Friday, June 21, 2013

Making Progress

It is Friday morning at 11AM. So far I have been at it pretty straight, chipping away at the massive list of chores that need to get completed in order to keep this summer of fun on track.

My Reynolds 46mm carbon cyclocross front tubular wheel from my single-speed cross bike, which had massively corroded internal alloy nipples that had begun to break apart and fail, has been torn down, cleaned out and rebuilt with new nipples. I have also cleaned the glue track and have applied one coat of tubular cement to it.

The RockShox Reba from Cathy's single-speed mountain bike has been removed from the bike and received a new set of seals and oil. It still needs to be re-installed but in the meantime I have put my spare Fox F29, which received new seals yesterday, on the bike.

I have Tung Oiled the bike vault doors in the basement as they were raw fir and OSB and I have also finally added a coat of sealer to the front bench in the entry way at the front door. It has been in need for some while now.

In terms of the garden, I have weeded it and watered everything. I've also thinned out the Romaine lettuce to promote growth and tossed the unlucky leafs into the leftover salad from last evening. I also finally gave up on some of the seeds that we planted over a month back in a couple of freshly tilled beds to the back of the lot. As such I raked them over and flattened them and will throw some grass seed down. The reality is that they just didn't get enough sunlight I suspect. Either that or something got the seeds, pumpkin and squash.

The poop has also been scooped and I have contacted the real estate agent to make sure that we are on target for closing in a couple of weeks, less actually.

Yesterday I put together a mini-deck platform/stair for the shed in Maine. I needed a transition for the existing deck between the house and shed and the new part of the shed. I built a platform that is a right triangle whose legs are 54". It is framed with some of the last 2x8" PT leftover from the old deck I tore off the house years ago. For decking I used some of the scraps of composite decking left over from the deck and sun room we had put on a couple years ago. The thing weighs about 250# and took both Cathy and I to move. Should be a treat getting it into the truck to take up to Maine. I do love a challenge though.

All I need to do still is to go for a short easy ride to spin the fatigue from my weary legs. Two hard nights on the road bike spanked me pretty hard. I suspect that despite a couple days of relative downtime this week on the bike, I was still in the hole from the past couple of weeks. The big ride last week really took a toll combined with a back to back hit on the weekend. No surprise. Easy today and tomorrow then the first MTB race in a while on Sunday.

1 comment:

Hill Junkie said...

At first I thought I was looking at a pictured of slung lead. Boeing talks about corrosion avoidance in their Dreamliner, which mixes carbon fiber and aluminum. Basically, you can never let the two in contact with each other get wet. You get Galvanic corrosion otherwise. At least one needs to be sealed. Graphite and Aluminum are at almost opposite ends of the table and will vigorously attack each other. Titanium and graphite would be a better match, with gold and platinum even better. Tell Reynolds to get right on that!