Mt. Shasta Camp

I'm at the AdventureCorps Shasta Camp. It's been a little smokey from the fact that most of CA is on fire. We've been lucky and had fairly good air for the last couple of days.

Seems I'm one of the few that came with standard gearing. Others have compact cranksets and cogs as big as my wheels -- and rightfully so. Going up Mumbo, there's a stretch of road at 12-13% that's in-your-face!

On the climb to Castle Lake, my chain started to check out. The Base Camp shop installed a new one, but it broke 4 miles into my next ride, on the first real hill. The powerlink checked out. The group left me to my own devices and I couldn't raise anyone on the cell phone. Fortunately I found that I could coast most of the way to town, except for the part where I walked though a construction site on an I-5 overpass.

I have another new chain. They used a master-link this time instead of the crazy "special" pin. I suspect Tulio is punishing me for riding ShimaNO. (Sorry, but I'm a Campy guy.) Interestingly enough, the bike shop told me these Ultegra chains as good for only 500 miles. (WTF, over). That's 5 rides for me. I'll try a SRAM chain next time, thank you.

Chris Kostman puts on a first class event. His SO, Elizabeth Jefferson, leads Yoga-for-cyclists every afternoon after cycling. I'm afraid I'm the "reference implementation" of a non-Yoga person. (I couldn't configure myself for some of those poses.)

I rode my Ritchey Breakaway at this camp. It more than holds its own. Part of this test was to see whether I would want to take the BAB to the 508 this year. It's a really good fast bike. But I think I will take the Cervelo Soloist. ;-)