Bikes Are in the Car and Freezing Rain

Yesterday it snowed pretty much all day.  We woke up to snow, did snow removal, then it snowed some more.  Yay snow.

It was a dry snow, first time this winter.  You can tell it's dry by the plume from the snow blower across the street.

Here is my bike, with the pedals off.

Now the wheels are off.

We learned some things yesterday.  The chain on A's bike was on the third from the top chain ring when the wheel came off.  J's was on the smallest chain ring.  That will be news we can use when putting the wheels back on.  The newest trend in bikes is the through axle.  We used to have quick release skewers, and I think they were better.  You opened the skewer, the fork widened and the wheel dropped out.  Now you have to undo the entire skewer, pull it out, stuff brake blocks in the brake calipers so the calipers don't close and then after removing the wheel, replace the through axle.  This is not an improvement over the ancient technology.  The wheels will not fit in the wheel bags.  They're 700 cc wheels, but the tires are so big, they do not fit.  We did get the bike frames, the wheels and etc. in the back of the car.  I have zero pictures because it was 14F outside and not any warmer in the garage, so no pictures.  It was pretty much unbearably cold.  If we do this again, we're going a month earlier so the weather is not so terrible and we can safely rent a cargo trailer.  I have a career goal to never mess with those wheels again, unless I have a flat.  Probability is high that we'll be renting a trailer for the return so the wheels can stay on the bike.

The other new technology that I don't understand is the lack of a front derailleur (the thing that changes gears).  They've gone to one rear derailleur and a giant cassette (thing with the gear cogs).  If you look at my back wheel, you can see the rear cassette is bigger than the disk for the brake.  It's unbelievably heavy.  After we got the wheels off, we were stunned by how light the carbon frame is.  It's a mystery to me why this is perceived to be a good thing.  Our other bikes have three chain rings in the front, 10 cogs in the back, and a greater range of gears available.  More gears is better.  However, we really wanted to quit riding the mountain bikes on the road this summer, and due to the supply chain issues this is what there was.  Maybe when there are more bikes in the pipeline we'll look at something with different gearing.  Having said that, I do like the bikes, they're comfortable, they handle well, they don't scare you to death going down steep hills, so maybe I'll just learn to deal with new technology.

We went to our neighbors'  house for brunch today.  It was fun.  This is the second time since March 2020 that we've been in someone else's home unmasked.  It feels weird.  I know that many people have moved on from Covid, but I am not one of them.  The latest research shows that repeated cases of Covid result in damage to your immune system.  This is not good, and there is no fix for it.  So, I'd like to avoid that if I could.

Today we are experiencing freezing rain.  Yay freezing rain!