out) a lot more than the actual wrenching. The shop I go to when I finally get too frustrated with something I can't get adjusted right (or my wife gets tired of me putting off something) usually does a decent job and I know to expect about a week, but they always seem to get hung up on they idiosyncrasies on my bikes (confused about why I cable my brakes "the wrong way" - opposite hand/brake from the way manufacturers do it, never have seen tire savers before, not sure what the basket mount I fabricated for my wife's upright bike is). I remember one time I went in there and they were like, "oh, so you're the guy with the campagnolo bike" when I picked it up. They'd gotten the adjustment or whatever done but the fact that it was "the campagnolo bike" as if campy is some strange exotic thing was a bit funny to me.

Enthalpic

Why do you run your brakes that way?

Campy is fairly unusual now, especially if the shop doesn't sell it.

himespau 

I've been doing it so long, it just feels more natural. I think it was Sheldon Brown who extolled the benefits of controlling the stronger brake with the hand that's stronger and has better fine motor control for better modulation along with the idea that it's best to control the stronger brake if you can only use one (like when signaling with the left hand). Really though, it's how I set up my first rode bike when I started again after having ridden mtb-style bikes throughout childhood so it's what I'm used to. Not sure it really makes a difference.

waterrockets 

It's the standard in the UK
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/l...for%20a%20ride.

It's also more similar to motorcycle braking.

big john

Some moto guys run their bicycle brakes that way.

waterrockets 

Wouldn't it be more just "how much to keep it above freezing at temperature X?" I haven't used one, but it seems like it would have a thermostat and turn it on to make sure it's always at 40F or something with a "no precip" override? I guess it seems you're not getting any inertial help by starting with n cubic meters of fallen snow, where an individual flake is easier to deal with on the 2 sqcm chunk of concrete where it lands. Or maybe my way is more expensive

Flatballer

Good point. I'm not that kind of engineer, or a chemist. I think your way would work for freezing rain (because it's already falling as a liquid, so it's cheap to keep it a liquid and keep it from freezing) but for snow it doesn't help, because it's already frozen, so you have to pay the latent heat of fusion regardless of if you pay it a little at a time or all at once, it's still there. And the latent heat of fusion is what's really expensive, to get that phase change. So I'm not sure it matters much? But there's probably second and third and fourth and fifth order effects that I'm not considering.

If you run it all the time (without a blanket of snow on top) you're going to spend a lot of energy just trying to heat up the air above your driveway to 40F I would think, instead of actually melting things, because 98% of your surface area doesn't have snow on it at a given time.

I'd be interested to see someone model it though. I'm sure the folks who install and design them have figured all this out.

Enthalpic

While both are correct I prefer Enthalpy of fusion.

Our system runs all the time as far as I can tell.

Flatballer

Like I said, not a chemist.

And I couldn't have possibly guessed that you'd prefer enthalpy.

And that seems really expensive, does it run even when it's not snowing or going to snow? Is your driveway just always toasty? I guess if yours is just using waste heat from a boiler than it doesn't matter, it's either heat the driveway or put it out the exhaust, so you might as well.

Enthalpic

I think it's always pretty warm, the entire underground parkade is kept at room temperature. The heat capacity in all that concrete must be significant.

burnthesheep

Scored a BNIB Giro Vanquish with visor off of Slowtwitch. Great price. Mips.

After my 2020 sprint crash ruined that helmet, I ran out after to replace it with a closeout model at the Giant dealer that supports the team. Wound up after riding with it for a few months, I hate it.

It fits, it would protect a crash, but that's about it. Also, for training on the TT bike I don't like wearing the TT helmets due to them covering my ears. So I can't hear what's around me. So with the position and sunglasses, the sunglasses were an issue. Also, it's clearly made for a pretty "heads up" bike fit. Not a lower head like for aggressive road bike fit or TT fit. So, the vents on it and angle of the thing are like a giant cheese grater in the wind. That thing is silly loud wind noise compared to my old Evade I had.

The Evade was in a crash a long long time ago so it went into the trash.

With the Giro, the visor's top edge is really equal/above the edge of the top of the helmet. So no view obstruction. Which will be nice.

I'll keep the Giant and probably use that for gravel and cyclocross stuff.

Bonus is that it is red. So increased road visibility. The Giant helmet was black.

cmh

And it is a scientific fact that red is the fastest color.

Hermes

I bet we can find a study to support that...somewhere.