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kirkcudbrightSaturday, went on a shake-out ride with the bike I'm planning to take to the UK. 20 miles or so (the cyclometer is currently on one of the other bikes), and eminently enjoyable. This bike is a Raleigh Technium - one of the first aluminum-frame bikes. Only the main triangle is aluminum; the stays and the fork are steel. Not the sort of thing that would get built these days. It's also very old-school, with down-tube shifters and only 12 speeds. I'd like to put a climbing gear in the back, but I don't see the profit in trying to upgrade to a triple chainring in front - this would require at least a new crankarm, bottom bracket, and front derailleur, and my experience with the triple on my touring bike is that I spend 95% of my time in the middle chainring.
After confirming that it should hold up to the UK (c'mon, the highest point on the whole island is 4400 ft, and we're not even going near it), I took it apart. Disassembled. Stripped everything off the frame. I'm planning to repaint it (2-4 coats base, 3-6 coats color, 2-4 coats clear-coat) and reassemble it, with a new handlebar and stuff, in the next two weeks. The paint set says 70°F and less than 50% humidity, and it's been cool and rainy lately. I'm not just hoping for a spell of good weather; I'm planning on it.
Sunday's equestrian outing could have been better. I hadn't ridden in a couple weeks, and Cheyenne needs regular work in order not to be an asshole. Laine is in the middle of having her barn rebuilt, so there was a house-size dumpster in the middle of the ring (I say house-size because it's the size that was used to haul away the remnants of the house next door.), plus a work trailer, sheets of plywood, and other stuff that tends to freak out horses. Cheyenne is not as freaky about Strange Objects as most horses, but he just Doesn't Like the dumpster, and ring work bores me, so we went out on the trail. Two things you have to know about this horse are that 1) he doesn't mind going off the trail, but rather seems to enjoy crashing through the woods, and 2) he gets completely unmanageable when he's excited. I made the mistake of letting him canter, which he took into a hand-gallop, which was fine (we were on a fire road), but he wanted to do it again. When he left the trail at speed, and narrowly missed scraping my legs off on the trees, I decided it was time to go home by the shortest route possible, at a walk. He spend the whole time tossing his head, and jerking at the reins, and stamping around. The final descent to the barn is steep, rocky, frequently muddy, and requires a calm horse. By that point, he was given to stopping suddenly, whirling around and acting as if he was about to buck, and generally acting psychotic. He never actually tried to throw me, but it wasn't clear we'd both get down the hill in our respective positions. So I dismounted and, with a few nasty words on the side, led him back to the barn. Which was probably our worst trail ride ever, at least since the last time, when included getting dumped in a stream in the middle of a swamp on a little-used side path in the middle of the woods. Other than stuff like that, he's a really nice horse.
After confirming that it should hold up to the UK (c'mon, the highest point on the whole island is 4400 ft, and we're not even going near it), I took it apart. Disassembled. Stripped everything off the frame. I'm planning to repaint it (2-4 coats base, 3-6 coats color, 2-4 coats clear-coat) and reassemble it, with a new handlebar and stuff, in the next two weeks. The paint set says 70°F and less than 50% humidity, and it's been cool and rainy lately. I'm not just hoping for a spell of good weather; I'm planning on it.
Sunday's equestrian outing could have been better. I hadn't ridden in a couple weeks, and Cheyenne needs regular work in order not to be an asshole. Laine is in the middle of having her barn rebuilt, so there was a house-size dumpster in the middle of the ring (I say house-size because it's the size that was used to haul away the remnants of the house next door.), plus a work trailer, sheets of plywood, and other stuff that tends to freak out horses. Cheyenne is not as freaky about Strange Objects as most horses, but he just Doesn't Like the dumpster, and ring work bores me, so we went out on the trail. Two things you have to know about this horse are that 1) he doesn't mind going off the trail, but rather seems to enjoy crashing through the woods, and 2) he gets completely unmanageable when he's excited. I made the mistake of letting him canter, which he took into a hand-gallop, which was fine (we were on a fire road), but he wanted to do it again. When he left the trail at speed, and narrowly missed scraping my legs off on the trees, I decided it was time to go home by the shortest route possible, at a walk. He spend the whole time tossing his head, and jerking at the reins, and stamping around. The final descent to the barn is steep, rocky, frequently muddy, and requires a calm horse. By that point, he was given to stopping suddenly, whirling around and acting as if he was about to buck, and generally acting psychotic. He never actually tried to throw me, but it wasn't clear we'd both get down the hill in our respective positions. So I dismounted and, with a few nasty words on the side, led him back to the barn. Which was probably our worst trail ride ever, at least since the last time, when included getting dumped in a stream in the middle of a swamp on a little-used side path in the middle of the woods. Other than stuff like that, he's a really nice horse.
