Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Today is a bit boring after last week’s adventures.
During my ride yesterday it became clear that my bottom bracket on the bike was coming out again so I went back to the bike shop this morning and had it fixed again. I think the problem is that the flange securing the BB has been installed with a bit of Loctite to keep it from unscrewing. The roads here, particularly the quiet ones that I attempt to find, are in pretty rough shape, so I broke the loctite bond on the BB while bumping over the roads. When the mechanic at the store fixed it he didn’t use any loctite and it just started to unscrew itself again. This time he put it on with a similar compound (LocEx?). I sure hope it holds, but is not too strong, or too much coverage.
After that I was off for my ride. I completed 105k or thereabouts and did it in relative warmth and lots of daylight. That puts me at 336km for the month and makes my 1,000km goal possible.
Th ride was low key, quite boring (I am not working on speed as I am still weak from so much time off the bike over the past two months), and the only real highlight was watching a herd of goats having their way with the vines in a vineyard. I am not sure if they were on the loose, or if this is a trimming strategy by the vintner, but it was interesting to see.
When you live on a boat, pictures of water and beaches aren’t really all that interesting, but above is a picture of the beach near Librari. This area looks to have very nice beaches, but was so completely dead it was remarkable. I went through around 1:30 so I suppose everyone was having their nap, but it was like ghost town after ghost town.
The last bit of excitement was almost getting hit by a boat. No, not on the water, on the road. Some bozo towing a boat passed me (on a road with no traffic, keep in mind), the car and I were easily 12″ apart, but then I felt the shadow, and realized he was towing a massive speedboat and it was much, much wider than the car. It was good that I sensed it coming and good that he had fenders out. The fender caught my shoulder and my spidey senses knew the shadow and change in sound was not normal and got me out of the way. Have I mentioned how much I love Italian drivers!
That was my excitement for the day.