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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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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Hi, I'm an Attention Whore...what's your name?

For some inexplicable reason, season 6, or 7, or whatever, of Big Brother has started in Australia.

This is a show that lost its gloss after 2 seasons, as people became aware of the social experiment nature of the thing, and turned it into an overt, gameplaying, testosterone-fuelled, peer-pressured frustration-fest.

I can do without ten people (or however many are there, 16? 41?), attention whores to a tee, carrying on about what turns them on, what turns them off, which other attention whore they'd like to shag, and wondering what they'll do with their 2 minutes of infamy once they get voted out cause society views them as uninteresting enough to not watch.

That is all you'll hear about Big Brother from me, unless someone kills/maims another attention whore; copulates live on national television; teabags, turkey slaps or otherwise interferes with another attention whore's face with their testicles; threatens to leave because the pressure of the attention was too much; puts the word on the host; manages to succeed in putting the word on the host; or manages to get pizza delivered successfully, AND pay for it.

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