Replacing the Grease in the Bike

I have been working so hard to get the bike and food and gear in the crate, plus trying to keep up with the store, and get everything else done that I haven't kept up on the all the blog stuff. These pictures are from a couple of days ago when I re-greased my bike. I removed all the grease from the shifters when I built the bike, but I didn't put new grease in until I was ready to box up the bike.

In Antarctica there is basically no dirt, at least not on my route. So I don't need to worry about dirt getting stuck in the grease during the expedition. However on my training rides here in Utah I did not want to get dirt in the grease, so I waited until I was getting the bike ready for the crate before using my cold weather compatible grease.

First a picture of the shifter all nice and clean an free of grease.

There is a cover and then an outer ring. Here I have taken both off to be ready to add the grease.

I greased up the shifters making sure that anywhere there is a seam in the plastic it would be sealed by grease. I don't want blowing ice to get in there

Here is the cover with grease to seal the edges.

Putting it back together a little grease is showing where the parts fit together.

Cleaned up.

I also greased the pivot points on the front derailleur, 

and greased the pivot points on the rear derailleur.

XT Shadow Plus derailleur

To make it so the bearings turn easily in the cold I need to replace the grease in the bearings. This is repeated for each bearing in the hubs, bottom bracket, and headset.

Bearing with all the grease cleaned out.

And with the new grease packed in.

And the seal replaced. Ready to go!

Not shown in these pictures is the greasing of the chain. First I clean off all the grease that came with the chain, then heat up the grease for Antarctica, and soak the chain in the grease to make sure it gets between the links. Again I am not going to be dealing with dirt so I can leave the chain greasy and keep ice out of the links. 

Remembering Halloween

Halloween was always the most painful holiday.

When I was a little kid I lived in Fairbanks Alaska. One day when it was about -40º I was ridding on my mothers shoulders. I had a real nice red parka with a fur ruff on the hood that would protect the face from freezing. My mom could not see it but the hood had fallen down leaving my head exposed to the cold. My ears and face ended up getting frostbite.

On Halloween my brothers, sisters and I would head out to collect our candy. We lived in north Orem, which now is a very populated place, but when I was a kid it was still mostly fields and orchards. We had to walk several miles to be able to hit a dozen or so homes. By the time we finished we would have a small bag of candy and my ears would be cold.

As we looked through our candy to see what we got my ears would start to warm up. The frost damage from when I was a little kid would make this a very painful experience.

Halloween was a very different experience for my kids. The houses in our neighborhood are on 5 to 6 acre lots, so it would be much like when I was a kid, however nobody does trick or treat in our neighborhood. Instead we all drive down to the street by our neighborhood park and do trunk or treat. In less than a half hour our kids have collected more candy than I collected in my whole trick or treating career. The problem is since I opened the bike store I don't get to go and hand out candy. To me trick or treat is suppose to be done in the dark, or at least the twilight. Our neighborhood likes to start at 5pm, which means by the time my store is closed trick or treating has been over for almost 2 hours.

Expedition in a Box

Spent yesterday and this morning getting the bike, food and gear into a crate to be ready to send to Antarctica. I was happy that everything fit in the box. I don't know what the final weight is, but it is heavy! Now I need to get the packing list and shipping documents all prepared so they can come pick it up.

Getting Ready to Ship the Bike

DHL delivered the crate this morning. I am now working on getting everything ready to go into the crate. I added a bunch of logos after I took this picture, and am now adding donor names to the wheels. If you want your name on the wheel, and a picture of it at the South Pole make a $25 donation at www.gofundme.com/SouthPoleEpic and include a comment with the donation stating that you want your name on the wheel. When I get to the South Pole I will take pictures that include each name.

Example of name in wheel

Autumn Was Invented for Mountain Biking

Took my son out mountain biking today. I rarely get to go biking in the middle of the day, but we had Greg watch the store for a couple of hours while we went and tested out our demo Anthem Adv 1 27.5 bikes.

It has been a while since I have been up to Corner Canyon. The fall colors have are mostly gone, but the trails are filled with the brown oak leaves. I don't know if it is the decaying of the leaves or what but it smelled like autumn. Even with the muted fall colors it was a beautiful ride. At times we were riding on nice single track where the trail is narrower than the tires on my Borealis expedition bike. Near the top of the trail the golden grass was tall and the views of Utah Valley were spectacular.

It was strange riding on skinny mountain bike tires after spending all year almost exclusively riding my fat bike. The Anthem was amazingly quick and responsive. However I am use to the traction of the fat tires and was timid going fast around corners and obstacles. Dropping down Jacob's Ladder is always a blast, but again the small tires were an adjustment.

The lower half of Jacob's Ladder has some fun little switch backs. On of the switch backs has a tree that I am always scared I will hit as I go around the corner. I haven't ever hit it but it is always a bit of a challenge when I ride a 29er. The 27.5 wheels on the new Anthem made that corner a lot better. The smaller wheels are more responsive.

Anyway the trip was great and the whole time I could not help but think, "autumn was invented for mountain biking."

Sunrise

Sunrise on my ride this morning. My grandma would frequently comment that the day's sunset was the most beautiful she had ever seen. I'm sure she would have said that about the sunrise this morning. Strange to think that I only have about 29 more sunrises this year before I enter a world of 24 hours of daylight.

What Should I Have on My iPod?

Got some more equipment for my expedition today. My oder from Canada Goose came in today. The expedition is everything I expected! Nice and and warm. The last thing I will do before starting to pedal will be to take this off and put it in bag behind my seat, and the first thing I will do when I stop is grab it out of that bag and put it on. I love this parka and could not be more excited about getting it. I also got a nice marino wool neck gaiter, down gloves, and a marino wool toque from Canada Goose. All of these are going to be great down in Antarctica.

I also got my oder from Goal Zero today. I purchased a Sherpa kit and two Guide 10 kits. I will be using these to keep the satellite phones that I am getting from Satphonestore charged, and to keep batteries for the GPS and cameras, and my iPod charged.

I need to clean up my iPod. It has a lot of songs on it that I really do not like. I end up getting stuck listening to them as I am biking and don't want to stop and dig out the iPod to change the song. I am also planning on loading Das Buch Mormon onto my iPod. I have been trying since I was in high school to teach myself German. I have all the Harry Potter books in German and can do a fair job of reading them and figuring out what is being said. Maybe I'll get bored of listening to the German scriptures over and over, or maybe I'll get better at understanding German. Either way when I decided to listen to music I don't want to get stuck listening to songs I don't like.