So I heard there was some pretty sweet mountain bike trails in the area and I wanted to check them out… only problem was I didn’t have a mountain bike. I managed to find a used one last week. I gave it a 10 minute test ride, talked the guy down 20 bucks, and tossed it in my car. Once I got it home, the first thing I did was get the seat post unstuck. With the seatpost removed I gave it a good dousing of WD-40, a little bit of grease and was able to slide it up and down with out a problem. I was glad I didn’t have to resort to extreme measures to get it out.

I’ve come to the realization that most bikes can do without a kick-stand, especially if the kickstand in question won’t stay up going over bumps. That was the first thing to go! The next thing were the metal pedals… they were in pretty rough shape and I swapped those out for some bigger plastic ones I had sitting on the shelf.

My next step was to take apart the headset and see what condition the steerer was in. Not sure how the previous user was using the bike, but there was sure a crap-ton of dirt that came out. The steerer had some rust (not as bad as the seatpost) and got a healthy douse of WD-40 as well.

Once the fork was re-installed, I needed to adjust the front brake. For some reason the quick release was difficult to use, after some tweeking I managed to get that working (important for wheel removal so I can load it into my car!) With the front end tuned, I started working on the drive train.

The cassette was in pretty rough shape, I set that aside to soak in some degreaser while I started looking at the crank. Luckily I had a crank puller and was able to get the crank arms off. I didn’t have a tool for the bottom bracket, but I plan to pick one up this week so I can take that out and get some grease down there.

After getting everything cleaned up, I started putting it back together. During my test ride I noticed the back brake wasn’t very effective. The pads were pretty wore down, but I figured I could tweek it to have a mostly functioning back brake instead of a kind of working back brake. Once I got the wheel mounted I gave it a quick spin and noticed it would start rubbing the pads… there was a major wobble, not sure exactly how a wheel gets quite that bad…

I’ve heard wheel truing is more of an art and decided to let the pros take a look at it. The bike shop down by the river took a little longer than I had hoped, but man they did a great job with that wheel. Yesterday I was able to get the brakes adjusted and derailleurs dialed in.

Today, I headed up to Rotary Park for a true “break-in” of the bike. There are quite a few trails up there and I had a helluva good time exploring the different areas of the park. The bike performed pretty well considering the state it was in when I bought it. It didn’t give me much issue except for a certain gear ratio… I think this might have to do with the poor shape of the cables, but a quick barrel adjustment and it seemed to give me less of an issue. I’m pretty pumped to hit the trails again! Pictures of the bike can be found over here.

Only a few days until Rev3 Knoxville and I’m pretty excited to be racing my first olympic distance triathlon. In other fitness news, Susan completed ANOTHER 1/2 marathon over the past weekend! Learning from my experience last year, I opted to not try a 1/2 marathon, but instead signed up for the mini-marathon (a whopping 2.6 miles!)

We got to the race a little later than I would have liked and managed to catch the last bus to the start line. My race started at 6:45 and I managed to get to the start line a little after 7. I felt like a poser for starting in corral 11 for the marathon, but oh well, it was still neat. Doing the mini-marathon did have its perks, I got to the finish line and had first dibs on all the post-race refreshments, I even got in line for a finisher photo! 🙂

Once I finished my bag of pretzels and a water, I headed back to the car for a change of clothes… I now know how superman must feel changing in a phone booth… a porta-potty can’t be much different (well a little smellier I bet…) I tried to make it back to see Susan start the race, but it took longer to get to the start then I thought and I caught the last few corrals going…

I asked Susan before the race where she could use some extra encourgement, and she said around mile 12. I headed off in that direction and waited for her… I was sitting in the shade watching the runners attempt one of the last hills of the race. Not very many of them looked happy. I also saw two guys running and juggling and a group of people supporting a dragon. After quite some time, I started to get a little chilled and decided to walk along the race course.

I figured Susan had to be coming around soon, and found a nice spot in the sun and enjoyed a band that was playing just across the street. A few minutes later, Susan popped up and I gave an encouraging shout and started clapping… only to not be heard by Susan… 🙁 I walked alongside of her for awhile, wondering if she was going to notice me or not. Once we got up to the corner, she took a double take and realized it was me. We had a chat about how she was doing and I tried to give her some encouragement… she only had less then a mile to go.