Archive for May 2nd, 2009
Ride Entry – 2nd May 2009
by admin on May.02, 2009, under Uncategorized
Bike: Vela
Distance: 24 miles
Go the Vela out of the shed, gave it a quick polish and decided I would go out for a ride. Got a Time trail coming up so I wanted to make sure it was all up and working. Hmmm, back wheel looks a little bit out. Find the kink in the wheel, ping the spoke, sounds a bit loose. I tighten the nipple up and it just collapses. The nipple is almost complete rotted away! I check the next nipple, same thing. Bizarre. I check a few more, some are OK but others are screwed. I have a look at the front wheel and find a similar story. What a load of pants! I can either replace the nipples and rebuild the wheels or buy some new wheels. I decide to go for the latter and nip over to Geoffs who sells me some entry level RS220′s which look alright at quite a good price, I reckon about 50 quid off RRP so I get them for £150.
Stick them on the bike and nip out. I’d like to get a 27 or 28 minute ten miler for the time trial so head out aiming for a 20mph average. Easier said than done in heavy traffic, traffic lights and junctions. The wind is very odd too. Keeps blustering around, hard to determine which way is predominant. As usual it always seems to be in my face. I clear the first ten miles which are flattish but have plenty of junctions and traffic in them, in 20mph average which makes me happy. I’m a tad slower on the next 14 miles but I did ride up some big hills. Bike seemed to behave fine, cool. I’ll nip out for another ride Monday afternoon and try and find a ten mile flat stretch to give myself a proper trial.
Really looking forward to the time trial. Wanted to do one for ages but never got round to it.
In other speed news, the speeding ticket I thought I’d got has not materialised yet and since they apparently have to send it to you within two weeks, it looks like I’ve been very lucky indeed. I’ve certainly been keeping a very close eye on my speed since then. Phew!
