windy city indeed!

This is not an April Fool's post (at least it's not a funny one if it is). I went on a nice ride today in honor of the temperatures in the 50s and no rain or snow. Left work at 2pm and rode downtown to the lake. It was windy as all get out! I had it to my back on the way downtown so everything seemed great. I was on my Orbea cruising down Grand Ave. at about 22 mph, feeling pretty cocky. I got down to the lakefont path and headed south into the wind and then realized I was about to work!

I also realized then that something weird had happened with my STI levers / rear derailleur, i.e. the cable slipped or something and I could not shift down below 3rd gear on the cassette. This got progressively worse so that a few miles later, I could not get below about 6th gear (on a 10-speed). I ended up having to spend the rest of the ride dropping in between the middle and the small ring up front and using 6th and 7th in the back with the blasting wind. It's always something!

I ended up riding all the way to the end of the path (for the first time no less). It ends in a very non-dramatic fashion right around 70th Street or so. I rode a few more blocks in that neighborhood, but I got in some weird vortex where the wind was LITERALLY almost blowing over. Like it looked like someone had puppet strings tied to me jerking me sideways, so I bailed at that point and headed back.

I began to feel a cracking coming on around mile 27 and by mile 28 I had to stop and take a breather (more like a gasper really). I rested about 5 minutes and then just sort of limped home straight into the wind (felt like something between 6 and 12 mph the whole way home). I ended up having a 36 mile ride in, 40 if I count going to work in the morning. Sorted out (hopefully) my derailleur issue once I got home. Still don't know if the cable just slipped or what, nothing else looked amiss.

Supposed to rain and/or snow all day tomorrow, so that was a nice way to spend an afternoon.

I'm not a good blogger...

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...because you need to probably post more than once every 5 or 6 weeks really if you expect anyone to stay even sort of interested. Perhaps I'll get back on a streak.

Many bike-y things have happened. I've been doing loads of work on my Paramount changing it over to a pretty nice road bike setup. The process went something like this:

I got a pair of Shimano 105 STI shifters for it and tried for a while to get some different used wheel sets that would work for this conversion. After learning a few hard lessons about Shimano compatibility and vintage (though I was able to find homes for the wheels that did not work fortunately), I just got a new set of Mavic CXP21 wheels with Ultegra 6600 hubs on a sort of end-of-summer sale. Nice wheels! I got a second (small) chainring for the Shimano 600 cranks that the bike already had on it and started setting it up. I got this setup more or less happening sans front derailleur as the 600 derailleur I swapped out from the Trek 660 I had a while back stripped at the cable clamp bolt upon installation. So I just fastened that cable under the bottle cage boss on the seattube and went on my merry way for the time being. Other bits include a set of Easton ergo drop bars and a nice Fuji saddle ($10 on craigslist!) Went on a pretty fun ride with the bike in this stage one Sunday afternoon. It went like this:

-3200 W Belmont to the lakefront by way of Diversey.
-Lakeshore path to the top, brief rest and the photo below at the turnaround
-Lakeshore path south to Grand Ave
-Grand to Milwaukee back up to Wicker Park

Here I met my friend Matt for a light lunch and beers before heading back home. It was a nice 20-ish mile ride and I loved the new bike setup.

Here's a pic:


The saga continues though. More soon...