Catch up.

Hm so I haven't posted in the last couple weeks.

Last Sunday I finished track class. We did a few bumping drills, standing lap, flying 200s, and some scrimmage races.

Thursday I raced up at the velodrome. I did horrible on the tempo race; started near the back and couldn't move up. The track is a lot scarier when you are racing then when you are pacelining.

The second race went a bit better; I went for the first place sprint on the reverse miss and out, but spun out my 86" geared rental on turn 3.

Third race went alright for me, except all the carnage. I was in the right place at the right time for all 4 crashes. I was ahead for the first, uptrack for the 2nd/3rd, and near the back for the fourth. That spooked me a bit. I led a few laps, but burned too much too soon. Ended up finishing somewhere in the middle/back of the pack.

Today I did a lot of bike maintenance and cleaning around the apartment. I finally figured out what was causing my shifting issues on my road bike. For the longest time, i couldn't shift down to the smallest cog easily. It would hang up for a few seconds. Ends up that the stupid ferrules that came with my SRAM stuff had these little rubber o-rings in them. The cables did not slide smoothly at all, so there was just enough tension in them to make shifting painful.

I also averted disaster and found a link on my chain that was about to pop. The end of the pin was halfway into the plate. I started hearing the chain pop during the week, especially when I was out of the saddle. That would have been a bad one to have the chain tear apart mid-stroke.

The Chili Con build is progressing slowly. I picked up some Thomson goodies (X2 stem, Elite seatpost) and some green Salsa QRs. Tomorrow or Monday will be the big money-dump. SRAM RED shifters and derailleurs for the road bike, Force shifters and derailleurs will move to the 'cross bike. I'll probably stick a Rival crank on the Salsa and keep my Force compact on my road bike. I am trying to keep this thing on a budget.


I'll get a good road ride in tomorrow; something on the lines of 80-90 miles.