No Race Weekend

As much as it pains me to miss a mud race, esp now that I have mud tires on two bikes...  I missed DowneastCX again, never quite have made it there, yet. One of these years.



The rusty race wagon has been kind of cantankerous lately.  First the starter, then the brake line, then it wouldn't start.  Two weeks of constantly crawling under the damn thing.

This week with the no start I had some how (duh i always go to most drastic conclusions) thought the new starter was bad. Didn't feel like pulling it and taking it to the dealer.

Of course it seems I had managed to totally drain the battery prop'n the brake pedal against the floor so as not to let the line drain while the regulator was not hooked up. And I guess the battery never fully recovered from that.

At the time, the battery seemed fine.  Usually I get a slow turnover and then faster turnover when starting with a low battery.  Like when I met up with Chad in Wood's Hole in May.  I had left the lights on all day. Car barely caught and started. But it started.  Now? Click. Dead.

Took the starter out today, rode my bike up to the parts store (too far away but one of the closest) and they said, of course, the starter is fine.  Nothing wrong.  Okaaaay. Now what.  My stupid brain goes to ignition switch, relay, wiring.

As much trouble shooting as I do on a daily basis, you'd think I'd have a reasonably start with the simplest thing first.  And when I'm getting paid, aka when I'm working on NOT MY OWN STUFF, I do manage to usually start with the simplest solution.  On my own stuff? I make it way more difficult than I need to.  No start? Of course, why would it be the battery, that's the simplest. Well.

Turns out it seems to be the battery.

Going to try a temp stop gap measure of topping up the water level in the cells and charging for 4 hrs to knock the crystals off the plates and see how that does before I drop the coin to put a new one in.

So a battery kept me from driving over to Southington for the race today. Probably saved me the price of the battery in fuel and race fees to be honest. So call it a wash. New battery before NoHo? we'll see.  Probably wouldn't be the dumbest thing to do.

I did get a nice slow pokey ride up to the parts store. Got to talk to Frank. Saw Tim Brown.  Wasn't a terrible ride.  Would have been nicer if I wasn't taking the starter back home in the back pack with the weight of not knowing what was wrong and having to put the starter back in place.

Starter went in quickly this time. Got that shit down now. No big deal.

Yesterday was awesome though.

Started with sleeping in.  Woke up with the dog, fed her, and climbed back in bed and slept until 9.  Rushed to get everything ready and out the door in time for the soccer game.  Last one of out door rec league season. Watched Kid 2 play.  Headed up to the shop, grabbed some extra spicey Pad Thai for lunch, ate most of it and headed out for a ride.

Derdowski thought a ride would be a good idea, like the 1:30 start time and set out a route to hit the hardest hills in the neighborhood.

We started off heading to Tower Hill.  Normally there and back is a nice loop, hard and fast and fun.  We roll up river and over to Mansfield and the rest. So hard. So much climbing. So much fun.

From Tower Hill we wound over to Burlingame. Another one of the tougher hills in the area.  And then wound up with the Mountaindale/Whipple combo.

Only constraint was trying to get back to the shop before they closed so i could get my bag and ride home.

I was wicked smart and didn't bother to put any bottle cages on the white blue. I also left the commuter wheels on there.  Bike w/o waterbottles is just under 24 pounds. One waterbottle, 70+ degree temps, Steve Morse (the original RI Misanthrope), Myles W (woods hole ride fame), Kyle (brown kid), Derdowski, and Steve from Phili.  Steve from Phili showed up on a plastic Crackandfail with D/A Di2 and those carbon spoke mavic wheels and a quarq power meter.

One bottle. Hot weather.  45+ mile ride planned.  Lots of hills.  Super salty lunch before hand. Less than normal coffee.  How can this not go wrong for me?

I dunno how i did on the ride 'cause i ain't got no metrics. No garmin, no HRM, no speedo, nuttin. Just me and my legs and no water.

But wow was that fun. Legs felt great.  No surprise, racing does that to you.  But it was pretty cool.  I was flying down the hills and was never in trouble going up them.  Never in the red and first one up when I wanted to.  Derdowski challenged me on Mountaindale, it was no easy to match his pace but i wasn't at the limit.  Rode tower hill on Kyle's wheel for most of it, then went past him on a section and just rode tempo up the rest.

Felt pretty god damn good.  Good group of friends, wicked challenging roads, nice long loop.  Got back to the shop in time, drank a couple bottles when i got there. Rode home. got around 60 miles for the day.

Was amazing.  Really.  Was pretty awesome.  Everyone else but me seemed to have metrics. Most of em have the stuff on Strava.  Here's derdowski's file.  

I'm kind of bummed not to be racing this weekend or next weekend (Next is a story for another post). But a ride like yesterday was pretty awesome.

Getting sleep was key, so in debt. Identifying what was wrong with the car also a bit of success.

I am Chewbaca, the Rusty Race wagon is the Millennium Falcon, I can keep it going.  For now. Definitely need to find a new body for it some day, or find someone who's willing to give me some money to put the good bits into a solid frame.  A grand for a decent rust free body, and a week or so of switching everything over.  small price to pay for a rattling oil burner that gets me to the races at hyper speed economically.

New car...  some day.  Gotta milk this one as long as I can and have to keep reminding myself, no big deal, just a car, you can figure it out, stop getting anxious about it.

Caster's has a night right tomorrow night down to Warren and back.  Lights and Motion demo. I think I'm showing up to show off how affordably awesome Planet Bike shit is.  That and the pizza. And a ride with friends that I used to work with, since it is now the slow season and even the best part time mechanics get laid off.  Freelance time.  Need some work done on the bike? Lemme know.

be good out there -

heddwch
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