Miscellaneous cycling items…
I’ve recently taken up cycling again, both indoor and outdoor, for the umpteenth time. I’ve had some challenges, both family and health related (sciatica), but for the moment seem to be resolved. A realistic schedule is 2 x indoor and 1 x outdoor ride per week. Would like to ride more, but the kids are 12 - 14 and heavily involved in sports, choir, and other activities. The 2/1 goal seems sustainable.
Trivial details of old bike renovation for trainer duty summary
My 21 year old Trek 5500 has been permanently assigned to indoor duties, even though she still functions perfectly. I tried to estimate how many miles, but decided that it is realistically somewhere between 15 and 20 k miles. The discrepancy is due to me accidentally deleting 6 years of Garmin Connect and Strava data.
For a bicycle that’s had to suffer the indignation of hauling my miserably poor climbing ass over Alpe d’Huez (5x), Les Deux Alpes (3x), Col du Galibier, Col du Glandon, and Mount Ventoux, she’s in surprisingly good shape. Were she able to be equipped with larger than 23mm tires, would still be ridden outdoors. But the tire clearance, even in this relatively early version of carbon fiber frame, is so minimal that I doubt even a 25mm skin would fit. So she remains indoor.
To that point and what might be of interest to some of you riders is that even though she was originally built to climb the North Georgia, USA mountains and a couple of trips to France with an FSA compact carbon crank, the rest of her groupo is Dura Ace. Although the bottom bracket and sprockets had been replaced a number of times, the rest of the crank, including the arms at both ends were showing enough wear to need replacement. A friend donated a low milage Ultegra crank to the cause.
Along with that, I decided that raising the handlebars to be level with my seat was long overdue. This would help relieve lower back stress. I ordered a set of REDSHIFT 70 mm rise x 44 cm wide bars, which worked perfectly. My outdoor bike (gravel/road) has drop bars leveled with the seat. I took the bike and replacement parts into a local bike shop that I trust and asked for crank swap and tune up.
This is where it gets interesting. A day or 2 later the shop called reporting good news/bad news. The bad news was that the Ultegra crank was also failing, but that since Shimano recalled them due to a manufacturing defect, I was getting a new one. Awesomeness! So if you have a mid June 2012-June 2019 Shimano Ultegra or Dura Ace crank and would like a new one, it might be worth a chat with a reputable Shimano dealer for an inspection.
Regarding Rouvy, after 5 rides, I’m seriously wondering if I need Zwift. Rouvy’s cinematic AR rides allow the kind of route exploration that are out of reach for most of us IRL. On the other hand, Zwift was getting boring to the point that I would launch YouTube on the pain cave TV while running a muted Zift on my tablet. When my legs return, I know that I might want to do some Zwift group rides, but I’m long passed the age and fitness of wanting to race. So other than the occasional group ride, the $22 Zwift seems wasted. Thanks again to @Fridge for the recommendation.
Edit: new crank
Shimano Dura Ace and Ultegra recall info:
Just offering my experience on another great Continental bicycle tire. I’ll try the 4 - Seasons when my Gatorskins wear out.
