Tired and Hungry (and slow).
When we rode the tandem last, I noticed that our timing chain was very loose, so I went down last night to adjust it. When I got the bike up on the rack, I was dismayed to not only find it to be filthy (which I already knew) but there is rust showing again on the front bottom bracket. You can sort of see it between the pin spanner in the pic below. I had this problem once a couple of years ago and thought that was behind me. I guess not.
Adjusting the eccentric bottom bracket
On top of that, I’ve been noticing an area around one of the front bottle cages where it looks like rust is starting to form under the paint. It wouldn’t surprise me as much as I sweat, and those lugs for attaching the cage will give it a perfect place to pool and begin to do some damage. It looks like I’ve got some more repair work to do this winter….
While I had it up there, I went ahead and gave it a good cleaning and lubed the chains. It not only looked a lot better this morning, but the freshly cleaned and lubed chains gave us a much smoother operating machine. I’ve been slacking in that area this year.
Having a clean bike made me feel ready to ride this morning, but that’s about it. Neigher of us had it in us to put in a fast ride. In Pam’s words, “I’m hungry and tired and didn’t sleep well last night”. That’s not a good combination. In addition, we’ve been walking a lot in the evening, which is wearing us out even more.
The tandem is a lot different from riding a single bike. If I find myself tired and struggling on the single bike, it’s relatively easy to get into an easy spin and keep up a pretty good speed without killing yourself. On the tandem, that just isn’t possible.
On the positive side, it was another beautiful morning, and I got to spend it with my sweetie. We saw a deer for about the 5th ride in a row, and the sunrise was nice. After I dropped Pam off at the house, I was able to spin on into work without too much additional effort.
God bless…
TW
Tags: bicycle, Bike Commute, Cycling, deer, Fitness, tandem
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