Vacation bike bits

On Tuesday, I met some of my fellow Rassy team mates along with some guys All 9 Yards for a 2.5 hour gravel grind. We headed out of Water Works park towards Cumming and Orilla and then back home through the Booneville gravel road and back in on surface streets. Scott Robinson from A9Y was rollin' single speed and we were riding a similar pace, so I rode with him and the other A9Y guys the entire ride. I finished the ride off with a short run through the frosty Dirty Express single track on my way back the parking lot. The temperature drop and the extra dampness near the river had me wishing for some extra clothing during the latter part of the ride. I now know that it's time to put my thin gloves away and wear a thicker outer layer. Since I screwed up and only tried on one shoe when I was at Rasmussen's on Tuesday, I was forced to ride in my Keens and shoe covers, so my toes were a bit cold as well. A quick run through Jimmy John's on the way home took care of my post ride hunger.

Thanksgiving morning found me meeting Lou, Pete, Pig, Rick, Hollander, Rich, Reed, and Tony at 6:45 for some coffee and breakfast at Hy-Vee. We then rolled out to Ashworth Park for the 9th Annual Turkey Day Ride. I brought both the Karate Monkey and the Singlecross with me. After seeing no other cross bikes, I opted to follow the group lead and ride a mountain bike. After a quick group photo, over 50 riders worked their way through all of the Science Center trails (including a newly opened Rhythm and the Ghost of J11. Squirrel gave us a quick introduction to the new Child's Play and Serpent while we were out and about. The new shoes (now in the right size) were a bit stuff, but worked well. A small amount of cleat adjustment might be needed to dial in the fit better. Ninety minutes later, I was back in the parking lot, shooting the breeze and drinking a cold adult beverage. I quickly loaded the bike up, and raced home in time to throw some food in the oven for our holiday guests and have a few more beverages. Curled up on the couch that night and finally watched Iron Man.

Friday, I was up at 7 and out in the garage starting my BB7 brake install on the Karate Monkey. I had the rotors on and the calipers mounted and adjusted when I was drawn away by the need to take Kathy to the doctor at 10. Eleven hours, and a long time at the ER later, we were home, but it was obvious that I was not going to be making it to Jingle Cross this year.

Saturday I got up, made a french press of Italian Roast for me, breakfast for Kathy, and then went to the garage to finish the BB7 install. I had decided to run full housing for both the front and rear, so my first task was to drill out the existing brake cable braze ons. Lacking a flexible attachment for my either my cordless drill or the Dremel, this took a while to complete. I still need to go back and hit the newly exposed metal with some primer so that it won't rust. A heavy duty cutting wheel on the Dremel made quick, neat work of cutting and sanding both the housing and the brake cable. The result after a couple of hours was a working set of disk brakes. I'll likely spend a bit of time Sunday adjusting the front brake to work better than it currently is. After a short break for lunch, and getting the truck in out of the snow, I moved some bikes around in the garage, and got to work mounting a spare set of SKS fenders and studded tires on the SInglecross. I was going to use a spare wheelset for this, but had completely ignored dish and dropout spacing differences between a single speed and a standard hub. Since my Cayne road bike won't see any use until spring, I used its wheelset insted. A couple of hours and a quick wipedown later, the Singlecross was ready for ice and snow duty.