Tuesday, February 6th, 2018
There really isn’t anything interesting to say today, so I have titled this entry with Tuesday. Seems as good as anything. I took my bike in for some service and prepped it a bit for my long ride on Thursday. Then I took a short ride, a short walk and ate too much food (prepping for that long ride).
The mechanic did a quick and thorough job of replacing the chain and fixing up the key areas of my bike, although he was surprised at a couple of the issues. I admitted that I was quite ignorant regarding maintaining this new, modern and complex beast. He laughed and fixed everything. (In reality, it was just my headset had worked it’s way loose as I may have mentioned a few times before, and when I tightened it down again I didn’t re-set everything quite right). Again, the disc brakes are still a bit of a mystery to me, but that is because I have buried my head in the sand and will simply pay this guy five euros to keep them in good shape.
One thing for sure, I will need to buy two new bikes for Race Across the West in June, and while I will probably get the same frame (I LOVE Pinarello bikes, this frame is wonderful), it will be a traditional Shimano Ultegra or 105 component group, not this disc brake stuff. Too complicated for an old guy like me. But seriously, I need to be able to fix my bike on the road and not rely on a mechanic when I do long rides on my own. Changing the tires yesterday wasn’t nearly as easy as it is with ‘normal’ wheels with a skewer. Okay, I am boring my readers now.
It is worth noting that my intended crew chief for RAW has finally responded to me and may be available for the race in June. Without him, I am not sure it would be possible. I can train my muscles all day long, but training a crew chief is hard.
Here are a couple of pictures from near the top of the hill near the boat. I have discovered there is a theater there. I walked up to see if it is an ancient theater. It’s not, or if it is it is well protected with modern fencing and equipment. I did climb a LOT of stairs and got a good picture or two in however.
The featured image was taken part way down the hill (on the opposite side from the steps in the photo below), and the view overlooking the water is quite nice. Closer to the water there are dozens of restaurants where you can sit and see a partial view, but this is quite nice from the level of this photo.
Here are the stairs the take you to the top of the hill. They are pretty steep so you can’t even see the 50 or 60 steps. If you looked from the other side, the yellow ‘blends’ so it just looks like a continuous yellow wall, not stairs at all.
