Clipping In

I went on my first ride in nearly a month today. Yes, the cold weather and, even moreso, the snow keep me off my road bike (the thought of buying a mtb next winter has crossed my mind).

I road (because for one the roads and trails are actually clear enough this week)
today to get my new pedals (SPD, a Christmas gift) attached. I bought shoes yesterday (Shimano's '08 Touring shoe). So that short 1.3 mile ride is all I've had so far with the clips, but I must admit that I can see the value. While I'm quite good at getting into my toe clips, I can foresee being quicker on these clipins. And, even better, you're a lot more connected to the bike: That means more control (bunny hops, not that I dare anyway) and more power (not an appreciable amount, but there are people who pay absurd amounts of money to drop 200 grams).

I also received a perl izumi weather shell (bright bright bright yellow) and a second water bottle and other things not related to cycling.

Oh I can't wait for spring. I'm considering a Y membership now. Partially to get access to a better gym than what we have at work, but a big part of it is to get access to spinner trainers. Come March/April it's back to riding outside, often, and far.

Wal-mart + Bike Shop

The Story

Honestly this scares me. I just hope that manufacturers know to run scared and refuse to sell to Wal-mart (which is legal, Snapper mowers actually did it).

I'll say it now: I don't care how much money it saves me I wouldn't buy a quality bicycle at wal-mart I simply care to much about the industry to hate upon it like that.

Maybe over time Wal-mart will improve upon its anti-manufacturer/anti-quality ways and I'll feel better about purchasing a bicycle there. Realistically though I'll probably always prefer the one on one you get at a small shop. It's certainly no panacea, but it's much nicer than searching for an employee for a half hour only to realize they're all up front running the check outs.

Gray Buick

My invisibility cloak (a.k.a. my bike with flashing rear light and forward head light) struck today. Riding home from work after dark, in the approximate 2 blocks of road I have to ride (luckily I have an almost entirely trail commute to work) near the end I got cut off by a buick trying to cross a busy road (which I was riding on) from a side street.
I figured he'd do it about 50 feet ahead of time, and sure enough there he crept out. So I took my out and turned right (causing me to be heading in the same direction he was in front of him). He slowed as I turned and I gave him a friendly wave (seriously, no middle finger, just a wave).

This kind of driver error actually doesn't make me mad. It's the jerks who come up on me with their horn blaring at a steady 45mph that make me mad.

But it sure would be nice if everyone would spend a week riding a bike on the roads: Maybe it'd teach them to see cyclists.

Derailleur Adjustment

Since one of my original goals in getting the bike was to become mechanically inclined with the bike and be able to at least adjust my own dérailleurs and hopefully be able to fix most anything but the frame.

So I decided to clean up my drive train and adjust my rear dérailleur tonight. As usual it takes quite a while to clean (I lack a garden hose and a place to use one), and it took me 45 minutes to adjust my dérailleur but for once it works well after (the last time I tried I just made things worse and couldn't get it better).


I also decided I'd take and upload a picture of my clean bike. Unfortunately the only digital camera I have is my laptops webcam, so the quality sucks.


Great birthday it was ;).

Freds

I've been listening to FredCast for almost a week now, catching up on old issues. I also listened to a Two John's cast. I was already a bit of a fan of FredCast, it's really very good. And I heard on Two John's a user comment about "freds" and realized this was a bit of slang I didn't know.

So I looked it up later: This is apparently a term for people who spend too much money on their equipment and not enough time on it.

Yay for the childish name calling which seems to be a requirement for every subculture. In the Linux world we had our "newbs" and now in the cycling world Freds.

A special thanks to David Bernstein for making fun of the people who feel they need to diss others who just aren't "as into it." I've got news for you guys: Those "Freds" are why you have a dozen kinds of high end bikes to choose from ;).

Now I wonder how many people will call me a "Fred." Grow up kids.

The first 600

Since this is just another blog from another cyclist, and that's not very exciting; I thought I'd list out some realizations from my first couple of months cycling.

Today is November 18th. I purchased my bicycle around September 5th and since then I've logged about 600 miles.

I'd been envying cycles for about 3 months before that and had gone from thinking I wanted a mountain bike to a flat bar road bike (one of the higher end ones which is actually more road bike than not) to a straight up road bike.
So I finally had the money and it was time to buy the bike. I went to the shop and fell for an 07 trek 1500. One of the early ones which shipped with dated ultegra components. I always hated red bikes too, until then.

The first couple of rides felt a bit unnatural (not uncomfortable) and were difficult: Every hill was a battle no matter how small. I hadn't been in good shape for 5 years or so.

That weekend I went on a 55 mile ride with my brother, who'd been cycling for months. I could barely ride the last 3 miles home. The last 5 miles took something like an hour.


After about a hundred miles the bike started to feel more natural and easier to control and the seat stopped causing minor pain (or at least I stopped noticing it). After about 300 it felt very natural. And after about 500 the hills that used to kill me and I used to dread I began to look forward to.
When I first started the mention of something like San Fransisco and its famously hilly streets would make me think "if I moved there maybe I'd give up cycling." Now I think "I should visit there, I wanna ride those hills."

I'm a believer now. You do start to like the hills. And it seems that the more I used to resent a particular hill the more I love it now.

Now I just need to find bigger hills!

Book Review: The Art of Cycling

I finished reading Art of Cycling today. It's a good quick read book, and in my opinion a must read for beginning cyclists. The book isn't filled with detailed advice, it's really just filled with lots of scary information about how you can wreck, how you can get hit by cars, etc.

And while most of the information is fairly obvious most readers should find something they didn't realize. For me it was railroad tracks.

The book also takes up difficult topics like helmets: While the conclusion is wear one, because it's easy and better than nothing, the book does an excellent job of explaining how little the devices do for adult cyclists.

And there's some brief and wasted space on parts.

Mostly though this book is defensive driving for cyclists. As I read it I kept thinking back to drivers education classes (because much of it was the same advice): Always assume drivers will error and have an out planned. It highlights some of the most likely errors for a driver to make, especially the ones which are most likely to put you in an emergency room.

I must warn you though. While the author is a talented writer the book is not a pleasant read: It's downright disturbing. However, it's intended to be.

Saturday's Ride

Appx. Distance: 42 mi
Appx. Time: 3:30 hours

Today was a good day to ride, about 10 degrees to cold for normal cycling wear. I really need to get out and do more highway and street riding though, trails here just slow you down too much.

Sunday's Ride

Appx. Distance: 25 mi
Appx. Time: 1:47 hours

Trails used: Boosalis, Rock Island, Billy Wolfe, Antelope

Today was a great day to ride. Warm, sunny, and not very windy! So I just had to fit a ride in at the end of the afternoon.

All I have to say today is: If you walk the commuter trails in Lincoln, don't apologize to passing cyclists. You have every right to be there. Especially if you're respectfully only occupying the right half of the trail!

Saturday's Ride

Appx. Distance: 35 mi
Appx. Time: 3 hours (I got lost a lot)

Number of angry honks: 1
Number of "I love you's" from random men in a passing car: 1

Trails Used: Bison, Boosalis (hwy 2), Rock Island, Billy Wolff, Jamaica North, Pioneers Pk (don't do this on a bike, it's not pleasant)

Best place to stop: Pioneers Park, I wish I'd known this existed before

There always seems to be a lot of talk about Lincoln as a cycling friendly town. And in many ways it is, but in many ways it's quite hostile.
It seems that the city is a big fan of making the city friendly to cyclists. Building dozens of commuter trails (some were even worth building), bike lanes downtown, bridges, occasional underpasses, and etc.
But the people in this city... Wow. You experience it in every town, but I can honestly say I've never feared being rear ended in Des Moines.
It's commonplace for a driver to pass you inside your lane (I ride about 1/3 out from the curb so that means they're occupying two lanes). Yesterday I got a honk from a car approaching rapidly (judging by the approach of the long honk I didn't think they were slowing down; I moved, they didn't slow down). Oh, I'm sorry, I meant SUV not car.
About a quarter of the drivers in this town don't know to stop before the crosswalk at an intersection. Usually they're pretty good about not doing it on bike routes, but they do it there as well. It must be even more of an obstruction to walkers because I see it constantly while driving. This isn't surprising though, Lincoln drivers only look good because Omaha drivers are so bad.


Let's look at what makes a Bicycle friendly community (http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/communities/bfc_five-Es.php):
1. Engineering (trails, bike lanes, BIKE RACKS, cities designed to be cyclable -- I'm not sure that they count impossible hills against you)

I don't stop at a lot of stores when I'm out so I haven't looked for racks everywhere, but I don't see them out front when I do go to stores. This is something I'd have to look into more.
Another issue here is our commuter trails. These trails are sidewalks, not safe bicycle trails: 84th, 70th, Old Cheney, and probably Superior but I haven't been up there.

2. Education
Nebraska doesn't even educate its drivers on how to drive with other vehicles. So that's an obvious loss, sorry Lincoln.

3. Encouragement
I say good job. The maps of the trails are pretty good (although it'd be nice if they'd put the interstate on the map so that you don't feel lost when you end up crossing it -- just a suggestion).

4. Enforcement
I'm not sure there's much enforcement for anyone on the roads in Lincoln. I've lived here for 6 months and yesterday was the first time I saw a car pulled over here (I think). I'm not complaining, oh no I'm not complaining about that. I just can't offer an intelligent point of view on this one.
I wonder though if Lincoln has a bike squad. They probably should downtown.

5. Evaluation and Planning
Again, no clue.


Interestingly enough not many places win this it seems. Not even Des Moines which has an amazing set of rural trails which connect into the city. And there rural trails aren't crushed limestone!

Cycling For The Middle Class

http://www.bicycling.com/article/1,6610,s1-1-8-16266-1,00.html

It's articles like this that make me consider not buying Bicycling anymore... The majority of this article is nothing more than an ad for a $5,000 set of wheels: Seriously, how many of you spend that on one bike?

But that's not all. The pages of Bicycle magazine reviews are always filled with $2k-$5k bikes. I've not met people riding these bikes, at least not that I could tell... What I see is people on $1k-$2k road bikes, often several years old.

Magazines like car and driver review cars people actually buy, you know: Civic, Focus, Taurus, (whatever Chevy makes), etc. And then they review the cars we don't buy. But even when they do that they'll throw us a bone and review the more popular overpriced sports cars such as Corvette and Mustang.

Maybe Bicycling readers should demand useful reviews from the magazine. Not ads covered with bad writing for products we can barely afford and wouldn't want to even if we can.

$5,000 for a wheel.
By the way, the cheaper wheel they review is $980. Still ridiculous.

Maybe there's a roadie magazine out there for tourers rather than wealthy racers and I'm just missing it?


Of course, after I consider not buying it I remember why I do buy it: The health and technique tips and the pictures of pretty bikes I'd never buy. And sometimes there's an interesting story, sometimes.

Trails and sidewalks

It didn't take many rides before I jumped over and read bicyclesafe.com. If you haven't read it it's a must read.
But one recurring theme is this: Sidewalks are dangerous for one big reason; they require you to cross streets and bicycles are too fast for cars to keep track of them when they're on a sidewalk. Not to mention the fact that they're not wide enough to accommodate two mediocre cyclists passing or even a cyclist passing a walker.

So what does Lincoln do with about half of its paved trail miles? It widens sidewalks on major streets: The Old Cheney Trail (which is mostly redundant with Boosalis), the 84th trail, etc.

The irritating part isn't that they do it, but that they publish it as a part of the great trails network. Seriously, don't call it a trail. At best it's a nice place to walk (although given the lack of extra grass space on the Old Cheney trail I wouldn't even want to walk on it).


The trails Lincoln does have are quite nice though. Even though street crossings are common and bridges are rare there are certainly some highlights:
The 27th/hwy 2 bridge is very impressive. Although I understand it was built recently, I'd be interested to know how the concrete is already "messed up."

Anyway, note to the city: Try to build on the outskirts of the city, we can get around town but it's nice to have long (more than 1-2 miles) stretches between road crossings. Des Moines gets this using rails to trails (and they're smarter than using crushed limestone, it's called asphalt).

New To Cycling

Since this is my first post I thought I'd give a little background on myself with respect to cycling. I bought my first bike (as an adult) in September. I'd known since moving to Lincoln that I wanted to get into cycling, at a minimum, to explore the city.
After several months of mulling it over, and saving, I purchased a new trek road bike (a 1500).

Since then I've ridden around almost all of the cities trails (in later posts I'll clarify what I consider a trail, some things Lincoln calls a "trail" I call a wide sidewalk) and a few of Des Moines' trails.