Thursday, September 16, 2010

Name That Creak...

...and other commuting tidbits.

* I am really happy the Tobacco Trail was repaved this summer, but not for the reason you would expect. The construction closures forced me to look for alternate commuting routes. I found a great new route on a nearby two-lane road with courteous traffic and a 35mph speed limit. Plus, my it cuts one mile off my commute distance. I am hooked. I wish I had explored sooner.

* Cyclists often complain about car drivers' bad behaviors, but rarely note the good things. Yesterday, a car slowed and waited behind me to pass through an intersection before turning right. Wow, no right hook. In the dark this morning, a car driver yelled an apology to me when he didn't see me initially in an intersection. Double wow. And finally, a disabled car with matte dark paint and no reflectors was parked completely off the road, rather than blocking part of the travel lane. Triple wow. Thank you all!

* I may have found and fixed the latest noise on my bike. It's been crunching and grinding when pedaling, but very intermittently, and impossible to isolate. I started working on it last night (and I like working on the chain up at eye level!). I tightened and lubed things, and replaced the chain which was stretched and needed to be replaced anyway. Then I noticed big clumps of grit, grime, and road schmutz stuck to my chainrings and guardrail. I had to chisel it off. It rode much quieter today. All I heard this morning was the squeak of my Fine Soft Corinthian Leather saddle. Fingers crossed it stays quiet for the Black Creek 200K on Saturday.

Here is a video of the sound beforehand. 'Crank' up the volume halfway through: video

2 comments:

sag said...

Okay, okay, a correction. I should have said "Soft Corinthian Leather".

Here is the official authority, Ricardo Montalban in the
Chrysler Cordoba commercial from the 1970s

skiffrun said...

You could try using a SOFT rag or cloth (not leather), in combination with ecologically friendly cleaning products, OCCASIONALLY, on that crank, chain and cassette, and then there would be no need for the chisel.

;-)


(I would bold or italicize the two critical words, but I do not understand how to close HTML tasgs.)