The DaxMindMapper Reloaded

.. has gone better.

More cycling and more climbing all round.

Cycling means that trying to diet has effectively gone out the window .. tried it for one week and it’s not nice and really didn’t work. Weight varied from 12st 11lbs upto 13st 2lbs over a couple of days!

Climbing for full sessions down at the wall, shoulder not hurting .. although have a twinge just below the shoulder, along the outside of the arm but nothing serious. Just trying to stay away from any moves which might jar my shoulder .. like the top of an overhanging pink F6a? route at the warehouse .. oops. Grades have been mainly 5-> 6a/6a+. Occasionaly having a go at 6B and a soft touch 6C. Stamina is OK at the lower grades (even overhanging) but pretty rubbish at anything over 6a+

Just happy that I’m climbing harder and longer again.

All in all, looking good

.. not going too well. Way too wet and windy to cycle anywhere. Also although I’ve been back climbing for the last few weeks at low grades I managed to jolt my right shoulder pretty badly on Tuesday at the Link centre in Swindon. Basically the shoulder had been feeling great for a week (hurray) and I was warming up waiting for the others to appear. I was doing really easy bouldering when, on a shoulder streching (in hindsight a bad idea) downclimbing move to a hold for my right foot, I made the move but then the hold spun unexpectadly = bang to my shoulders = me getting very angry. 3 months of slow recovery and it’s back to square-bloody-one.

The shoulder still hasn’t recovered from that spinning hold .. I’m just hoping that it didn’t do any more damage .. but it really does feel like it’s been taken all the way back to before Christmas .. in fact it sometimes feels worse.

Just so frustrating and anger inducing.

When I’m not contemplating hitting things, I’m even more determined to lose some weight (makes climbing easier and, more importantly, less stressfull on the body) and stick to going to gym to do the shoulder strengthening exercises.

If you’ve got kids under the age of, say, five then you’ll probably appreciate this:

P.s I vote for either Cold Play, Pearl Jam or Guns n Roses

After much drenching in release agents and the application of a serious amount of torque, via an 8ft long iron pole!!, on the fourth attempt I’ve managed to release the bottom bracket from my Specialized Rock Hopper.

Normally I would have handed the whole job to my LBS (Noah’s Ark) but due to holidays they were unable to work on the bike for over a week. So instead I bought the crank removal tool and a cartridge removal tool.

The cranks came off easy as pie but the bottom bracket itself wasn’t moving. I used loads of release agent and let it soak overnight.

I tried again the next day .. nope, nothing happening. I just ended up bending the arm of the catridge removal tool.

Soaked it in release agent and left it over night again. The next morning I acquired an 8ft long, hollow iron pole (long story) and used that in conjunction with a stronger arm for the removal tool.

.. still nothing. The bike was now pivoting on the front wheel with no movement in the BB at all.

I left it a few hours and came back to it detemined to get the bloody BB off.

This time I wasn’t taking no for an answer and while my hands steadied the bike and I used my foot to push the iron bar down .. and .. and .. I reckon something had moved! At first I wasn’t sure if anything had happened at all or maybe I’d just mangled the inside of the BB’s cup?

I checked the splines on the BB and the removal tool = all fine.

I tried again .. this time there was definite movement.

5 minutes later and the first BB cup was off

The other side was done in pretty quick time (although I damaged the splines on that side .. there’s a lot less metal work/strength to the non drive side cup on the BB hence the damage I reckon.)

BTW Even after moving the first cup on the BB through 180 degress I still could’t move it without the aid of the 8ft pole .. I’ve never worked with a piece of kit that was so siezed but still came off without a serious amount of damage to the parts involved.