Another Month and more exercising!

The Journey is on going.

I have been focusing on some of the things I have been having issues with recently. One of those things was the over eating again and not counting callories. I started doing that again and so far its been working out well. I have only lost 2 LBs so far but I know from prior weight loss that this is not a big deal. I also have been focusing on getting more of the exercising in than I had prior. It has been a bit of a colder winter and I do not mind getting dressed properly to go out in the cold but waking up and being tired and then having to get dressed to go out in the cold was causing me to not do it as much as I would like. I have been back to cycling almost every day again. The past 30 days I have done 250 miles of cycling and I am starting to feel good again. 

When I do not end up cycling in the morning or at least going for a walk I end up feeling more stressed and upset about things than I should. It taking less effort to get out there and ride my bike in the morning really does set me up for having a better day in terms of my mood throughout the day. There was a few days recently that I have skipped the morning ride and it was because my knee has been acting up again. There is a bit of pain when I do too much with it and oddly it goes away after I do more with it. I am sure that this is and injury that I should have checked out but its not stopping me from doing anything right now and its not so bad that I can't put pressure on it or anything like that. 

My main bicycle. 

I have been riding an Ozark Trail G.1 Explorer for a few years now. I was still waiting to see when it was going to break and I would have to buy a better bike. This still has not happened yet and I am a little supprised by this. I have had to replace things on it like tires and brakes but other than that its been a solid ride. I have put over 3,000 miles on it too. 

Yesterday I needed to change the brake pads again becuase they were just not stopping properly. After taking them off I saw they were worn down to almost nothing left and they were covered in grit and oils. The rotors were covered in this as well so I cleaned them off and put on new brake pads. I have new rotors I could put on there but they cleaned up nice and the new brake pads worked as I would expect them to. After testing things out I notice some grinding noises coming from the bike so I started trying to figure out what it was and came to a problem I don't have a good solution to yet. 

The freewheel on the back wheel is the thing that is grinding. More to that the dork disc is covered in grease and gravel. I figured its time to take it off it had not done anything for me in the past 3 years so I took the wheel off and attempted to take the freewheel out. I tried my normal method of using a very large bar and the freewheel removal tool but it was not moving. I then tried the heat gun and hammer trick I have used before and still it was not budging. I could not get it to shift at all and the way the dork disc is made I can't just cut it off and pull it out in peices. I am not sure exactly what to do at this point so I just put the wheel back on and made sure it works. I might end up cutting it with pliers and some other tools but that still leaves the problem of the grease and dirt that is stuck inside the freewheel that I wanted to clean out. I will really need to take that off to clean it but with it being so stuck I fear that its rusted on there and getting it off will end up causing more issues like having to replace the whole wheel. 

I figured these types of things would happen to this bike. I really do like it and would replace it if it was broken beyond repair but I would treat a newer one a bit better. This bike I would ride in the rain, snow, or through mud and not think about it. That is why there are lots of spots of rust and other minor issues with some of the components. I am going to take a deeper look at things on it this weekend but it still rides and is still safe so I might not change anything on it or attempt to take the freewheel off just yet. 

I am going end this entry here for now. I will be working on some other things such as my thoughts on cycling in general and with it comes some complaints and joys. I do not have things ready for that yet though as I want to get more photos so for now Thank you very much for reading! I hope you have a wonderful day!