NO LOVE HANDLES ALLOWED!

'It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.' Theodore Roosevelt 23 April 1910

Saturday, 4 September 2010

Ceramic Bearings ... mmmmmmmmm


Before I start, I hope those fellow bloggers racing at The Vitruvian this morning had great races; no doubt I shall hear about it all in due course.

My BBB Ceramic Rollerboy rear jockey wheels arrived yesterday and I fitted them to the Shimano 105 9-speed rear mech on my Planet X bike that afternoon. After experiencing some creaking from the bottom bracket area during my ride that morning I also took the opportunity to remove the chainset and external bearings, clean it all out and re-grease it before carefully reassembling it all. I really like the external bottom brackets, as they are so easy to work on. It took me just 17 minutes to remove the chainset and bearings, clean it all, regrease it and put it back together. And the results were well worth it. This morning I had an almost totally silent bike when pedalling, and only the Mavic freehub clicking away when freewheeling. Fantastic. It feels really smooth as well.
I've had a so-so week of training. This week's priority has been to get the kids ready to go back to school so I have trained whenever possible. I have managed to get some 220km on the bike and will try and squeeze in an hour on the turbo tomorrow (Sunday) morning so not too shabby. Later that day I have to do a return trip to Leeds to take the kids to school which means up to 10 hours in the car, depending on traffic. I don't know if it's an age thing but I find this really tiring. Our eldest is starting his A levels, our second son is starting his GCSEs and our daughter is starting boarding school for the first time so its a big change Chez Turbo Man. It's going to be strange with no kids in the house for the first time in almost 17 years.
Drive carefully folks.

2 comments:

Cavegirl said...

'strange' isn't the correct adjective, I think the word you are looking for is 'wonderful', perhaps 'peaceful' and most certainly 'liberating'!

Sags said...

Kid free time!!!!