I got up and up to the track by just before 9am and did a warmup lap and on the second berm I pedalled a bit out of the berm and the bike started to sound like a tractor! When I got to the end of the track I took a closer look and the wheel had come out of alignment! I carried the bike up to the start hill and aligned the wheel and adjusted the chain tugs and really tightened down the wheel bolt but as soon as I pedalled off of the start gate the wheel moved again and by the first berm I was unable to pedal any more so I had to carry the bike to the car! I decided enough was enough and abandoned the track for the day! It wasn’t a complete waste of time as I did take my Son’s bike and the helmet that he borrowed at the weekend back to the container to get it out of my lounge 🙂 I also put a bunch of stuff that was left out from gates that was knocking about in my car boot into the container as well.
I have looked online and found these:
Hopefully these will fort out the issue with the wheel moving as they reduce the 10mm hole in the chain tensioners down to 6mm for the qr skewers which in theory will stop the wheel moving about! They arrive tomorrow so we will see then 🙂 First impressions of the bike were a bit mixed as I wasn’t able to ride it at any kind of speed so manuals etc were pretty hard. but the bike felt pretty comfortable and it definitely seemed to jump better than my cruiser. We will see how it feels once the wheel movement is sorted. I basically want to use it to get my confidence up again jumping before trying jumps on the BMX. If I get on riding the jump bike I may well spend some money on some suspension forks to make it a lot safer to case jumps than the hard forks the bike has at the moment. The suspension forks also makes it easier to manual and jump as the compression and rebound of the forks gets the front wheel in the air better than straight forks.
When i got back from the track I had a bunch of deliveries, one of which was the new (to me) Specialized Allez 16 road bike that I won on ebay when I didn’t really want to! to be honest the bike is like new so I’m glad that I won it as it will make a really good winter bike and a spare bike for my son to ride at weekends too. The bike is all built up and ready to ride:
As you can see from the photo the bike is in really great condition and it even came with lights and pedals which I wasn’t expecting. The bike is in a much better state than my Allez elite that I have been riding so I am going to use the elite on the rollers and the 16 as my winter bike if I feel like riding outside in the wind and rain!
I also accidentally won a set of Shimano 105 cranks to go on my Allez Elite so that I can get it back to a 2x as I didn’t get on with the 1x setup that it came with! To fit the cranks I also had to buy a new chain so I ordered one and a new set of cleats and a second water bottle cage from wiggle and they will be here tomorrow so I can get the new cranks fitted and stick the old cranks on ebay to try and get some cash back from the money that I paid for the new cranks. I am not going to get a new front mech at the moment as I do not need the lower ring at the moment as the bike will be used on the treadmill for the winter anyway. At the end of the winter I plan to take the bike to have a full service and I will get a new front mech and new cable fitted when that is done. The new chain will get here tomorrow so I will be able to get the bike sorted for the weekend.
I have decided since I have a new road bike and the weather is looking really bad that I will go for a ride on the road bike instead of going to Burnham tonight. I am also not super confident that my bike will make it to Burnham and back in one piece so better to not try it really 🙂 I have also decided not to race this weekend to save money for the Worlds trip next year, so I have decided to get my son out on the road bike on Sunday instead of racing. Its not going to be as good a workout as racing would have been but it saves me at least £100 so is a much more sensible option.
The Bristol winter series dates have just been released too so I can now plan my winter training around that!
I am just trying to see my basketball schedule and I am hoping that at least one of the dates lines up with the week we do not have matches but knowing my luck they will not so it will mean that I have to miss 2 matches a month instead of one if the dates line up correctly.
The first Race is the Wednesday after the SW champs which is in the Saturday the 13th so depending how my body holds up I may or may not make it.
This afternoon went out for a short ride on the new bike and it fits really well. I did have the bars dropped too low so I was having to over-reach to get to the hoods so I have now lifted the bars up and this should have sorted the issues.
I did 10.72 miles in 48:03 minutes for an average of 13.4mph which was way off by pb of almost 21mph! That being said the ride went better than I was expecting as I haven’t been on the road bike since February or March I think! And I definitely have not been riding the bike regularly!
