In praise of righteous wrench Rich
The left knee was pinging and complaining so I figured it was time to get a proper cleat fitting. I figured I'd stop by Community Bike at 496 tremendous Street in Boston (617) 542-8623 to see Rich.
For four years now, Rich has kept my commuter bike going, and once, when I ripped a chain in half and had no chain tool, he showed up to bail me out. Rich is a great guy and who has enough bicycle sense to keep all kinds of customers happy - racers, messengers, commuters, people who want to knock around Boston, everybody.
Rich volunteered to open the store early Friday morning at 9:00 am before the official opening at 10:00 so we could work in peace. He put the RAD fit kit pedals on my crank arms, and set to work. The fit kit has two sticks. One represents the pedal axle. The other represents your foot. When everything is in line, the two sticks are parallel.
The right foot was pretty much straight, the left foot was a tiny bit out. Rich toed my left cleat in, and things were feeling pretty good. We tested the set up at 100 watts, 200 watts, all the way up to 500 watts, in both big ring and small. Then he plumb bobbed my left knee and decided to move the seat forward a quarter of an inch. It felt pretty good in the store. But the real test would be on a real ride.
The next day, I got up early, put the new brake pads on the bike as the old ones were beyond shot, and set out for a potentially knee-murdering workout specified by Coach Joshua Dean Powers of Flagstaff Arizona.
The weather was spectacular; warm enough for shorts and jersey, but not so hot that it slowed me down. The breeze was a light and variable southerly that backed to the east every now and again. After a 20-minute harrumph on the little ring, I threw it up on the big ring for an interval of 30 minutes at 275 watts.
I felt good, and put out the watts for the prescribed time, no worries there. Coming off the interval, I was averaging 235 watts for the first 50 minutes of the ride, which is kind of high for me. At winter camp in Vero Beach, I was coming home from good efforts with 217 watt averages.
I had 2:10:00 left on the ride, so I went back to the small ring and spun myself into a comfortable zone and noticed that my knee didn't hurt. At all. This was real exciting stuff.
I went hard, and covered over 60 miles in 3:00:00 with a personal best of 240 watts average. Thanks be to Rich!
If you have issues with your bike or your body, and you live in Boston, Rich at Community Bike is da man!
For four years now, Rich has kept my commuter bike going, and once, when I ripped a chain in half and had no chain tool, he showed up to bail me out. Rich is a great guy and who has enough bicycle sense to keep all kinds of customers happy - racers, messengers, commuters, people who want to knock around Boston, everybody.
Rich volunteered to open the store early Friday morning at 9:00 am before the official opening at 10:00 so we could work in peace. He put the RAD fit kit pedals on my crank arms, and set to work. The fit kit has two sticks. One represents the pedal axle. The other represents your foot. When everything is in line, the two sticks are parallel.
The right foot was pretty much straight, the left foot was a tiny bit out. Rich toed my left cleat in, and things were feeling pretty good. We tested the set up at 100 watts, 200 watts, all the way up to 500 watts, in both big ring and small. Then he plumb bobbed my left knee and decided to move the seat forward a quarter of an inch. It felt pretty good in the store. But the real test would be on a real ride.
The next day, I got up early, put the new brake pads on the bike as the old ones were beyond shot, and set out for a potentially knee-murdering workout specified by Coach Joshua Dean Powers of Flagstaff Arizona.
The weather was spectacular; warm enough for shorts and jersey, but not so hot that it slowed me down. The breeze was a light and variable southerly that backed to the east every now and again. After a 20-minute harrumph on the little ring, I threw it up on the big ring for an interval of 30 minutes at 275 watts.
I felt good, and put out the watts for the prescribed time, no worries there. Coming off the interval, I was averaging 235 watts for the first 50 minutes of the ride, which is kind of high for me. At winter camp in Vero Beach, I was coming home from good efforts with 217 watt averages.
I had 2:10:00 left on the ride, so I went back to the small ring and spun myself into a comfortable zone and noticed that my knee didn't hurt. At all. This was real exciting stuff.
I went hard, and covered over 60 miles in 3:00:00 with a personal best of 240 watts average. Thanks be to Rich!
If you have issues with your bike or your body, and you live in Boston, Rich at Community Bike is da man!
posted by joe berkeley at 5:55 PM
1 Comments:
Wot is Wattage? Sounds electric.
Rich, though, is no shock. Except to those who expect the usual run-of-the-mill. Community Bike is the only bicycle shop in Boston.
Plymouth Rock is actually a fraud: there is no way a whole ship load of frozen-assed Pilgrims could stand on that pebble. That's why there's the fence around it: so no one pockets it.
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