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Today Today - August 2014

joewein

Maximum Pace
Oct 25, 2011
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July was an average month for me, distance-wise: 800 km.

I'm trying to get back into the habit of doing 1-3 non-weekend evening rides besides the longer weekend rides because faster short rides will do more for my long ride performance than doing more slow long rides.

One evening earlier this week I went to the Imperial Palace. Yesterday I borrowed my wife's GS Astuto road bike for a 60 km evening ride to Machida and back. It was my first hilly ride on that bike (Onekansen). I didn't particularly miss the low gears on the Bike Friday and I do like the "wooosh" sound of the aero wheels. They make you feel fast at any speed ;) I did miss my dynamo lights though.
 
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Grrrrr!

Snapped a screw this morning while changing the cable on my front derailleur. Why do simple jobs always end up being a big ballache? Buying a second hand bike is turning out to be a false economy.
 
550km for me in July - biggest month of the year so far.
Hoping to crack on and ride a similar amount in August.
 
Grrrrr!

Snapped a screw this morning while changing the cable on my front derailleur. Why do simple jobs always end up being a big ballache? Buying a second hand bike is turning out to be a false economy.
Great education though, you can always sell it after you replace every part on it for an even bigger nett loss.
 
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1457km with 19,670m of climbing in July. Damn that extra 330m.

Oh and a very pathetic 67km of running. Jeez, it's tough running in this season. Wet for a 10k run yesterday around 10:30am. Stupidly, I took no water or money. That was one difficult run.
 
I had 45 hours in July totaling 1100km.

Today went out to do some VO2 intervals, 4 minutes. Slept poorly and short night. During the warmup my HR was 10-15bpm above normal for reference power values. I hit the first interval very hard and saw a max HR value that I had not seen in months, 7bpm higher. By the third interval I was feeling pretty hot and nauseous, and the power dropped off, so gave up. The ride home was a real slog with the elevated HR.

However, pleased when I got home to find that my 1.5-4min power was at an all time high over the past 3 years.
 
July: 748 on the bikes, 37.7 in the water.
 
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built up a new ride, much lighter than the steel and titanium rides I have, I have lost a bit of weight from a month ago but average speed on my regular loop was about 4 kms higher, might be the novelty factor giving me adrenaline. Lets see how I roll in another week or so. IMG_4799.JPG
 
Wet bikes are sexy!

But isn't it one of the rules that tire logos are supposed to be centered on the valve? :rolleyes:
 
But isn't it one of the rules that tire logos are supposed to be centered on the valve? :rolleyes:
Look closer at the front wheel, while bearing in mind he's from the Southern hemisphere. :cool: Apparently the cranks turn the other way down there due to the Coriolis force.

That is a nice bike, innit though. Proper chainstays and seatstays on that. None of this spindly-spidery nonsense.
 
Grrrrr!

Snapped a screw this morning while changing the cable on my front derailleur. Why do simple jobs always end up being a big ballache? Buying a second hand bike is turning out to be a false economy.

Or just bad luck? Two years ago I bought a thirty-year-old bike (or a frankenbike of an unknown number of thirty-year-old bikes) on Yahoo auction (by "cocomoe2001"): 36 thou including delivery. Saddle, seatpost and pedals didn't fit me but replacements were cheap. The front wheel came to make a "chuff chuff chuff" sound on braking; Eric Then in Ikebukuro kindly trued it for me. The rear QR skewer turned out to be crappy so I got a (used) replacement from Hasegawa Jitensha Shōkai, for very little. The seven-sprocket cassette was for fit people and I'm not, so I got a (used) replacement (also at Hasegawa, for very little). I switched to more comfortable bar tape. I've had a couple of punctures. The sensor for the Cat-Eye odometer is broken. Otherwise, fine. But maybe I've just had good luck.
 
But isn't it one of the rules that tire logos are supposed to be centered on the valve
I hate those rules with a passion.

Look closer at the front wheel, while bearing in mind he's from the Southern hemisphere. :cool: Apparently the cranks turn the other way down there due to the Coriolis force.
That front wheel is pure chance, notice the deliberately mismatched cable end caps and outer cables? Yeah it rides very smooth indeed for an el cheapo frame, I asked them to leave it as naked a finish to raw as they could and it is very industrial looking ( like me)!
 
Just had the youngest cop I've seen (looked about 18) tell me to get off my bike and then launch into a rant about how I shouldn't be riding on the road as it's dangerous and road bikes are not for the road(?). I countered with the fact that it's illegal to ride on the pavement in Japan and showed him that I'd been riding 20km along Mejiro-dori to get to that point.

He looked at me like I was a complete idiot, then started shouting at me for a solid ten minutes about how THIS IS JAPAN! FOLLOW JAPANESE RULES! He went way above my level of language proficiency so I asked him to slow down because I couldn't understand enough of what he was hurling at me. This pissed him off even more for some reason, so he started to check my bike for faults just so he could haul me in. I managed to quickly find a page on cycling rules to show him on my phone, which he then refused to look at after he saw the first image was of a cyclist on the road with a big red circle next to it. Realised that this would get nowhere, so went into full tatemae mode and pretended to listen carefully while just saying "hai" "wakarimashita" until he finally, smugly told me to be on my way.

What a knob.
 
Just had the youngest cop I've seen (looked about 18) tell me to get off my bike and then launch into a rant about how I shouldn't be riding on the road as it's dangerous and road bikes are not for the road(?)
I guess he was absent on the first day of their training :)

A few weeks ago the local police (with volunteers) in my area were giving away leaflets (cycling rules and manner) to cyclists. At the stop sign for the right turn, they actually talked to me to point out that my light was off (7pm, low battery on the lights) and handed out a wheel reflector (which doesn't even fit the spokes of my daily ride). They liked my use of a helmet though.
 
Rode to see local ish cycle race - 20 Laps around the village. Timed them and they took around 3 minutes per lap so around 1 hour of racing. P01-08-14_19.39.JPG
 
Just had the youngest cop I've seen (looked about 18) tell me to get off my bike and then launch into a rant about how I shouldn't be riding on the road as it's dangerous and road bikes are not for the road(?).

"My dear fellow, we have not yet been introduced. Here, my business card."

フリードニア共和国
在日大使館

Rufus T. Bawbag
大使


 
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Maybe try a mad dash to the Ecuadorian embassy for some Assange-style "fun".
 
Just had the youngest cop I've seen (looked about 18) tell me to get off my bike and then launch into a rant about how I shouldn't be riding on the road as it's dangerous and road bikes are not for the road(?)
Ooh I want one. I'll have him sent for re-education by my friend who's rather high up in the Tokyo MPD. Then I'll sell tickets. I might suggest gaijin role play.
 
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