Time off is over; Back to Work I Go

After a week off to enjoy spring break with Evan around home, Oregon greeted me on my morning commute with a layer of grey. But hey, she no rain on me so I am good. I did not even wear my rain jacket or pants, just my work crop pants and my fleece jacket. I prepped the bike yesterday, wiping the week ago rain and grime remnants away, making a small adjustment to my rear cassette gearing and lubing the chain. I did discover I need to replace the rear brake pads, dang, they wore fast because of the winter abrasives out on the roads. I am rather shocked as I have ridden in spring rains way back with far less wear and tear. Argh, the anodizing on my rear wheel (which is original circa 1990, by the way) is nearly gone on one side. I start to wonder if by using the RaceBlades to keep the crud off of me, I have caused some higher wear on my brakes and wheels.

I looked at the fronts and plenty of pad and not much change in anodizing wear than when I started. I also notice that the big difference is the rear fenders front edge ends right at my rear brake. I wonder if that is providing a nice conduit for the water, road grit and fine slime to flow directly at my rear brake which then acts as a grinding system on my wheels. Wouldn't that be a kick in a**?

This morning, I started off easy, re-introducing myself to being back on the bike. I ride through Mt. Tabor and try to keep it easy on down into downtown Portland, to work. I think I will switch from my heavy duty, mega-bright headlight to my, "be seen" smaller, Dinotte front light. Gets pretty light out early, even when leaving around 6:45am.

The morning ride felt good, the morning, fresh air, in my own little world away, cruising along. Nice. I regressed a teeny, tiny bit, but hey, I expected that after not riding all last week. But I still felt good and my middle gears are my friends these days.

Homeward would be my real test of what I might have lost. The ride home was actually pleasant and felt good overall. The pedaling was comfortable, even the lowest gear sections were not so bad. After I was home for a bit I noticed an odd mark on my right calf and started to wonder just how long that had been there. I do believe I had a clean calf during work, so maybe when I got home and leaned the bike against me to open the garage door, my chainring kissed me.

I have to admit the pattern is kinda cool looking, like a brush stroke, as if the bike was happy to be ridden and saying, "hey, low 8 ..."