This past weekend was the finest of all the Granogue cross races I've ever attended. Perfect weather, huge attendence and also a mighty battle between Canada and the US (FYI, the US won). There's many a good race report out there, just link up to www.fatmarc.com and read his stuff and all the many crossers reports. Also don't forget to check out www.DennisBike.com for all your bike porn. Again I sadly watched it from the sideline, though already like a mad-scientist I'm plotting a most fitting return to racing on another day.
It was a blast seeing all the passion going into making sure this was another kick ass production (a DCCOD production to be exact). It always blows my mind at how much preparation goes into this race and then whammo, in just a few hours it's turned into total cluster-funkland all around with everyone wasted and walking around dazed wondering what happened. It makes me think of probably like the first time we all had sex, so much planning for so little time actually doing it and then afterwards wondering what just happened?
This year I was stoked that I actually didn't have to announce the pro-races as it gave me a chance to finally check out the race during the "prime-time" as each year I've never had the chance to actually spectate. It totally rocked to see KC back in town still smacking the other ladies around, and felt great to see so many of my ol' homies rocking out in the front of their races.
All that watching other people ride bikes totally stoked me up for some riding on Sunday and even though my legs were TOAST from doing my first leg workout at a gym in 2 years on Friday, I decided to do one of my harder rides out to VF and back. But before I hopped on the trusty black bike, I had to air the tyre and lube the chain. So out I busted my trusty Park Pump (which has a horrible base, but pumps to 125psi as easy as most go to 2psi) and then I busted out my Pedros lube. I've been using this trusty lube for about 4 months now, but lately I've noticed my gears just aren't shifting well, so I decided to lube it extra this time, like extra to the point that it's dripping off the chain so I have to wipe a little off. Well as I back peddle the bike and squeeze and squeeze the bottle I don't notice that the chain's getting any better. So I check the drip hole and sure enough it's fine as I stick an end for a new cable down it, and it goes through. I put it back on the bike and repeat the backpeddling and squeezing the dripper, but amazingly the chain still isn't uber lubed. So now I think something's up. I check out the chain and then look at the lube bottle again, nothing's come out. I'm like wow, that's interesting...hmm why?....well I unscrew the dripper and OOOPS, I forgot to take off the foil way back when I got the lube and amazingly just by touching the plastic dripper to the chain I've thought I had been lubing the chain, but instead I had been a victim of the Placebo Lubing effect. All this time I had thought I had been lubing a chain (as it sure as hell kept getting dirty after every ride) and it never really shifted bad at all. I think once or twice since June I had used another lube, but overall during the past 4 months I haven't strayed from my Pedros, my Placebo Effect Pedros....
So anyways, I took the foil off and dripped oil on the chain and immediately saw the wet look appear and sure enough my chain soon quieted down, though I hadn't realized how noisy it had become. I couldn't believe I had let myself do this for so long, but honestly, I hadn't had a reason to doubt my chain wasn't being lubed because it always shifted perfectly. And of COURSE during my fine ride to VF it shifted more crazily then it ever had before, making me wonder if maybe the lube wasn't the best idea, as the Philly sludge built up the chain seemed to have worked better...
Ride on!
-BC
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