Whitening my ride

I've wanted to write about the small upgrades of my trail bike last year but I was too lazy. Last year I changed the seat of my mountain bike with a white second hand Selle Italia seat. The original seat got to my city bike so that bike got a little bit sportier and more comfortable (it had a big bulky city seat).

Also last year I changed my bottle cage because the aluminium one was making my bottle dirty so I got a white plastic bottle cage and change the yellow bottle with a white bottle :)

Last year I started to have bigger problems with my pedals, one of them was broken for a few years, but after falling too many time because I could get my shoes unclipped I decided that I should get new pedals. Given the options of silver, black and white I chose some nice white pedals. 

Last week I changed the pedals (I want to change the cleats also, but I need a lot of tome for that) so this Sunday I went for a ride with the new white pedals. 

The trail was nice and dry, the ground was a bit to hard but it was a nice Spring ride.

And a picture white my whitened bike:

And a close up with the new pedals from Rosebikes:

I wonder what is the next bit that is going to be whitened... Too bad they don't make white Nobby Nics with reinforced side walls...

Races in May

In May there will be a lot of races in town so I made a list with all of them:

1. Sunday May 3 – http://www.mureshalfmarathon.ro
   • in the center of the city
   • I've participated 2 years ago, it is a pretty good race
2. Saturday May 9 – http://crossduathlon.ro – Transilvania Cross Duathlon Balcan and Romanian National Championship
   • it's around the Zoo (First Run 5.5 km – 2 laps x 2.75 km, total elevation 162 meter, Bike 19.5 km – 3 laps x 6,5 km, total elevation 594 meter, Second Run 2.75 km – 1 laps x 2.75 km, total elevation 81 meter)
   • I want to race in a duathlon race for some time now so I would like to participate
3. Sunday May 10 – http://mszaszalbert.blog.hu
   • approximately 12 km of trail racing
   • I've participated last year and it was a lot of fun so I hope I will be there this year also
4. Sunday May 24 – http://trailrace.ascotid.ro
   • half marathon, trail running (21 km, total elevation 584), in the forest near the Zoo
   • I would like to participate because I like to run in that forest

If it will be possible I would like to race in all of these events, but I would be satisfied if I could race in at least the duathlon and the half marathon :)

Canon 600D

I finally bought a dslr, a Canon EOS 600D

It is a great camera, the best I had so far. I bought a refurbished camera because it was cheaper and it was almost new. When I received the package I started wondering if there is any way to find out how many picture were taken with it. After some searching on the internet I finally found a solution that worked, it is called Canon EOS Camera Info v1.2. I tried a bunch of other software but none of them worked. 

It supports a bunch of cameras: 1000D, 450D, 500D, 550D, 1100D, 600D, 650D, 700D, 100D, 60D, 6D, 7D, 5D and 1D. You can download it from here. It looks like this:

It says that 387 picture were taken with my camera (about 100 were taken by me) so it is almost brand new. It is important to know the shutter count of your camera because the average life of a 600D is about 150.000 pictures and then a costly repair follow :)

Specialized Sub Zero gloves

I've been riding with Specialized Sub Zero gloves for a few months now. I mainly use them for the commute to work but I used them for a few other rides also.

The description on the Specialized website goes like this:

The Sub Zero features a removable liner glove for essential warmth and a waterproof outer shell for temperatures plummeting below 25°F/-5°C. Plus, Wiretap technology makes this glove touch screen friendly so you can keep your hands covered while using mobile devices in cold weather.

And they are spot on with this, the gloves are perfect for temperatures around -5 Celsius and above freezing you can just remove the outer glove.

I wanted a glove that is perfect for the very cold weather from the winter mornings and I didn't quite get that. In the morning when there were bellow -5 my hands were cold. Part of the problem was that it is a short commute and it's mainly downhill so my muscles don't produce enough heat and I'm a bit sleepy in the morning. Yesterday morning there were -3 degrees and my hands were kind of feeling that it is cold outside :(

My solution, an upgrade for these gloves, just get a thicker glove and replace the inner glove:

On the other hand the inner glove is just perfect for when the temperature is below 10 Celsius and I go for a ride. I even used them in the snow and they were just perfect, perfect grip and they kept my hands warm (my muscles were generating enough auxiliary heat)