Life in the Bus Lane

There will be a 2-3 week wait for my Hope Vision 4 light apparently. So no evening rides just yet then.

The last set of Bell Lap bars have been removed, all my drop-bar equipped bikes now have “normal” bars fitted.

This is how it should be done.

It’s time for yet another attempt at resurrecting the cross bike. I sort of fell out of love with it, and stopped riding it a year or two back, after deciding it was too short for me. However if I’m going to ride home with Ian a couple of nights a week, I need to bring it back into service.

The first job is to replace the bars. Currently it has fairly narrow Salsa Bell Laps fitted, after work today I picked up some Bontrager Race Lite VR bars in a super-wide 46cm. If they improve the position then I’ll swap the XT triple chainset for a compact Tiagra or something and fit a bigger cassette to keep the gearing the same. If they don’t improve the position then it’s probably time for a Surly Cross Check or similar.

I’ve got a day off work tomorrow, then I’m off to see the Levellers at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night.

Just for a change it wasn’t raining today, so I decided to drag myself out for a ride to see if I could still ride a bicycle properly. The climb out of town was a bit of a shock to the system, but other than that it was excellent fun.

Parts of the ride were very muddy in places thanks to our summer of liquid sunshine, yet some parts were bone dry and dusty, so I came homesplattered in mud and with a light coating of dust.

It’s forecast to rain again tomorrow for a change.

The Brooks bar tape I fitted a year or so back is in the process of being retired from the Lemond. Whilst it’s very nice to look at, I just find it too slippery to be comfortable with the majority of gloves I wear. It’s being replaced by the faithful Bontrager Gel tape.

I think I bought mine at the right time, I don’t really like the look of the 2009 version.

2009 Trek 69er Singlespeed

It’s L’Alpe d’Huez day today in the tour, so on the spur of the moment I’ve booked the afternoon off work so I can sit in front of the TV and watch all the action. Should be fun.

It certainly looks like it, and I hope it’s here to stay for a while.

I headed out on the 69er tonight for a spin round the Uni with Al. It’s nice to be riding dusty¹ trails in glorious sunshine for a change. A quick 11 miles, then home for a pizza washed down with ice cold lager.

[1] Well, mostly dusty.

It looks like all the pro cycling teams have thrown their toys out of the pram, and professional cycling into disarray, by quitting the ProTour en-mass. No doubt the UCI will now throw their toys around a bit, everyone will blame everyone else, and professional cycling will be the one that loses out.

Whilst I was never convinced that the UCI’s ProTour was a good idea, I have far more respect for the UCI that I do for ASO who look set to pick up the reins.

I did manage 45 minutes of the fixed Tricross earlier in the sunshine despite a dodgy back and shoulder, however my Garmin Edge doesn’t work very well under tree coverage when it’s stuffed in a back pocket. Time to order some more handlebar mounts for it.