So I’ve not been able to log three rides on my new wheelset — the Shimano RS-80 wheels, which were a warranty replacement and upgrade for my Shimano Ultegra wheels that came with my 2009 Specialized Tarmac Expert.
While a full review may come down the road, after some more rides and a few races on them, I wanted to give a first impression review of the Shimano RS-80 clincher wheelset.
On the heels of my little post earlier in the week about New Belgium’s Fat Tire and Red Racer Empire IPA — two cycling brews, here’s a whole list of bike-related beers perfect for the summer heat.
My ‘09 Specialized Tarmac Expert, acting as a carbon drying rack near my work desk, after my morning bike commute from home in Durham to downtown Raleigh. Check out that new wheelset!
So about a month ago, my still fairly new 2009 Specialized Tarmac Expert started acting up. In the big ring, I started getting an occasional click and almost pulsing pull from the chain. It was hard to reproduce on a regular basis, but eventually started to happen more often. It started happening on hard, fast descents, and cornering.
I eventually took the bike back to the shop I got it and they adjusted the front derailleur, but on the next ride, the problem still existing. I rode on for a few more weeks, before finally taking it back to the shop a couple weeks back. On the way over, rolling it out of my office, the pedals were rotating as I rolled it on its back wheel.
I was lucky in the roller coaster experience department. My first roller coaster experiences were with my dad at a young and ripe age in a little town in Ohio called Sandusky, known for its great selection of roller coasters at a little ol’ place called Cedar Point. Ever since then, I’ve been hooked on the large steel or wooden beasts, its cars barreling over a track at high speed.
I’ve lived several places moving down the U.S. East coast, including Williamsport, PA, Randallstown, MD (Baltimore suburb), Chesapeake, VA (Norfolk/Virginia Beach suburb) and Durham, NC. Ever since we landed in Randallstown, a little place north of Richmond, Virginia as been an amusement park destination for me, friends and family. I’ve seen it go through ownership changes, including Paramount’s stint owning it from 1993-2006. In fact, reading through Wikipedia’s Kings Dominion article, I remember the vast majority of this stuff — some both coming and going. Interestingly enough, Cedar Point’s owner, Cedar Fair Entertainment Company ended up buying KD and the four other Paramount owned amusement parks (including Carowinds straddling the border of North and South Carolina).
Man, it almost seems like things would have gone better, or at least gotten that much more interesting for the team and the pro peloton had Astana’s Kazakh sponsors not come through with their financial backing in the eleventh hour.
Instead of the Astana squad, we would have seen team Livestrong-Nike in the 2009 Tour de France, with 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, Benjamin Noval, Sergio Paulinho, and Contador’s preferred mechanic and soigneur from Astana all moving to Garmin-Slipstream had Astana defaulted on their contractual obligations.
Will/has all this been distracting for the Astana squad, not to mention the number of high-level riders on the squad. It should be an interesting Tour de France this year!
I’m feeling like I’m not posting enough bike/cycling posts here at Keefer Madness, though two (not including this one) currently on the home page fall under the cycling category. Anyway, here’s a new gadget for those night time bike commutes to add a little safety, projecting a laser line on either side of you and your bicycle to encourage drivers to pass you with a little bit of distance, with a video to demonstrate.
Here’s a little roundup for making the most out of Twitter. I’m proud to say, I’m already using several of these tools — three to be exact. Two of these tools, I’ve been using for quite awhile. TwitterFeed (now sporting a new design it seems) is especially great. I use Twitterfeed in conjunction with ping.fm to automatically send out new articles of this blog, along with our baby blog and the GPS data from all my bike rides over at Keefer Madness, Little Baby K to not only Twitter, but also Facebook and various other social networking sites all in one swoop. (via their RSS Feeds).
So yeah, those two tools the article below references are very familiar territory to me. After reading the article, I did also sign up with Futuretweets.com as well. With the blogs both being on the Word Press platform, I can already schedule content to post at a given time via those two blogs, but if I want to just schedule a Tweet of some sort that site should come in handy!
I also tried out Twinfluence.com as well. No surprise, I’m not very high on the rankings in the Twitterverse, but still some interesting data. It’s nice to see my “Social Capital” is ranked as very high.
Regardless, check out the article and links in it to help maximize your Twitter account’s usefulness in self (and professional possibly) promotion.
So I’ve not been able to log three rides on my new wheelset — the Shimano RS-80 wheels, which were a warranty replacement and upgrade for my Shimano Ultegra wheels that came with my 2009 Specialized Tarmac Expert.
I’ve lived several places moving down the U.S. East coast, including Williamsport, PA, Randallstown, MD (Baltimore suburb), Chesapeake, VA (Norfolk/Virginia Beach suburb) and Durham, NC. Ever since we landed in Randallstown, a little place north of Richmond, Virginia as been an amusement park destination for me, friends and family. I’ve seen it go through ownership changes, including Paramount’s stint owning it from 1993-2006. In fact, reading through 
Here’s a little roundup for making the most out of Twitter. I’m proud to say, I’m already using several of these tools — three to be exact. Two of these tools, I’ve been using for quite awhile. 
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