With the rear tire holding air again and the weather still holding below freezing, I rolled out the door today. I was rolling along nicely when I realized that my rear wheel was again rubbing the brake. This was maddening and so I stopped to check things out again. This time, I was convinced that the brakes were adjusted properly and I realized how much the wheel was flexing back and forth. My hunch was that this was due to low spoke tensioning. That was disturbing because the Pro Shop was supposed to have checked that.

I rode the rest of the way with open calipers again. At lunch I put the wheels up on the truing stand and cranked the tension up to a respectable level. The wheels still flexed some as I'm sure all wheels do, but that got the flex more under control.


The wheels performed well on the way home and I was able to accelerate unimpeeded. I had trouble keeping my HR low early on in the ride and eventually gave up and decided to push the pace a bit. I didn't ride terribly fast, but at East Falls Church I passed a guy and he started racing. It wasn't much to speak of, but I started sprinting for fun to see what the bike could do. I was flying! I cooled off some after turning onto Custis, but when I finally got home, I realized I'd averaged over 18 mph! Only once before have I averaged over 18 mph and that was when I'd borrowed Walter's Brunello and rode with a howling wind at my back. To do it today on my bike--without really trying too hard is awesome. My HR actually was an average of 153--still in Zone 2. Pretty cool.