Yesterday we finally got some serious rain. As a result I took the day off and did some maintenance on the Motobecane Le Champion CF road bike. Previously I purchased a Wipperman Connex 10s8 chain, Shimano Ultegra 6700 11-28t cassette and what I thought was the inner front chainring for the FSA crank. Everything went as planned until I got to the chainring; it was the wrong tooth count and diameter. So I settled for a new chain which I waxed before installing and the new cassette. I replaced a SRAM PC1071 chain that I installed on 10/20/2011. The SRAM chain came about because my original Shimano chain broke while I biked down W. Lake Houston Parkway. I don’t normally break chains. Recently I noticed about once each ride my chain would skip so I figured the drive train is probably worn. With the Wipperman chain I removed one set of links thinking this might be the cause for the chain skipping. During today’s ride I did not skip so maybe this fixed it. Just in case I ordered new jockey pulleys for the rear derailleur and the correct 34 tooth inner front chainring. I will install those when I get them in a week or so.

The nice shinny chain and rear cassette performed perfectly on today’s ride to Roman Forest Blvd. and the return through Valley Ranch and the other subdivisions. The rain increased the humidity level a bit with 76% (83 degrees) as I started the ride at 10:04. By the time I finished at 12:59 the humidity dropped slightly to 54% (91 degrees). I sweated heavily during the ride probably leaving a trail on the pavement. I wore a new red lightning bolt Nashbar Clavis jersey I got back from exchanging three that were too large. I ordered mediums but they were like extra large. They exchanged the large ones for small and they fit much better. I also got the blue and green jerseys. I think the color and lightning bolt stand out.

I rode a little further than I thought I would on this route ending up at 35.14 miles with a 15.7 mph average speed. When I checked at 30 miles the average was 15.8 mph so I only lost .1 mph going through the residential streets in Kingwood. July mileage increased to 250 and year to date I biked 3575 miles.

The weather will be heating up over the next several days with 99 tomorrow, 102 Friday and 104 on Saturday. I will need to leave early to avoid the highest temperatures.

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Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.com maps and metrics.