Got my shoes replaced

A week or so ago I told you about my road cycling shoes coming apart.

I took them back to the store, who were only too happy to change them, saying that 1 in 100 carbon soled shoes comes back due to lifting of the sole plate. As the carbon is so stiff, the first thing to give it the bond between plate and shoe, rather than having any flex in the plate.

Big up to Pedals Plus at Mona Vale.

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Land of the free to do what you want even if its going to kill you

For all the truck driving, tobacco chewing good old boys out there...no need to damage the environment by spitting out the windah's any more...someone has come up with a solution!

The MudJug

They also have these.

Dear lord, make it stop.

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again...

Dave Grohl is a legend. He is a rock musical genius.



This is the second track off the new Foo Fighters album, and it's probably the best track on the album. They're all great, but this one is the one I come back to. This one and 'Stranger things have happened' are my personal standouts.

The song starts out quite restrained, and builds over the first couple of minutes, until the middle of the song. It busts out with a brief blast, then comes back to the previous melody. You just know something is coming, but not when you expect it. Just as you think it might tail off, it busts out again in a fantastic guitar tone till the end of the song.

All songs should be this good.

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Bad luck coming in threes...the cycling gods frown upon me thrice

They say bad luck comes in threes. I guess this proves it is pretty much correct.

Sunday on my regular road ride, I pull up at the turnaround mark with the other rider I was with, and step off the bike. Left foot down, swing the right off, just like usual. Put my right foot down and immediately thought "something doesnt feel right". At first I thought it was just my knee flexing out, which was painful from kicking a football around for an hour the day before. Stepped over to a large table where we sit for a drink and a stretch, and look down.

Not good.

The sole plate of my right shoe is coming away from the shoe itself. 5 month old shoes! After a little swearing and inspection, I figure I'm right to get home. Luckily I was, but now I'm real annoyed. I'm supposed to ride a 90km charity ride in two weeks, and I dont think I'll get a replacement in that time. And I'm sure not spending any more money for a short term pair. It'll be back to SPD and a different bike, which doesnt leave me much time to tune the position.

You'd think a medium-high level pair of shoes would last longer than 600km. I'm not a power sprinter, nor a particularly powerful climber. I like to blast up shorter hills now and then, but nothing your average recreational cyclist wouldnt do. And certainly nothing as tough as your amateur racer or triathlete would work. I dont walk around in them a lot, and its not the side I put on the ground when I stop. At best, I hope its just a case of swap them over, and the store can claim warranty on them and send them back. It has made me slightly sceptical of another pair the same, but I hope I at least get a chance to test another pair and see if it wasnt just poor quality of one pair of shoes.

That should be my run of bad luck over for a while now.


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Greatest Inventions: #76

Stretchy shoe laces.




Yes, they're yellow. I like them. You can get them in other colours, but these ones were on sale last night.

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Poll Dance #1

The curse of the commute

OK, so a couple of weeks ago I decide to ride to work. It's got a few hills in the way, nothing I couldnt go over at a nice easy rate. But, halfway to work that first time I break the chain. Roadside fix, get to work, no biggie. Going home, the thing threatens to bust again, so I stop, call the family, and they come rescue me from the roadside. At least the two guys who passed me as I sat under a nice tree asked if I needed anything.

So, yesterday, for an Australia-wide initiative originating in Victoria called 'Ride to Work Day', I do the same.

Pretty much halfway in, again, this...

I noticed the back was going a little squirmy, and look down to see a slowly deflating rear. Stop, climb off, break out the mini-pump. The second I put the pump head on and flicked the lever, the valve completely detaches itself from the tube.

So, quick change, fresh tube, pump it to 60PSI (about as good as I can get with the mini-pump and enough to get me riding), and off to work.

I was trying to figure out why this happened, as its never happened to me before. I'm thinking maybe I ran the ring too tight against the rim, and in using the floor pump to hit 110PSI its stressed the joint so much that riding has pushed the limits of the tube. That, plus a 90kg rider, and a few bumps on the way has seen the flex in the valve overcome the tube. Cause the valve was pretty tight against the rim it has had nowhere to go. Except for out.

Maybe if I'm doing this more often I should get some 28C wheels instead of 23C's.

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Chain, dang

This is not really what you want to see when you hear a noise riding home from work on a warm friday afternoon.

Especially after having fixed the same chain after it broke riding TO work that morning.

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Try, try again

The Australian Open tennis is coming up early next year. It seems Lleyton Hewitt succeeded in getting the courts changed to his liking.

It had better help.

Now we have 'True Blue' (seriously, they trade marked the colour name) plexicushion courts in place of the rebound ace of past opens. I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you're good enough, you'll win. No matter the surface. Roger's proved that. OK, so he hasn't won a slam on clay. Does he moan and ask the organisers to change it? No. He gets on with it.

Let's hope by changing the surface that it doesnt mean someone else will find it even more to their liking and roll through the tournament in straight sets.

Lleyton had better perform at this Australian Open, or he's going to have a lot of voices aimed squarely at him. Questioning.

Answers? We'll see.

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