Garmined

And while we are catching up on the fleet news, I also have a Garmin 500 and way too much data. Club has a Strava deal too so I might go with the paid service for that too. Floyd thinks this will inevitably lead to training, he's one to talk ;)

KaiBo's New Ride

A couple weeks before the 6th BD, a new bike showed up. Its transitional, to gain more confidence before going to 20" - this is 16" wheels. Vroom!

Spoke Week!

On the way down Grizzly Peak Monday morning, I broke a spoke on the Fulcrum 3 Racing wheel on the Focus. It broke on the drive side at the hub, with the spoke flapping around at the wheel. To get home I broke the spoke off at the nipple, loosened the brakes and went down Centennial carefully on the remaining 20. Yes, the wheel had 21 spokes.

At home I did not find the pack of spare spokes I assumed the wheel came with - turns out this is a Neuvation service. In fact, I hadn't a clue how to fix the Fulcrum 3 Racing, and the website was full
of warnings and notions of proprietary greatness. I sent the Fulcrum US distributor an email asking for a local shop recommendation, have not heard back. While Internetting, I ordered a $120 Shimano wheel from Neuvation, with a $30 service plan, ground shipping.

I rode the old Pinarello today in all its old yet clean/well maintained glory. Up the second rise on Euclid and BOING, spoke #2 for the week. Very odd since I don't ride the bike much, and it has 24 whole spokes. In my collection of Neuvation spoke kits I found a non-matching black double butted spoke
of the proper dimension and set it aside for a bike-shop-day.

Also today, in the afternoon the Neuvation wheel arrived. I unpacked the wheel, zip-tied it to my messenger bag and rode it home. That bike-shop-day was this evening.

Fulcrum wheel was stripped of cassette, tire and tubes which were put onto the Neuvation. Removing the cassette from the Fulcrum revealed its not so difficult to work on, we just need the perfect, straight headed spoke. The  Neuvation M28A is "the strongest wheel we sell" according to John Neugent. But it only has 20 spokes, not enough. Neuvation has nice small logos now, and is silent as it spins. Glad I bought the wheel plan and that it only takes a day to get a new wheel in.

Pulled the silver Neuvation off the Pinarello, removed tire and cassette, put in black spoke and a nipple
from the drawer. Re-assembled, looks weird if you are looking for something, otherwise the other 23 spokes hide the black-sheep. A little truing with the spoke wrench and we are up 2 bikes again, with
confidence in finding a spoke for the Fulcrum vs finding a Fulcrum shoppe.