Headsweats Contest

Headsweats fans! Don't forget to enter the August Headsweaty Selfie contest! There is actually one a month throughout the year!

1. Take an awesome selfie in your Headsweats
2. Post to your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram using the #HeadsweatySelfie hashtag
3. Be entered for a chance to win a free piece of headwear!

Ths was taken back in August 2014 after racing the Bulldog25k, and no it’s not dirt on my nose, that’s the leftover road embedded from my bike crash in January of the same year! While I haven’t done any real running since Spring of last year it’s my go to headwear item when I do run and in fact I wear their Skull Cap under my helmet whenever I ride my bike!

If you can’t wait for the contest check out their website. Currently they have some new deisgns for the Rio Olympics as well as some new patterns in their Loudmouth collection, use quadrathon25 for a 25% discount!

Six Tips for Tires!

I have been fortunate that in my cycling miles I have had to stop and change a flat only a handful of times. I have actually had occasion the change tires in my garage more often than anywhere else!

With that said here are a couple of tips I have picked up along the way, these relate to clinchers and in approximate the order of installation;

1. Let it all hang out; when you first get your folding tires (see #6) unpack them and hang them up and just let them unfold, it doesn’t take long anything from a couple of hours to overnight is usually enough.

2. Give it a blow; give you inner tube a quick blow before you do anything, adding some structure to the tire makes it a little more malleable. It’s also a good opportunity to double check that the tube didn’t slip through quality control!

3. Talc is not just for babies bums; adding some talc to the inside of the tire allows you to slide the tire around the tube useful for #5, for alignment. It also prevents the tube from sticking to the tire.

4. Valves at noon; I always start with the valve. I make sure that the bead of the tire is seated on both sides of the valve before focusing on bedding the rest of the tire in one side at a time. I have the valve at the top of the wheel, hence noon!

5. Logos aligned; beyond the Velominati Rule #40, practical side of this is that it allows you to align punctures. Finding the hole in your tube lets you determine where on the tire the hole may be and ensure that can double check to make sure the offending sharp article is removed before you flat your second tube!

6. Don’t Leave the Lever; steel beaded tires can be a royal pain to fit! Just try stretching a steel wire, that’s what you’re trying to do! A folding Kevlar bead is infinitely easier to fit and often you don’t even need a lever, your thumbs will be able to pop it over the rim!

That’s it, maybe you knew one of them or all of them or have something else to add, leave a comment if you do!

July Summary

Well July turned out to be a hodge-bodge of a month. With the HRS rides and vacation I still managed to break the 900 mile mark! I am, to be honest, very surprised! It’s now the second biggest month by distance. It is by duration the longest month of the year albeit just by an hour or so with over 65 hours on the bike! Obviously the first day of HRS played a big part in that!

I also managed to get some core work in and took a few laps around the lazy river while on vacation as well as some real laps in the pool too!

All in all a pretty solid month! I have 23 more days outside to finish up during August. Summer seems to have finally arrived and where we had a cool June and the start of July the last few weeks have been pretty hot with temperatures during the day in the upper 90s!

One thing that was noticable was the elevation gain for the month, by far my greatest with over 67,000’ of gain!

I am well behind my 10,000 mile goal for the year. I currently have 5195 miles so to reach 10,000 I need to ride 960 miles a month! It’s almost doable. But as this is a B list goal it’s not a priority!

So with all that said it’s a clean slate…or cassette and onto August!

Mum always said to brush you teeth!