I was searching CraigsList, looking at the used bike listings. I came upon a link to You Tube. The video was titled Bike Thief.
The video shows a guy stealing a bike (his own bike) 4 different times. He does it in different parts of New York City, all during morning rush hour with people all around.
In the first part, he blatantly walks up to the bike carrying a pair of bolt cutters. He cuts the chain on the bike, and rides off carrying the bolt cutters, and dragging the broken chain.
In the next part he cuts the chain with a hack saw. It takes him 6 minutes and nobody bothers him.
In the next part he dons goggles, ear protectors, and leather glovers. He pulls out an electric angle grinder, plugs it into a light post thing, and cuts the chain. Nobody bothers him.
In the last part he goes to break the lock with a hammer and chisel. A police van actually slowly pulls by him, the hassle the camera man across the street. A messenger on a scooter pulls up to the bike theif to see what he is doing. He actually offers some advise of using vise grips to help break the lock. It works, and again the bike thied is off.
Here is a link to the video at You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7zb8YXrmIA
I saw in the docs that I downloaded from the Minoura site, that they have guards that mount next to the front roller to keep the front wheel from flying off the side. According to stuff I read, they are optional and come with the foot step, and are not sold separately. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Not sold separately from the foot step, or from a magroller?
I started searching and wasn’t finding anyone who sold the foot step/front wheel guards. Even the Minoura web site didn’t seem to show this as a separate item that they sold. Finally I managed to come up with the right combination of words, and found a site that sold them. More importantly I came up with a part # WT1020. So when I started searching for Minoura and WT102, I came up with a bunch of sites selling the foot step/front wheel guards. I found the site that was selling them the cheapest (about $19) and ordered a kit. I think they will make the rollers a little safer to use. But we will see.
A friend of mine was talking about how much he liked her Kreitler Rollers bicycle trainer. I looked into buying one but while I though the roller trainer looked really cool, the price was more than I wanted to spend.
But the other day I was looking a bike auctions near my location, and found someone selling a roller trainer made by Minoura. The resistance is magnetic. It was listed with a starting bif of $45, and a buy it now price of $65. I did some searching for reviews, and for the most part the reviews were pretty good. One thing mentioned often was the magnetic resistance is the same on the various settings. While not the same quality as a Kreitler, it seemed like a good unit. The prices listed were all over $100. So even the buy it now price of $65 seemed like a great deal. So I bought it. A little while later while doing some searching I found the guy had listed the same set of rollers on Craigslist for $60. So I could have saved $5. Oh well. I contacted the guy, and picked up the rollers last night. When I got home, I set them, and tried them out. Wow! They are tough. It is work trying to keep my bike on the rollers. I think it is going to be great for moothing out my riding, and making me a better rider though. I still think I got a great deal. And if I decide I don’t like them, I can probably sell them for more than I bought them for!
The front derailleur on my Trek 1000 has given me problems since I got it. I bought it used, so not sure what the guy who had it before me did with it. I think he may have had different chainrings possibly.
When shifting to the big ring, the chain would often have problems catching, and getting on to it. Other times, the chain would go too far, and fall off the big ring. I played with the limiting screw, but where the heck to set it? In or out?
Yesterday I thought about it, and wondered if the derailluer was set too high above the big ring? When I got home last night, I loaded the bike onto the repair stand, and took a look The cage on the front derailluer was about about 5mm off of the big chainring at it’s closest. My book suggests about 1-3 mm. So I loosened the clamp holding the derailler to the seat post tube, and slid it down a little bit. I tried to adjust the angle of the cage as well. The outside part should be in line with the big ring. But the problem is the sides of the derailluer cage are curved. I wondered if these are supposed to be curved, or are bent. But it looks like it is made that way. So I adjusted the front and back edges of the cage to be lined up with the chain ring. At the suggestion of one website I found, I turned the front edge in about 1% or as close as I could figure. I tightned down the clamp.
I tested the shifting by hand turning the cranks, and shifting the gears into the various gear combinations. The bike now shifted on to the big chainring with no problems. And I didn’t get it to throw the chain off either.
The real rest will be how it handles out on the road. I may need to tweak the limiting screws a little now that I have re-positioned the front derailleur.
My Garmin Forerunner 305 came the other day. I am just starting to play with it. I have used heart rate monitors. I have used GPS units. But this thing is so cool to have everything all in one cool unit. And it is cool that I can upload the data and see tons of stats from it on MotionBased.com!
I rode about 15.5 miles, and according to Motion Based, I did over 1200 feet of climbing. I think it was probably a good training ride for my upcoming 50 miler. I did almost a third of the distance, and almost two-thirds of the climbing. I have no problem with the distance. The climbing is what will get to me.
I am planning on using the Forerunner 305 for running as well as biking. I think it will come in handy when I run the Rochester Marathon next month.
Here is a link to the map and stats of my ride on Motion Based:
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3559384