Frothing problems

Dear reader(s) :-)

Well, the blog is called bikes and COFFEE for a reason :-) I like coffee!

I had recently a problem that drove me crazy for a while until I was given the simplest solution ever! So simple and so obvious that if you already know it you go "REALLY???"!!

I'll put some information in German also, so people searching in german can find it also. Actually the idea here is to registered the solution and make it available to as much people as possible, because I couldn't find this solution anywhere!!!

So! I had a small AEG/Electrolux Cremapresso EA 250. Which was having hiccups. Like in the morning it would not turn on (nicht einschalten). You needed to unplug it for 15-20 minutes and try again ... this is a known problem, according to the AEG/Electrolux technical assistance. I shipped it back to them for repair and got it replaced by a Cremapresso EA 260.

The new machine worked perfectly until a couple of weeks ago, when the milk frothing pipe (milk frothing stick, milk frothing tube, milchschäumer ...) stopped frothing! Loud, very loud vibration noise, but not froth!!

Cleaned to the bone, no effect. Tried to "fine tune" the position of the tube, and nothing would do. Testing the machine, everything was fine. Coffee was coming, hot water for tea also, the milk was getting heated while the frothing would fail, so nothing wrong with the machine itself, just no froth.

Called the local technical assistance (Trepesch in Nürnberg) and their technician called me back. Heard my problem and gave me the neatest solution. The frothing tube, has a small hole (which I have never EVER noticed before, see picture below) and it was probably blocked. Got home, found the hole, unblocked it and ... voila!! Froth was back to my milk!!!!

The coffee machine is not out of this world, but does the job and was a gift, so GREAT! :-)

I hope this helps someone else!!

Renewing the MTB

Oh my god! It's been two years!!! (though the post will be dated retroactively, for completeness sake, today is July 17th, 2011).

That day (June 28th, 2009) I finished to "re-do" my mountain bike. I actually started to write a post about it back then that I never finished (shame on me :-) ), but sure I'm gonna use most of it here hehehehehe.

This bike has a long story. I bought it in January 2004, right after I came back to cycling, basically it is mostly its fault :-)

I had bought a simpler bike before, just to see "how it would be" and after 2 months I changed it to this one.

The frame was the only 20" frame I could find in town, for an affordable price. A Caloi Elite 27, made in Brazil. It was on this friend's store and he had also a simple long course front suspension and a full group and parts to it, all in an affordable price.

Great! I had a reasonable bike and managed to evolve quite quickly with it.

Soon I've got a better front suspension. A Pro Shock 100mm. Simple, with elastomers, made in the city (only suspension's factory in the country, that I know).

Changed the front derailleur for a STX RC, perfect gear, never fails.

At the end of 2004 I brought the bike to Germany and it has served very well since then, but there was no further big maintenance.

So! After a long time I decided to renew my MTB. More the 3000 km and the same transmission and almost 2000 km from the last revision (since the total cleaning before packing it for the big flight)!

Chain was waaaay gone, the middle crank (32T) was gone and the cassette I was not sure, but at the end it was really gone, though I tried to save it.

Thought about changing the whole transmission, upgrading it to a 9-speeds, but that would imply a full crank set change and also a back wheel, that would make me change the front one also ... the price of doing that would be more than we paid for Fernanda's new 9-speeds bike (ok, no Mavic wheels, but they do the trick). So, just changing what needs to be changed.

Also new tires, for MTB not semi-MTB tires, since the use now is MTB and no longer MTB/road/city.

It took me a couple of months to do the whole thing, changing parts, disassembling the whole bike and reassembling it. A professional does it in an afternoon :-))


First wheels, the back one had 2 or 3 cracked nipples, that required a professional to do the job and also I don't really like to true wheels, it takes too much time to leave them the way I like. So a professional was a great time-result-price relation.

Anti-flat band, new tubes and new tires.

Hubs needed servicing. I hate finding the right point for cone bearings hehehehehehe but I managed. Careful cleaning, nothing lost. The tracks are a bit worn but they will survive until the rim gets too old and I need a new wheel set anyway.

Freehub serviced, as much as possible, Shimano freehubs are not meant for servicing. It's clean and working, but now bearings cleaning and greasing.

Chain gone, crank set out, derailleurs and breaks out. Didn't touch levers and shifters (too much work to find the right position afterwards). Drive train was left alone, I was not feeling any problem there. Also the bottom bracket was left alone.



Washed the frame, cleaned all the parts (derailleurs and breaks), lubricated, placed back with new break shoes . Derailleur pulleys also needed replacement, got a pair with sealed bearings, and middle crank replaced also. Crank set back, chain ... pedals needed servicing also.

Yep, not trivial, also not really meant for servicing. I like my Wellgo WAM-M919 pedals, so I tried to save them. Not easy to have a cone bearing with a locking nut where you can place wrenches to lock them ... after some trials, some that locked my pedal and left the other side loose, I guess I managed using a small plier and a clamp and a bit of glue.

Pedals back, new cables for everyone, tuning, all accessories back and ready.


First ride showed cassette really needed replacement, some gears where jumping, and pedals were as I said before (that was before the glue, I guess I tried it a couple of times before the desperate measure). More servicing and back to the road with new cassette. 15 km ride, left pedal still locking, and gears and breaks need fine tuning due to cable stretching.


After the trial I also got the courage and tools to open and revise the suspension. Nothing major, just grease and chance some elastomers and it was fine. It was never an amazing suspension, but it was always good enough and reliable.


After the bike was revised and tuned we went on vacations, a nice trip to cycle with my family in south France and north Spain.

The trip was great and revising the bike was a lot of fun!!

I miss the basement of my old apartment!!!

Garmin Training Center and EDGE 705

GPS is pretty cool for cycling. It tells you the grades of your usual climbs, all the information about your ride (speed, cadence, where have you been) and allows you to collect this information in a organized fashion and compare rides.

Garmin EDGE 705 has a barometer inside, so it should get altitude information from it and from satellites (minimum of 3) and check that. I don't know what happens, but every time I go out for a ride I leave home in a "different altitude". So its the only instrument which you go for a round trip and come back to the same place, but some floors higher or lower than you left hehehehehehe You can see that in the figure below :-)) Usually the altitude of arrival is the same, so I assume it's the right one :-)))

Hint for Garmin users.

Garmin Training center, is up to now a nice tool to use. The info is that it doesn't work properly in other languages than English (at least not in portuguese - I tried).

It gives no information about cadence, so you have to install the version in english, what is not trivial since the installer finds out your computer's language and do it automatically.

I wrote Garmin about it and they gave me the information below, which I couldn't find in their website before (they promised me they would put it there now, but I didn't check).

Follows their e-mail:

This is a known issue with non-English language versions of Training
Center. This is currently being worked on by our software engineers, and
I apologise for any inconvenience caused, but in the mean time you can
run the software in English to solve this problem. To do this, please
follow the instructions below:

Please locate the following file:

C:\Garmin\TrainingCenterPTB.dll (you can find this via My Computer)

Click on this file and press Delete on the keyboard. When you next run
Training Center it should run in English and may work correctly. As I
mentioned, we are looking for a more permanent solution to this and will
let you know as soon as we have one.

More than one year after :-)

I'm back here, not abandoned, but left resting this blog. Now I'll try to be here more often!

The last year was not exactly a good year in terms of training and sports in general. It was a very complicated year. As I said on the last post, last year, a baby at home and working 600 km away from home is not exactly an easy task.

Matheus, my son, is a great kid, the kind of kid that makes you feel how lucky you are! Since every he sleeps the whole night, except for some phases where he starts to wake up in the middle of the night or doesn't want to sleep, even though he can barely stand and so on ... none of those phases lasted longer than a couple of weeks.

Working in Munich and living in Göttingen was very complicated, despite having an easy kid at home and a good boss that didn't care if I only show up one each two weeks.

About sports, well, I didn't race the Tour d'Energie, as I told before and also didn't race the "innerstadt race" (a urban 800m circuit race, criterium like). Training was a difficult thing also due to this time sharing family/work. The week I was in Munich, Fernanda had to stay alone with Matheus and I tried to rest and be as efficient as possible at work and in the following week, I tried to take as much care of Matheus as possible, so that Fernanda could rest and work, so that training got as a secondary thing. Other sports like running, climbing and skating got 100% left behind.

To try to cycle as much as possible I took my race bike to Munich and bought a new one to leave in Göttingen. So not having a bike wasn't an excuse anywhere!

This time I tried to be more "professional" on the bike. So no triple dish, a double compact 50/34 dish with a 11-27 in the back to compensate not having a 30 in the front. No need to compensate the missing 52 in the front since I'm not "that fast" :-))) Light aluminum frame (carbon is still too expensive and too much for my poor legs), Shimano Ultegra 10-speed, to be more up to date and to have better results, not that the previous 105 were bad.

A Trek 1.9 with Bontrager wheels. Cool bike!

(see the photo!)

The Munich region is flat ... flat flat flat ... you can see the Alps, but you need a train to get there (or a car) and the only altitude changes around is passing above or below the "Autobahns" (german motorways), so speed would be the focus there, and in Göttingen trying to do a bit more non-flat training ... Germany is a flat country.

Within working late and taking Matheus to the babysitter and the LOUSY summer of 2008 and some injuries, mostly caused by the lack of sport and a kid getting heavier everyday you can imagine how efficient training was ...

One thing I tried a couple of times was taking Matheus to the babysitter and go straight to the road, or come from the road already to pick him up, as you can see below ...

I did what I could :-)

Then it gets colder and you still don't have time or the oportunity to train indoor ... since it's impossible to do it with Matheus awake, actually it's dangerous since he wants to touch everything!

Also I had some contract problems (basically the funding agency decided not to renew it, since ESO, the institute that was hosting me is suppose to have a lot of money, so they don't have to pay another post-doc there and then they put lame scientific excuses to justify it ... ) so we decided to try a permanent position in Brazil, good chance, positions in the same university (yeah, living in the same city!!!), months of preparation for the examination (yes, we have examinations for professor positions in Brazil - written, didactics ...), that represent no training AT ALL. Well, the exams didn't go so well, I'm happy a good and dear friend's got the position.

This year I didn't race the Tour d'Energie, again, no training (same reason as last year) and we came back from Brazil two days before it ... I took some nice pictures of the arrival, I'll make a post about it soon ...

Then I decided to start my season, doing basis in MAY!! Now I'm still trying it, but my back injury is back ... and I'm still fighting with the bike sit. Got a San Marco SKN Pro Titanium, with leather cover ... too hard ... too professional for me :-) Then I've got a Selle Italia Flite Gel Flow ... a bit better, still getting used to it :-)

I'm back to gym also!!

We went to Italy to see (among other things) the arrival of the 13th stage of the Giro d'Italia! It was VERY COOL!!!! I'll post about it with pictures later on ...

To make life funnier and freakier I've got myself a bike GPS! A Garmin Edge 705! It's very funny!!!

But the year was not a total waste on sports! Since the end of 2007 I'm writing a column in a brazilian cycling website, from the VO2Max Magazine. The column is in portuguese, and it can be found at the "Prologo" website.

This year the column also started to appear on the printed magazine, pretty cool! :-))

I'll try to translate/adapt some of the material and post it here sometimes!

Also we started a podcast about cycling (also in portuguese) the "Radio Corsa". Also pretty cool and funny!! In this podcast we basically talk about anything and everything we think is nice on cycling ... it's starting, but it will go on!

Also renewed my MTB!! That's also for another post!

Finally!

Finally weather and my time conspired and I was able, yesterday, to ride on the road for the first time this year.

Due to personal reasons, like a new born at home and new job 600 km away from home, training is being a difficult thing, lately. Even in the rolling trainer is being difficult. Anyway, I hope I can get back on track now.

Yesterday also was the Tour d'Energy, that I didn't race this year, since I was not training for it (should have started in January, not yesterday hehehehe). A friend asked me "why don't you go, just for the fun" (as if I was competing for the first place last year hehehehe) and the reply was "2 category 3 climbs are not funny if you're not in a minimum physical shape, they are suffering" :-)

Today is sunny also, let's see if I can go out at the end of the day.

Year summary post?? hehehehehe

Long time without posting here ... almost the whole year!!! :-)))

A lot has happened in those months!!! I'll try to update it now!!

About sports: Just making a "previously in Bikes'n'Coffee"

The winter was quite mild and I managed to be quite regular in the in-door training, despite the constant colds. Didn't managed to ski (no snow at all) and the climbing was quite left to the side (too many options and a new "way of life").

End of April I took part at the III Tour d'Energy, got a much better result than last year, finished in 3:02:24, more that 20 minutes faster than last year and with a much better race itself. Technically better, managed to get more wheels and to lead more people on my wheels, actually at the last 10 km a group gathered and we rode in a group on a very nice way! Also didn't suffered so much on the climbs (there are two class 3 mountains), was going much better than the people around me, but gotta learn how to downhill faster. It was interesting the ride along two other guys. Before the first mountain we were riding together, when the climb started I left them behind, going down they passed me. Then we met again before the second climb, same thing, left them behind going up, they left me behind going down ...

The weather was great. Last year I was wearing winter clothes, this year I was with shorts and T-Shirt. It was really summer on spring. Of course the weather changed and we really feel like summer happened that month and then it all felt like fall was already upon us in May.

The result of the race was great and I had a lot of fun. Considering also that I twisted my ankle 4 days before the race, but it was OK by the weekend.

After that got another cold took me out of training and the lousy weather was keeping me home, to that the summer was quite bad for out-door sports. I'm very reluctant to get a road bike on a rainy day and don't like to mountain bike alone. Both are quite dangerous situations to be alone in case of accident and the lack of a cycling partner is a major issue ...

Going on with the road cycling, until September the trainings happened in the possible time, when weather and "life" allowed. The major point of the year, that also prevented part of the training part is that I'm gonna be father at the end of January, so that the pregnancy requires more attention and care, even though I'd blame it all on the weather. In September things got a bit more complicated when we moved to a new flat, traveled to Brazil for a month and in the rest of the time I couldn't find a good weather day that I didn't had something else to do related to Matheus arrival or to the new flat :-)))

Also the city criterium, that I took part last year, happened exactly the day I was moving to the new flat, so that moving in the morning and racing in the afternoon wouldn't be a very good combination hehehehehe

Also the city criterium, that I took part last year, happened exactly the day I was moving to the new flat, so that moving in the morning and racing in the afternoon wouldn't be a very good combination hehehehehe

Managed last weekend to go for about one our on the road in a sunny but cold morning. I'd be disappointed with my performance if I was not "used" to the decrease you get after 3 months stopped heheheheNow is time to get convinced that is too cold for the road, put the old back time and do in-door training.

Still on road cycling, in the trip back to Brazil I was visiting a friend that works on a cycling magazine and was invited to do an on-line column (at www.prologo.com.br) every 15 days on my impressions on cycling. The first issue, a review of cycling in 2007, written in 3 parts, was on-line the November, 15th. The second part should be about to show up. That will be a cool thing to do!

"Impressões sobre Ciclismo"

Mounting bike was even worst that road this year :-)) Got the bike a couple of times to train and one very nice day I went with 3 friends to a ride in the mountains. That was cool. More MTB can happen this year yet, if I can convince any of those friends to ride before it snows.Barely no in-line skating due to the constant wet floor and to my constant lack of time!!

About climbing. I enjoyed doing bouldering, we had a pretty nice group that was meeting twice a week, at night, in the winter, then on summer it got a bit more loose. Than last year they closed our free bouldering place and opened a paid vertical climbing + bouldering. Of course the vertical called all our attention. Equipment, curses and fun last fall and part of the winter. But then, of course, the individual aptitudes to the sport showed up and the "levels spread".

On the bouldering that has no influence, but on vertical it means changing routes across the hall and since you need a second person to do your security, and the hall is usually full, routes moving can mean a lot of boring waiting. If you have a pair that wants to climb the same route, great because you get this route and alternate the two as much as you can. If to every climb you have to go back and forth in the hall, that's very boring.

Considering that I'm quite big and my "main sport" is cycling, so that most of my training time was being dedicated to that, everyone can imagine what happened, I stayed behind. That makes even more difficult to come back. Not that my friends refuse to climb with me, they are more than glad of doing it, but as I said it get boring for everyone :-)) Eventually I'll find someone to restart with, lets see.

Finally about skiing. Even though I couldn't use the equipment I've got last year due to the lack of snow. This year will be even more complicated. Before Matheus is borne, difficult because I better be around, aware that he can come any time. After he's borne Fernanda will need a lot of assistance, and I'll be there for both of them :-))

So that's the year summary for a pretty sport poor year, but that started very strong!!!

2007 already started!

A bit out of time to comment the begining of the year, a out of the normal year!

There was no snow during the winter!! Yep, that means there was no skiing also :-((( I really wanted to ski this year ...

That also means that the outdoor training started early ... yep, that's also true! Last year I got the bike on the road about mid march, this year ... about mid february and already warmer than last year!

Indoor training was a bit better this year, it was at home with my roller-trainer. Than I've got two strong colds to mess it all up, OF COURSE! :-)))

The last one, I'm still recovering from that ... 2 weeks knocked out ... 2 weeks without any kind of sports! I'll try to come back tomorrow, in a light fashion.

Tomorrow's come back will have to be indoor, since today it started to snow!! YEP! SNOW!! When the spring arrive and you start getting in the summer (warmer weather) mood and is already over the "I couldn't ski this year crisis" the snow arrives!!!! :-)))

Let's see how it get's to the weekend. If there's snow in the mountains around here ... LET'S SKI!!!! :-))))

I'll be racing April the 29th, at our traditional 80km race. So, training is focused on that! After that, I'll get back to climbing and skating too (just got climbing once this year!).

So, let's 2007 start!!!!!!

Cycling in 2006

Cycling in 2006!

This was an important year for road cycling, didn't follow much the MTB, it also marked a different year in my personal cycling, more pointed towards road than MTB. Not that I changed my preferences, I like them both, but I got a road bike this year so it tasted more like "new toy" kind of stuff :-)

Back to the professionals!

First year without Lance, even though he was only racing the tour and the preparatory races to it, it was weird not seeing him there.

The "Operacion Puerto" shacked the whole scenario of road with a doping scandal and preventively suspending one day before the beginning of the tour: Jan Ulrich on his "promised year", the first without Lance Armstrong, Ivan Basso, who after winning the Giro in a very brave fashion, was one of the favorites and the whole Team Astana (previously Liberty Seguros - Wurth).

After this whole mess, Landys wins the tour and is accused of doping in his phoenix style rebirth at the 17th stage, after the terrible stage where he lost time enough to all the specialists to say his tour was over. Now he's defending himself also based on some mistakes the tour organizers and the UCI made during his prosecution.

The black mark on all this is that only the riders are being punished, actually "pre-punished", since the investigation still didn't prove anything against anyone.

The riders supposably involved in the "Operacion Puerto" are all suspended, even though most of them were already cleared by their own federations. That is the case of Basso, who signed with Discovery Channel and the other ProTour teams are trying to prevent him from racing, even threatening to exclude the DSC from the ProTour.

On the other hand, Manolo Saiz, who's in the very heart of the whole scandal got back his ProTour license and is puttinga new team there. So, riders get pre-punished, directors keep their privileges and do whatever they wanna do, making clear who runs the whole thing.

In my personal opinion, while the directors and physicians don't get punished, only riders, the doping problems will always be an issue. Not that the riders are not guilty, but not the only ones.

Bright side of the year.

Victory of Basso in the tour, the amazing duel between Vinokurov and Valverde in the Vuelta and the great year of Paolo Bettini.

Never been a fan of Bettini, but this year I became. Always had a bad impression of his behaviour, too conceded for my taste, but all I saw this year was "good behaviour", with the fans,with the press, with the other riders. He's got the sprinter jersey (maglia ciclamino - my favorite) in the Giro, got the World championship in a impressive victory against Erik Zabel, and had a good performance in all the other races. According to him, he already won all he wanted in cycling! I got impressed with his victory in the first stage of the Giro 2005, with avery well calculated attack taking Petacchi and the Fassa Bortolo train totally out of action!!

Of course Valverde, who won the ProTour white shirt as first inthe ProTour Ranking and finished third in the World championship.

For further comments I'd remark the terrible year of Petacchi with the fall in the Giro that broke his knee cap and after with the stupid angry punch that broke his finger in the Vuelta. I really hope he recovers mentally to the next year, he's still my favorite sprinter! I had the pleasure of being in the finish line when he won the Niedersachsen Rundfahrt (Tour of Lower Saxony, the region I live in Germany), actually he won 5 out of 5 stages!

Another good performances were the one from Carlos Sastre, who helped Basso to win the Giro, and had good performances at the Tour and Vuelta. 2007 he's the CSC captain! And Pereiro, the second place in the tour (winner if Landys get banned), even though some friends think it was a careless move of the peloton! Least but not last, Zabel in his almost retiring year, he's gonna stay one more year to be world champion :-)

So! That's my biased view of the whole thing, the view of someone that's just starting to appreciate that sport, hoping that 2007 will be a cleaner and more organized year to the sport! Also hoping for the best regarding our brasilian riders, at leastfor Pagliarini and Fisher!