First North Shore Marathon?

[JimmyB]

Vaseline, wd40, and cleaning, RIGHT after the race are all key to keeping wet bearings, good!

[bjvircks]

hey shafeeqs! good race time! If you are the guy on the course I'm thinking of... WOW! Seems you skated the race ALONE?

a-cut-above... how was your race!

I'm (in general) pleased. steady improvement this year, hope next year to be back in form.
1st of year 2:09
2nd of year 1:50
3rd of year 1:34 (NSIM)

[sxevegan]

Originally Posted by JimmyB

Vaseline, wd40, and cleaning, RIGHT after the race are all key to keeping wet bearings, good!

Right after the race I took all the Simmons skater's bearings out, cleaned them in mineral spirits, sprayed them with WD-40, spun them out a bit, let them sit for a few hours so most of the wd40 would evaporate out, put a drop or two of lube in each, and then put the skates back together. They might be slightly louder than they were, but they are all still spinning. A $10 investment and 30 minutes probably saved $200 worth of bearings.

[ese002]

Originally Posted by sxevegan

Right after the race I took all the Simmons skater's bearings out, cleaned them in mineral spirits, sprayed them with WD-40, spun them out a bit, let them sit for a few hours so most of the wd40 would evaporate out, put a drop or two of lube in each, and then put the skates back together. They might be slightly louder than they were, but they are all still spinning. A $10 investment and 30 minutes probably saved $200 worth of bearings.

How did you spend $200 on bearings? Or is for multiple people? And, if they are now "slightly louder" are they now any better than cheap bearings?

My bearings are toast. Maybe 7 or 8 are salvageable as non-race bearings. But then, 30 minutes of my time is more than a new set of Bones Reds, which is what they were anyway*.

As an engineer type (and an engineer actual) I hate waste. It upsets my sensibility to throw away good equipment. But the more I think about it, the less I can justify spending time and money on bearing maintenance. It would be different if I enjoyed doing it, but I don't.

*The ones in Red Magic's that is. I think the ones in the Storm Surges were Twincam. Not much different.

[sxevegan]

It was for 4 people. I figure probably about $50 per set. Mine were some Bont Swiss that I bought about 4 or 5 years ago at Duluth. One skater had some brand new Bionic bearings (not sure how much those are). Another had Bones Swiss and another had Twin Cam ILQ-9. $200 was a rough guess.

They are probably just about as good now as the $1 bearings. In my opinion, even when new any bearing is only about as good as the $1 bearings anyway. It was cheaper to clean them, and I didn't have much else to do in the hotel room while the rest of my team was napping.

[bjvircks]

Originally Posted by bjvircks

... When expecting rain I travel with a sealable small glass jar containing mineral spirits. After race I pull bearings and rinse well to get water and grit out.

today I'm rummaging thru stuff trying to find my boot rain-covers

well... after having said the above... I drove off to Duluth and left the jar sitting BESIDE the car rather than IN the car. On the way out of town I spent 30 minutes in the Menards parking lot rinsing bearings with a new can of WD40. Talk about bonehead move!

[shafeeqs]

Originally Posted by bjvircks

hey shafeeqs! good race time! If you are the guy on the course I'm thinking of... WOW! Seems you skated the race ALONE?

Hmm, based on the times, we must've seen each other somewhere in the last mile.

Thankfully, I only skated the first 2-3 miles alone, had at least a 3 person pack the rest of the way. Finished in 1:28, with the Combined leaders who caught us just before the climb to I35. A single storm surge on each heel wheel seemed to be enough grip on asphalt, but not on all concrete. Sprinting up the off-ramp was fine, but accelerating again on the overpass was tough, which made me fear the final corner would be the same, so I chickened out and slowed way down for it, so probably lost 30 seconds in the last 1/2 mile alone.

Looks like the fastest A2 was 80s faster so I definitely could've done that if I didn't have to do as much pulling. There were maybe 5 people in A3 who could've done the same if we'd all gotten in one breakaway and were a bit smarter about not wasting effort. Given the conditions, I figured the safest place to be was out front, so I took off for the first 1/4 mile, intending to back off and wait the main pack to form up and come past me. But there's a videographer standing in the _middle_ of the road by the car dealership, so I supposed I should try to try to look good and keep pushing until I get past him, which gets me a much bigger lead than I'd intended. Two skaters caught up 2-3 miles in, the main pack about 5 miles in. But they seemed to slow down a bit, and the bridge with the diagonal metal plate led to enough chaos that I started to think about when to get away. Apparently the other two felt the same because they took off the next time the pack slowed on an uphill. That was a tough place to accelerate, so only myself and a Texan who'd made the same wave selection error I did went with them. That's right for competition, but a softer breakaway might have gotten a couple more people to share the work later and cost less effort. At least one person jumped in with Wave C later, so clearly fast enough to have gone with us.

Thanks for the vaseline tip, Jimmy, I only lost 4 bearings, which seems reasonable. Didn't have time to do any cleaning before leaving for the 2nd leg of my doubleheader weekend - the final 6 hours of the Montreal 24h on Sunday.

Yes, that was as crazy an idea as it sounds. The wind wasn't as bad as last year, but if it wasn't for all the teams that seemed happy to let me wheel suck, it would've been uttely miserable. My legs felt not bad after Northshore, but the biggest problem that I didn't eat all that much after the race on Saturday, and overslept and missed breakfast on Sunday, so bonked about 4 hours in. I can't imagine how the true 24h solos keep up with the calorie requirements.

[a-cut-above]

2:07:17 for this first timer. Rain stopped as Rec Wave 3 bus neared the start. Road was wet but not soaked. I did get sprayed by "rooster tails" for the first few miles. No falls. Made friends and even drafted a little (beginner level stuff). Bearings on first and second wheels "frozen"; lesson learned about bearing maintenance after skating in the rain. I need to work on maintaining form when fatigue sets in. That will be my training goal along with finishing under two hours. I beat my personal goal of finishing under 2:30. I had a blast, met new people, and signed up for next year after the race. I can't wait for next year's NSIM. Thank you all for the advice and encouragement.

[bjvircks]

plot of headcount/finish times

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz...VZieW9mX2tMNms


edit: not directly viewable in this posting... courtesy of Photobucket charging $400


edit #2: OK... broke down and went to tinypic (OHBOY... not so tiny!)

[blizzard77]

That graph include both men's & women's times?

(I couldn't go this year. Family stuff. Signed up for next year.)

[bjvircks]

yes, it does have both... but does not include 'combined'

edit: here is MEN ONLY

[shafeeqs]

Thanks for doing the legwork!

I'm surprised at the number of fast-ish people in rec waves. Outperform their expectations, or a deliberate choice? At least one appears to have done both half & full (not combined) so maybe they didn't want to hurry back for an earlier wave.

[shafeeqs]

As far as I can tell from a quick look at the results, the first finisher from each wave in 2018:

Wave,Split,Finish
A1, 34:44, 1:08:19
A2, 38:41, 1:17:21
A3, 36:38, 1:13:04
C, --:--, 1:09:15
R1, 38:25, 1:17:04
R2, 41:22, 1:23:02
R3, 41:54, 1:23:50

The guy in A3 appears to have been completely solo and C was a pair.