Today’s ride: 50.96 miles, in another day of amazing weather. Not a fascist headwind to be found. On yesterday’s ride I dropped in on a bike mechanic I know, and was very lucky to find him with nothing else to do—so we spent about an hour tracing down some nasty creaking noises my bike was making when I stood on the pedals and cranked hard. Took off the handlebars and put new bolts in the stem clamp. Tightened the rear hub a bit. Put a drop of oil on each spoke where it enters the rim, both front and rear wheels. Put a little grease on the dropouts. Took off the pedals and greased them too. Tweaked cable tension. And I was surprised to find that my chain had one extra unnecessary link (a bit of sloppiness by the mechanic who installed the new components a couple of months ago), so we cut out one link. And now the cycle of violence has a new lease on life; it’s running completely silent and feels rock solid when I sprint or push hard up a climb. I did several climbs around the PV area today, and my new bike computer says I burned 3500 calories with a total ascent of 3100 feet.