Ready Already?

Whenever I'm stymied by indecision about my bike, I go and seek professional advice.  Usually, I seek out Merko or Doug, two experienced mechanics at United Cycle.  This time Doug was available and the problem to be solved involved my as yet un-named red road bike.

In a previous blog it was mentioned that I had lots of trouble climbing out of the river valley at 149 Street and Doug and I considered the option of a "Granny" gear for the front chainring.  But we decided that putting on a third ring would present shifting problems by putting the chain line out of whack.

Doug suggested that we put a new rear wheel on that had more cogs on the cassette and that wouldn't screw around with keeping the chain line straight.  Another option was to buy another bike and since I haven't even broken this baby in, I didn't want to consider that possibility.

So I gave Doug the go-ahead and he did a fine job replacing the rear wheel and the mechanics at United Cycle always go that extra mile for me by doing a little more than what is expected of them.  Doug set up the Modolo brakes and put more air in the front tire.  Touches that I very much appreciated.

What prompted me to bring in the road bike was an email from the MS Society reminding me that the tour is not far away.  The reminder about the tour also prompted me to book a room at the Marada Hotel - the hotel closest to to the finish line of day one and the start line of day two.  As much as I like camping, when I do the tour, I want to shower in my own bathroom and have a nice bed to sleep in and I get to keep my bike in my room which means I don't have to scramble on the morning of day two looking for my bike in the bike barn.

I make all this sound well planned and controlled.  In fact, when I got the email, I kind of woke up from my mid-winter slumber and went "Holy S**t!  I've got things to do!  I've got to raise $1,250.00 to get my jersey and qualify at the same time for the Mountain Tour!"