Well the rain went away and we had beautiful weather this week. What better time to get back on the bike and continue the training for the MS150. We are now 1 month away from the MS150.
Since the rain cleared up on Sunday, the hope was that the trails would be dry enough to ride on Wednesday at Cypresswood. NWCC was having their weekly mountain bike ride after work. So I took my bike with me and rode with the group. I got in a good 11 miles and got in just at dusk. The last few miles I pushed it to get in before dark. Since part of the group took the road back to the car, I did not push it to hard.
On Thursday I talked to Mike and Juan and we decided to take a quick 28 mile loop that Juan rides from the neighborhood. Overall the route is on some decent, but busy roads. Luckily people were nice and passed with space. The most interesting part was the initial sprint up 249 between our neihborhood and Boudreaux Rd during rush hour. We left the house about 6:15. I was glad I took my lights since it was just turning dark when we got home. I finished a 32 mile ride with a 18.4 average. 20 mile of the route I registered a 19.9 average. Overall not bad. After the ride we went to get something to eat.
The last thing before riding this weekend, I installed my new tires. I was doing some research online about my tubeless wheels. After having problems with my valve stems on my mountain bike last weekend, I went to www.notubes.com. I saw that they had a road tubeless kit to turn any 700c wheel into a tubeless setup. after doing some more research, I decided that this may be something to try. Since I was due for new tires before the MS150 anyway, it seemed like a good time to try it out. They arrived Friday, so who was I to wait. I came home from dinner and proceed to convert my current wheels to tubeless. Overall I was quite impressed, the whole process was not to bad. After taking off my old tires, tubes and rim tape, I noticed some dirt in the rims. After a quick cleaning, I proceeded to install the rim tape provided with the kit. Next I instaled the old tires and tubes and inflated them to set the rim tape. Once that was done I proceeded to remove the tires and tubes. Install the new valve stem, and mount the tires, soap the bead and pump it up. At this point I noticed that my rims were not welded but seated rims. even with the new rim tape, I could hear the small hiss of excaping air. Even with the his, I could hear the bead was holding. That was good. So I removed the valve core and installed the Stan's sealant, and proceed to inflate the tires again. This time I put the small leak at the bottom and rocked the tire side to side. In no time the his got less and less. I slowely rolled the tire around rocking it as I went. All hissing stopped and the tires held air. I followed the same process with the other wheel and all is good. I am looking forward to riding them tomorrow to see how it goes. The big test will be on Sunday when I do a long ride on them. With any luck I will get a smooth ride and a really good tire life. I will keep you posted on my thoughts.
