Cycled to the Chippenham Cemetery gates to meet up with the cycle club chain gang at 9:30.
This week I did not race on ahead at all, I was quite nice and sensible and attempted to ride at everybody else's pace :-)
When we got to Corsham however I put my head down and sprinted to Lacock and climber over Naish Hill before returning home.
The Cycle computer had the ride as 45.7 miles in 2 hours 26 minutes with an average speed of 18.7 mph. The GPS track can be found here...
When I got back home I cooked and ate lunch (Bacon Sandwich).
After Lunch I thought it would be a good idea to go for a cycle/walk with Rosie (Dog) so I put Rosie in the 'Outward Hound' backpack and headed of down the Chippenham/Calne cycle way.
Once we were clear of the roads I let Rosie run free.
It was sloooooooow, but nice in the sun :-)
Along the way I thought it would be a good idea to continue on up Bencroft Hill and stop at the Dumb Post for a pint of cider :-)
What I hadn't really given much thought to was the extra weight of Rosie on my back and that I am no longer used to the more upright position of the Hybrid bike.
I made it to the top, not as fast as I had hoped but no real drama, I had my pint of Cider then cycled back the way I came.
I did stop and take a picture of the Dawes at the point where I stopped and put Rosie back in her carry back pack.
When I got back home and walking back up to the house there was a rather cool shadow cast by Rosie and myself :-)
The Rosie ride was 8.23 miles in 1 hour 5 minutes with an average speed of 7.5 mph, The GPS track can be found here...
After I got back home I set about cleaning the Merida road bike (It got very wet on Wednesday)
I thought I would give the chain in the bottle of white spirit method a go, I also wanted to dismantle the cassette and give it a good clean - up to this point I have cleaned both cassette and chain on bike using branded chain cleaners, but I am starting to think it is better to keep the de-greasers away from wheel bearings and bottom brackets!
So I dismantled the cassette and but it in an old ice cream tub with some white spirit
I also but the chain in an old Gatorade bottle added a drop or two of White Spirit and gave it a good shake.
I cleaned all of the cassette components, dried them, gave them a spray of WD40 and wiped them off.
I fished the chain out of the bottle, wiped it dry and hung it up in the sun to complete the drying.
I then re-assembled the cassette on the wheel.
I had already cleaned the wheel with the cassette off, I also changed the back tyre as it was very heavily worn - The tyre is now on the spare wheel!
The bike was thoroughly cleaned,reassembled,chain oiled (Then wiped down) and the gears checked for correct indexing.
A bit more of a faff, taking it all to pieces to clean, but definitely worth it! in the end it didn't actually take that much longer. About 5 minutes in total to remove, clean, oil and re-assemble the cassette and about the same for the chain. But with the certainty that no degreaser went anywhere near the BB, Freewheel or Bearings
0 comments:
Post a Comment