.... the jackal rides and run....

So you've been wondering what's up with the long hiatus? Has the Jackal lost interest in cycling? well, not so! Truth is, since that last post of the nice Piu pic, much has happened! I've so far clocked at least 5000km on the Piu since I got it. Milestones since the last post. - Our third Child Kes was born in October - Things at work just got busier and more hectic forcing me to put more and more hours into it (ok I hardly consider this a milestone, but just to justify a little my lack of time expenditure for this blog) Back to cycling proper... - I went for the Salvation Army organized Bike and Blade charity event in September where we had to do a double century (To Mersing and Back) - Managed to hit a 35+km/h average over 36km with Mark on his Look - Managed to hit 40km/h average over 6km with Mark and Ben - Ben got his spanky new CIOCC, while I got a new toy in the form of a really freaking expensive HRM with GPS (Edge 705) - I realized that going 3 round ECP-Coastal-Xi...

Is something I will not do ever again! So I had some extra work to finish up courtesy of our excellent CEO to formulate some strategy in a team. I decided on Sat to ride to work from MC to Toa Payoh, only about 12-13km. The route is via Paya Lebar - Bartley Rd - Braddell Road - Toa Payoh was not bad at 7+am but going back at night is pure horror. Too many cars!! So a 30mins or so ride becomes a stressful 1hr ride on route back home at night. Never again! PS : Drove to work today and its a Sunday.

Good Friday (Easter Friday) morning ride. Roads were pretty wet due to rain overnight. Met up with Alu and Look for this session. VO Gran Cru Seat Post set at 15.5cm (top of ST to top of saddle) and best thing is it did not slip! Feel pretty good with this saddle height, previously unachieveable with my beloved 600 post. Also sporting a new TOPEAK wedge saddle bag. Looks pretty neat for something functional and practical!

This is my 3rd trip and Alu's first. This time I planned for a different route, basically going clockwise ISO anti-clockwise as Ti and Me did back in New Year's Eve 08-09. The weather was quite forgiving although the report did indicate 60-80% chance of rain. We went on the bum boat and kicked off at around 8.45am from Pengerang (charge from singapore is 7 bucks one way plus 4 bucks for the bike). Stopped awhile at Sg.Rengit for a quick 100-plus stop and off we went to tackle the stretch to Petronas station along highway 92 about 27km worth of mostly up-rolling hills. It was quite tough, even on my 3rd time here but again, we were lucky that while this was the toughest stretch, the weather was quite cloudy and not too much direct sunlight. There was quite a strong headwind though that proved frustrating for us as we could not gain enough speed on the downhill due to this. Stopped a while to have our Uncle Tobys and 100-plus at Petronas before moving off towards Desaru and final...

It rained on the previous day so on Good Friday morning, the roads we quite wet. I met up with Mr.Alu and went on to Bedok Jetty carpark to meet up with the rest. Sadly only Mr.Look came while the other 2 guys did not turn up. We continued on with the standard route and managed to hook up with a fast group (bearing ZIPP jerseys) and we did average of 37km/h over the entire Changi Coast Road stretch. Their leader, on a Ti bike looked the business and led most of the way. Alu tried to break one time and I followed but we decided to slow down (I did not think we can lead for long anyway at that kind of speed!) and drafted them all the way to Changi Prison hills....over there on the first hill, I broke off on the up slope and dropped them all. Obviously I killed myself on that one and went easy on the 2nd slope...thats when Alu passed me with the ZIPP leader close behind him. Soon after Mr.Look passed me and I followed him close. The rest were way behind. Was a good and nice exercise and t...

I've been struggling with some knee sore issues since I got the bike. On Thurs last week, went for a nite ride with Alu man. My bike was using the Shimano 600 Aero post with a max extension of only 14cm. I pushed it up to 14.5. Was not good, as I found the saddle to be too low, very apparent on the amount of strain I could feel on my quads and knees. So I put back the el-cheapo seatpost from my GT which I could extend up to 16cm. I had the post up to 15cm and rode on Sat morning. At first it felt quite good but found that the post has been slipping a bit after a while. I stopped to raise the post back to 15-16cm and PIAK! the binder bolt broke. Had to cycle back home to 'exchange' with the bolt from the Saronni, works great. At 15.5cm, it rides quite ok, no sore and best of all, no lower back pain! BUT the damn post still slips in a bit. I'm down to my last binder bolt so I'm not keen in tightening too much! On Sun, I had the post up to 16cm, started off feeling ...

So I've been tinkering a little on the setup. My measured inseam is 86cm and I presume this is quite an accurate measurement. Saddle to Pedal based on 109% Hamley method is 93.74cm. Saddle to BB based on Lemond is 76cm. My Shimano seat post is too short (so whats news??) and the max from rail clamp to min insertion point is just 14cm. The measurement on my frame:- Saddle to BB : 3.5cm (Fizik) + 14cm (Seatpost) + 57.5cm (seat tube BB to top) = 75cm Saddle to Pedal : 75cm + 17.25 (Crank Length) = 92.25cm I'm 1cm short of Lemond and a hefty 1.74cm short of Hamley. The only answer : get a longer seat post or RISK by raising the seat another .5-1cm or so to test. I've just ordered a Velo Orange Grand Cru post with 30mm set back and 300mm length over ebay for this. I did a 30km test ride yesterday on the 92.25cm S to P measurement. The saddle feels a bit low and although it was confortable when starting out, I started to get slight knee sore after a couple of kms....the feeling ...