Since we are planning on riding tomorrow, I better get our most recent ride in here. It was mostly sunny and in the high 50's, with a light wind. Rollin was still in the cargo trailer, from his trip to the local bike shop, where he had his chain cleaned, new tires put on and hopefully the issue of the chain falling off, resolved. Added air to the new Marathon racers, that Rollin is sporting now, an backed him out of the trailer . 4 of our grandkids are here for the week, so we had some helpers.
Sadly, not enough bikes for them to come along with us. The 2 we do have need new tubes. The task has been added to my to do list. I took a picture of our twin grandsons on Rollin, too, but for some reason, it didn't show up on the camera.
Had the MRI on my right knee a little over a week ago. It showed chondromalacia, which is inflammation of the cartilage in the back of the knee. The pain is in the front of the knee, especially when I go up steps. Sports medicine doc wants me to go see a surgeon. Not sure I want to go that route. PALM is about 8 weeks away. Due to the weather, we are already behind in our training. I don't have time to be laid up for 3 weeks. On the other side of the scale, I'm not sure my knee is up to the intense training that lies ahead of us. Also after 5 months of not working, I really don't want to be laid up for another 3 weeks. Business is just starting to pick back up. We'll give the matter serious thought and of course we will pray about it. Will see how my knee feels after a few rides.
We completed our first ride on Marathon Racers. I'll add a little disclaimer here. This is not an advertisement for these tires, but simply our opinion of them, thus far. If you are not big into cycling and don;t care about tires, you might want to page down, past this part.
Rollin previously had Tioga Comp Pools. Love the speed boost from them, but got tired of how easily a piece of glass or even a sharp stone can cause a flat, so decided it was time to switch. We wanted something that would give us some protection against flats, but not affect our speed too much. We had Marathon Plus on Rosie. I liked the puncture resistance of them, but we lost at least 2-3 MPH when we made the switch. Also they were a bugger for me to get off and on. Glad I never had to make a tire change on the trail with them. It would have taken a very long time. For those reasons, they were not an option this time around. After researching and comparing we decided to try Marathon Racers.We bought the non folders, beaded 20 X 1.5. Considerably thinner in width than our other tires. They offer some protection against flats and hopefully will not compromise our speed too much. They were recommended to us by someone who had done considerable touring with their GTT.
The racers don't offer sidewall protection again flats, and they aren't noted to be a heavy duty puncture resistant tire. They have only one layer of puncture resistance. so we haven't eliminated a lot of risk for flats but they will hopefully do better than our comps did. We had around 2800 miles on our Comps, they came on Rollin as original tires on it and had about 1500 miles on them. We were so thrilled to find a used GTT that fit both of us, and had so few miles on it. Rollin was practically showroom new. Had never even been ridden in the rain. Needless to say, that didn't last long.
Had our first 16 mile ride on the Racers today. It's hard to get a good sense of how they will do after such a short ride, but I thought I would write up our initial opinions. As you know, we aren't what I would consider hard core riders. We ride for pleasure, typically cycling between 1000 to 1400 miles per year. Would do more if we didn't live in a northern climate. Looking forward to retirement when we can spend part of our winters in a warm climate and do more riding.
With the new tires, we can't tell much difference yet in our speed, but in all fairness, I want to say that we haven't tried them on a flat MUP trail. We could tell a difference on the section of gravel we ride before we get to pavement. Our old tires would spin out a lot, on the loose stones especially, the rear tire. The new tires give us a bit more traction on the gravel, and since every ride we do from home starts out on gravel, that is an important factor to us.
We did a road ride with what I would call, "medium grade" hills. (our easiest course, besides the trail. We could feel that our tires had more grip, when cornering. They sing us a little song as they go around, especially down hill at high speeds. They sound a a bit like a small jet engine when we go fast and then wind down when we slow up. Our Comps were a pretty silent tire, so the new sound will take a bit of getting used too.
Since we were having a bit of tweaking done on the trike at our local bike shop, I didn't mount the tires myself, but had them put on along with the other work we had done. The comps were easy to get off and on, I'm hoping these are the same.
We rode at 90 PSI previously, the Racers Max is 85 and we rode at 80 today. I think the extra 5 lbs PSI, on the Comps, or perhaps the width of the them, gave a bit smoother ride, but it is a bit premature to to tell for sure on that. Although, we really do miss the quiet ride of the old tires, we are pleased with the Marathon Racers, so far. More miles ahead to compare and hopefully we will be free of flats for longer. Not sure what to expect mileage wise for these. We paid around $40.00 per tire. I probably could have done a little better online, but we try to give our local bike shop some business. It is in a town of around 10,000 people. If we lose that bike shop, our nearest one will be 60 miles away. It's good to keep business local, if we can.
The gravel road was dry enough to ride on, although it is full of ruts and holes. We did a zig zag course from side to side, but made it to the pavement, without jarring our teeth too badly. About 3 miles from home when the chain, fell off. It was easy to get back on, but we were not happy to see that the problem had not been solved, after all.
What a wonderful feeling of freedom to get out and ride. The sun warmed our faces, even though the wind carried a chill. Not much green to look at yet , brown is still prevalent, although some of the grass is starting to green up a little. Couldn't help but wonder if some morel mushrooms were hiding in these woods. The season is upon us.
Such a blessing to get out and use some pedal power. Tyson, the boxer, was nowhere to be seen today. Glad of that. Our legs aren't yet in condition for making a run for it .
We were about 3 miles from home when the chain fell off for the first time. We had so hoped that our bike shop had the problem resolved. Stopped, put on my trusty disposable gloves, and got the chain back on. 3 miles later, It fell off again.
Stopped at church to refill our water bottles and take a bathroom break.
Sat in the sunshine and enjoyed sharing a granola bar. Used Tony's new I-phone to try and take a picture of us, but it is pretty off center. Not sure it will be worth the effort of posting it on here or not. We are still trying to figure out how that cotton picking phone functions. Not sure how to upload pics to this blog with it yet.
White fluffy clouds had begun to dance across the sky as we headed for home. We were riding into the wind and were so grateful for our windproof jackets. The ones that match and that we got for $15.00 each.
A lady we know, was hard at work raking her yard. It didn't make me feel guilty at all, that we were out riding instead of doing yard duties at home. We have been waiting for a break in the weather to ride and were so happy to spend part of this day, doing just that.
By the time we reached the 10 mile mark the chain had rebelled 2 more times. At the end of our 16 mile ride, getting the chain to stay on, had become a new priority. Will need to have that resolved before our next ride.
Such a blessing to have this wonderful ride today.
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