John’s Ramblings

Terri (my better half) and I did a little ride today to shake out the cobwebs before tomorrow’s Daffodil Classic down in Orting. The weather promises to be pretty flippin’ ideal in the morning for a nice spring ride.

The purpose of today’s mission was to

• give Terri an opportunity to test our the superior gripping power of her new salmon brake pads, and
• test out my latest fix to my skipping chain problems.

I changed by chain out a couple of months ago, after about 4,000 miles. Perhaps too long to wait for that. I started to develop a chain-jump phenomenon on the back cluster, so I took it in a week ago to have the cassette upgraded. It was then fine in the larger gears, but I was still jumping on the smaller cogs. I took it back in to Angle Lake, and Dale diagnosed that the derailleur hanger was bent OUT, causing it to jump on the smaller outboard cogs. Apparently if the derailleur is bent IN (as is usually the case) the chain will have problems on the larger, inboard cogs. Bottom line is that it appears that Dale diagnosed correctly, and all is smooth in the shifting department.

The ride itself was uneventful. Sunny, but the winds were blowing from North to South at about 14 mph by my calculations. We rode North first, which was tedious to say the least. The ride home was WAY better!

We capped the day off by trying out yet another of the fine restaurants at Kent Station, this time the Zao Noodle Bar. Ab Fab. This whole complex is genius. So far we’ve had great success at:

• Dilettante Espresso
• Duke’s Chowder House
• Pizzeria Fondi
• The Ram
• Zao Noodle Bar

Plenty of parking, public restrooms, a theater, shops, etc. The is the ultimate place to start and end a bike ride.

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