Anyhow, I set out to do the farm track but got bored after one up and down so I did the rest of what I used to call the 27 miler. The new mech's were brilliant. I've never had much luck setting up front derailleurs because I don't use my big ring much but this new style front derailleur was brilliant. You can cycle along in quite a hard gear and swing both the brake levers in and it instantly and silently changes to a similar gear but using the big ring - very impressive! Anyhow, the weather was lovely so an enjoyable ride overall. The photo shows an empty office block in the middle of Knowsley Industrial Park, it's supposed to be empty but I could hear yelling coming from inside it so I guess the local kids have found a way in! Anyhow, 25.4 miles to kick April off.
9th April: A gorgeous sunny day again so I took the Strael out for an evening spin. The weather was supposed to be 11 °C dropping to 8 °C and I've been a bit warm on last couple of rides so I adopted the bold strategy of wearing long bibs with overshoes but my stolen goat short sleeved jersey under the Castelli with mitts. I felt a bit cold on my upper half initially but soon felt OK, it's definitely better to start a ride slightly cold rather than slightly warm if you want to avoid cooking. It was dry and sunny but there was quite a strong wind. Going up the track was great fun cruising at 18-22 mph but a struggle to maintain 14 mph coming back down it. Anyhow, I did three uneventful ups and downs calling in at the 'rents on the way back to pick up a delivery for another 25.3 miles.
19th April: Finally, after a few days of cold windy weather, the first hot and sunny day of the year! The BBC were predicting pure sunshine and 22-23 °C temperatures so I was itching to get out today. To go with the new Ultegra R8000 mech's, I'd bought and fitted the matching crankset because the clash with the 105 kit was triggering my OCD. I'd also let the brake levers out a bit and quick-bled the brakes so as well as the lovely weather, there was some testing to be done.
I wore my stolen goat jersey and new Orro bibs and headed out to do the usual. Apart from seeing a few more cyclists than usual, and a few walkers, it was a pretty standard ride. The cranks are lovely, light and stiff, but I might just wind the levers in a bit like they were before. I have pretty normal sized hands and thw way they came from the factory actually feels a bit better. Anyhow, a great ride to start the sun tan off again and 25.4 miles.
20th April: Another hot day, 23 °C according to the BBC website, so another trip out on the Strael. As I've ridden it this year, I'd started to feel that the Strael felt a bit 'sit up and beg' posture-wise. I originally set it up with two 10 mm spacers under the stem and one above it so I switched it to one 10 mm spacer under the stem and two on top. I headed out to do the Siding lane plus the usual and found the bike felt a lot better so I've ordered some 5 mm spacers and I'll trim the steerer when they arrive. The brake levers felt good back in their original positions and it was fun ride overall, the weather was very hot and a lot less windy than it had been yesterday and it was an odd ride in one other respect.
I can't remember another ride when I've had to spit out so many flies, including a large furry one that landed in the right hand corner of my mouth which I managed to manoeuvre and spit out fairly quickly. Another thing I don't recall seeing before occurred on this ride. A couple of times on the ride, I saw what looked like huge plumes of smoke billowing high up in the air. As I got closer, I could see it was farmers in tractors either tilling or ploughing and causing huge amounts of dust from the soil to rise up and float away. Having caught laryngitis breathing a load of dust in following a tractor a couple of winters ago, I made sure to hold my breath and I passed by. Another 25.8 miles.
28th April: After a few days of very windy weather, culminating with storm Hannah yesterday when it rained all day, I managed to get out for a ride today. I was pretty sure there's be standing water and puddles everywhere so Awesom-O got his first trip out for a couple of weeks. The BBC weather said it would be around 12-13 C so I wore my merino under-layer for the first time in ages with my Castelli jacket over it and my new Orro bib shorts and hoped for the best. It turned out to be quite windy but not too cold and quite an enjoyable ride once my legs woke up. I had a couple of cool wildlife encounters on this ride which made it quite memorable. Firstly, I saw the biggest grey heron I've ever seen flying over then field, it's wingspan was easily six feet which was impressive. Then, later on in the ride, I was cycling back down the path when a young hare ran out in front of me from the field on the right hand side, ran across in front of me and ran down into the field on my left - very cool! A much needed ride and another 25.2 miles
30th April: Well we've had a couple of dry days so I was glad to be able to take the Strael out for a spin for a couple of reasons. As you probably know, I run a waxed chain on the Strael. This is great from a cleanliness and chain wear perspective but I find it a bit noisy because as the chain is effectively dry there is nothing to dampen the noise. I replaced my Park Tool chain checker recently with a new one that measures 0.5 mm, 0.75 mm and 1.0 mm and when I checked the Strael's chain, it barely even registered 0.5 mm wear which was amazing given it has just over 1,750 miles on it.
There was quite a lot of lateral wear though which was noticeably affecting the shifting so I decided to switch back to wet lube and fitted a new KMC X11EL chain and lubed it with White Lightning Wet Ride. I'm hoping the Wet Ride will be the lube I hoped the Pedro's would be ie not too thick and claggy and keep the chain from rusting. Anyhow, it was great being out on the Strael again, especially since I lowered the bars recently, and another 25.0 miles. Not a brilliant month with a total of 152.1 miles but hopefully the weather will stabilise a bit soon and I can start getting some proper miles in.
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