one monkey typing

Well, I'm out of the "length of time without a flat" race for the year. Embarrassingly enough, it was a patch failure, not a road hazard. I've never had a patch failure before, and there's really no excuse for them, I just didn't do it right.

[EDIT] - weird; I just went out to top off the bike and check out the old tube, and the problem was actually a DEFECTIVE patch. It was firmly adhered, but the thing clearly had cracked. It's probably from a cheap generic Kmart patch kit. In fairness, I've been running that tube for probably 12000 miles now, through a dozen tire changes. I guess I should pick up a package of TipTop patches or something. Unfortunately they come in something like 50 packs, which is about a 50 year supply for me.[/EDIT]

I have always thought that patching is a good idea, and in general I still think it is, but I have so few flats (less than one a year) that by the time I get around to using my patch kit, the patches and the glue tube are all dried up, so I wind up buying a new patch kit for every flat tube. Also, by the time I flat a tube it's been through a season and probably a set of tires, and the one I've been carrying as a spare has been sitting for a year. I've had tubes fall apart after 2 or 3 years in a bag. So maybe after a year it's time to rotate in that spare tube before it falls apart.

There are people on BF that have up to 3 or 4 flats a week; they ride in urban areas where there is smashed glass on the roads all over the place. It seems like most people on there get 4 or 5 a year though. For people getting a few flats a year, I still think patching is a good idea.

Bike odometer 12,541 miles
Jan 1 2007 was 8815, so that's 3726 miles for the year. Very skimpy; in 2006 I totalled 4689 miles. I did drive a couple of weeks, so that's a couple hundred miles. I'm not sure what accounts for nearly 1000 miles difference though. I did have a whole week sick, so that's another 100 miles.

EDIT:
OK, something's weird. I just found an old posting of mine from 5 months ago that indicates I was at 11,500 miles back then. How in the hell did I get through 5 months, AFTER vacation, and only ride 1000 miles? That's only 10 weeks of riding.

I don't THINK there's anything wrong with my bike computer, it registers 21 miles for the day every time I check it. Something sure as hell seems wrong though. I was on track for 4700 miles for the year back at the end of July, yet I finished with 3700 miles.

I did some long-overdue maintenance on the bike today.

Built a new wheel last night with a Shimano Deore XT hub with 6 bolt ISO disc brake flange, an Alex Adventurer 700c rim and Wheelsmith 2.0 spokes. I reused nipples from a previous wheel because, well, I'm cheap and this wheel already cost half what the whole bike did.
Today I couldn't find the 21/64 drill bit to drill out the valve hole for Schraeder, so I just put a presta tube in for now. Moved the tire over, mounted the wheel and rode it a few hundred feet.

All was OK, so I put the disc brake caliper on, spun the inner and outer adjustment wheels to almost touch, cut a new bit of brake cable with the dremel tool, and hooked it all up. That all worked OK, so the old brake calipers and cable went into a ziplock and into the bike parts box.

Then I took the rear wheel off, restrung one spoke that I think was the one I replaced after it got ripped out in an incident a year or two ago (I had strung it over rather than under the 3rd crossover) and then I retrued the wheel. I wasn't able to get it really super true because some of the nipples are about frozen on the spokes and are a bit rounded off, but it's acceptable.

Then I addressed the bad shifting; somehow the cable had TIGHTENED - I had no idea how that would have happened, but anyway I readjusted the shifting (first time I've EVER had to do that) and got it shifting right again. Then as I was putting everything back, when I put the pump on the frame I noticed that the pump bracket had pushed the shift cable to the side when I rotated it when I decided to put it on the side of the downtube a few days ago. Snapped it back where it was supposed to be, and of course then the shifting was screwed again. So I took up the slack in the shifter adjuster and called it good.

I still have a bottom bracket to put on, which won't take much time, but I've got other stuff to do and the bottom bracket is just making noise, it's not significantly affecting the ride.

Comments: That disc brake is really noisy. But even after a dozen or so braking cycles it's quieting down, and I'm assuming it'll be OK soon.

My bike is pretty cheap, I only paid $300 for it. It's OK but even the guys at the store said "those wheels don't have 10,000 miles in them." The rear wheel didn't even have 2,000 in it; I rebuilt it a couple of years ago and it's been solid since then. The front wheel is now at 12,000 miles, and since the front wheel supplies most of the braking power, it's starting to show its age.

The front wheel is still as-shipped. It'd be fine except the rim is about the cheapest thing they could find, single-walled, thin aluminum, and the bike has rim brakes. Combine that with the gravel and mud that I ride through often enough, and the sand that gets on the brake pads turn them into grinding pads. The rims are about halfway worn through.

I'm using high-end brake pads (Koolstops, though I switched to Nashbar replacable pad brakes and they work about as well as koolstops). Even so, the braking is not really good when there's ice, and is a little weird when it's wet (tends to slip for a couple of seconds then get grabby for a couple of seconds before settling down. Also the rim is getting critically thin, and at 80 PSI, the rim could just blow out at some point and that would be...bad.

Anyway, I finally did what I'd been thinking about for about 2 years; ordered up a new hub/rim/spokes, and a disc brake setup for the front. Luckily the forks already have the mounts to support the caliper. I got the new 2008 Avid BB7 brake system, which is mechanical rather than hydraulic. From what I understand, mechanicals are really pretty good these days, and it's one less thing for me to have to learn about. Hydraulics work great except if they get a drop of water in the system in the winter, they can fail. Also they were pretty cheap; the caliper and rotor was only about $60, and I could use the brake lever I have already with just a new cable.

I bought a rim that can be used for rim brakes too if the disc thing doesn't work out.

So sometime in the next couple of weeks I need to sit down in front of the TV like I did a couple of years ago and build myself a new wheel. The warm weather isn't fooling me; it's just trying to catch us even more offguard when that early snowstorm comes. Although, pretty soon it'll be too late for an "early" snowstorm.

I rolled the bike over 9000 on the way to work yesterday (didn't see it, it was dark). I'm now at 9015. Right on schedule, I figured sometime this week when I rolled over 8000.

10K is coming up in March!

I guess it's here. I rode to work and back today in shorts, a compression top and a T shirt. Apparently it's time for this unseasonable silliness to end. Tomorrow night it's supposed to be snowing. Friday, we're supposed to get 7 inches of snow.

Time to give in to the inevitable. I mounted the studded tire on the rear (the front went on a month ago when we got our first snow). Sure feels strange to be mounting snow tires in 60 degree weather.

I picked up some DuPont teflon + wax lube for the chain. I put some on Sunday, and another squirt today, wiping down afterwards, trying to wick out some of the dirty oil. I'm hoping the dry lube will help a bit in not picking up quite so much crud in the winter. It's probably a vain hope, but it's something to try, and practically any experiment is worth $5.

Some day I'll have to build a dedicated winter commuter bike; 8 speed internally geared hub, full wrap chain guard, disc brakes, pogies, etc.

Data: rear Nokian mounted, odometer 8459

New chain on bike
Odometer 7952 (last chain was at 6345, 1607 miles on this chain).
Observation: rain and no lube really kill.

Also: battery connectors died, replaced with 2 conductor rubber RV connectors (battery, bike and charger)

Rolled the bike odometer over 7000 this evening.
The 6000 mile mark was back on May 22, so given a couple of weeks of vacation in there, I'm a day or two ahead of schedule; I ride almost exactly 100 miles a week just commuting, but there's the odd errand in there, and this week I've been sneaking in an extra 15 miles a day while Tom's at Tae Kwon Do for an hour. I can even make a stop at Lowes or Meijers, if I can get in and out in about 8 minutes. Do-able but tight.
Looks like I'll just barely miss hitting 9000 miles this year.

Old Kendas finally bit the dust (wear through)

Bontrager Race Lite 32s bought at Chelsea - Aberdeen Bike, $29.99 - 10% = $57 total for the pair.
Odometer: 5250

Bike; odometer 2 set to 0 (actual mileage 4126)
Taurus; 113990