Roger Bikes

Category: Maintenance

A bike is a machine and therefore needs maintenance. Learn about how to fix your bike here.

  • Busy month of snow sporting

    February has been a month of snow sporting like I haven’t experienced since I was a teenager. In November I bought a used set of skate skis and got back into a sport if barely done over thirty years ago.

    That prompted me to get snowshoes and start backcountry hiking. Which prompted me to start and backcountry Facebook group to meet other people like me to share tips and tricks.

    At the end of January while I was enjoying a couple of big days skate skiing I ran into some group members out on the trails. They prompted my to sign up for two ski races in February.

    Last weekend I completed the second race and while I was no where near the leaders I finished and was smiling. I had a good time and have met more people who share my love of the outdoors and exercise. The competitive part is a fun way to motivate myself and also keep humble. Anytime I start to think I’m hot shit I can do a race and be put back in my place.

    Now I’m thinking of what’s next. We have a big snowboard trip coming up in a couple weeks. That’s gonna be fun and since I’m in pretty good shape I should be able to maximize my time on the slopes each day.

    After that I’m thinking ahead to the month long NOLS course I’m doing this summer. I’ve bought a book on mountaineering training and have added strength training to my cardio routine. The main issue I will have with mountaineering training is that I cannot run anymore. Hiking with a weighted pack will be the answer.

    All this is to say that it’s never too late to get an exercise plan and set big goals for yourself. I’m already thinking of what mountains I’m going to climb this summer and maybe go international for some bigger peaks like Kilimanjaro.

  • Trail work day – Lost Chicken drainage improvement

    Trail work day – Lost Chicken drainage improvement

    Wow it’s September already! How ya been? My excuses for not posting in a while are all valid and award winning. Basically I got busy and needed to focus on other things. Sorry.

    Our local trails group, Mancos Trails Group, has been busy all summer with multiple trail work days. Today we spent over 5 hours in the pine forest of the Lost Chicken trail. Flags had been set across 2 miles of trail where drainage was an issue.

    Dog break during drainage instruction session

    We continue to have impressive volunteer turnout for these work days. Lots of people and people who are motivated to get shit done. We flagged out more area than we though could be completed and still managed to get everything done. Amazing.

    Managing volunteers is tricky as no one is getting paid. You need to give direction and guidance but then need to keep everything light and fun so they don’t go home.

    It seems this is how all management should be approached but when money is attached we feel the need to change tactics. Money adds incentive and stress which can lead to irrational thoughts and actions. The worst offense being micromanament. That beast with infinite heads and endless annoyance.

    Delegation requires trust and faith. Starting from there we give people an opportunity to succeed or fail. Once one of those happens we can either revise what went wrong or move onto the next stage. Rinse. Iterate. Repeat.

  • Layover Day

    When we were halfway through the river trip in Mexico we had a Layover Day. On Layover Day no rafting happens and you get kinda a day off. Sure you still have an assigned job to help with dinner, or dishes, or water, etc but you get to leave your camp setup for two nights in a row. After three days of rowing most of the day it was nice to get a break.

    Today we had a layover day after getting back home. There are a number of things we could have gone and done but instead we just stayed low key. We unpacked and had a nice lunch in town. We even spent some time at the library looking at books. Very little happened and it was glorious.

    Tomorrow we go snowboarding, not everyday needs to be a layover. 😎

  • Set your alarm for bedtime

    Set your alarm for bedtime

    We are getting our alarm clocks all wrong. Everyone sets their alarm for when they want to wake up. We don’t take into account when we go to bed. If you set your alarm for 6am but goto bed at 1am, thats only 5 hours of sleep.

    At this point it’s pretty much decided that we all need 7 to 8 hours of sleep everyday. If you need to get up at 6am then you should be going to bed at 10/11pm. If you set your alarm for when you need to goto sleep then you may not even need a wake up alarm. I know that I wake up a few minutes before 6am if I get to bed around 10pm.

    One neat feature of iOS is the Sleep section of the Health app. In this section you can set your sleep schedule for any days you want. I only set it for weekdays so that I can sleep in on the weekends. There is also a wind down setting which I set to 45 minutes. This notifies me at 9:15pm each night that my scheduled sleep time of 10pm is coming soon.

    I am not perfect about getting to bed on time but I am trying. When I do get consistent sleep everything else is better, this I know.

  • Never not felt better

    One truth I have relearned multiple times is that I need to get up and do something first thing in the morning. Usually that is a workout of some kind: cycling, yoga, strength training, This gives me time to wake up before I try to be productive with my day. Waking up is more than just opening my eyes and getting out of bed.

    The body has been at rest for hopefully at least 7 hours. If I am going to be awake, focused, present, and enjoying my day I need to spend time waking up all of my body. This helps me stay comfortable in my seat which means I can think about my work instead of my aching back. After doing a workout I have never not felt better.

    The problem is that before I do the workout I really don’t wanna do it. There are times when I am tired, or sick, and I should either stay in bed, or skip the workout. Most of the time when my mind is telling me to stay in bed it’s because my mind doesn’t wanna. We are all pleasure seekers, and a warm bed is pretty nice.

  • Always open in List view

    I have been using a Mac for over 22 years at this point, and I still have Finder windows open with a view of files in something other than List view. It drives me crazy every time.

    I like list view for the same reason I like ll and ls -la on the command line. If I am looking at files, and directories/folders, I want to see lotsa information. List view, when setup for what you need, gives you exactly what you need.

    Anyway if you use a Mac this can help make sure you have Finder always open in list view. I am most putting this here because I want to be able to find it again:

    Open finder

    Select your hard disk

    Command + J

    Check the top two check boxes (Always open in list view, browse in list view)

    Click use as defaults

    Open Applications->Utilities->Terminal

    sudo find / -name ".DS_Store" -exec rm {} \;

    Enter your root password, press enter

    How to set Finder to always use list view

    The second to last command there should give you pause: sudo and rm . The first one gives the command root privilege to everything on your harddrive. The second one removes/deletes files. Used in combination means you can delete some really important stuff. The good news is that the find command is searching for .DS_Store files, which contain information about how you want Finder windows to open. While we should be aware of what we are doing when using sudo and rm in any instance, in this case we are good to go.

    Before doing the terminal command take a moment to review the rest of the Finder settings. Here is what I prefer to see as default when I open a new Finder window in List view:

    Once you have it set as you want go ahead and run the terminal command and sing a little prayer.

  • Snow Managment

    Snow Managment

    When it starts snowing in our area of Colorado you need to be ready with some type of plan. If you want to be able to use your driveway or porch you need to figure out when and where you are going to start moving snow. This isn’t like mowing the lawn where if you forget to mow you can still drive your car. If you let snow stay in place it eventually turns to ice and then you are in big trouble.

    Snow management requires planning and then action. If its snowing hard you should plan on getting out at least 2 times a day to cover the same ground. For example we got about 8 inches of snow in 24 hours a few weeks ago. While my snow blower can handle up to 12 inches of snow it is best to clear things out before that much accumulates.

    This makes it easier on the machinery and also means you are keeping your driveway clear more often. If you want to use your driveway it is best to have it clear or at least mostly clear of snow. Once there is more than 1 or 2 inches of snow on the road or deck you should start clearing it off. At that depth is can start to give you traction problems and its going to start packing down.

    Packed snow is slightly better than unpacked snow in terms of traction, but it is more difficult to remove and melts slower than if you had removed it. If the snow is falling and you are at 1 to 2 inches get out there and clean things up.

    Then plan on getting back out there in 6 to 10 hours to clean up the stuff that kept coming down. Yes its a lot of work but once the storm is gone and your driveway and deck are already clear you will be happier. Once the snow gets time to melt and re-freeze it creates a crust and is much more difficult to remove.

  • Getting Educated on Trails

    Getting Educated on Trails

    Last year I wrote about building Kiss of Cactus and Fenceline trail on our land. I learned how to build those from years of hiking and riding trails. I also read a lot of websites and watched some Youtube Videos talking about design and technique.

    In June I talked about how my local trail group, Mancos Trail Group, had organized a volunteer adopt a trail program on the Mancos Spur Trail for 2020. Last summer I spent a few days going out to pretty remote areas to work on the trails. It was very satisfying work and I had a great time. The problem was I had very little confidence in my trail building and maintenance skills.

    I know I did not harm the trails but my larger concern was how much wasn’t I doing? Without any real world training on how a trial should look and work I was probably doing a lot less work than the trail needed.

    This year the Mancos Trail Group announced a training program, in coordination with Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, to help give the adopt a trail participants more confidence. The training was done in coordination with a community college so there was a decent online education portion.

    The culmination of the training was a 1 day in field seminar with highly experienced trail builders and maintainers. That day was today and I spent over 7 hours on trail asking questions and doing trail work that 1 year ago I would have passed up. It was a great experience.

    17 volunteers, 3 instructors, and Chris from the US Forest Service, social distancing was adhered to and it was pretty windy out.

    We did some safety talk covering how to handle an emergency with a plan, as well as how to use various tools for trail work. Once that was done we headed out on the trail and spent time just walking the trial and learning how to identify issues. After lunch we worked on a variety of features and even built some new ones.

    Learning how to maintain a water bar. Most of trail maintenance deals with getting water off the trail to prevent or reduce erosion.

    The biggest takeaway I had was that its ok to make an improvement to a trail. You just need to understand how to make that improvement correctly and with confidence. It was also nice meeting more locals in my area and seeing what drove them to be in the woods and working on our local trails.

    In person training is second to none and I was able to ask questions when I had doubts. It turned out that my instincts were pretty good about when a trail needed help. The online and real world training helped me feel confident about my decisions.

    This summer the adopt a trail program is back and I have my assigned segment. Its a new to me section of trail so I am excited to see a new area and also give the trail some lovin!

  • Tubeless Tire Valve Stem Repair

    Back on the bike today, first time in a week. Since the weather turned cold I have been riding mainly on the weekend. During the week its too cold in the morning and too dark after work to ride. Unfortunately the valve stem on my front tire started to leak and I was only able to ride for a short time.

    This also prompted an emergency visit to a local bike shop as I don’t have any tools for repairing a valve stem. On a bike with inner tubes this isn’t as big of an issue since you can just change the inner tube. My bike is equipped with tubeless tires, which are really awesome, but I did not have spare valve stems for tubeless tires.

    Why tubeless?

    Bicycles typically use inner tubes as they are easy to maintain and remain inflated longer. However the inner tube has difficulties at lower and higher pressures. At lower pressure they can pinch flat and at higher pressure they explode before a tubeless design does. This is why most cars use tubeless designs.

    The drawbacks to a tubeless tire is that they are more complicated and messy. The tubeless tire has to seal to the rim tightly since it needs to seal the air in the tire with no inner tube. This means the rim of the tire also needs to have better sealing capabilities. The rim also needs to have a seal over the spokes. Finally a valve stem that seals to the rim has to be used. This valve stem is tightened snug to the rim.

    The repair

    My bike is pretty old. So when things like a little valve stem start leaking I am not surprised. I am also not surprised that the repair is probably going to involve a replacement. Once I found a local bike shop open I was happy to hear they would try to repair it, but was ready to hear they were going to replace it. We are talking about $5 for the part so not a huge deal.

    I was just happy that the bike shop was full of people wearing their masks, and that the mechanic dropped what he was working on to help. Little interruptions are the bane of getting projects done. While a valve stem replacement isn’t a huge project it is messy.

    This is because tubeless bicycle tires are filled with sealant to repair small punctures. Every time I see it work I am amazed and really happy that I don’t need to change an inner tube. When something small like a thorn punctures the tire the sealant swarms around it. When you pull the thorn out the sealant seals up the hole and you keep riding.

    The sealant is super sticky and messy and no matter how many times you do it, you will make some amount of mess. I was just happy that someone else was getting messy this time.

    The good news is that this mechanic was a pro and made very little mess and got my tire back in action! I bought 2 additional valve stems from the shop so that if I have another issue now I can repair it myself. While I appreciate having someone work on my bike I don’t like spending the time driving to the shop and then paying someone to fix me up.

    The other good news is that tomorrow is supposed to be much warmer than today.

  • Wax off, wax on : 92/100

    A few months ago I wrote about changing by bike chain lubrication to a wax based system. Shortly after then I reduced my bike riding considerably and the wax testing fell off the radar. I was still riding with the wax chains. However I had not done a re-waxing of the chains.

    The reason for that was the number of projects we had going. Just getting the cock pot up to heat with the wax takes a couple hours. Then you need a space where you can hang the chain to dry and keep things clean. Once I setup a work bench in the shed I had my space.

    So last weekend I rinsed the 2 chains that I had ridden on for about 200 miles each. To rinse a waxed chain you place the chain into a colander and pour boiling water over the chain. This washes away the wax on the outside of the chain, which is also where the dirt and debris are attached.

    Then I air dried the chains before dipping them individually into the wax/Teflon mixture in the crock pot. Once they soaked for a few minutes I air dried them on a dowel rod hanger I custom built during the waxing operation. Then I reapplied one chain set back on the bike and rode smoothly again.

    So far I would say the waxing process is challenging but worth it. From having to strip the factory lube off of new chains, to setting aside a few hours to reapply the wax. There are a lot of parts and pieces involved. However the bike does ride noticeably smoother and has better shifting.