Saturday, January 28, 2012

another bike?

I'm obsessing again with the thought adding another bike to my gear. Currently I have a Redline 925 single speed and a Colnago Strada road bike. The Colnago gets most of the road time riding with the club during the summer season (maybe 4,000 km a year). The Redline gets a few training runs in, a few commutes to the office, and general joy riding with my wife and others (maybe 1,000 km a year). But things are getting a bit tedious with the single focus on road riding. So, I'm looking at cyclocross or mountain biking or fat biking (snow & sand bike). However, I can't decide what kind of riding I want to focus on. Cyclocross has alot of great events in the area, mountain bike trails are nearby, fat bikes offer the added benefit of riding year-round and extending to the winter season. Also, I can't come to grips with whether I deserve to indulge in another bike. I've got about $5,000 invested in two bikes already. So, I've decided to revert back to a strategy I used 7 years ago when I first started riding. I would "reward" myself for training hard by allowing myself to purchase gear every 500KM that I logged. I'm going to "pay" myself the same rate that I get from my employer for car mileage, which is $0.40 per KM. So, for a $2,500 bike, I'll need to log 6,250 KM. I'm going to allow myself credit for the 144 KM I've trained since Jan 1st and credit for the $700 I already have saved for sports gear (I saved mileage cheques from work). So, I need to put in about 4,400 KM's before I make up my mind. That probably means I'm not buying until next fall, unless this really motivates me. Let the challenge begin!

Monday, January 23, 2012

Trainer Road

Saw this on facebook and it looks really interesting, although I don't understand how it works. How does a USB stick read power output from a fluid trainer, like my Kurt Kinetic, without any actual interface? And how would it interface with a Sufferfest video?

Sunday, January 22, 2012

TDU - Stage 5

back in action

I'm back in blogging mode and I'm feeling guilty for dominating the MIT Club site with all my posts. So, I'm going to get more active on this blog again.  Here I make the rules and suffer all the consequences.  Enjoy (or not).