Mar 30 - Bikes, Planes and Automobiles

We used all available modes of transportation yesterday -- each of us one -- well, that's not quite true, Sheryl used two.

I headed out for a bike ride, going north as much as possible following the river rather than US 1 and then at Ormond Beach continued north along Old Dixie Highway. That was a fabulous route ! It is residential, tree-lined, through parks ... all the way to where I turned east towards what's known as Highbridge (it's a lift bridge) that crosses the Intracoastal Waterway where we've turned around before, over to A1A to ride south along the ocean. Back to Ormond Beach and then across that causeway, I then rode the rest of the way south on US 1. It was a great ride. At 72.5 miles it's a perfect daily ride.

Allister had left earlier to go golfing with his friend in Ormond Beach -- I would have passed a couple of miles east of them. He got back to the house at 2:30 pm and I arrived about 15 minutes later.

Sandy, Carol and Sheryl went to Orlando Stanford Airport, dropping Sheryl off at 12:40 for her 2:00 flight and then they went to Winter Park to look for Tevas -- sandals for Sandy. They had no luck on the Teva front and got home a little after 4pm. Sandy immediately went to the PC and ordered them online -- of course she got "I told you so" from me -- that's what she should have done in the first place, rather than her three fruitless shopping trips.

We sat around and chatted, had a drink, and then went to Dustins for dinner. Dustins is a local barbecue place and naturally we all had ribs or rib combinations. We ate well. I'm still full !

Waking up in the night still full, I finally got back to sleep and then woke up finding that Allister was already up, had emptied the dishwasher, finished the last of the coffee and needed another, needed help with the computer, Abby wanted to be fed -- serves me right for sleeping in !

Actually I was supposed to have roasted some more beans last night -- my fault ... so I got the beans started, fed Abby, figured out why their laptop had not automatically reconnected to my wireless access point, etc. etc.

I figure that as long as:

-- I have a dog (twice a day for food)
-- Microsoft makes windows full of flaws (sporadic, cannot predict schedule)
-- Sandy doesn't roast beans (every three days)

... I'll be wanted and needed. Notice that it's Abby who needs me the most.

Today ... I don't know. We may go boating. In this case "we" is minus Allister, who has already left for golf. Ideally we would go tomorrow but scattered thunderstorms are predicted so we may go both days ... or just today. Tomorrow could be iffy if we wait.

It looks like warm/hot plus "scattered" and "isolated" are predicted for the next week. I'm hoping that we don't get dumped on during the 600k this weekend, but it will be what it will be. Tim Bol just published the cue sheet so I'll be busy setting that up for the bike GPS.

That's it -- oh -- a delivery yesterday -- tires from Specialized. I ordered two more 25mm tires and one 23mm -- all three in black so that they match. My intention is/was to put the 23 on the front and the 25's would be replacements for the back as it wears.

I got out my scale to compare weights, thinking that the 25's must be quite a bit heavier than the 23's ... and was surprised at the lack of difference.

Here are some weights in grams:

23's -- 279 (new black), 264, 282 (new red that I had on the shelf)
25's -- 296, 298

The variability is not surprising, but I would have expected more difference in weight.

Next I weighed some tubes:

Licktons tubes that I've been using with the 25's -- 102
Performance ultralight -- 70
Performance lunarlight -- 55

Interesting ... so changing tubes has a greater impact on rotating weight than the tires. I wouldn't have expected that. I knew that the tubes were significantly heavier but did not think that it mattered in the scheme of things, the tires being so heavy. Well, as it turns out, my choice of tubes has a greater impact !

I've noticed that the my 25's are wearing more on one side than the other, from riding on the road shoulders that are slanted to the right, of course. Since there is still some mileage left on the front 25, I decided to rotate the tire from side-to-side and while I was at it installed one of the ultralight tubes. The lunarlights are pretty thin for this type of riding. For carried weight I decided to replace two of the tubes in my pack with ultralights, thus saving around 60 grams. I carry three spares with me on these rides. I could probably get away with less, but then there will be a time in the dark when I'm patching a tube wishing that I had one more spare with me and didn't have to resort to patching.

60 grams doesn't seem like much ... but every little bit counts. As I put stuff in my pack for these rides nothing weighs much, but it all adds up to a heavy pack. I cannot imagine how people trekking across the country manage with 100 pounds of gear in panniers on their bikes. The wind resistance alone is enough to kill you, let alone the effort required to climb hills. Yikes.

Ok -- that's enough.