Irregular Maintenance, Irregular Blogging

So it turns out I need to record when I do things to know when I need to do them BEFORE they break. 

As my shoulder heals, and the rains wain, I have had 2 ride-ending mechanicals on the rare non-rainy weekend rides.

The first was a leaky tire - not a big deal I assumed accept the traditional fallback of putting in a tube failed, 3 times and through 2 pumps before I got left behind at Muir Beach to get picked up later by Taco. The lesson here is tubes are not the backup they used to be - I have not had a flat fixed by a tube in many years, and these rims NEVER had a tube in use. 

The second mechanical was a broken shift cable conveniently at the end of the first climb up Annadel - no spare, but a bike shop at the Trail House, so in the biggest gear I went on down to get a cable. And a mechanic, who found a trickier extraction than I could have managed (the break was at the very end of the cable). In conversation and inspection with the mechanic, he found a broken spoke(!), other loose spokes, worn chain and cassette, and housing should be replaced. I paid $54 for the cable and quick wheel tune, and was able to intercept buddies, but I missed out on the lovely Lawndale decent.

How to avoid this/these situations? Regular maintenance of course. Failing to blog means I have no record of when I last did stuff to the bikes in the fleet. Santa Cremes wheels were last done 3 or 4? years ago, its been the big-day-bike and kept clean vs the Meta.

An extension to Strava would make record keeping really nice for maintenance - add a part, start a timer, use Strava data to log times/call out alarms. Monetization would be simple, maybe could be a platform to track any and everything with regular maintenance requirements.

So what is new?

• shoulder is getting stronger, so fitness is improving on Strava - 40 in Dec to 65 this weekend
• weather has been wet, rides muddy and lots of hose-action
• full mudhuggers on the Meta = rain bike. Back on the 140mm non-boost Pike with Ernst wheel up front. Needs a better front tire, rebuilding the wheel on that Pink Chris King is in the cards.
• Peak Bike has a silly sticker. I'll get a picture posted. Its been a good psych experiment to see who notices (DS) and who is clueless to the bad-branding (GN, JC)
• Goals?
• Boggs
• afraid of racing otherwise
• Sea Otter - 25miles to 50 and 50 was moved to 70+ - JC is fired up
• Wente - represents the start of my Spiral last summer. Missing it anyway due to BHS graduation
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