Yearly Archives: 2017

Sprinter Shifters

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I was riding yesterday, messing with my position some.  It was pretty windy, like over 20mph and I was watching the power numbers on my Garmin while I tried different positions.

I don’t ride much on the drop bars.  I guess I should say historically, I don’t ride on the drops. Normally, my hands are on the shift/brake levers.  I’ve found, or maybe, more accurately, always thought I’m as aero with my hands on the levers as that on the drops.  It seems like when I’m on the drops, all I’m doing is exposing more forearm to the wind.

Anyway, the last couple years, I’ve been better on the drops.  I still wouldn’t normally climb on the drops, but I can ride long periods on them.  I was trying to think why that is.  And I came up with the answer that it is because of “sprinter shifters”.

Sprinter shifters are just small controls that you can mount anywhere on your handlebars that allow you to shift the rear derailleur easily.   Normally, they are mounted on your bars, below the brake levers, where your hand naturally sits, allowing you to use your thumbs to shift. The right shifter moves the rear derailleur down, to a harder gear, the left up, for an easier.

I never intended using sprinter shifters.  Wayne Stetina, Shimano, gave me a set and told me to try them.  At the time, I had no intention of putting them on.  But when I was building up my bike with new Di2, I thought to myself that I should mount them.  Usually when Wayne says something like they are important, he is usually right.

I had the shifters on for a while and didn’t really notice the change.  They didn’t jump out at me, but I found myself using them more and more.  When I started racing, I realized that they are super useful.  It is great having a full grip on your bars and still able to shift.  Great for criterium racing, but really they work in about all situations.

I only have these on my road bike, since I only have one pair and when I’ve been riding my cross bike on gravel, recently, I miss them.  I need to get a set for that bike too.

I’m rarely surprised about a “gimmick” bike part.  I tend to not even give them a try.  But these shifters are different. I’m very glad I have them.  It is enough reason in itself to ride Di2 electronic shifting.

You just mount them on your bars wherever your normal hand position is.

This is what it looks like on my bike. And yes, I probably need new bar tape.

If you want a climbing shifter, Shimano already has this to mount above the shifters for climbing. Or, you can just hack it as the video below shows.

 

Credit Card Fraud

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I’ve spent most of the morning on the phone with American Express concerning an email I received saying something about activating a new card for Linda Smith.  It wasn’t my card number on the email and I thought that it was a fishing expedition. But, I decided to call American Express anyway, just to make sure nothing weird was going on.

As it turned out, they did issue a card connected to my account for Linda Smith.  Also for Irene somebody too.  So, the guy from American Express says he has to read me a statement for him to cancel those cards.  The statement is sort of long and one part was that I’m personally responsible for all the charges on the cancelled cards.

I interrupted him and told him I didn’t agree to that.  He said I had to agree if he was to cancel the cards.  I had a short conversation about how I was doing him/American Express a favor because I wasn’t planning to be responsible for illegal charges.  He told me that there were no charges, so I should just agree so he could cancel card.

Then he cancelled them and asked me if there was anything else he could do, saying he was all done.  I said yes, I’d like to know how this happened.  How a new name was added to my American Express account, actually two names.  I asked to talk to the fraud department.

So then I was on hold for a long time and finally a super nice guy answered.  I had to give all my information again and start all over.  He told me to look over my statement and make sure I made all the charges.  I had the statement up on my computer and everything was mine.

He said he was cancelling my account and sending me a new card.  So I was going to have to get a new online account and re-enter all the auto pays, bank accounts, etc.

Man, what a hassle.

I’ve had a couple credit cards stolen during my lifetime.  Once, I was racing in Europe and had a few credit cards.  When I got back to the US, I was looking for a card and couldn’t find it.  It wasn’t in my wallet, so I checked my backpack.  Not there, so I looked through my jersey pockets.  (Sometimes I carry a credit card in my jersey pocket, especially riding in Europe.)  Not there.

Finally I realized I lost it.  So I called the credit card company and told them I had lost the card.  The representative told me that I had close to $5000 worth of charges on it, all for Belgium and Holland.

And they were weird charges.  Beauty parlor, shoes, groceries, not big charges, just lots of small ones.  So I had to go over each and every charge and say that I didn’t make it.  It took a while.

I guess someone at one of the hotels must have went through my wallet, while I was riding, and took out one credit card, assuming I wouldn’t miss it, which I didn’t.  Pretty good crime really.

Anyway, I’m getting a new card tomorrow.  The American Express fraud guy told me I should probably change all the passwords to all my accounts, including email.  That is nuts.  I can sort of understanding how a card can be ordeed under my account number, but have a hard time figuring out how that would have anything to do with my email account.

But, I guess he probably knows better than me, so I should just do it.  The guy was super knowledgeable.   Could take a while.  Didn’t expect this morning to go this way.