Whats the one thing I loathe in a bike? Sure, there are a few things to pick from such as colour, a juiced rider association, SHAM components or too many spacers under the stem… But no, whilst they are all excellent candidates, this is something worse:
Reliability issues
Add into the mix a serious lack of standardisation (I shall elaborate) and its been a weekend of epic faffing about. I kicked this off on Saturday, when I attempted to convert the green Evo to compact crankset (I have committed completely to this way of life). Being car-less (possibly the worst thing ever), meet my new friend – Caveat is that trains are only mildly above buses in the pecking order:
You can get almost anywhere… Except the place you need to actually go
To cut a loooong story short, 9 hours later my mission to get this sorted ended in an epic fail when a test ride of the changes clearly indicated that this wasn’t going to be straightforward. Whilst I love the concept of the Cannondale Hollowgram cranks, I also am a fan of straight standardisation, which was reinforced by my experience over the weekend. With the green Evo in bits until sunday, it was time to roll out Black Ops Evo for Sunday’s longer ride.
Turns out that Black Ops was all good to go, apart from its BB30 Bottom Bracket doing an awesome impersonation of a concrete mixer crossed with a German death metal band. Not a lot of fun to ride for 130km’s…
I also decided to venture back to crazies, the local SIngapore HELL ride… My first appearance since I crashed there back in April. As you can imagine I was stoked to see the a good chunk of the OCBC Pro-Conti team turn up on their TT bikes. Of course, this wasn’t by accident and they proceeded to unleash an evil Team Time Trial on the amateurs… I looked down at one stage doing 52kph and at my max heart rate as I sat in 4th wheel and thought that in my jet lagged state that I wouldn’t be doing this for very long.
And, I was right… Ride like a turd and you deserve to be ejected out the ass of the group… Which is what happened to me far too early for my liking, but at least I wasn’t the first! I ended up dribbling around a longer loop with my bike screaming at me at the mere hint of power on the pedals. Feeling over it all, I deciding to get a coffee at my favourite cafe, Baker & Cook. Only one problem… Some nerd had confiscated the furniture:
Geeks – Out to fuck post ride coffees and fun wherever they can
Yes, bleak… Leaning against a wall drinking your take away coffee when you feel like frog that had just been in a blender is not cool, much like the weather. With coffee even being an epic fail, it was time to sort out the bikes. Here’s what it looks like to have your twins in surgery and the surgeon appears to be a small child… with a hammer:
“Please don’t make me go on that stand… I promise I will be quiet”
The end result? Well, both Evo’s are again fully operational (or for as long as a BB30 will stay operational), which is a good thing given there is a bit of riding to do this week (and not a lot else on the agenda), everyone keeps reminding me that Tuesday is a public holiday, wow, that will make an awesome change for me! The end product today is this new full Spiderman arrangement (not my first pick, but solves the dilemma), er, its the big black round thing in the middle for the non-cyclists (if you made it this far):
Nobody knows who you are…
Ironman alert – Someone who didn’t have reliability issues over the weekend – T Tap, who went full gas in his first Ironman at Kona, finishing in 12.25, great work dude, an awesome effort in the biggest Ironman going! Respect it. Can’t wait to see the photos.
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