Foggy, Cold -- Healing -- I Want My Drop Bars Back

A chilly, foggy morning to start Thursday's ride. Note the frost on the car. I suppose in the grand scheme of things, though, we have it pretty mild here in the Pacific NW compared to the eastern side of the states.

Evan and I bundled up and made our trip to school, then I continued on to work. Gosh, I feel slow, I think the hip pain is getting to me mentally. I can't wait until I don't have to think about it anymore. I mean, I just want to ride.

Of course, just being able to sit at my desk for more than a few minutes would be nice, too. Then, because I am standing so much, I am so tired at the end of the day. My hat is off to those that are on their feet all day, like wow.

At the Steel Bridge we all had to wait as the lower section was raised as a tug approached. You can just make it out coming down river through the fog. Everyday there seems to be something new and different.

Even with the less than 100% of my current situation, I must be riding okay. When I was a bit away from work heading toward Evan's school (about Multnomah and MLK) I noticed a shadow behind me.

He proceeded to stay behind me for the next mile and a half. I'm thinking, "Hey, go ahead and pass." I think he was using me to push himself along or a lazy wheel sucker. Anyway, about a block from where I was going to turn right, he did decide to finally push past me. He said something inaudible, I thought to myself, "Ya poop! You suck the wheel of an invalid and then when you are all rested, you go hammering by, without offering to pull?"

I think it is good I am back riding the SUB and using my panniers. At least I am not putting any extra pressure against my back and, thus, my hip area. Hopefully, this will help speed up the healing. Friday's ride was uneventful, except this morning, Evan led the whole way! I guess he's got the route down, now. I don't often get to ride behind him and watch his riding style. The dude is pretty strong and pretty smooth. Sorry, it ws too cold for me to get the camera out and snap a picture.

Well, my experiment of going back to my SUB's flat bar is not working out so good for my hands. So, this weekend's plan is to do some adjusting to maximize brake efficiency when I am riding on the hoods. While I am there, I am planning to make a modification to where I mount the shifters (original, Shimano thumb shifters) so I can create the most room for my hands across the bar tops.

Brake-wise, I think I just have to fine-tune the brake arm positions so I am pulling with the most leverage. Since I had the bars off (Cinelli Little Wings), I decided to fill-in the front and back cable grooves, which I never really liked. I used some liquid metal filler. This is a picture of the back of the bars and that flat looking section is where I filled in the cable groove.

 

Here you can see the extremely rotated thumb shifters. This puts the levers on the front side of the bars rather than across the top. This will hopefully provide the full bar top for my hands and still provide relatively easy access to the shifters.

Next step is to fit up the cable housings, run the cables, make the adjustments and do a quick around the block test for positioning. Once I've got it pretty close, I will re-wrap the bars and be ready to ride. (Okay, until the next time I get a "gotta change something" itch - hahaha).