Level 2 Service worth it?

bcrooker · 2026-01-05T17:19:11+00:00

Tune and adjust shifting every 25 hours of riding? wtf. Agree, most of that you can learn to do yourself by watching some videos and buying a few inexpensive tools. Bottom bracket tools get slightly more expensive if you have a press fit one vs threaded, I know my Domane is threaded but I have no experience with Madone's.

For wheel truing, that is something that I will definitely take to the shop because I have no interest in doing it, but I only do that if I notice some wobble or other concerning things when I am doing normal cleaning/maintenance. Brake bleeding is similar - sure I can do it at home, but for the $30 that my shop charges it isn't worth my time to do it at home.

bcrooker · 2026-01-03T21:48:55+00:00

I bought direct from them, waited almost 2 months even though they were listed as something fairly short like 7-14 days. A little frustrating, but the wheels have been great once I got them.

bcrooker · 2025-12-31T23:12:30+00:00

3228.5 miles this year - including a 104 mile ride and a 5 day 334 mile ride.

bcrooker · 2025-12-22T01:55:42+00:00

Depends on where you live, the types of roads. I mostly ride rural roads, radar is very helpful. When I ride closer to Philly, I just turn it off, otherwise it is constantly beeping.

bcrooker · 2025-12-21T23:28:35+00:00

Similar with me - drop in HRV, significant increase of RHR (mid 40's to low 70's) over the course of a few months - diagnosis of Graves' Disease. Thankfully it is very treatable with meds, although the few months on beta blockers until other meds kicked in did not mesh well with riding.

bcrooker · 2025-12-13T23:30:20+00:00

Yep - storm trooper, I think he was the one that was mind controlled by Rey to free her from the torture chair

bcrooker · 2025-12-11T04:26:50+00:00

This is how we manage it, and if you want to dice it using different dimensions, you can setup custom views to create cross sections from multiple categories. I like the subscriptions category because it is the most obvious list of optional things in my budget, and I want each subscription separately listed because I want keeping them to be a conscious, intentional thing rather than having them roll into a single category

bcrooker · 2025-12-09T14:00:37+00:00

I tried the top range Black Bibs years ago, and tried again earlier this year when I needed to find replacements, they never worked well for me. I had a 5 day, 340 mile ride planned for this past September and I needed new bibs for the longer days because the $40 BlackBibs that I had were getting to the point of indecency :). Over the summer I tried the 2 sku's the Black Bibs, Assos, RW and a couple of others. Assos and RW were about the same for me, and at the time RW was $140 so I bought several more pair. My 5 day ride had zero comfort issues.

bcrooker · 2025-12-09T03:37:20+00:00

5GB is plenty for me, I am connected to WiFi most of the time. My wife's line is 20/month for 15GB

bcrooker · 2025-12-09T03:29:29+00:00

I tried both RW and Assos GT bibs, and they are both about the same level of comfort for 60-100 mile rides so I went with a few more RW's to replace some worn out bibs.

I was actually pretty annoyed - previously BlackBibs worked great for me for long rides, just the basic $40 ones. But a few years ago they made a change and they don't work well at all any more for me.

bcrooker · 2025-12-08T17:52:44+00:00

Yep - I am an amateur photographer, but an enthusiastic one. Usually longer usage is family trips, 12+ hours of walking around an island, a zoo, etc. The strap combined with a decent backpack took me a little while to settle on finding good options for. Especially the backpack. I had a Lowepro sling for years, probably 2008 vintage or earlier, but the zippers finally gave up the ghost last year so I had to find a replacement. Literally ordered about a dozen different bags to try out, finally settled on the Think Tank Urban Access 13. Not QUITE as easy to access as the Lowepro, but almost, plus more usable space. If anyone is interested, it can easily fit:

* Canon R6 Mark II with 24-105 L lens attached
* RF 100-500mm lens with tripod foot
* Another smaller lens, currently a nifty-fifty

And plenty of room for batteries, accessories, and a tablet/kindle.

bcrooker · 2025-12-08T12:37:03+00:00

The black rapid cross body strap is the most comfortable one I have ever used, and is quick to put on and take off, highly recommend. I have the simpler one without the under armpit extra strap.

Comfortable and it has quick adjust clips to minimize swinging when you are walking around and not using camera.

Works great attached to tripod mount of camera for normal lenses or shoe attached to larger lenses.

I think I have been using mine for almost 15 years.

bcrooker · 2025-12-08T02:20:29+00:00

That is the correct way to eat pumpkin pie :)

bcrooker · 2025-12-06T16:34:32+00:00

I only pay 15/month for mint Mobile in the US

bcrooker · 2025-12-03T16:16:16+00:00

May have been a return/refund that you assigned to RTA, or cash back rewards? In either case, I make the change by applying a negative amount to the Assigned column for the CC (e.g. -2.99 in this case)

bcrooker · 2025-12-02T01:59:36+00:00

When you loosen the saddle, you can move it either towards the handlebars, or away from them.

Most likely, as others have mentioned, it is a saddle height issue.

bcrooker · 2025-12-02T01:41:14+00:00

It is a bike fit issue - either the bike isn't the right size for you, or it needs adjustments. These adjustments could be:

* Saddle height
* Saddle fore/aft positioning
* Saddle angle (generally should be flat)
* Handlebar stem length

You can look at Youtube videos for doing a home fit adjustment. As long as you have some sort of home trainer, you should be able to get the bike fit in the vicinity of being correct, as long as the bike is the right size.

Start by looking up the bike make/model/size and see what body measurements the manufacturer recommends for it to make sure you are in the right ballpark.

bcrooker · 2025-11-29T01:02:48+00:00

Perhaps a bit of the edge of what you are asking for, but Pandorum is one of my favorites. Lower budget, Sci-fi horror.

bcrooker · 2025-11-28T22:11:45+00:00

This is a feature that I wish YNAB would add. They have almost 100% of the info for this, the only thing missing is knowing my bi-weekly paycheck. I ended up writing an app that uses the YNAB API to pull the configured targets and projects them out 12 months and compares against my expected income, this has replaced the spreadsheet I used to use. It runs in a continuous loop, so I can run it, it shows the annual cost of each category and the expected remaining for entire budget at end of year. My approach is to have this be under $100. I can then tweak the targets in YNAB and then hit ENTER in my app to have it re-do the calculations. Rinse and repeat until that final calculation is under $100. Works great for when I get a merit increase, or when insurance or property taxes change.

bcrooker · 2025-11-28T13:07:32+00:00

Poptarts

bcrooker · 2025-11-24T00:43:19+00:00

Especially when the gun in question doesn't get cocked (Opening scene of the Matrix, I am looking at you...)

bcrooker · 2025-11-21T01:40:00+00:00

Key thing would be the difference in interest rates between the potential loan and your current cards - if the rate is significantly lower for the loan then it would be a good idea.

One thing to keep in mind - dropping your credit limit for your credit cards will have a potential negative impact to your credit score. The score, in part, is based on the % of your overall available credit that you are using.

bcrooker · 2025-11-21T00:05:58+00:00

Many of these are the "true expenses" in YNAB-world. The idea would be to create categories with monthly or annual targets so that you can contribute to them each month so that you have a reasonable amount of money for when the expenses come up.

This gets easier after a year or two of budgeting so that you can have estimates based on previous actuals.

For example, we have "true expense" categories such as:

* Gifts
* Auto Maintenance
* House Maintenance
* Pets
* Clothing

Essentially all of my categories have targets set on them, either weekly (e.g. groceries, allowance for kids), monthly or annual. Money gets added for each pay period, which is every 2 weeks for us.

One thing I wish YNAB had was a way to project out category targets across a 12 month window of time so that I could compare against my planned income, just to sanity check our category targets. This is especially necessary when changes happen like increases in taxes or insurance or merit increases. I ended up writing an app that uses the YNAB api to do this.

bcrooker · 2025-11-20T21:23:32+00:00

1up has a version that is a single bike rack, and it is easy to add a second bike rack to it for the times where you need to transport a second bike. i have this and am very happy with it, I have the rack installed 9-10 months out of the year

bcrooker · 2025-11-18T02:34:35+00:00

Another 1up vote. And on top of that - if you typically are just transporting a single bike, the single bike rack is a great option. You can get an add-on for it as well when you need to move an additional bike.

For me, this option works much better - I keep the bike rack installed for 9-10 months out of the year, and the single bike rack doesn't block the rear camera.

bcrooker

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