Testing parts

After many weeks of patiently waiting for my legs to come around after having the flu, I believe I've gotten them back near 100% strength. Endurance-wise I'm still a bit off the mark but should peak the week of the Bike Across Florida.

I've been pushing my bottom bracket and chain to the limits trying to get the most out of them before putting on new ones for the BAF. Thursday night's ride should have been the last ride on the original bottom bracket but the new one I've ordered didn't arrive before Saturday. The Thursday ride was an easy pace but we did ramp up the effort a bit on the big climb. The bottom bracket started creaking and popping, however just to let me know it was time to replace it. 6,200 miles is a pretty good distance to go on a BB since I went through about 4 bottom brackets in 2 years with the TREK 1500. The life expectancy of a chain is a different story. I'm not sure if I'm cleaning them too often, which is once a week, and not getting enough lube back in them what. Each chain is stretched out of limits in about 900 miles if I'm lucky, but I have no idea what other folks are getting since they probably don't change anything out until the ghost shifting gets too aggravating and the gear rings and cassette are toast.

Yesterday was a planned ride of at least 130+ miles that is one of the last two stepping stones in my preparation for the BAF. I headed out of the Perry Welcome Center about 9:15 with James D working with me to pull the regular group (of only 3 folks) back. We caught them before the big climb in Hayneville, and I crunk up some Rolling Stones on the iPod and headed on solo to Hawkinsville to continue my 7 hours of fun in the sun. After Hawkinsville, I turned South on 129 towards Abbeville and toward my first store stop.

There is one way to draw the attention of every single living sole in a small town like Abbeville that advertises a "Wild Hog Festival" on the Welcome to Abbeville sign at the city limits: show up on a bicycle (some looked at it like it was from outer space), in spandex (actually saw someone taking a pic on a camera phone) with the accompanying full cycling attire, and then enter a store. You will have EVERYONE's undivided attention whether you like it or not. People actually stopped what they were doing to stare. I like being the center of attention sometimes, but not this time. I didn't hear any banjos playing, but I departed rather quickly anyway.

The next leg was 30 miles into the wind toward Cordelie, Ga. It was uneventful except for the fact I notice I was getting tired way too early into the ride. I'd only covered about 54 miles of the 75 it would take to get to Cordelie, but It felt like I couldn't push the gears with enough energy. When I finally turned my iPod down enough to hear the real world, it was more than evident what the problem was: the bottom bracket had given up the ghost several miles back and I couldn't hear it with the music blaring in my ears. My feet were numb from pushing the pedals for so long and I couldn't feel the popping going on in the BB. A broken coffee grinder was what I had and apparently the heat generated from pedalling non-stop for a few hours was making things worse. It wasn't enough to make me stop and call for help, so I pushed on to Cordelie.

In Cordelie I finally phoned Diana to ask her to start making her way toward me on Hwy-42. I'd stopped, removed the chain from the front gear, and then turned the crank by hand to see it only turn 3/4 of a revolution before stopping. Not-a-gooda.

"Houston, we have a problem."

I continued up Hwy-42 at the same effort as before to get in as many miles as I could, and Diana met me about 3 south-west of Unadilla. I still managed to put in a solo effort of 88.7 miles, a 19.1 mph average, with a heart rate average of 155 bpm on a bottom bracket that was making this a real training session. Not the full 130+ miles I'd planned, but enough to re-assure me that I'll be ready for the BAF where it will be flat as a pancake and I'll have people to draft behind on occasion to save some energy.

Next weekend will be another tough one with 140+ miles on the agenda. We're doing the Peach Blossom ride in Byron, so the initial plan is do the route with the "group" and then do it again solo. I can ride home from Byron which should give me about 145 miles total. The only problem is that there are no stores along the way for the second go-round.