Olivia's Bath

I forgot to mention that yesterday I gave Olivia a bath (Olivia is the name of my bicycle). As Mike Munk so often says "A clean bike is a happy bike" and Olivia was long overdue for a thorough cleaning. Yertle the turtle needed a little scrub down as well as his face was getting pretty grimy.

I did this little chore early in the morning before the heat started to boil. Most hotels we stay at make a little bike cleaning area for us with a hose and a bucket of rags. I have a "click-stand" which is a device that works like a kick stand to hold the bike while I clean or do small repairs. The click-stand is extremely handy because it is absolutely taboo in the AbB (America by Bicycle) culture to lean your bike against a vehicle or to obstruct a sidewalk with the bike. This can make parking the bike a little tricky but the click-stand solves that problem.

When Sam and I went to the bike shop in Casper, WY  I picked up a spray can of Simple Green. This has been a great find because it is non-toxic and is a great degreaser. I have been using it every few days to clean my chain and rear cassette. I highly recommend it.

So for Olivia's bath, I just slathered her in the Simple Green, let soak and then scrubbed her down. Same for Yertle. I was careful to really clean the clip mechanism in the pedals because I have had a squeak the past few days and I am suspecting the pedals.

When I finished, I was really glad I had my sunglasses on because that was one shiny bike! After cleaning, I lubed the chain and Olivia was ready to roll.

The first ten miles of today's ride, the bike rolled really well and was absolutely quiet. Amazing! Later in the ride when we got out of town and into the countryside, I shifted up onto the big chain ring and immediately I had rubbing chatter from the chain. Karen Bauer (one of the guides and an absolutely amazing cyclist) came alongside me and asked me about the chain chatter. We tried to do some things on the fly with the shifting mechanism but it didn't really help. Oh well, at least I learned some techniques to try when you have chain chatter even if they didn't work this time.