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Day: November 11, 2013

Remarking the Seasonal Loop at River Bends

Published November 11, 2013

River Bends is going to have a bit of remarking at the CRAMBA-IMBA trail day this weekend, and in preparation I removed most of the the wrong-way signs from the segment formerly known as the Seasonal Loops. A number of these signs were no longer necessary, and a handful of them had been shot with airsoft pellets to the extent that they weren’t very readable from a distance.

At some point in the next year or so I hope we are able to replace many of these with more permanent Carsonite-type fiberglass markers (such as this one at Bloomer), but for now it’ll be more of the same corrugated plastic and vinyl markers, color coordinated with the map.

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A Clean Drivetrain is a Happy Drivetrain

Published November 11, 2013

Since the El Mariachi Ti was caked with wet sand from Iceman I decided to give it a thorough drivetrain cleaning before riding any more. Everything is now shiny and clean, although I seem to have let the chain go a bit too long. After ~1800 miles it was stretched enough that I immediately replaced it, and as a result the small (26t) ring on the crankset is looking a bit hooked. I dropped a new chain on, and with replacements rings costing only $20 or so (much less than a chain!) I’m going to replace the ring as well before taking it out.

With winter coming, contrary to my normal practice of stripping off the factory lube and applying ProGold Xtreme, I left the original SRAM lube on the chain. I’m normally not too fond of this thick, greasy lube because it’s all over the outer plates and thus collects a bunch of gunk. I figure that with the potential for wet/sloppy riding I may as well leave it in place, as it’ll protect the chain from gunk penetration and be harder to wash out. With this lube the chain is notably stiffer than normal and it’ll likely pick up a bunch more gunk, but with all the other inefficiencies and sloppyness of autumn / winter riding I don’t anticipate it being much of a problem. I’ll just strip the factory lube off when I do the next drivetrain cleaning.

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