team buKit :: log

Heating up.

It’s been Africa hot here. Like 101-103 with the heat index. It’s been hot. Makes riding the bike not so much fun.

The diet continues on. I’m down 10 pounds in 2 weeks, so I guess that’s pretty good. We are into ‘phase 2’ now, which means that we can add sprouts to the 3 other things we could eat before.

I went for a long road ride last weekend. I did about 25 miles in about an hour and a half – so that’s pretty good I think. I’m hoping to better that as the date of the ride grows near. I think if I can get down under 2:30 for 50 miles, I’d be pretty psyched.

I’m hoping to be able to ride as technical problems continue to plague the team. The beast that is the ‘Ubaldmobile’ continues to encounter problems. The other day I was forced to ‘change directions suddenly’ by a ‘less than observant idiot driver’ and had to jump a curb rather quickly. I didn’t quite clear it completely and the rear wheel whacked the curb pretty good. Only later after reviewing the bike did I realize that the rim is now dented and no longer round. Great. I spent about an hour and a half doing the best I could to true it up as good as possible – without a truing stand of course – and adjusting the brakes to allow for the bump. Good times. Just the kind of thing I enjoy doing at 12:30am on a Tuesday night. This is the same rear wheel that I just spent $40 on a few weeks back to have the bike shop ‘hold for a week’ to replace 1 spoke, which is really a 15 minute process.

Offical Team Wrench, Aaron’s offical words were: “Dude, a bent rim is trash. Now’s a good time to buy a truing stand an cheap wheel and learn to build wheels.”

This is really fortuitous as that is something I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time – now all I really need is the money and the time – and heck, I’ve got tons of both. Gotta love those single, bohemian living mechanics.

For now, the wheel stays.

Thanks to everyone for their continued donations – and remember, you can donate up until midnight the night before the event – so, hound all your friends!