March 16/17 -- upgrade time

March 16 --

Jason has just left (around 7 a.m.); rain is in the forecast; it's time to install the new Shimano Dura-ace 10 speed groupset (bottom bracket, crankset, shifters, brakes, derailleurs, cassette). I've been hanging onto the parts that I bought about a month ago, putting miles onto the old 9 speed Dura-ace so that everything will be relatively new for the ride across the country. We only have two weeks more here in Florida though and I want to ensure that everything is working ok.

Everything takes time. It was mid afternoon before I had everything installed and even then I had an unresolved issue -- the upgraded bottom bracket with the ceramic bearings was not working properly -- the seals were rubbing on the crankset so that it wouldn't spin freely. I talked to Aaron and we looked at the Enduro website, and it was pretty clear that the seals should seat flush with the face of the bottom bracket, but instead the seals on mine were against the face, between the bottom bracket and the crankset. I called Excel Sports who had installed the bearings in the BB and supplied the upgrade and the fellow that I talked to said that I was not the first call today -- apparently Enduro had supplied a batch with the wrong seals. So ... he is going to get back to me on when they can send the proper seals -- in the meantime I simply installed the Dura-ace bottom bracket that came as part of the Groupset.

I went out for a short test ride after the rain stopped, 4-5 miles, simply to check that everything was working properly -- as a result I made a couple of derailleur and brake adjustments.

Marda Schrop arrived a little after noon -- she's a friend of Sandy's from Philadelphia -- and the two of them went out for lunch. Marda left for Orlando late afternoon -- her flight is early the morning of the 17th. Sandy had one of those 8 oz burgers from the place at the beach so was too full for dinner -- we both snacked instead.

March 17 --

The temperature dropped overnight into the 40's and was only going to get up to 60 so I planned to go out later for a bike ride. I headed out around 11:30 into a stiff (15-20 mph) headwind from the NW. I wore my jacket until the turnaround point -- and even on the ride home I thought about putting it back on a few times. I had a nice tailwind for the return trip.

Rob Ruppel called my cell phone during my ride. His daughter Jennie had a baby (Oscar) 5 weeks early so he is now a grandfather too. I called him back once I was at home and we had a long chat. In spite of the strange weather this winter the ski resort in NH where he teaches has been open all winter, amazingly enough, so he has fared well. He doesn't pretend that it's work though ...

Ride -- nutrition 2 water bottles; 2 mini cliff bars; 2 gels. 70.5 miles @ 16.4 mph.