Sunday, September 13, 2009

Head to Toe



I spent a couple enjoyable hours in the front yard with Ruby today. My race bike has been begging for a good scrub down, and after this mornings muddy practice it was time. In the past three weeks Ruby added hacksaw, chain breaker and chain whip to her tool arsenal.

I put my bottle of El Duke degreaser to use for the first time. It effortlessly removed a ground in layer of gunk from my chain ring and cassette, and left them with that awesome fresh from the factory, lightly oiled sheen. The product's value is made greater becuase I was comfortable letting my daughter do the dirty work without any concern it was made from nuclear waste and synthetic hormones.

This morning a few of us were booted from the Lane Tech yard for riding our bikes in the grass... Kind of lame. It had been a few years since I've been on the other end of someone else's rule book. We set up a new course in Clark Park and experienced the muddy result of morning dew and dusty soccer fields. It was good to practice with mud caked tires, but I'm bummed we won't be able to practice at Lane tech anymore. We had dialed in a fun, punchy little course.

Getting everyone's race bike together has proven to be more complicated that negotiations with North Korea. We've got frames and and most of the parts sitting at Roscoe Village Bikes, but a few key parts are 'in the mail.' Thank God we've got Alex, it just makes me feel better knowing he's building all the bikes.

I can't believe Jackson park is next week!? I'm looking forward to seeing everyone out at the races.

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