Another fixie ride...

... so I took my SS King rear hub to the local King guru, said the grease was in a bad state (hub's only 6-7 months old). I left if with Car!os to do his magic. I'm still not 100% certain on what I want to do rim wise, so another weekend goes by with the choice of no ride or take out the Franken-fixie. Second time to Madrone, and my speed was up a bit.... but I did have to slow the pace down to "finish" the ride. I ended up not being able to clean 3 sections, the first one was stupid just a little hill, but I chose the wrong line and paid the price with a heavy pedal strike that nearly tossed me. two and three where techy tight sections that I've been know to flop on even with the spinny bike, so I didn't feel too bad. All in all it was fun, not nearly as hard as I had imagined, pedal strikes were reduced this go around, but when I did have one it was very jarring.

In other news, yet another Audi breakdown. This the car started idling rough and then the check engine light comes on. The dealer thought it might be a bad coil resulting in an ECU override shutting down the engine. While it's a warranty item, it doesn't inspire confidence. This is the 4th time I've had to had the thing in the shop. First issue was an electronic control unit in the transmission which caused the car to stay in 2nd gear, next was a bad power steering line, next a bad wheel bearing, now the bad coil. I used to b!tch about my Xterra, and wouldn't want it back for all the tea in China, but the worst thing that I ever had with that was bad rotor's and a bit of engine knock. So now the dilemma is do I just go ahead and live with it, or just accept that the car is a lemon (47k miles)and move on. I really like having a station wagon and have been looking around. I like the looks of the Subaru's and with so many friends with over 100k miles and seemingly little to no issues I may be trading in on a Subie.

Cheers,