AustinBike

When you are gluing, make sure you really clean things up. If you are going to glue a patch on the inside, get some fine sandpaper and lightly sand the inside of the tire around the tear. This gives you better gripping. If you have an old tube you can cut a piece for the inner wall to be a "patch". Superglue the inside, glue some type of patch on top of that, then superglue the outside. Got me through the rest of bike trip as I ripped 2 sidewalls in 2 days. Don't bother to patch the outside, it won't last. And, most importantly, really make sure you have cleaned out the sealant. It might help to let it sit in the sun for a day also.

People should buy the product that works for them. If someone asks, they should explain why the product was best for them. This is not a religion. We do not need to convert people. The world can survive with multiple vendors. As a matter of fact the world survives BETTER with multiple vendors. One thing that was not brought up was that 1-Up racks look better. Yeah, that may sound trivial, but when you drop $25K on a vehicle and you have a rack on it 24x7, how it looks is a consideration. Especially if you are married. My wife used to complain about by Thule dual tray rack on my car for years. Never made a peep about my 1-Up. There is a value in that. For me.

Crazy glue worked for me. Patched 2 tires that way.

Ah yes, Switzerland. That looks large enough for me to read with my old man eyes. Just realized the 530 came out. Might pick one of those up if I can sell my bike this week.

If anyone who has a Garmin Edge 420 wants to take a picture of a text notification for me, that would be cool. Been thinking I need an updated one eventually, that might push me to get off my ass and actually buy one.

Pretty simple rule, you can put 2 additional trays on a rack. Period. A single rack can expand to 3, a dual rack can expand to 4. Regardless of the receiver size. Although a 1-1/4” is way more flexy in either case (3 or 4).

We have their connected scale and love it. Their text notifications look small though and they scroll. My old Fitbit did that and it drove me crazy. When this one dies I will keep them on my short list and see what they are offering at that time.

I still do a bit of consulting. It pays for health insurance and bike parts.

I'd do that ride. My only issue is that after riding some of the GB, the southie trails would seem easy.

The nicest thing about the 1-Up is that you can change from 1-1/4" to 2" fairly cheaply. When I bought it originally I was driving an Infiniti sedan and it only had a 1-1/4" hitch option. Now my Nissan Rogue has either option. I could change out the connection part to 2" which is way more stable than using that 2" adapter on 1-1/4" rack. With 1-Up you can only put two extenders on it. If you start with a single rack, you can get to 3 total. If you start with a dual rack you can go to four. In my opinion it is the best made rack available.

And, ideally, I would like an Apple Watch, but the battery life sucks. They need some multi day battery life and quick charging. I plug the Fitbit in while I am showering every day and it stays in the 80-90% range. Left for Chicago for 5 days and accidentally forgot the charger. It was ~85% when I left and ~25% when I returned. I don't need apple at that level but I would love to have 2 days of life and maybe a 1-hour charge. The biggest reason to want the Apple Watch is being able to actually read texts on the trail. Right now the Fitbit is unreadable so when I get a text I have to stop, open my pack and pull out my phone. Pain in the ass, but I need to stay connected most of the time.

I use a Garmin 510 on my bike. The battery is getting old (~3-4 years now) so it no longer lasts a week, I get about 5 days on a charge still and that is pretty good. Bluetooth back to the phone means it never leaves the garage. On my wrist I have a Fitbit Charge 3. That gives me calories for the day (my primary goal) and also tracks my sleep. I believe that the Fitbit will also track my rides if I let it but the reason that I like the Garmin is that it gives me something to look at and push myself during the rides. For riding I have a goal of 14 miles per day average so I know that if I am feeling tired I need to keep going if I have taken a couple of days off that week. Also, watching the average miles per hour it is good to push yourself to try to make it to the next 1/10th MPH mark. Little head games to keep the ride interesting.

Sundays work better for me, Saturdays are typically greenbelt days.

Bump, it's Tuesday....

As an unrelated side note, thanks to mack turtle for providing a great tour of the southie trails yesterday. We did about 18 miles and hit a bunch of stuff I have never ridden before. There is a ton of stuff down there, I need to ride it more often because I was totally lost - I know I had ridden parts of it in the past, but really had no idea how it all fits together.

I have a dog trailer, not sure he would be happy with that trail.

I should be there @ 8 as well.

Everyone. Is. Different. The lack of context is stunning. But expected. This is like saying "there are lots of cars out there these days, what are the best ones, without narrowing the field to how you drive, how many people are in your family, what you are looking for in a car and what your budget is. A new Mercedes and a 2004 Hyundai are both viable answers. There you go.

There is a balance here. On trails that are more "public" and that includes Brushy, you have to balance between not dumbing it down and making it safer, especially on sections that are not marked as dangerous. PP is really safe and would be an easy/green with the exception of that spot. Several have been hurt. So you do something about it. Deception, on the other hand, is not intended to be easy, so if a bunch of people get hurt somewhere there is not the same level of involvement to "fix" things for the novice rider. It's all a balance. The city is involved with the trail and condoning the building, so I would rather see some work done to make an easy trail more accessible; if you fight them they might just shut the whole thing down. It's all a balance.

In for a social lap tonight. Brining an additional 10 pounds on me from a weekend of eating deep dish pizza. Time to put a couple extra pounds of pressure in the tires.

My house is whiskey tango foxtrot

James at City Limits http://www.citylimitcycles.com has built all of my wheels for a while now, he is awesome, top notch, never needed a true, just right the first time.

Sampling a gift from my sister who was in Wisconsin yesterday. It makes the crappy wifi almost tolerable, can't keep the Man U game streaming for more than about 2 minutes.

I got 8000's (XT) for ~$160 from Merlin, front and back.

Nope, don't need anything that heavy. Señor cabeza de papa is pretty light. Still looking but haven't found anything yet. More likely to be getting rid of a bike (selling a hardtail) than adding one at this point. Buuuuut if a cargo bike showed up....