Whos bike was making that awful squeak at Westlake? That my friends was me. But theres more to this tale and something to be learned.
I cleaned my chain in my wash tank at work, but when the first two washings turned the wash solution black I quickly dumped the can. Well in so doing I washed a link and a roller inot the abyss of the bottom of the tank. Standard procedure is to dump the solution form the tank into the strainer can. One strike!! Thanks Rudy for the parts I
needed!!
Next I rushed the re-oiling of the chain. I like to be anal and oil every link after any decent cleaning of the chain. But this time no. AFter warming up I kept going back to the van and re-oiling in that haphazard way. Standard procedure is to oil every link!! Strike two!
SO this morning I take apart the rear derailleur as I swear the sounds coming from the jockey wheels. I clean them, put them back on, still squeaking. I email Thom and he says due to the thorough cleaning of the chain, roll the chain slowly and listeend for a squeaky link. Wouldn't you guess it, theres a short section of chain thats squeaking and after oiling each roller my drive train is quiet. Thanks Thom.
The lesson learned? Well its an old saying, but why is there never enough time to do it right the first time, but always enough time to do it over??
So onto Westlake. Basically a night where every move was chased down. I attacked hard a lot, I never got far and I helped bring back attacks by driving the group. I guess that made me part of the chasing problem last night. I dont mean to call it a problem, just that it was not a night for a breakaway and there were a lot of attacks all night. It also slowed down more than usual a few times too. But ave speed was still decent at 26.3 by my computer.
Once I admitted to myself this race is not going to split up I went to the front and Derrick Wilford and I did our best to keep the pace high for the remaining laps. I basically wanted some long, high speed and high wattage intervals to end the night. I fell back when I bailed in the cop turn and let 6 or 7 guys swarm me and was 3/4 of the way back for the mass sprint.
Batke lead it out early to avoid the craziness and the accordion effect moved me up but I wasnt a factor in the sprint. I sprinted just to get that one last hard effort in and called it another night at Westlake. Got the workout I wanted in for sure with loads of attacks, one or two sprints for primes (lost) and the last few laps driving the pace.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
Lesson No. 2: Never remove your chain and clean it in solvent. You probably won't find many top mechanics (and, from what I've read, even fewer ProTour mechanics) who do that anymore. It does no good -- getting nothing that you can't get with a chain cleaner, or a toothbrush, a rag and a spray bottle of citrus degreaser or Dawn and water. Solvent baths strip out all the factory lube and other good stuff that works its way deep inside the pins and rollers. That one underlubed race at Westlake could have inflicted the equivalent of about 500 miles of normal wear.
That's my 2 cents.
Post a Comment