Crank to Speedplay

A couple of weeks ago, I was hammering down Business 83 with the 'elite' group from Team McAllen. As I was cranking along, suddenly my right foot came loose from the bike. Upon further inspection, the pedal came apart and my foot and pedal were no longer attached to the crank. If I had been out of the saddle, this would have been disastrous. In this case, it only meant that I had to stop and reattach the pedal.

I ride above average equipment, but it's not the best. For components, I usually go for stainless in lieu of titanium or carbon, with a few exceptions. Pedals are no exception. I've loved Crank Brothers products since I first used them mountain biking. So when I bought my road bike, I bought Crank Brothers Quattro pedals. I think I paid about $125, but they're going for $90 these days. Considering that you can spend more than $500 for Ti pedals, these are on the economical side. But I still love the design and functionality, independent of price.

Unfortunately, they haven't really met my expectations. The outer edges of the pedals have very thin metal pieces that are formed to match the shape of the pedal, but are attached with screws. These pieces are very easy to bend, and one is bent beyond repair. Additionally, the screws that fasten the pieces to the pedal body continuously loosen; maybe they need thread lock, but I wouldn't expect that I would need to check these tiny screws as often as I do. And as I mentioned, the pedal separated on me. The pedal body unscrewed itself from what I can best describe as the 'spindle arm', which is the inner bearing surface of the pedeal, and which attaches to the crank. This confuses me, and probably confuses you, so the photo illustrates what I'm trying to explain.

So today I decided to upgrade to Speedplay pedals. I really love the design of the Crank Brothers products, but the Speedplay product is great too. I decided on the Cro-Mo version of the Zeros. As a cost comparison, these were about $175 I thought about the Light Action, but Speedplay's website said that they were well-suited for lighter riders, including women and youth. I don't think they intended to exclude other groups, but since I count myself as a near-Clydesdale, I didn't think a product that was marketed to waiflike people was the right product for me. So, I decided to upgrade to the Zeros. Here's a photo, in case you care. Oh yeah -- this is probably my Father's Day present to myself. Happy Early Father's Day to Me!

Pimp Mi Camioneta

This photo of a pimped out van was shot in Japan, but it could easily be the Rio Grande Valley. I've never seen another town with so many Hummers, Escalades, Yukon XLs, and other super jumbo oversized gas guzzling displays of wealth. I guarantee you could sell these down here and make $$$.

ORIGINAL PHOTO LINK FROM FLICKR

Don't Be a Hater

I'm sometimes accused of being grumpy...regardless...

Lifted from a Digg Link to a Tinypic URL

Yard Work

I planned on riding 80 miles on Saturday, but instead I stayed home and did some serious yard work. We had a large tree in the back yard. I'm not sure, but I think it was a Huisache. It was about 25' tall, with tons of thorns and yellow flowers. What's worse is that it was right next to the fence, which was causing major problems including broken posts and pickets. The wind down here blows all the time, and anything a tree touches gets damaged -- roof, windows, fences, other trees, whatever. So unfortunately the neighbors and I removed the tree. About half the pile of brush in the below photo is from the tree.





Then we decided to remove all of the ornamental holly bushes from the front of the house. They're non-native, and don't do well in our intense heat. They weren't doing well. Moreover, they were too close to the front porch. It's another long story, but our porch has some damage and we're having it repaired starting Monday. Having the bushes out makes the job easier. Here's the house after the shrubs have been removed. Oh yeah - about half of the pile in the above picture is from the shrubs.



Now they way I've described the activity thus far does not provide an accurate picture of the sweaty, back-breaking work that Victoria and I subjected ourselves to for the entire day. I have (had) an electric chainsaw on an extension pole. It's broken now. The tree killed it. We drug all of the limbs, some around 6" in diameter, from the back yard to the front. That was tough. That tree almost beat me.

And the shrubs were worse. I bought a come-along and some cable, and we winched the shrubs out by pulling against the trailer hitch on my truck. That's right, I pulled my truck up into my yard. Cranking on the come-along requires upper body strength and cardio stamina. Somebody should market the thing as an exercise gizmo. Sometimes the come-along, which supposedly could handle up to 1 ton of weight, COULD NOT PULL OUT THE SHRUB. In that case, I had to dig around the base and cut out the offending roots. Also not easy.

I'm sore today. My hands hurt. My biceps and triceps hurt. I sit at a desk all day, and I'm not used to real work. Regardless, I got up this morning and did 40+ miles with the 'elite' group. It was a good ride, and much easier than removing trees and shrubs.

Seat Tube Ding

I ride a 2005 Giant TCR C1, which is a carbon fiber compressed geometry frame. Today while washing my bike I noticed some flaking on the frame. The flaking area looks like an impact site. It's semi-circular, and is similar in appearance to a rock chip in glass. It doesn't look like it's deeper than the very surface of the frame, but I'm not certain about that. It's on the seat tube, in the area where the seat tube is closest to the tire. Here's a photo:






And here's a close up of the same:

I never noticed this before, and I haven't had an accident in awhile, so it was a surprise. Now I've got to assess if this damage has the potential to cause the frame to catastrophically fail. I would appreciate input from any of the millions and millions of Interweb users that frequent my site. While waiting for your valuable feedback, I think I'll take the bike to the Giant dealer.

Planning the Big Ochenta

I'm planning on riding an 80 mile route on Saturday. Some of the Team McAllen boys (and girls) are planning to leave at 6:30a, and do a sort of west-southwest loop route. We usually do an out-and-back, so since this is a loop it should have a special extra dose of more flat and boring Valley scenery. I might see a levee, or a field of sugar cane, or a field of onions, or a tractor, or a dozen CBP vehicles. On the positive side, it's better than fighting car exhaust all day like I did in Austin.

This will be a 'bridge up' ride for me, in that when I ride with this group I usually suck wheel and then finally drop back to ride with the slower group. I intend to bridge and not get dropped. I need these kinds of rides to supplement my 1-2 weekday rides, and my 1-2 weekend rides. I always keep good pace and cadence, but I just need to build more base miles so that I feel better on century rides. The team promises there won't be crazy attacks, and that this will be a steady base mileage ride. Just to show them who's boss, I plan on executing one of these in the parking lot before we leave:



Amazing bicycle burnout - Watch more free videos