Passage in the Wild and front rack challenges

For Wednesday I wanted to do some hill work, nothing too steep but I needed to work on my climbing.  I did some repeats on the mild rollers on the bike path, remembering some old strategies like ramping up my cadence to "power" over the rises, practicing my down shifts etc.

For my "big" climb I went about 1/3 of the way up Avalon which is about a mile long at 6% very steady.  This shot above is from my turn around point looking back down what I had just climbed. I didn't go too far, 10km but did get alot of hill, incline and roller practice in.  And being out in the sun was a good excuse to get some "glamour" shots of the Passage.

Non-drive side view

Drive side view

Rear 3/4 view

Front 3/4 view.

I also realized on this ride that I wanted to make a minor adjustment to the cockpit by rotating my handle bars up just a hair but still, overall, no real complaints yet at 25km in riding this bike.  Post ride it was time for some protein to stave off muscle cramps...yeah.  A nice Musubi at Marination Station.

hmm spam

 Unfortunately later in the day my back started to stiffen up -similar to what happened in the fall that I worried would prevent me from finishing my final coffeeneuring ride.  I had intended to do a 20km plus loop from home today, rather than driving to the flat lands,  and indeed the sun is out to mock me.

yeah stop driving me everywhere ya wimp!

Instead I did some back stretches this morning, which helped marginally, and will do some hot and cold therapy this afternoon and will repeat on Friday.  I am hoping, as happened in the fall, my back issues will resolve themselves in time for me to do the Tour De Lopez on Saturday.   Worse case scenario i can't ride and instead I've made a donation to the Lopez chamber of commerce, I can always go ride the route another time and now that I am in job seeking mode my schedule is flexible enough that I could even go mid week when the roads should be quieter.  We'll see what happens.

Sunlite Front Rack

Since I wasn't riding and my back was feeling slightly better, I could actually bend a bit, I decided to mount the front rack.  Btw the Sunlite one page instruction sheet that is for both rear and front racks that a 10 year old created may not be the worst set of instructions ....but its not far out of the running.   You may recall that modern canti-brakes (Tektro CR720s) didn't work up front because vintage bikes have narrower fork blades than modern bikes.....

.....yep that is problem for racks too as you can hopefully see, the rack left side L bracket is pretty well lined up with the canti-post and the  right side- not so much.  Should have seen that coming.  I have decided to just go with the current rear bag set up for now, but have a few ideas on making the front rack work.   I did some bending and one idea is to get a big zip tie to tighten up the distance and let it sit for a while, my other idea is to find a hardware store L bracket that has a longer slot that will reach to the canti-posts from both sides.

L bracket

Then again  I may just use one of the rear racks I have laying around as the trunk bag can work either front or back.  That will be a project for later.  Hoping to have an organized ride report for you next time.  Ride.Smile. (fingers crossed) Repeat.