another weekend in the books

A glorious one at that.

How much riding did I get in? Well pretty much zip.  Nothing on Saturday.  Sunday's plan to get up and ride early before helping John with his TDI fuel pump, sort of turned into getting up, feeding the dog and going back to bed.

Managed to wake up in time to catch the second half of the Oostmalle race, make some coffee, shower and head over to play with cars.

No riding.


Glorious day to work on cars though.  Perfect temp.  John was having issues with fuel spraying out between the low and high pressure sides of the Bosch VE pump.  Well not really spraying out but when you shut the car off without idling for a minute or so do let the pressure go down on the low side it the fuel would release pressure out the front of the pump.  Just diesel so not dangerous, just messy.  But lately it wasn't starting.  To combat the issue of fuel blowing out he went with B50 (untreated though).

Anyway, we took the pump apart and got it back together.  Was fun, enjoyably tedious and very very precise. Found some junk in his fuel sender unit, I suggested drilling out the check valve in there but we left it just removing the gelled fuel from the bottom of the unit.  There is still way too much restriction for my comfort, could be gel in the fuel filter or something in one of the lines but it went past 3k on the test drive so it is not starving for fuel at this point.

Successful shade tree monkey wrenching.  And we didn't brick the pump.  And the Bosch green seal worked flawlessly, no issue with over-stretching.

Took a bit of time, the first time doing a job always does.  Missing tools, making it work, dead batteries, but it was enjoyable.  In a different way than riding but still was a great way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Headed home at 4pm or so.  90 min of sunlight left but I was hungry and just dug into making some dinner.  Dinner was awesome, and I ate a massive amount.  Then, rather than sit on the couch chilling with a movie or something I jumped on the trainer and set up the second monitor in the kitchen and watched the original La Femme Nikita and pedaled.  Very easily, but steadily.  Total on the bike time was only 100 minutes or so with getting off to let the dog out a couple times.  I know I said no riding, and spending that time riding around on the trainer with the HR in zone 1, well most people wouldn't call it riding.  But it was good. the muscles needed that.  It probably was a better idea doing that than heading out and crushing some hills after riding as little as I had over the last two weeks.  So little riding looking back.  Oh well.  Going to try and make this a perfect week.

Not only that but I have an insane idea to do a 200k Three Builder Ride. If I leave from the house (and thus no car) it would be easily 120-130 miles.  If I drive in and park in the city it probably would still be easy enough to get the full 200k.  A lot more pressure on this, and that's good, because there is no one else to get the dog out at the end of the day.  So I've got a tighter window and no back up plan besides calling a friend to stop in and let Lucy out.  But that added pressure is a good thing.  Needed.  Sort of like that fear of getting lapped that keeps you riding as hard as you can even when you're having an off day on the bike.

Looking at trying to hit Firefly in under three hours (ideally way under, but just being realistic). The tricky part is going to be getting from Firefly to Zancanato in Sutton.  That's all new territory for me and while only 39-45 miles depending on how you go, lights, traffic, getting lost, all variables that add time.  The run from Sutton down to PVD and Circle-A-Cycles should be pretty straight forward and mostly familiar.  I'm optimistic.

Weather? The one variable.  The forecast isn't ominous so i'm basically going to ignore it (for now).

Want to join in on the insanity? Drop me a line.  I'd love some company for part or all of it.  I'm going to be pushing myself as fast as I can, but I ain't no pro or someone like Matt Roy or the Wilcox, so we'll see what happens out there.  Might have to ride with coffee in the water bottles.

Lunch today is going to be hitting velosprints down there at McFadden's.  Hoping not to puke up my peanut butter and oatmeal.  Sort of the antithesis of what thursday plans to be.

Oh and Why?  Why do something that insane as to ride that much in Feb? Why not.  It counts as PVD-BOS-PVD and lets me see Firefly and catch up with Zanc for a few minutes at least and get a bitching long ride.  Why fucking not?

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