Once that was done I went for a ride to Point Hut Crossing, where the road was closed due to it being flooded for the first time in about 10 years. Here's what it looked like:
(No, I didn't ride across).
03 July 2007
Made it to 101km today, so I celebrated by purchasing a speedometer (to save myself the brain strain of logging the distance after every ride) and some 2Ah NiMh batteries for the headlight (to save myself the hassle of dismantling the light to charge its low-capacity NiCd batteries every second day). Hey look, I've now spent almost as much on accessories as I did on the bike! :-/Everything is running just fine, and I even managed a 42 minute door-to-door time coming home (I had a slight tailwind, and my knee is feeling MUCH better!) All going well I should now reach break-even by mid-August, with around 700km on the clock.
04 July 2007
Raining in the morning. According to my new speedometer it's actually 16.5km to work, not the 16km I thought it was. I took 49 minutes for the trip in, and 45 to return home (mostly due to more favourable hill and wind conditions on the return leg. I just precariously balanced the bike on my unreliable bathroom scales, and apparently in full commuting trim it weighs a muscular 16kg.I've decided to name it "Aaargh!", in homage to the Black Beast of Aaargh! from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
07 July 2007
Since I was feeling a little guilty about sleeping in until noon, I strapped a shovel to the rack and headed off to clear the big wash of gravel off the cycle path at the intersection of Drakeford Drive and Barr Smith Avenue. It's not a problem when the weather is dry (as in, most of the past 2 years) but in the wet it's a 30mm deep layer of sludge, on a corner, where one needs to brake before crossing the road.In a marvellous display of "no good deed goes unpunished", I broke the shovel handle when I was about 3/4 finished. Fortunately Bunnings was only 1km away, and to be fair the new $15 handle is a lot sturdier than the old one, but...
The rain started again just as I got home, and there's a magpie sitting on the fence outside preening. I do enjoy weekends.
Loaded up with shovel head, new and broken handles. |
New headlight and speedometer |
Full commuting regalia. I'm thinking I'll give it a wash in a month or two. |
Magpie enjoying a shower in the rain |
09 July 2007
Another day's commute. My knee is recovered, and thanks to that and a decent tailwind I managed a quite respectable 40:07 for the ride in (average of 24.7km/h). Unfortunately the wind was still blowing from the South on the way home, and I only managed a 46:20. ;-)11 July 2007
My speedometer started showing a partial display yesterday morning, then faded to blank. A new battery didn't cure it, so I dismantled it. I didn't find anything wrong with it, but once reassembled it worked again. It would have been nice if the case had been held together with screws rather than glue, but a combination of super glue and black silicone gasket goo seems to have everything held back in place.44:30 for this morning's commute, due to a few muscle aches after playing 6 vigorous games of badminton at lunchtime yesterday. This business of getting old isn't as much fun as I'd hoped it would be. :-(
13 July 2007
Friday the 13th, but so far all that has gone wrong has been a bit of camera shake. It was frosty again this morning, but not as cold as yesterday. Just in case you think I'm babying this bike to prove my point, let me assure you that I jump gutters and ride on dirt tracks as often as my commute route allows. The route includes a couple of hundred metres of dirt track like the bit in the pictures below each day.
Frost on the grass |
A good spot for bottoming-out the front suspension |
I know, it's pretty unimpressive. But I'm not going to ride this bike up and down flights of stairs until the forks break. |
16 July 2007
Stupid cheap speedometer stopped working again. I'm going to show my disgust by not buying another one. That'll teach it! ;-)19 July 2007
I had a day off cycling yesterday due to having to attend a funeral on the other side of town first thing in the morning. And now I'm off on leave for 2 weeks (including another attempt at downhill skiing) so I might be off the bike for a while yet.Only 10 more days until break-even though! :-D
31 July 2007
Still on holidays this morning, but I was feeling like a bit of a ride since I spent last week in Perth doing little except eat and talk. I started the ride with 17km to Woden to play "Ultimate Frisbee" with my colleagues from work, then headed off for a circuit of Lake Burley Griffin. I made a few navigational errors (due to forgetting my map), but after 3 hours of pedalling time I arrived back home with 67km under my belt.It probably would have been easier if I'd had more than just 2 slices of toast for breakfast.
The bike has done 513km now, and nothing has broken yet. Even the indexing on the rear derailleur has stayed as it should be, after that first adjustment. The only minor issue is some scratching on the braking surfaces of the rear wheel, and that's just due to my laziness in not washing the mud off after the ride in the rain. I'll just use the front brake for now.
6 August 2007
Oh no! I got a flat tyre on the way home, about 1km from my house. I briefly thought about riding home on it (slow leak) but decided against it and patched the tube "in the field". Just a broken glass puncture, I'm surprised to have gone so long since my last one.That's added an extra $0.50 to the cost (clearly an extremely high quality patch!)
8 August 2007
New Personal Best! My time this morning was 45:45, but thanks to the ride home being more downhill and having a tailwind, I managed a 37:30! I'm quite pleased with that.I had to adjust the brake pad clearance this afternoon, using the adjusters on the levers. They're starting to get a little worn after 600km.
29 August 2007
Back on the bicycle, after a week off with a bad head cold. We should reach break-even on Friday.31 August 2007
Huzzah! It's break-even day at last!I'm intending to keep riding the bike until I reach at least a Metric Millenium upon it, and for some reason I've started getting odd urges to ride the Great Victorian Bike Ride on it as well. I think I need professional help.
3 September 2007
That's 900km gone, and I needed to adjust the steering-head bearings today (bedded in and started to get a little loose).I'm still wondering what will be the first thing to wear out. At the moment it looks like it'll be a close-run contest between the tyres, the brake pads and the chain.
12 September 2007
Dang! A broken rear spoke!I've got a few too many afternoon jobs on the boil at the moment, so I'll just ride one of my other bikes until the weekend and fix it then.
16 September 2007
I'm working in town for the next couple of weeks, so I'll be running about 55km per day instead of 33.I fixed my broken spoke using an "S-bend" spoke. Basically you take a spoke a bit longer than what you really need and bend an S-shape into the hub end, which you can then feed into the hole created by the broken spoke without having to unscrew your freewheel (assuming it's on the RHS). I've got the tools and gear to replace it properly, but I've been wanting to try the technique to see how well it works.
17 September 2007
The S-spoke seems to work well enough, although I paid for my laziness in not removing the tyre to fit it. I managed to move the rim strip over one of the rim bead seats, so a 6" section of the tyre didn't properly seat on the rim when I reinflated it. On every smooth bit of bitumen I had a rythmic thud-thud-thud once per revolution.In spite of that, I managed a new PB for the ride to Civic: 26.5km in 1:07, for an average speed of 23.7km/h. I would have matched it on the ride home too, if it weren't for meeting up with Bean (he wanted to have a chat, which slowed me down enormously.) ;-)
18 September 2007
This morning I decided that I would apply myself a bit more thoroughly to the pedals, to see if I could improve on yesterday's time. With no wind, I managed a respectable 1:02:05 for the ride in.On the way home, I managed 0:57:51, for a total daily time of 1:59:56. I really put it in over the last few km, when it looked like I wasn't going to crack 2 hours! I also achieved my highest ever speed on this bike, 53km/h. (I was running out of cadence in top gear, and my feet were starting to slip off the pedals.)
I really should try again some day when I'm not carrying a 5kg pannier.
In maintenance news, I had to give the derailler indexing adjuster a half turn, and pull a little more cable through both brake calipers (I've run out of adjustment on the levers).
No, I don't think I've got a bicycling problem! |
Aaargh in its current incarnation. The aluminium strips bolted to the seat stays are to prevent flapping panniers from landing in the rear spokes. |
Out of adjustment at the brake levers. |
20 September 2007
Another broken spoke! I knew I'd eventually pay for all those gutters I've jumped. ;-)Interestingly, the breakage wasn't in the S-spoke that I fitted on Sunday - it's still perfectly intact after 200km. In fact, it's going so well that I replaced the newly broken spoke with another S-spoke. I'm making the S-spokes out of some old galvanised spokes recycled from a 1970s-era 27" wheel, so I'll be able to fit up to 36 of them. ;-)
21 September 2007
A flat tyre this morning. It was a little unusual in that it was caused by a small sharp stone rather than a piece of glass. Added 10 minutes to my commute time.17 October 2007
Still progressing nicely. I should reach the 2,000km mark by the end of next week.I had to adjust the headstem bearings again today, as they had come loose. The tyres are down to about 30% of tread remaining, I'll be replacing them with something a little more road-oriented when they finally wear out.
21 October 2007
Haven't had any photos ina while, so here's some of Aaargh's current configuration. I found that I was getting stiff wrists on the longer rides (over 60km) so I've fitted some handlebar extensions to allow a variety of hand positions. I have some handlebar tape left over from another bike, which I will probably use on the extensions.
Not much changed from last time. |
Rather than cut up the existing grips to fit the extensions I recycled some open-ended ones that I had lying around. You might recognise the type of machine they were originally fitted to... |
Close-up of the rack mount. A square piece of 1mm plate is bolted between the front of the rack and the hole in the chain-stay braces where a caliper brake would have been mounted. |
Also, the last time I saw him my 10-year-old nephew pointedly informed me that he could ride a lot faster if only he could have a mountain bike instead of a BMX. By a startling coincidence this 24" MTB had just been delivered over the fence to me by my next-door-neighbour, whose own boys had outgrown it. The only parts that it required were some new grips (I used the old ones from Aaargh), a spoke guard, a V-brake 90-degree cable guide thingy and a new front reflector (all from my scrap pile). That and a couple of hours' worth of cleaning and adjustment of various bearings have made it quite a decent little bike.
24" MTB with a surprisingly long seat post! I was able to test-ride it reasonably comfortably with the seat up this high, obviously Michael will probably need to have it at it's lowest position. |
Alloy brake levers, and 18-speed grip shifters with window-style indicators. Sure it's more parts to break, but they're very pretty... ;-) |
Rigid forks, powerful alloy V-brakes, alloy rims and hubs. You can get a lot of bike for $0.00 these days! |
18-speed indexed derailleurs, 3-piece alloy cranks. It's a little irritating that he'll be riding a bike so much nicer than mine! ;-) |
23 October 2007
Mrs Humble has started riding a one-way commute to work a couple of times per week (we work at the same place, but she finds the idea of a 33km daily round trip a little too daunting to start with). We headed to the bike parking area this afternoon and discovered that sometime last night her front tyre had been slashed, or possibly stabbed with a knife. Since her bike was parked over toward the "outside world" side of the bike cage and only the front wheel was within arm's reach of the gap in the bars, we considered ourselves lucky. I fitted a spare tube and only inflated it to about half pressure (~30psi), which was good enough to get us home.About 2km down the road we met a schoolboy wheeling a MTB with a VERY flat rear tyre. Since he had a fair distance to go he accepted my offer of a tyre repair, and we had him on his way 10 minutes later. He thanked us quite a few times, which has restored my faith in the young folk of today to some extent. ;-)
4km from home we startled a couple of kangaroos on the bicycle path (at about the same spot as the pictures above from 13 July).On balance, I think it's been a good day.
26 October 2007
It's 2000km service time! I failed to follow my own rule of "Perform regular servicing!", and as a result the front wheel bearings have been too tight for some time and suffered unnecessary wear. Apart from that, everything cleaned up nicely. I was a little surprised at how clean the bottom bracket bearings were, since they're the least "sealed" against dirt and water I was expecting them to be at least a bit worn.While re-packing the rear wheel bearings I discovered another broken spoke. The wheel was tight enough that it had only caused about a 3mm out-of-true, which I hadn't noticed while riding.
Total cost of service:
