I recently got back my freshly painted frame and I must say, this is a really good paint job. The frame is looking like new now.

To start with, my bike looked like this:

Before

This picture was taken in 2009 when the bike was only a year old and the black anodized frame was still looking great. However, not much was left of this three years later.

Now for the bike rebuilding pictures: Continue reading →

For some time now I have been thinking about repainting my frame because it is showing quite a lot of damage. It looks like the original black-anodized frame is a bit sensitive to damages. Because of a minor thumb injury I now have to stop mountainbiking for a number of weeks to make sure it recovers. So this is the ideal time for the paint job.

Of course, I am going to let a professional company do this for me and to save costs and for fun it is best to disassemble the bike myself and assemble it back later. This is what my disassembled frame looks like

Dissambled bike frame before paint job

The photo still shows the cups from the headset but I have removed those after this picture was taken.

Below is a picture of the rest of the parts. I managed to disassemble the fork and handlebars together so all the cabling is intact and it can be put back together relatively easily. This is quite an exciting project since I have never disassembled everything at the same time. Also, removing the fork and headset is a firsttimer for me. Luckily I have the correct tools and know what to do to reinstall everything.

The remaining parts

The frame is going to be painted blue with 4 layers of blank coating on top for extra durability. In a week or two/three I can start rebuilding the bike. Most of the work will be in reinstalling the bearings and basically assembling the frame again. In the mean time I can do some extra maintenance on all the individual disassembled parts so the bike will look almost new when it is done.

This is some sort of midlife update for the bike that should give it another 4 years at least. I will add a second post in a few weeks about the rebuild, showing before and after pictures.

Today I went mountainbiking again for the first time in Nijmegen. It must have been at least a year since the last time I was there. I started mountainbiking again 1 month ago. Starting slowly with Dorst (short round, small hills), then the Beerzen route (practically flat but a bit longer), followed by the Drunense Duinen (same distance but with small and nasty hills).  Today Nijmegen was up again and I was a bit nervous at the start. Mainly worried about how my knee would feel and about my physical condition which is not that good.

But what can I say, everything went like a charm. Sure, my physical condition is not what it used to be but I could still climb every hill without getting off the bike (so no walking). The only thing afterwards was that I discovered that my saddle had broken. Actually it happened much earlier but I didn’t realize that it had broken because I thought the seatpost had turned. Oh well, breaking stuff is not that uncommon to me, especially if it involves things related to the ‘chair’ concept.

It sure feels good to be back!

Mountainbiking in Nijmegen on a Sunday morning

It was 4 December 2009 when I ruptured my knee tendon in the right knee by a mountainbiking accident. Indirectly, this was caused by an earlier fall on 27 September 2009, which also landed me in hospital. i was enjoying myself when it happened: it was 5 degrees Celsius, with rain and mud. I was cycling about 15km/h when my rear wheel slipped and I fell. Only, I was trying not to fall by compensating with my knee. In fact, it turns out that if you do that with your knee bent and exert a lot of force, it is possible to rupture your knee tendon.

So there I was lying on the ground with my knee cap about 10cm above the place where it usually was. I could straighten my leg using my arms but walking was impossible. I tried it and fell again. So I called the emergency number telling them exactly where I was using GPS coordinates. Still, they had a lot of trouble finding me. Luckily, after about 30 minutes (it was already getting dark), I saw a woman who was letting out her dog. Turns out that they lived quite close by; about 300 metres.

With the help of the woman’s husband I finallly managed to get out of the forest and the ambulance so pick me up at their home. To make a long story short, I was operated the next day, followed by a cast for 7 weeks. When the cast came off on 22nd January, I could start to exercise the knee again. In the beginning it would only bend very little but with a lot of exercise I quickly reached 90 degrees of bend.

A few weeks after that I could start cycling again on a home trainer with reduced crank size. And after that doing more and more strenght exercises.

Currently, I am already commuting to work again by bike and it is not a problem to cycle 70km a day on the recumbent bike. Unfortunately, still not able to go mountainbiking. In some areas I am still missing some strenght (in particular going down the stairs). The strenght is coming back but it is going slowly. I have set a criterion for myself which is to be able to run at least for 30 minutes without problems while running and afterwards. Not quite there yet. I can run for 14 minutes on a tred mill. So, recovery is going well but is slow. I still see changes on a weekly basis. If all goes well I will be able to go mountainbiking again in a couple of months (after summer).

Last Sunday I got back from mountainbiking and made the most stupid mistake in the world. Continue reading →

Today I was enjoying myself in the Reichswald just across the border from Nijmegen where I usually ride. I knew a nice route through the Reichswald because of a GPS track I saved from a previous event. The Reichswald is a really nice forest and it is much more quiet than the Dutch part.

Picture from Groesbeek.

Entry to the Reichswald.

When I was almost done, all of a sudden I heard a noise. Just like some branch getting in the wheel. Well, nothing special, so I stopped but to my great surprise the derailleur hanger was broken. This was really remarkable as I exerted very little force as it happened. Probably something (rock or branch) was the cause of it. Continue reading →

I thought it would be nice to visit the fixed mountainbike route of Rheden again. O, someone also made a nice film about this route.

Landscape.

The beautiful forest.

Continue reading →

Day 8

After getting back to Reli’s appartment at around 23:00 and having a drink, it was almost time to catch the plane. Our flight was at 6:20 and we had to be there early. So what to do, play cards, talk, or try to get a few hours of sleep. Well we did the last thing hoping it would help and set our alarm clocks at 4:00.

Erik at 4:00 in the morning

We all got some rest although it was difficult for all of us (Bart and Reli sleeping on a very small couch and Erik on an airbed with auto-deflation feature). Nevertheless, 4:00, shower, get dressed, leave. Luckily Reli’s car was really big so the backs easily fit together with Bart on the back seat (the trunk was already full with our other bags and the bikes wouldn’t fit in there anyway).

Bart sitting comfortably in the back of the car with two bikes on top of him.

After a 30 minute ride, we arrive at the airport. Reli is going back towards home to go back to bed and Bart and Erik wait until our flight with WizzAir leaves for Dortmund. All went well we had a nice holiday and we want to thank Reli and his family for the warm welcome in Romania. I also want to thanks Andy and Mihai because with their help we had a mountainbike holiday we will never forget.

It was a unique experience. We saw trails that not many other people from outside Romania have seen, we drank home made Romanian liquor, had a Romanian Barbeque (including the Mici) and had some real Romanian food in a Romanian home. The Romanian hospitality made us feel at home.

Back in Dortmund with the bikes

The way back to Breda (rain, thats a long time no see 🙂

Day 6

Ahhh wat a headache. We drank a little to much beer and wine. Happily we just want to go for a small bike ride today. On the day we arrive we so the letters of Brasov in the mountains and really wanted to go there. So today it is ‘only’ cycling to the letters and back. There is a lot on the agenda today. Since we missed Bran yesterday and a visit to Transylvania is incomplete without visiting this tourist trap :-), we decided to go to Bran by car in the afternoon.

The trip to the letters of Brasov was not easy since the climb was quite steep and also had a lot of gravel and stones (and of course not forgetting the kilometers and liters of the previous day).

The climb towards the letters	Yes behind the letters ! we made it !
The three of us behind the letters	The view on Brasov from behind the letters

Then we drove to Bran by car in the afternoon. And, indeed, it was a tourist trap and a bit worse then we expected.

The castle of Dracula	Inside the castle
The secret stairs in Dracula's castle

We have seen the castle and all the touristic crap they are selling there. In the evening we had an appointment with the sister of Reli to come to their house outside Brasov for a real romanian BBQ and some home made cherry liquor. We had a really good evening thanks!!

The nice house of the sister of Reli	Fire up the BBQ
Making the salad

GPS Track

The GPS track is here.