Sunday, February 13, 2011

Schlumpfalicious

Before the Albany race last fall, I swapped my geared Schlumpf wheel out for a standard wheel. Yesterday I put my Schlumpf back on. I really need to learn to shift it well.

Today the temperature was above freezing at about 35°F (2°C). I road the suburban streets and was rather successful in shifting, though it took two or three attempts sometimes, and I did have several dismounts. Most of my dismount-induced shifts were from high gear to low. I think that's because I was headed into an incline, making pedaling harder, and shifting-while pedaling even harder. Sometimes I planned ahead and started shifting before the incline, but if it took me 3 tries to shift I was then into the incline. Practice should fix that.
But I had enough perfect shifts to get me excited about having the Schlumpf hub. The extra speed is fun, if not a bit scary.

The roads were very messy. It varied from wet road, puddles, slush, hard-pack, and ice. In a ten second period, I might hit all of those conditions... twice. That made the ride interesting. The back of my pants were completely soaked by the end of my ride.

Along the way one car passed me slowly and the passenger was taking a picture or videoing me. Hahaha! I wonder if I can find it online somewhere. So far no luck.

Also a German shepard broke through his invisible fence and barked at me for a short distance.

My cycle computer didn't work well. It didn't even think I went half a mile. I figure it either got wet and confused, or when I swapped wheels yesterday, the magnet didn't get lined up perfect. But thankfully I used my GPS too, which has been in agreement with my computer on my recent road rides.
I went just over 12 miles.

Snowy Road Muni - 2011-02-13



For my own record, I wore a long sleeve poly shirt and my light nylon jacket. On the bottom I wore thin poly long underwear and my nylon cargo pants. I started with some knit gloves, but took those off half-way. And I unzipped my jacket early on too. In general I was comfortable.

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