new chainring cover

After feeling sorry for myself for a few hours I got out in the shop and set to putting my bike back in working order.

I found that both rim walls were bent inward. Man, that chain must have been pulled across the wheel hard to tear through the tire and bend both rim walls. I'm sure glad my foot didn't get caught in there. Anyway, I was able to easily bend them back with a hammer and punch. The metal was surprisingly malleable.

I replaced my broken, fourteen year-old derailleur with a twelve year-old one. I ordered a replacement for the Nashbar (only the best for me) front brake caliper. Luckily they were on sale so I bought two sets for less than the price of one. They came today and I installed one before taking this picture.

Except for the ride-ending crash I didn't miss any training and it has been going great. This week I had a weekly average of 23.15mph. I remember when I was ecstatic when I did 23.8mph for one ride on the Fogcom and that was over a mile-per-hour faster than any ride I'd done previously. Now I'm over 23mph for the week!

I checked my blood pressure and pulse this morning and was 106/55 and 45 bpm so all is good there. Weight-wise I'm pushing maximum density at 195lbs. I feel and look even heavier than that as the weights are taking effect on my upperbody. As far as bodyfat goes I'm at the edge of my comfort zone. To be fair, I think my comfort zone became more restrictive after my weight being so low last year. Anyway, my speed is up and my work capacity is doubled so that's all that matters.

My planned Piru TT attempt is four weeks away. Ideally I want to break 27 minutes. I did 28:52 two years ago on the Fogcom but is was pretty windy then. I was beat by one DFer and I'm hoping that won't be the case this year. There's 300 feet of climbing on that course and I believe I will recover a lot of lost time with my new configuration.