Forgive me for posting and dashing, but today's post by necessity must be a short one. This is because my life as a semi-professional bike blogger is busier than you can possibly imagine. For example, the other day I spent lots of time on location riding my bicycle for an upcoming Brooks blog post:
--Where is that?
--Is this going to be part of next year's BSNYC Gran Fondon't cours?
And, most importantly:
--WHAT PRESSURE WERE YOU RUNNING?!?
Well, my upcoming Brooks blog post will answer virtually none of these questions, but I'll let you know when they publish it nevertheless.
Speaking of #whatpressureyourunning, Bicycling wants you to know that you should be keeping a tire pressure journal:
No, seriously, this is apparently a real thing:
Gear You’ll Need
- Cyclocross bike, preferably with tires similar to those you race with or ride regularly.
- --A good floor pump with a quality gauge, or a mediocre floor pump and quality hand-held pressure gauge.
- A diary or log to keep track of starting points and pressure changes.
The only thing more embarrassing than someone finding your diary and reading your innermost thoughts and feelings is someone finding your tire pressure diary and discovering that you are the sort of terminal Fred who keeps a tire pressure diary--though worst of all is a diary that conflates the two:
Dear Diary,
Today I dropped my tire pressure by 2.5psi. It felt strange and unfamiliar, yet supple and yielding, like a tentative lover's touch. I hope nobody else at the cyclocross clinic could see my obvious excitement through my Rapha bibs. Tomorrow I may go even lower...if I dare.
I dunno, it seems to me you can simply mess around with your tire pressure without taking the additional step of journaling the whole process, but maybe I just don't take cycling seriously enough:
Adjust
Once you get back to your start point, note in your journal how your tires felt. If you were worried you were going to roll them off you rims, add a couple psi and write down that new number. they felt skittery, let out a psi or two. Remember, with low-volume tires like you have on your cyclocross bike, small changes in tire pressure can have big results. It’s best to keep changes to the 1 to 2psi range to start and then, once you get comfortable riding low, play with smaller adjustments (0.5 to 1psi changes).
That sounds sphincter-tighteningly tedious.
Though selfishly I do hope this whole tire journaling really takes off, because believe it or not there is such a thing as a Bike Snob journal:
Hey, what can I say? Chronicle, who published by first three books, are way into the journals, so a couple or so years back we did one that says funny bike-related stuff on every page. Until now I've only been using my personal copy as a training log:
But clearly I need to start a fresh log* for tire pressure as well.
*[Ha, ha, he said "fresh log," gigglechortle gigglechortle, etc.]
Maybe this will become the hot new must-have cyclocross accessory and I can finally retire.
And I shouldn't even have to mention that in addition to using state-of-the-art digital tire gauge like this one:
(If you use a $159 tire pressure gauge you might also want to invest in a torque wrench to loosen up that sphincter.)
You should also log your tire pressure with a $580 Meisterstück Classique fountain pen:
The handcrafted gold nib is laterally stiff yet vertically compliant, and the pen even has a "piston converter," which I don't even know what that is.
It's also made of "deep black precious resin," which I assume is the writing instrument equivalent of high-modulus carbon fiber.
And with that, I'm taking off, for as I said necessity necessitates the curation of a somewhat truncated post today. Rest assured I'll be back tomorrow (even though it's a school holiday AGAIN), and in the meantime happy journaling.
Dashing off now.
Until tomorrow,
I remain,
Yours in expertly-curated tire pressure,
Etc.,
--Wildcat Rock Machine
from Bike Snob NYC http://ift.tt/2e6rmRL
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