Jan 29 - blog-o-spam

As if a few hundred email spam is not enough, I got a spam in my blog ... grrrr ... well, my blog now requires one of those word-completion exercises if someone wants to post and all comments are moderated. Grrr. With a little searching I found out how to delete the spam from Gil's Trucking in Mississauga. Spam from Canadians yet !!

It's raining, hard. I should have gone out sooner but was fiddling with setting up the lights etc. on my bike. I called and they're sending me the missing handlebar light mount, but in the meantime I mounted one of the lights on the included fork mount, just to get it all working so that I could do some riding with the additional weight.

Speaking of additional weight, I did weigh some of the new & old parts -- in grams -- rear wheel - 835; front wheel - 1110 -- compare that to a total weight of around 1200 grams, if I recall, for the Rolf wheels. Grams do add up -- I weighed the bike all assembled with the seatpost pack, lights, new wheels, my usual tools etc. and it comes to something just under 26 pounds. That doesn't include water, food or other things that I might stuff into the seatpost pack like warm clothing. It will be over 30 pounds once all is said and done. I'll have to do a comparison to what it weighs without the heavy wheels, without the lights, without the seat-rack, you get the idea. I'm pretty sure that I'm looking at 20 pounds or less, not including water. The extra "stuff" also adds wind resistance, which is actually more of a factor riding in Florida ... there aren't too many hills around here where weight would be a concern !

We're going out for dinner tonight with Norm and Patti at an Italian restaurant along US 1 called Valentino's (I think). We got an email from Norm a couple of hours ago that they have a coupon that is about to expire ... we retirees have to pay attention to coupons ... and early-bird specials !

We just heard from Debi Laibe, who rented our house long before it was our house, that the old lady across the street passed away. She had fallen down and broken her pelvis before we left for Christmas and apparently was about to come home when she fell down and broke her hip -- and passed away a few days later. I guess at that point she lost the will to live. Sandy had emailed her to find out what was going on because Debi, well really Steve her husband, occasionally helped the old girl by maintaining the property. Allister met and talked to her when he and Carol were here; Sandy talked to her occasionally if she was out walking. She used to have cats -- I don't know what happened to the cats -- and had transferred her attention to some local raccoons that she fed regularly. They would come right to her door ... hmmm.

Back to the bike -- once I started with wheels, of course I had to move a cassette from the Rolf rear, then checked the chain and found it needed replacing. I need to replace the brake pads and check the shifter and brake cables before getting out there on a long ride. I put the new 25mm tires on these wheels -- more comfortable for long rides and less likely to flat. I currently ride on 23's. You wouldn't think that 2mm makes much difference, but it does. Jerry rides on 21's and he's always getting flats. Of course he's heavier too.

I heard from Jerry -- he's going to postpone his visit until he can find a time that works for Jayne too. That will be fun -- we've never met her except through emails and she has quite the sense of humor.

It's brightening up outside -- I'll check the doppler and hopefully it will stay dry long enough for a short spin on the new setup. I'll get wet and dirty from the water on the road, but c'est la vie. I should probably wear my old shoes !

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It's morning again. Funny how that happens.

I did go for a bike ride to the end of the park -- Canaveral National Seashore that is -- and back. It's about 6 miles to the park gate then 6 miles to the end, so 24 miles round trip. Clouds and showers were all around but the wind was dead calm and I was not getting rained upon. I rode with the LED headlight and tail-light on but not the halogen -- quite frankly I cannot tell the difference in pedaling effort with lights on or off. However, I could tell the difference in pedaling effort with the entire setup -- probably a loss of 2-3 mph at the same effort. This is unscientific, of course.

I had done an unscientific test too, on the repair stand. Spin the front wheel hard, how long does it coast -- 30 seconds. Turn on the LED front light and tail-light, spin again -- 10 seconds. Turn on the halogen as well -- 3 seconds. Aaron and I exchanged emails and he's interested in putting his rear wheel on my bike and doing a different test -- his watt-meter will tell us how many watts it actually takes to maintain a certain speed, and we can test with and without lights. I'm not sure that 3 watts isn't within rounding error -- but it will be fun to try.

At the turnaround point -- funny how that happens -- all of a sudden the palms started waving and the temperature dropped 10 degrees -- I found the cold front that is causing the weather change. I rode back into a headwind in the rain. I had told Sandy that I needed to do some riding in inclement weather -- what was I thinking ? With a significant headwind with this entire rig -- in the park -- I was only making 12-13 mph. The dune growth on either side of the road in the park creates a wind tunnel effect.

We went for dinner with Norm and Patti, stopping first at their condo for a glass of wine. The restaurant was Bello Valentinos -- I found that out because Valentinos is not listed in the phone book. Why did we need the phone number ? Well, to call them after we got home to tell them that Sandy would be coming back for her purse, of course. The FIRST time we went with Norm and Patti ... the SECOND time Sandy went by herself. It's fairly close, just past the NSB airport, which makes it about 7 miles from here.

The food was very good and reasonably priced too -- this place is worth repeating.

Tanzanian Peaberry -- what is that you say ? That's a type of coffee bean. We've been trying various beans trying to find one that suits both of us and as close to the Timothy's mixture that we cannot get any more. We've tried a Columbian bean (not much flavor), Sumatra and a few others. All the hype around Columbian beans is just that, hype. But then again it depends on the roast -- we'd been told that Columbian beans do not do well in a dark roast and it's true -- they get stronger but the flavor is flat. We're learning all sorts of things about coffee -- like wines, there are different types of beans and there are different places of origin and there are different preparations. Just like you can get a chardonnay grape from California and France, you can get an arabica bean from different places.

Here's an interesting link showing some different beans:

http://www.sweetmarias.com/SingleBeanMacros_Varietals/SingleBeanMacros_Varietals.html

Here's a link to a roasting guide:

http://www.sweetmarias.com/roasting-VisualGuideV2.html

I'm basically doing a full city roast at this point, using the guide that came with the roaster, 19 minutes at 482F. 21 minutes would be French; 23 minutes would be Italian. Any longer would be a fire inside the roasting chamber.

I'm back -- I had started doing some more coffee reading on the sweetmarias website.

Today's plan is to go to Orlando. It's pouring rain outside right now -- I have not checked the doppler, but I can hear it. Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll see what it's like doing a long ride with this setup. Perhaps tonight, if it's dry, I'll go out for a few minutes in the dark with the lights and see how that works. Saxon is reasonably dark, with widely spaced streetlights, so I should get a good sense of the lighting. I have two battery operated tail-lights that I'll probably mount on the seat-stays but have not gotten to that yet.

Abby is up and restless ... time to feed both of us.