(no subject)

My usual bike, Longing, came with a suspension seatpost. Last year, it finally wore out and spat bearings everywhere so I got a new, solid post. I couldn't get it to stop slipping with a quick release clamp. I brought it to the local bike shop and got a bolt-on clamp. They also showed me I was misaligning the bits and pieces. That helped a lot, but there was still just a little slippage. As I was leaving work last week, I adjusted it once more and snapped the bolt in the seat clamp as I tried to tighten it down.

So I ordered a new seat post (with suspension to see if that will ease the burden on the seat clamp and rear wheel too) and a new clamp for it. I measured tubes with my vernier calipers and got everything right! I was sad when the seat post arrived and it included a shim sized to fit my seat tube. I thought the post was sized to fit my tube exactly. Whatever. My original seatpost had a shim too. I installed everything and moved the saddle to the new post. I tightened the clamp as tightly as I can and it slips too. Maybe I'm just too heavy in comparison to before.

I am no longer screwing around. Yesterday I ordered a double-bolt seat clamp intended for mountain unicycling from Kris Holm. If that doesn't hold it, I don't know what will other than drilling holes and putting in cotter pins. (Which I suspect would slowly tear through the cro-moly steel frame, so I'm not doing that.)

So I have one of these coming.

If you haven't seen mountain unicycling, it's worth checking out. It's not a joke! They do some awe-inspiring stuff.

Longing is 19 years old this year. He's seen me through a lot of life.

(no subject)

Strava says I rode 328 miles over 23 hours in 33 separate trips in June.