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Comeback 2.0: Up Close and Personal is the coffee table book published to document the 2009 season of Lance Armstrong in photos. I wasn’t planning on picking this book up as I can think of much better things to spend my money on, but it was on the shelf at my local library. While there’s not a lot of reading in this book, the pictures are drop dead gorgeous! My favourite is the shot in the giant redwoods during the Tour of California. I have to make it down there one day. This book is packed with action shots of all the major tours Lance raced in as well as behind the scenes shots with his family and the Astana team.

I’m not a photo journal type of person, so this book doesn’t really appeal to me, but it was worth carrying home from the library.

Books mentioned in this post:

Wednesday afternoon while prepping for my commute home, I noticed that I had a broken spoke. My back wheel has been making some noise for a few days and I decided to finally figure out the source. I was disappointed to find this:

I’ve never replaced a spoke before and the first one I get is in the worst spot, just behind the freewheel. This means I have to remove the wheel and take off the freewheel again. Thursday I slept in and had a lot on the schedule, so I went to the shop to get some spare spokes on Friday after my son’s dentist appointment. I can’t believe they wanted $2 a spoke! I bought four thinking I’ll probably replace more than one and I’d want some spares.

Friday night it was time to break out the freewheel remover again and start fighting to get it off. I thought it would be easy because it’s only been on for a couple of weeks and I greased the threads to keep them from seizing. Boy was I wrong! It wouldn’t move! I searched around for a pipe to slip over the wrench to get some leverage, but I had nothing… Then it came to me. The indoor trainer! The leg was about the right diameter and looked like it could be removed. I pulled the bolt out and slipped an end over the wrench… One hard push and the freewheel was loose. I quickly spun it off by hand and saw the broken spoke clearly:

Replacing the spoke turned out to be super easy. I pulled out the head of the spoke and tried to remove the body. To get that out, I had to bend it and use a nipple wrench to undo it. Putting the new spoke in and weaving through the other spokes was easy, but I was nervous bending it so much to get it into the nipple. Now I had a very bowed spoke, but it was intact. A little bit of work with the spoke wrench and it was straight. I replaced 1 other spoke, and tightened a few on the non drive side that had no tension in them. I spun the freewheel back on and mounted it in the bike.

I’ve never trued the wheels on this bike since I bought it. Putting a couple of cable ties on the chainstays worked as feelers so I adjusted them to find the worst part of the wheel and started in on the spokes. Those nipples were tight! I could turn some of them a half turn and they were still seized to the spoke. A little bit of patience got them all moving again and slowly I got the wheel straight again. I repeated this with the front wheel and then put the bike away for Monday’s commute.

This morning I took the bike out and everything felt good! No loud pings, no repetitive ping from a broken spoke, and the bike rode true. Not bad for a first time.

I’ve been riding an older bike to work since my Specialized was stolen. When I first bought the bike it had some old platform pedals that I shunned because I wanted cleats. I’ve ridden in clipless pedals for years and am totally used to the locked in feeling I got from them. This time, I’d decided to try to build the bike so I could hop on and ride with my son without having to dig out the dorky bike shoes just to ride to the park. That kind of thinking led me to some Wellgo pedals that use cleats on one side and are flat on the other:

Because this pedal takes SPD cleats, and I have road shoes, I couldn’t set up my old shoes to ride this pedal. Even more frustrating, it’s not weighted. That means most of the time, the cleat side comes up when pulling away from traffic lights! This started to get on my nerves. I decided to see what I could do about reviving the old MKS platforms.

I pulled the dust cap off and took a look. Turns out that these are really straight forward pedals, just a lock nut and a cone nut on one end. 11 little ball bearings on each end of the pedal. The grease was a mess though! This stuff had been in there for years and really needed replacing. It took twenty minutes to scrub out each pedal and then my son put in some new grease for me. After placing all the bearings and setting the cone nuts properly, I had nice smooth pedals!

These are nice. Every time I pull away from a stop, it’s the right way round! The platform is huge, and the little knobs are perfect to keep my foot from slipping. I like these, and I can’t believe how easy it was to overhaul them. I’ve been riding them for a week, and it’s a very nice ride. Not as solid as clipless, but very nice for commuting or riding around.