Spring fever—I gots it
This has been a very challenging winter, and in a very surprising way.
I had thought a mild winter would be easy to cruise through. But I mess the challenges of an ordinary winter. My snow tires didn’t go on until nearly New Year’s, they came off a couple of weeks later, went back on a couple of weeks after than, and came off again a couple of weeks ago.
I wanted to get through this weekend just to be sure, but this afternoon, I took the snow tires down to the basement after looking at the 14-day forecast.
Whatever’s on the ground in the morning should be gone by the time I go to work just after lunch time. One day of winter tights and my Lake winter cycling boots, then by midweek it’ll be shorts weather.
I’m planning on Tuesday to swap the winter fenders off the Portland and put its three-seasons fenders on for the… erm… season. And I’ll take off Jeeves’ Crud RoadRacer fenders and put the mounts for its Bontrager Satellite QR fenders back on.
The club’s first ride of the season is this coming Saturday. I really can’t wait. I’m tired of riding by myself. The weather looks cooperative for this coming weekend too.
The past several weekends have been not good for cycling. We’ve had high winds and snow and this past weekend was no exception. Winds were gusting to 66 MPH on Saturday, and today, it got cold again and snowed on and off all day. I started my spring cleaning instead.
My spring parts orders will start arriving this week—spare 10-speed chains for both the Portland and Jeeves, new pedals for the Portland, spare bar tape for Blue Steel and new tires for it as well.
I put my spare Continental Grand-Prix 4-Season tires on YellowBike last November. It had been wearing the same set of Continental Gatorskins since I built it up in the spring of 2007.
I anticipated a mild winter, figured YellowBike would get more miles than usual, and I wanted something with better wet weather and cold weather grip. What I hadn’t anticipated was the change in ride quality between the two tires. Holy cats, it’s like an entirely different bike.
I’d tried the 4-Seasons on the other bikes for a couple of years and found them equally puncture-resistant as the Gatorskins. I’ve found them to be incredibly grippy in the wet too. At less than $4 more per tire—even after the 2012 price increases—it’s a no-brainer. The 4-Seasons are now my default tire for the commuting bikes, especially now that I know they ride much nicer than the Gatorskins.
PS: Don’t buy them in the US. Order them from the UK where they’re about half the price. I use Ribble Cycles UK, but the other big UK and Irish stores are also about the same price.
Anyway, this left me without spare tires. I’ve wanted to try Continental’s 4000S tires, but until last year they didn’t come in 25mm.
The 4000S has the same breaker as the 4-Seasons, but without the sidewall protection. It also has even grippier tread compound. Since Blue Steel is my fastest and sportiest bike, it should have the fastest and sportiest tires. So Blue’s 4-Seasons will come off and go into the cupboard for spares, and three new 4000S in 25mm are on their way for it.
I like the Fizik Microtex Dual bar tape I got for Blue last year, and I want to be sure I always have some. It seems like whenever I find something I really, really like, the manufacturer either discontinues it or “improves” in some way to make it so I don’t like it any more. So more is on the way.
I’m also thinking of switching all the bikes to Fizik Microtex bar tape as I run out of current stock. I like that it’s nice and grippy, and is only lightly padded. I hate that oven-mitt feeling you get with most padded bar tape.
The Portland is getting new A-520 pedals for two reasons. First, the tension adjuster screws have seized—no doubt from riding them through the salt—and I’ve worn the pedals enough that I need to tighten the tension. I can pull my feet out of them without turning my heel. Plus, there’s some slop in the spindle bearings.
I have over 10,000 miles on these pedals, and the replacements were on sale for only $34, so again, a no-brainer. Only this time I’ll try to keep the adjusters from seizing.
The next purchase will be bike shorts. I last bought everyday shorts in 2007 or 2008. After wearing them, well, every day since, it’s about time. I want six pair of identical everyday shorts. I can’t afford won’t spend the big bucks that most name brands are asking. Instead, I’m going to try Aerotech Designs.
The problem is that among their many models, there are four contenders, but I’m unsure which I’d like best on the daily commute. So I plan to buy one of each, try them for a month, then order five more of the winner. The others can’t be all that bad. I’ll just use them on weekends. Look for a shorts shootout later in the spring.
My parents threw me a curve when they bought a new car this winter. The bought some sort of Buick SUV thing that has a plastic spoiler/visor thingie along the top of the hatch. My trusty Saris Bones 3 won’t work with it. I need to buy a hitch rack. I prefer ones that hold the bike by the wheels instead of the top tube.
There are two contenders, separated by about $200. I’m leaning towards the cheaper of the two, a Yakima Stickup. I’ll use it only two days a year, it folds compactly for storage, and out of the box it will fit either 1½” or 2” hitch receivers, which keeps my options open. It’s also in stock across the street at Towner’s. Since it’ll attach to my parents’ car and my father is particular about these things, he gets a vote in there too.
There are other things to buy too, but I’ve reached my target word count and it’s nearly bedtime. It’ll keep for another day.
