Equipment Failures

It has been a week of equipment failures this week. First off, the crankset on my QRoo Tri bike has come loose for the third time now and second my Swimsense watchband starting coming apart. Although this seemed to be a couple big annoyances, it could not happen at a better time and the outcomes appear to be heading in the right directions. More on that later. Training has been going very well. Weather has been unseasonably warm so getting some great opportunities to get outside and train. Weight loss is also still moving in the right direction. Still hoping to get down to 175 before our Italy trip in May.

Weather has been great and have been able to get out for some good runs and rides. The image on the left is a typical scene for me while riding in PA Amish country. The Amish buggy’s are always out in full-fource on the weekends. Sometimes it is nice to get behind on of these when you get a stiff headwind for a little break. I usually don’t stay there too long since they go pretty slow.  One thing that has put a damper on my cycling was my non-drive side crank arm has come loose AGAIN!! This is the 3rd time now and is just over a month since the last time the bike shop( Cycles BiKyle ) tightened up again. I immediately reached out to BiKyles’ and expressed my frustration. They did express their apologies for the inconvenience and that I should come down again for them to look at it. It is over an hour drive each way and it is getting real old, fast. Especially when they just tighten it up and send me on my way. I would not be able to get down there again until 2 weeks later. In the meantime, I have been speaking with some of the local bike mechanics to get their take on the situation. Performance Bike was very helpful, but didn’t have any knowledge about the issue occurring with others. John over at Sleeping Dog Pro Cycles in Topton, PA was familiar with the situation with the FSA Cranks but said it was several years ago and they had since resolved the issues. He urged me to reach out to FSA and search to see if there was a recall on the component. I had sent FSA an email from their website, but directed to the Warranty dept. I decided to send another email after talking with John at SDPC but this time I directed it to Customer Service. I had a response from Chad at FSA within a half hour. He was really eager to get the resolved immediately and requested pictures of the components and questions as to where I got the bike. I ran home at lunch and snapped some images and forwarded them to FSA. I quickly got a call from Chad and he indicated that the crank arm and the bottom bracket were not compatible and the crank arm was an old component. Hmmm? He was wondering if the bike came from QRoo like that, but I didn’t know. I was wondering if I got some scavenged components or something. Chad then tried to contact Cycles BiKyle but neither the owner nor the head mechanic were available. He then decided to ship me the new parts directly. Now that is some customer service! Wished I would have contacted them myself earlier. BiKyles told me they contacted FSA the first time this happened, but FSA gave them “the typical corporate response”. Whatever that means. I am wondering if they even tried to contact them now. FSA is very eager to make things right from what I can see. So once the parts come in, I will make an appointment to get it replaced. I am thinking I may just pay John over at SDPC to install it since it is closer and I feel it will be done properly.

Equipment failure #2 was my Swimsense watch whose band started splitting right along the pin that holds the buckle. Looking at the watch I could see any easy was to replace the band, so I decided to put in a support case with Finis on the issue. Finis was very responsive as well, and requested some images of the problem. They they forwarded me a RMA# and label to send the watch back for replacement. I didn’t think I could deal with the loss of a watch to count my swim laps, so I decided to pull the trigger on a new Garmin 910xt watch. I had been planning on getting one before Italy anyway, so this kind of expedited the need. This watch will log pool and open water swims along with my biking and running. One watch for everything will be nice. Being able to track my open water swims at Dutch Springs will be nice too. I will probably go back to using the Swimsense in the pool since it automatically detects rest intervals which is a nice feature. 

Training has been progressing well. 2 weeks ago I had 8.5 hours in and this past week was about 10.5. I was feeling it a bit today so decided to give myself a rest day. I really don’t want to overdo it now, since I will start ramping up after vacation. I am starting to see my run pace increasing without a change in HR due to the loss of weight. I think being in the low 170’s will be an optimum range for competing. Hopefully by next post, equipment will be back to normal again. This week will be another higher volume week and then next week I will back off a bit for recovery. Hoping to get to the track this week and do some speed work. Flyers are kicking some Penguin-butt(3-0) so hopefully they knock them off quickly. Fun series to watch…lots of fighting. Until next time.