August got off to a start on the second with a gran fondo from Oceanside to Coronado Island. But, it was not without incidents. Three or four flat tires, I managed to score twice. And one dying battery on a new bike with Shimano 105. Single battery warning that death is near is the front mech stopping working. That gives you around 60 miles on the inner ring and only the rear working.
My homemade tire boot covered the hole. Unfortunately even with two swipes of my finders around the tires insides, I never found the remaining stick about twice the length of the piece stuck in the tire. That is until I replaced the slow leaking tube later in the ride.
In addition to the flats and battery issues, our route was blocked by repairs to the bike path that crosses Sweetwater River, which routed us back along the river, crossing on 2nd avenue where I made my final tube repair. Our group broke up at this point with the faster, gotta go group took off, not completely knowing which way would connect them back to the original route. This ended up as a 112 kilometer route for us.
Ended my second week with only one ride. I had a motorcycle to finalize the sale of and deliver then visiting family. I managed one ride of almost 100km. Too hot to ride south of town to round up the 97km to 100. Middle of the third week I’ll get back to more normal and later in the month our grandson will be back in school which will give me a bit more free time.
Taking a photo while climbing in the heat and timing to be in the shade proved a bit of a wobble.
Finished off this third week of August with 233km. Not a lot, and only three rides. But, I’ve fine with my progress. The last ride of the week I worked at standing on all the climbs more than usual. I managed a new PR or three on climbs as a reward. I had reworked the drivetrain after noting the rear mech was dodgy. All good to go now. this 100km ride to end the week proved my tuning skills are good enough to hide behind the quality of the Shimano Ultegra kit. I’ll begin getting more riding in next week with our grandson back to school.
I ended the third full week of the month with 271 kilometers in three rides. Not a big week. The good news is I’ll start off the last week with a nice fresh drivetrain after a good wash and re-wax.
For the last week of August, I closed it out a day early. The last day will be a rest and bike cleaning day.
For the second month in a row I managed to log more than a thousand kilometers. I’m not quite up to back to back 100km days, but with a rest day between I can do one every other day, once in a while. My resting HR is down below 50 these days, which for me is getting back down to normal. I’ve gone through a lot of Nuun tablets this month with the heat. I’ve added a five minute interval alert to my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt to remind me to take a drink. That works out to about one bottle between stops, which is about an hour or so.
I’m well behind on hitting my 10,000km goal for the year, but I’ll be closer this year than last if I manage to hold this pace or improve it a little. Anyway a good month of riding.
Totals for the month:
Distance: 1,036km
Climbing: 7,021m
Time: 44hours
Along The Way 