Catching up with April

Blog Update

Zio's MV e-gravel bike

April? Who is April? Is she related to Art?, Nah, but how long has it been since this blog's been updated? That's too long!

March was hell. Heather went to Greece to do some academic projects after our 35th wedding anniversary celebration in Rome while Zio Lorenzo went back home and enjoyed riding his bike...until he didn't.

Why? Turns out he was having some sort of A-FIB issues. By the time Heather came back he could barely make it up the stairs! WTF? We turned on Zio's fitness tracker's warning feature and sure enough, it showed A-FIB. Yikes! Kind of explains a few things, like back when he first bought the MV bike he couldn't get out of his own way a time or two, but a few days of rest seemed to fix it. Same problem?

Not this time! An appointment was made with a private cardio doc and some tests run. Doc wanted more tests so we had those done too. All this privately at amazingly low cost compared to the USA's so-called healthcare system. A short-term monitoring gizmo was installed as well. Results made doc want more tests so we did those too.

Some meds were prescribed along with follow-up visit, but Zio again was so tired he could barely make it up the stairs OR even do a short bike ride down to fill the drinking water bottles. WTF? A call to the doc who says come to ER now, so we called a taxi rather than a noisy ambulance.

ER docs take a look and say "CODE RED!" Yikes! Needles and tubes follow along with EKG, etc. before he's admitted to the hospital's cardio ward. Next day they decide to shock him, sort of a "CTRL-ALT-DEL" thing where they sort-of turn you off, then back on again, hoping the restart will put things back in order. Not fun and afterwards they weren't satisfied it had worked.

So it's ablation time! If you've read The Haywire Heart you know the drill: They shove a sort-of medical soldering iron up into your heart through an artery in your leg and burn the short-circuits there that cause the A-FIB, all while you lay there semi-awake on the table. Not fun.

After two hours of torture they said they'd found and fixed things. Zio's outta the hospital the next day, noting the cost of having this done in the USA system is $25-$100K. Yikes!

Now that it's April finally he's been back on the shopping bike and yesterday on the sporty bike (the one in the photo) for a hour of low-effort fun. Woo and hoo!

This weekend's Paris-Roubaix so a bit of his own riding and watching others in the Hell of the North do their own. Updates as time goes by, so watch this space.

The 6th Monument?

Strade Bianche 2025

Above: photo from our first visit to the race

Today the real racing season is almost ready to start, maybe it is starting with this tasty appetizer?

But not everyone is happy with the current route. Read THIS to see. And here's ANOTHER.

Why do Anglo-Saxons always seem set on "fixing" things Italian? They don't like:

"I saw dead bodies everywhere. I have no words – it was like an old-school race, truly hardcore. At 140 kilometers, everyone was already dead. Normally, the race would have been 185 kilometers, but we still had 75 more to go.” Tom Pidcock in 2024

Seems to Zio Lorenzo that pro cycling thrives on ideas like those - though these daze they don't actually DO stuff like that so much...if they can avoid it.

What do you think? We've gone to see it live, in-person 4-5 times (each time is noted on the blog but Zio didn't go back and count) and never miss it on TV.  Should it be added to the 5 monuments? Probably not, let's just leave it as an epic race that most riders would love to win during their career while the whiners and hack journo's...whine.

Highlights from the race HERE if you missed it.

On the other hand, one of these clowns does have a colleague who knows what he's talking about. 

 

Home Improvement

 Art in the House

"Who is Art, and why is he in your house?" We mean this kind of art.

Art like this

And this

On the walls of our kitchen

Made by this guy.

We'd seen his work all over the island and said over and over, "Someday we'll get him to make something for our house."

A few weeks back we walked past his studio and saw the door open, so in we went to find him painting a wine barrel. Heather explained what we wanted, which were strips like in the photos to put on our kitchen walls. We'd seen other examples but he had nothing on-hand.

We asked about painting boards we brought and he said no problem and even told us where to buy some and how much to pay!

After a recent storm we'd seen some driftwood washed-up just below his studio, so we dragged him outside to look down there, asking if some driftwood like that would be OK?

"Sure, but I'M not going down there to get it!" was his reply. We waited for the sea to calm down a few days later and went down there ourselves, dragging 3 pieces back to his studio only find it closed. Someone told him foreigners had come by with pieces of wood and since he had our phone # from our first visit, we soon got a call to bring them over.

A week later he was calling to say they were ready. And now they're on the walls.

Grazie, FIORE!

Why not?

 BEFORE and AFTER

We bought these cheap footstools a decade ago while shopping for stuff to set up an apartment we leased here in Sicily. The poor things have been moved/stored and beat-up ever since, including being recovered with cheap colored packing tape when the inexpensive vinyl covering faded or flaked off as you can see above.

We looked for replacements all over, but there were none to be found, so we asked around about getting 'em recovered locally. Our friends HERE who have made some custom leather bits for us over the years suggested we try a local place, Caschetti Tendaggi, so Zio rode his shopping bike over there with the top photo to see if they would recover 'em?

"Of course!" was their reply so over the course of a couple of days the two were delivered. Two weeks later we hopped on the shopping bikes so we could bring both back in one trip. We're pretty happy with the way they turned out and how simple it was to get done.

Wax on...wax off.

 Wax on...wax off.

Paraffin wax is obtained from petroleum by dewaxing light lubricating oil stocks. It is used in candles, wax paper, polishes, cosmetics, and electrical insulators.

Zio thought this was interesting. Regular blog readers have read his questions about the wax-cult and their claims about insane longevity of chains when wax is used instead of oil. Now a major chain maker is selling 'em pre-waxed and claims all ya gotta do is use the drip lube they sell. Just wipe the chain with a clean cloth they say and you're good to go. More details here.

Zio asked the "L. Ron Hubbard" of the wax-cult for his thoughts. I guess it should have been no surprise that "Friction Fiction" went off on a rant about how removing/degreasing/boiling your chain in wax is the greatest thing ever and anyone who questions this is a moron, or in his words - a "flat earther". We'll note here that NO chain or component maker that Zio knows of recommends removing your chain for cleaning, let alone taking all the original lubricant off and boiling it in wax. Most seem to warn against removing the chain except to replace it with a new one.

And let's not forget a chain (like a tire or brake pad) is a "service-item" that has a lifespan and should be replaced when it gets to its service-limit. Chain makers give a elongation measurement for replacement, saying if you exceed it you risk damaging other drivetrain components.

Zio's guess is if one could buy a pre-waxed chain and maintain it simply by wiping and dripping on some of the same wax, "Friction"s sales of bags o'wax pellets, etc. would probably tank, right?

But it got Zio to thinking about this more, ending up here for some comparisons taken from "Friction"s own website.

Zio notes the top performing drip lube in the "cost per run" charts is a product* that sells for $7.50 an ounce! Yep, ONE ounce! While the "cost per run" may not be as good as the immersive waxing scheme, Zio's not gonna bother doing that so he didn't bother with the chart showing those results.

But it makes him wonder how a drip lube that costs 68 cents an ounce and so far (3000+ kms) has netted 0 wear on a new 13 speed chain would rate? 

But Zio's guess is "Friction" will NEVER test MOBIL 1 SHC 75/90 because it's not marketed as a chain lube and would quite likely put a big dent in his entire wax-cult program. And as noted above, don't forget WAX comes from petroleum so the cultists who insist it's all so environmentally-friendly vs a few drops of oil on your chain are pulling-your-leg.

Finally, there's the issue of WHAT is the economy here? A new 12 speed chain sells for around $50** online. So if you double the life of yours you're saving $50, right? Triple the life and you save $100. But if you have to spend $50 on a bag o' wax + $100 on a "system" to boil your chain in wax + solvent and maybe ultrasonic cleaning equipment to take the grease off before you can do the waxing, not to mention the time involved with it all - WHERE is the savings vs just dripping some oil on now and then and cleaning the drivetrain when you wash the bike?

It's hard for ol' Zio not to see this as one of those "Save $ by buying my expensive stuff" schemes even if the claims of chain longevity are 100% true and accurate, but as they say "your results may vary".

* To be fair, this product's maker claims it contains no petroleum products, the "wax" is made from plant materials.

**Friction claims "We have cassettes at 700+ (my t-type xxsl is $1100 aud), chains are now up to 260 aud ($150+) for a t-type xxsl. Chain rings like sram red with integrated power meter can be 1500 to $2000aud+" which may well be true, but it kind of illustrates the stupidity of "saving money by using my expensive products" and makes Zio wonder what these people are doing that justifies this kind of expense? He remembers back-in-the-day special aluminum freewheels and titanium chains, but those were "world record attempt" limited-use things. Friction certainly knows his customers better than Zio and maybe they're happy spending this kind of dough and his immersive waxing regimen seems cheap in comparison?

RIP Gianni Savio

 RIP Gianni Savio

Savio (R) with Heather and Paolo Alberati (L)

You almost couldn't watch a race in Italy on TV and not see Gianni Savio if his team was in the race! Somehow the TV camera always caught him around the finish area, often holding up the arm of one of his riders who had won the race.

A dear friend of ours from Bergamo worked for various Savio teams over the years and Giacomo found us at Letour where he was working for a combo team with 3 of Gianni's ZG riders combined with some from Telekom. We marveled at the less-than-top-tier equipment they had, laughing that our tour guests had better equipment but certainly not high-quality legs!

Here's a great obituary for Savio.And our blog post from the last time we saw him is here.

RIP Savio. A guy who certainly put sport before commerce!

Catching Up 2025

 Wow, is it 2025 already?

As they say, time flies when you're having fun? No blog post for almost a month?

OK, so let's catch up: Day after Xmas we caught a plane to Rome. Capitoline Museum and great food for a day before we got on a flight from Rome to Los Angeles. 14 hours! AGGHHHHH!

Visit with Heather's family while Zio got to visit some friends at family south of Santa Barbara

Sadly, Tony Bonello, Zio's long-time friend (above) wasn't there anymore. He'd passed away the very morning Zio showed-up looking for him at his pizza joint.

RIP Tony

We spent New Year's Eve in Santa Barbara and we're back in Sicily now, Heather's got an academic conference going while we both recover from flying 9 time zones west followed by 9 time zones east...all in barely a week!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!