Bike – Page 5 – Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Cycle, Cycle Too

Commuted Joy

Got my eyes dilated at the optometrist this afternoon. So, no staring at a screen for the rest of the afternoon. Plus, it’s about 5 when I’m done. Hour of twilight left. Hey, why not take the long way home?

Smugness quotient was in full effect this evening. There was a wreck on IH-95 headed north, so CT-184 was bumper-to-bumper all the way from the Gold Star bridge to Mystic. Went under the interstate by the reservoir – Standstill. And US 1 was also at a standstill. Only had one driver be a jerk and squeeze me off of the road as I passed on the right.

I dropped onto the two-track at Bluff Point. Did the loop, tore through Haley Farm. I couldn’t see squat. It was awesome. Somehow, being dilated and not really being able to see gave me mystical abilities to pick lines – man, I had FLOW going. Almost like Douglas Adams’ mythical Peril Sensitive Sunglasses – I just felt the trail.

Man, it just felt good. Dragged along the Amtrak right of way, didn’t have to dab a foot coming onto the pedestrian bridge, and threaded the gate into Haley Farm. Turns out I pulled a couple of mountain bikers back to the parking lots – no lights on them. They scared the crap out of me. But it was pretty cool – love me some cyclists.

Then up Brook Street, down 117 to downtown, and home along River Road.

All in all, the bike’s been berry, berry good to me. Love the commute.

Missed It

We’re having a really, really late Indian Summer (Indian Spring?) this week. Nine inches of snow this weekend (My lovely wife insists it was only six, but since when did women have a good judge for size?), all completely gone and almost 40 degrees this morning when I woke up. No excuse not to ride the bike, right?

So, I did, and what a difference it made. 28 and a half minutes for the 7 miles into work, clean lungs, and the best parking spot in the building.

Run on Purpose had a good post this morning on maintaining mental state for getting out the door:

One of the things I talk with my oldest son about is the remote control idea to discipline. As any older brother he gets his fair share of being tested by his younger brother. We often talk about who has control of his emotions. Does he give the remote control of his emotions to his brother or does he take charge.

I’ve used a simlar strategy with my boys, but hadn’t taken at as far as ROP does – and to be fair, the weather, or work, or any number of things get my remote more often than I’d care to admit. One thing I really admire about my lovely wife is that she’s in complete charge of her remote – doesn’t do a thing unless it’s on her plan, or in line with whatever she wants to accomplish in a given day. Wish that I had a tenth of her willpower on crap like that.

Busting the Zero

Internet, I’ve been in a funk lately. Partially weather driven, partially work driven, mostly slacker-induced. But I think I’ve turned the corner tonight. First run in a week or so.

Instead of sitting my butt on the couch after 12 hours at the office tonite, and another hour of work pending for the part-time job, I watched Dr. Who (Dum da dum, Dr. Whoo-ooh, dum da dum) while cranking out a couple of miles on the treadmill.

And that, for the hour or so I had the endorphin high, seems to have made all the distance.

Still haven’t biked to work in 2012. Which is a serious case of needing some Rule 5 (and missing out on Rule 9). New self sealing tubes in the commuter last night, which was ironic, ’cause the Cage (car) needed some air in the tires in the 15F this morning.

I’m still spun up about the runner who was killed by a careless driver in my folks’ neighborhood last week. In that vein, it doesn’t help to hear that a cricketer in Australia’s the latest to pick up the “Get off the road, geeks” mantle. The Sydney Morning Herald has a good take on it, though:

The important concept that non-cyclists often ignore is that we are all road users. … I also see a consistent improvement in the consideration they show for cyclists. Every year, there is a noticeable improvement in courtesy, patience and a general awareness of riders as valid road users, and for this I am very grateful.
Cyclists need to be beyond reproach in our use of the road to maintain the respect of motorists. But I would also love for every registered driver in Melbourne to ride a bike to and from work every day for a week.

OK, I’m harshing my mellow – need to accentuate the positive. Life’s good, winter will someday end, I’ve got a frame I love. We’ll end with some gratuitous nakedness:

If you’re lucky, I’ll show some closeups and soft focus on the rear dropouts later.

Unpaid Advertisement

So, a couple of weeks ago, I caught a tweet about VeloInk. Having had a desire to have my name on the toptube ever since Trek started offering the Project One line during Lance Armstrong’s reign.

Anyway, Matt at Veloink was amazing. Within an hour or so of me placing the order, he’d dropped me an email to confirm that, yes, indeed, I really wanted the Nutmeg state flag, rather than something that’d be clean at the resolution his machine could print. I said “Yep”, figuring that it’d either be funny to those who recognized the flag, or an obvious but inside joke to those that didn’t pick up on it. And mostly, it’d be an attention grabber to pimp this website. And maybe, just maybe, a theft deterrent.

I went with plain white with black letters – not quite original, but there were plenty of other choices.

They’ve been sticking solidly to my commuter for 3 months in the cold and rain.

Eventually, I’ll have my dream of a custom frame with custom paint and lovingly hand-lettered “Jank” on the top tube. However, that’s somewhere about a decade away (Got to get the kids into college before my marriage will survive the request); till then VeloInk rocks. $18 well spent.

First World Problems

Oooh, Shiny So, I was the lucky day 6 winner in Nashbar’s Holiday giveaway, and I’m now the proud owner of a pair of Vuelta Nine 29″ wheels. They’re dandy. I would have taken pictures last night, but was deeply engaged in preparations for our Festivus open house (tonight at my place; drop me a line if you want to crash).

Anyhoo, my troubles are simple: I don’t have a 29″ mountain bike.

My options are similarly simple:

Sell the things on eBay/Craigslist/wherever. This isn’t my preferred option, ’cause I’ll not get anywhere near what they’re worth. But, cash is cash.

Let them take up space in my basement

Keep them and build a bike. I haven’t ridden singletrack in almost a year (My hardtail keeps looking at me from the wall of the garage), so I probably wouldn’t build up a 29er MTB, but the thought of a drop bar disc brake commuter bike is really, really tempting to me. Anyone have frame suggestions? The downside on this option is that it might end my marriage.

Man, all this stress during Christmas…

Road Hazard

Georgeous day to ride in this morning, despite temps starting at about 30 F (-1 C). My only regret was not putting on a wind-proof layer on my torso – any speed over 15 mph was painful regardless of the amount of work I was putting into it. No sweat at all, though.

December is shaping up to be a great month – four days commuting on the bike last week, two days this week (with Friday as a rotating day off on which I’ll get bonus ride), and a week of vacation at the end of the month.

I think I’ve licked the cold weather thing. The toughest part of the challenge is in preventing sweating – nothing worse than putting on wet clothes for the ride home and not warming up at all. But wind-proof gloves and a balaclava seem to do well enough on keeping frostbite off the ears and fingertips. My feet, I think, will just be cold. For half an hour it’s survivable in coastal Connecticut.

The rack is worth its weight in gold – so nice not to have to have weight on my back. Nicer is not having an excuse to drive just in case I need to stop by the store to pick up milk (or wine!) on my way home.

Lights for my use aren’t a problem – I’ve got two NiteRider Minewt USB sets, one on the handlebars / stem, and one on my helmet.

Visibility to drivers is still my main concern. I’ve got reflectors and a couple of LED blinky lights on my bike, but still feel relatively invisible. I’m adding a reflective vest, but would love suggestions. Vittoria Randonneur tires with the reflective stripes leap out at me, but I’m less than 500 miles into wearing out the tires that came on the bike, and am trying (really) to be cheap about the commuter bike. The good folks at Mystic Cycle Center sent me off to the hardware store for reflective tape to wrap around the frame. But it’s good to be thinking ahead.

Snow hasn’t fallen yet – we’ll see how that changes my attitude.

HTFU*

Today’s a day when modern fabrics are worth their weight in dollar bills. Which is pretty much what they cost. It’s also a day when fenders make up for looking dorky on sunny days. I swear that, even when rain is falling, fenders keep the lower half of my body dry.

Truth be told, I’m happier on the bike, regardless of the weather than I am on the treadmill.

Actually, this picture’s deceptively dismal looking – this morning’s ride in was in the mid-50’s, and not really raining, just foggy. Road was slick from last night’s deluge, with more deluge coming down while I was at work. It’s supposed to go back to being foggy again for the ride home, but I’m starting to think that the ‘loom’ off of my lights is much more effective in the fog than on a clear night.

But there’s 14 more days of fall before true winter commuting starts. I’m hoping that I get my first snowflakes on a commute on Friday afternoon.

*Harden The Flab Up, of course. What did you think it meant?

EDIT – Pouring all the way home. 30 minutes, and I looked like a drowned cat. Squeezed a pint out of my gloves alone.

This one goes to 11. But I don’t think I will (anytime soon)

BikeHugger has a good post up congratulating SRAM for not immediately jumping to 11 speeds on their road gear after Shimano went to 11. I’ve got to say I’m pretty much in agreement:

Going from 7sp to 8sp was good, but 9sp to 10sp was marginal.

My first road bike was a department store Huffy with 10 speeds (2×5) with friction shifters on the stem. Man, I thought that was the snot – flew on that one, including a drunken midnight 15 miler over to K. Chad Hauser’s (my boyhood friend and idol) house one weekend while my folks were out of town. But, much like learning to drive on a stick shift car, there was a lot of grinding gears on that one.

After that, I picked up a mountain bike between my junior and senior years of college – a fully rigid Trek 930 with Shimano Exage? trigger shifters – magic, until I smashed the front shifter with my knee going over a rock wall about 5 years later. Parts everywhere. Limped back to the car in the big ring, learning all sorts of humility. Freaked out at the bike shop – $50 to replace with XT? Heck, no, give me an indestructible thumb lever. 2×7, I think, though I overhauled it with LX the better part of a decade ago. Cheaper to go to 9 speed than to source vintage parts. And with a steel frame, I could stretch the rear triangle without too much trouble. It’s my vacation bike – drag it up to Stowe each summer, and pull the kids or the picnic basket along the bike trail.

My first ‘real’ road bike was a 10 year old Trek that I picked up while Lance was winning his first Tour de France – 7 speed down tube shifters, indexed. Loved that arrangement – there was no “can’t find it, grind it”, like with my high school 10 speed, but there were definitely gaps in the gearing. Indexing on the big ring was kind of iffy, too – probably I was just inept at tuning the drivetrain. But, man, you really had to avoid even the appearance of crossover.

After about 3 years on the Trek, I bought what’s still my favorite bike in the stable – a Cannondale R700 with full 9-speed 105. Man, was this the stuff – didn’t have to pull the hands off of the bars to shift, plenty of continuity in gearing, and going from the small ring to the big ring didn’t have to be a huge commitment – I’ve found there’s a pretty consistent two-cog difference between the big and small rings, and if I’m iffy, I can always flick my right wrist, and fix stuff.

This fall, I picked up a Nashbar ‘cross bike on which to commute, but mostly ’cause it was one of the cheapest ways to get a 10 speed 105 group. And, I’ll admit, I’m pretty much in love with the 5700 incarnation of Shimano 105. The couple of awkward gearings near the big cogs are gone (I’ll caveat here that I’m a wuss, and have been running a 12-27 or 28 rear cluster on my Cannondale since about 2004); having all the cables run under the bar tape is superb, and it’s been the easiest drivetrain to adjust that I’ve ever dealt with. Part of the joy may be in riding on new STI levers – the 9 speed right lever on the Cannondale is getting pretty sloppy. But I think, somewhere around 700 miles in, that I like it. A lot.

Trouble is, I don’t see the push to go to 11. Frankly, I was skeptical about going to 10 from 9, but whatever. Parts availability is about the only thing that could will get me to move (see putting LX on the 930). But I’m already putting aside cash for the 5700 closeout sales – then I can be one of those annoying NOS guys on eBay.

How do we balance the need to get good gear with business models that rely on a constant upgrade cycle? I love the integrated brake/shifter concept, but a test ride on MicroShift convinced me that relying on them for 9-speed backfill wouldn’t make me happy, and 9 speed 105 is more expensive than 10 speed 105 at this point. I’m sure that 11 speed whatever rides like a dream – but upgrading’s the better part of a new mid-range bike, plus cassettes for winter wheels, etc.

So, I’m not excited. Or interested. Much like electronic shifting, I just don’t get it.

A question that continues to gnaw on me, though – at what point can we go to 1×11, or 1×12?

Plugging Away

So good to be back on the bike this morning. Lovely day, had breakfast with the guys from church, went home (nix on the saving gas today, as breakfast was as far from home as work, but it was 0530 and I really didn’t feel it…), spent some quality time with the boyos, and then flew into work.

I’m shocked at how quickly my general cycling fitness seems to be coming up. Hopefully my weight will keep coming down. I’ve been using myfitnesspal.com (specifically the iPhone app) to track calories (net of exercise), and it seems to be working – zap every barcode that goes into my belly, set the preferences for lose 1 lb/week, and do it. Two weeks, two pounds, including last week while on travel. It’s been kind of tough, ’cause there were a lot of just random calories I’d eat during the day without thinking about it, which is why, I think, my weight kept creeping up.

Still loving DailyMile – nice to get the feedback, and pretty easy to knock out a post.

My PF seems to be at least not getting worse. I’m not convinced that my left foot will ever be good again, but it’s at least better when I run than when I don’t. So, I suppose, I’ll keep running.

And, with that, at least I’ve busted the August zero for posting here.

How to fix a flat

So, my friend, Johnny Rollerfeet asked me if it was hard to change a flat on a bike. This is what I passed:

Flats are crazy easy.

1. Go buy a new tube and tire levers. There are some great ones now – wide and stiff, not the crappy ones that break. Actually, buy two or three tubes. They’re cheap, and I’ll guarantee you ruin at least one while changing a tire. Maybe not this time, but eventually. Plus, it’s always great to be the person on a ride with a spare tire.
2. Take the wheel off the bike. Look at the tire. See if you can find what caused the flat – thorn, piece of glass, pinch flat from hitting the curb without enough air in the tire. If you can find something in the tire, pull it out. Mark the hole, if possible
3. Lever off half of the tire – wedge two levers under the bead, pry with both of them until the bead comes over the rim. Slide one lever along between the sidewall and the rim until enough of the tire is off to remove the rest by hand.
4. Pull the old tube out. Keep track of it’s orientation.
5. Reinflate the tube to find where the hole was. If it corresponds to anything found and removed, you’re good. If not, check inside the tire, starting where the hole in the tube is. Don’t get completely freaked out if you don’t find anything – especially with glass, it’ll pop out as the tire goes flat.

(note on re-reading this – you can leave one bead of the tire inside the rim. If you’re really paranoid, though, pop off the other bead and turn the tire inside-out to really inspect for junk)

6. If you’re at home, dust the tube with talcum powder. The tire’s probably already coated. On the road, don’t sweat it.
7. Partially inflate the new tube. Like one pump. Put the stem in first, then work all the way around the wheel. Make sure that the tube is all the way inside the rim.
8. Work the bead back into the rim, starting at the stem and working both sides around the wheel. End up opposite from the stem – this way, there’s not tension on the stem from putting in the tube. As you work in the bead, make sure that the tube doesn’t get between the rim and the tire – nothing more frustrating than starting to pump and then hear the tube pop ’cause it was pinched between the bead and the rim. This is the main reason to put air in the tube before you put it on. Too much air, though, and the tube’s too big to get the tire bead back into the rim. Just enough to keep it round.
9. The last bit of the bead will be tough. Stick one tire lever in to hold the bead, and with the other, pry the bead back over the rim. This’ll take a couple of tries, and is where most tire levers get broken.
10. Check the bead and the rim. Make sure there’s no tube there.
11. Reinflate the tire. About 25 psig, you should hear a ‘pop’ as the bead seats. Listen for leaks.
12. Take the pressure all the way up. Bounce it a couple times. Feel good ’cause you’ve fixed something with your own two hands.

It’s pretty easy – I tried to write good documentation. It’ll probably take 10-20 minutes your first time; I can do it on a ride in about 3, especially when it’s obvious what caused the flat. Fixing a flat’s pretty much a mandatory thing to be able to do on your own.

Keep the rubber side down.

Jank.