Digging In

A rather muted end to my cyclocross season this time. I was signed up for Plean but missed it due to illness. I was signed up for BPGP#2 but missed it due to jetlag and illness. I did make it along to DIATD albeit without terribly much training (a handful of 16 mile commutes, one trip to Glentress). My warmup lap was fine, and the course was as straightforward as normal, and just as windy as last year. But on lap 1 of the race I knew I wasn’t having a good day. I ploughed on, clearly destined for finishing in the last few before a front puncture cemented my fate as DFL. And got a sore throat a few days later for good measure.

In previous years, a mediocre day would still have put me maybe 70% down the field. But with the new A/B race format, a slow Andrew in a fast field was only ever going to end one way.

Bit sad about puncturing. I had 45/45psi in my clinchers which, at 74kg, is at the high end. But after puncturing on the cobbles during warmup last year at 35psi, I went safe in last year’s race at 45/50psi. However, on the early laps I stuck to the middle of the cobbles and unweighted on the worst bumps. On the last lap, I remember being at the right side and being too knackered to unweight. I think that’s where the front tyre went. It was the tiniest hole on one side, no thorns or anything, so must’ve been a close thing.

So, lessons learned: actual training required. Usual crop of winter bugs, work travel, family life and evening courses doesn’t leave much time for training. Perhaps I should get a turbo trainer. I certainly came close to buying one this year.

But it was still a fun day, with great support. I’ll try for less winter bugs and less work travel and a little more race prep next year.

Tweaks

One week left before DIATD, and having missed two race (Plean + BPGP) due to illness I’m looking forward to this final cx race of the year.

Checking over the bike today, I found that the rear derailleur is once again not shifting cleanly. It exhibits the tell-tale sign of bad cables – when you click to change down a gear, the derailleur cage doesn’t move.

On my cx bike, this is almost always due to corrosion in the final loop of the gear outer. The gear cable runs bare down the frame, then shielded by outers for the final loop into the derailleur. The top end of that outer cable run is fairly exposed to the outside world, and it seems that water and gunk gets into it easily. Once that happens, no amount of adjusting the gears gets you back to that “new bike” feel.

So, I decided to fix the problem once and for all by rejecting the setup which the bike came with and instead going for a continuous run of gear outer all the way from the derailleur to the top tube. That way, there’s almost no way for water to get inside and cause havoc. Unfortunately, the cable mountings aren’t removable so I had to cable-tie the outers to the frame. The only theoretical downside is increased drag from the extra outers. But in practise this doesn’t seem to be a problem and the gears are shifting perfectly.

So that’s the gears back to 100%. Now I need to work on my pedalling legs …