Man, I can't believe it's been 5 months since my last ride. But, today was the day. I had nothing scheduled, the weather was nice, and I had two people coming over to go for a ride.
The bike weathered the winter well. It's been garaged. But, It wasn't happy about being left alone for so long. I expected a tough time starting it, but itdidn't put up much of a fuss. A few kicks, an I was once again listening to the sound of thunder.
The tires were a different story. I checked the pressure in the rear tire-10lbs. As I removed the gauge I heard a hssssssssssss I pressed the valve stem and released it. still hsssssssssss . Off to the tool chest, find the valve stem remover, seems some gunk had made it's way onto the seal. No biggie, I removed the gunk and put the valve back in the stem. Now to fill it back up.
I have one of those 5$ cigarette lighter powered pumps. It's been working great for about 10 years. I've certainly gotten my money out of it. Apparently the winter was too much for it. The pump was spinning, but no air pressure was being developed.
No biggie this gave me the oportunity to try out my Moose tube inflator kit. This little tool kicks ass. It uses a CO2 cartridge to fill a tube up. It works wicked pissa. I got just about 16 lbs into my tube using that little thing. I actually had to let some out! Great product.
Finally, we are all dressed in our gear, bikes running, off we go to the woods to blow the winter cobwebs off.
The loop we have is less than 1/2 mile. But in that distance there is a swamp, lots of twisty turnies, off camber, rocks and roots. It's a good small loop. We figure that we should be able to add about another 1/2 mile to the loop if we get out there make better use of the land.
Well, we must have put 50 laps in on that thing over the course of 2 hrs or so. Only one getoff for me. The roots jumped up and bit me. then I landed elbow first into one of said roots. I waited for the "crrrack" of bone as I hit. Nope. Nothing. Hurt a bit, but that's it. Off we went again.
All in all a good ride to brush off the dust and get back into the swing of things. Paragon in 4 days. Now that should be fun stuff!
The bike weathered the winter well. It's been garaged. But, It wasn't happy about being left alone for so long. I expected a tough time starting it, but itdidn't put up much of a fuss. A few kicks, an I was once again listening to the sound of thunder.
The tires were a different story. I checked the pressure in the rear tire-10lbs. As I removed the gauge I heard a hssssssssssss I pressed the valve stem and released it. still hsssssssssss . Off to the tool chest, find the valve stem remover, seems some gunk had made it's way onto the seal. No biggie, I removed the gunk and put the valve back in the stem. Now to fill it back up.
I have one of those 5$ cigarette lighter powered pumps. It's been working great for about 10 years. I've certainly gotten my money out of it. Apparently the winter was too much for it. The pump was spinning, but no air pressure was being developed.
No biggie this gave me the oportunity to try out my Moose tube inflator kit. This little tool kicks ass. It uses a CO2 cartridge to fill a tube up. It works wicked pissa. I got just about 16 lbs into my tube using that little thing. I actually had to let some out! Great product.
Finally, we are all dressed in our gear, bikes running, off we go to the woods to blow the winter cobwebs off.
The loop we have is less than 1/2 mile. But in that distance there is a swamp, lots of twisty turnies, off camber, rocks and roots. It's a good small loop. We figure that we should be able to add about another 1/2 mile to the loop if we get out there make better use of the land.
Well, we must have put 50 laps in on that thing over the course of 2 hrs or so. Only one getoff for me. The roots jumped up and bit me. then I landed elbow first into one of said roots. I waited for the "crrrack" of bone as I hit. Nope. Nothing. Hurt a bit, but that's it. Off we went again.
All in all a good ride to brush off the dust and get back into the swing of things. Paragon in 4 days. Now that should be fun stuff!