Mar 10 - and another thing

It's still morning, right after I posted the last blog. I forgot to mention the other thing that I did on Monday was lubricate my pedals. That should like a quick job, and it should be, but one pedal was giving me trouble so I spent more than an hour.

There's a dust cap that must be removed, a grease fitting inserted and then you pump grease into the pedal until it comes out at the spindle on the frame side. Well, one pedal worked well but the other did not. The grease kept coming out by the grease fitting and furthermore, the pedal had a decidedly rough roll to it after I started that process. Before greasing the pedals they almost spun freely -- indicating that they needed greasing. There was clearly some dirt that was being pushed into the needle bearings by the grease on this pedal and so I had to figure out how to dismantle the pedal, clean it from the inside-out, so to speak, grease it up and then reassemble. It seems like a small deal, but a failed pedal is basically an ended ride.

I have a million miles on these pedals -- well, more like 40,000 -- and I'm probably pushing my luck. I have a new pair that I should probably put on this, my long distance bike, and put the used pair on the new bike which will not likely see rides much over 100 miles. Another alternative would be to put the Speedplay mountain pedals on this bike and the Road pedals on the new bike. I might think about that.

I just took the seatpost rack off the Brevet Bike, but have left the front lights in place. I'll leave it semi-heavy, so to speak, for today's ride.

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It's morning again. Actually, I'm late getting back to this.

Yesterday went as planned -- a bike ride north; Sandy picking up Angelika; Sandy/Angelika/Abby going to the dog beach; Red Snapper for dinner ... that sort of thing. Angelika got introduced to Stargate SG1, suffering through a couple of episodes.

For my ride north I took a "new" route, riding as much as possible along the river/estuary instead of US 1 and then crossing over to the beach and riding north along the ocean on A1A. It's now warm enough that the ocean breeze doesn't make the ride unpleasant. Riding along the river and ocean beats US 1 by a long shot, but it is slower. On the way back, once I crossed over from A1A to the mainland, I rode along the river for a few blocks and then back the rest of the way on US 1. I like being able to put out a consistent amount of energy, which is what riding with the wind affords you. I don't loaf along taking advantage of the wind, rather I push as hard as I can.

Angelika's flight was on time so she and Sandy must have been back before 1pm. When I got home around 3:30 they, and Abby, were out, so I suspected that they'd gone to the beach. Abby came back smelling like apple -- for the first time in a long time she got the full shampoo treatment. This morning she's soft and fluffy. That won't last long.

Today, Sandy has an appointment at 9:30 and then once she's back we are going boating. The weather forecast is good so it should be a great day on the water. So much for Abby's shampoo job.

Tonight ... keep your fingers crossed ... we'll see the planned shuttle launch. It's supposed to be partly cloudy, hopefully not too cloudy.

That's it.