Are you paranoid about any new rider in your group?

Do you fully expect the unknown or unsafe rider in your group to do something dumb?

Do you consciously avoid riding near certain people, even people you may like, when they are  on a bicycle?

If you answered yes to one of the above, good for you.

If you answered yes to two of the above, I might ride  with you.

If you answered yes to all the above,  be of good feeling,  paranoia pays.

What brought this on?

Week one…minor accident with the group…someone going very slow, not paying attention, falls.  This is a safe rider who I would trust in a pace line.

Week two…banged up accident…another mostly safe rider stops paying attention, crosses wheels, goes boom and gets banged up.

Week three…major accident… rider 1 calls out “slowing or stopping”, new rider (with our group) stops but does not say anything, new rider behind him crashes, flies over the stopped rider and winds up with multiple fractures.

Ironically, week three was the day I handed out my latest rant “Riding Safely in a Group”.   Damn, I forgot to tell everyone to READ it.  Duh.

No doubt, a dose of care or paranoia goes along way.   Besides trying to be a good and safe rider we always need to evaluate those around us.

Yes, accidents that are truly unavoidable will happen.  But, it seems to me, most of the cycling accidents are brought on by people changing their status (i.e. slowing or stopping) or riders just not paying attention what they are doing.

Glenn

A flat tire fix should be just that.  But sometimes it becomes a project.

The scenario: My wife, her brother and his wife wanted to go to a huge plant store.  For me this rates slightly above watching re runs of Mr. Rogers.

With a free hour to two I decided for a quick ride along the Erie Canal multi purpose path (which was near empty this cloudy week day morning) and the roads around it (where the path itself was not paved).

I got my bike out and off I went, about 10 miles outbound, turned around to return and pftt — got a flat tire in my front tire.

The project: As I removed the tire, I noticed that I had put my wife’s 650 wheel on my bike.  This was both interesting and frustrating.  Interesting because my cyclometer worked fine and my front brakes worked (though they had to be be rubbing on the tire instead of the rim).  Frustrating becuase I had no 650 spare tube.

I did, however, have a patch kit.  Since it has only been about ### years since I patched a tube, I figured its like riding a bike.  You never really forget.
The patch actually worked.
The pinch (un-noticed, obviously) had other options when I put in the CO2.
Boom.
No more patches.
Fortunately, there was a bike shop about 1/4 mile away.
They had a 650 tube, but pointed out that my tire was ripped.
I had plenty of duct tape for just such an emergency.
Put the tube in, pumped it up.
The duct tape was not tight enough, so the tire would not slip between the front brakes.
The proper thing to do was let the air out and re do the duct tape.
The improper thing I did was omit the first part and BOOM.

Called my brother in law for a ride back.

You say you want more?  There is more.

On the return home, I now need to replace the tire and tube. Just like fixing a flat.
However, my wife’s Continental Tires when new are extremely hard to get on her wheel.
Put a little air in the tube,  seat it in the tire and all the air goes out. 3 times, 3 tubes.

Finally, on the fourth tube I did 2 hours meditation, achieved full zen and got it all together.

Writing about this is almost as tiring as doing it all.

Glenn

What a crappy weather system we have been having in the NY metro area this spring.  Repeated emails to the weather bureau have not produced results.   Requests for a refund or redo have been ignored.

I protest.

Even today, it was cloudy, but the weather forecast was for NO (0% chance, not a drop) rain til later in the day.  What do you supposed happened as we were about to start?

To be fair to all the cyclists who still work for a living, our mostly retired status does give us a riding loophole.   We see a good day mid week and we grab it.  So, we have been riding, but still not as much as we’d like to.  (Here too there is a conundrum.  How much we’d like to ride and how much we can ride (age, energy, etc.) are not always in sync.  That is why we need maximum riding day opportunities.

So, I declare the next  seven month to be rain at night only months.  End of discussion.

Glenn

Susan and I ride from March/April to October/November.

When we were still working we rode most weekends and took short, one hour rides some week nights.  When we became retired we rode two to four full rides most weeks.

By mid September I was riding to avoid going back to the gym.  Susan was riding because I was.  We were getting tired of the season earlier and earlier.

So, this year we are trying something new.

Because we can ride most any day we want, we figure if we miss some weekends or even a week here and there, we may enjoy the season more and longer.

Option one happened April 25th and 26th.

• We rode on Thursday and kept Friday as an option for riding.
• On Friday, Saturday and Sunday we went to the  AMC (Appalachain Moutain Club) Spring Fling in  Camp Mohican, bordering Delaware Water Gap National Park.
• We took three hikes, each successively longer, each of the three days.
• We ate as much as we do on bike weekends.

I did not miss my cycling.  I had a great time.   More alternative activities to come.

Above: stream bed, beer and snack on the porch by the lake, after a hie.,

More photos are here.

If anyone else out there has tried mixing it up during cycling season, let me know what you did.

Glenn

1. You are NOT so cool that passing calls like “Stopping”,”Slowing”,”Car Back”, etc. up and down the line of riders does not apply to you
2. You are not so wise that you can prevent the rider you are passing on the right, without letting that rider know you are there, that you can prevent that rider from veering or drifting into your (unseen) bicycle and causing an accident.
3. It really is not dorky to let riders know when you are passing on the left, even though they have a mirror and should see you.
4. When a call of “car back” does not motivate you to immediately single up when riding double all that really does is make motorists more antagonistic than they already are.  Singling up might actually improve some of their attitudes.
5. You are not being smart if you ride double and cannot hear “car back” for any reason.

Let’s  have a safe riding season.

Glenn

Today was a weather gift.  Although it is only April 18 on Long Island, NY,  it felt more like May 20.

I was leading a supposedly relaxed pace today.  The good news was the weather.  The bad news was I was really enjoying it.  So, the pace was somewhat faster than advertised.  To my credit, however, the push did no always come from my peddling, or meddling, as I often found myself in the  middle or back of the pack . . . leading by delegation.

Forty miles later, however, up and down hills and shooting through the flats, we arrived back at the start.  In hindsite, everyone was pleased with their “fastest pace of the season”.   The trick is to use kilometers per hour at this juncture, as it looks better.

For my wife and me (yes, me is grammatically correct) a ride of this nature is generally followed by a homemade smoothie and bagel, a nap then coffee, with the newspaper in hand.  Unexciting to be sure, but so very rewarding.

Glenn

For seasonal riders like Susan and myself, March and early April have given us less than great weather.

We did, however, get in two rides last week, and will ride again tomorrow.

Every year is the same in one sense.  No matter how much time we spend at the gym, no matter how many spin classes and other gym activiites we do, the first couple of rides are like we never rode at all.

The good feeling about this, however, is the knowledge that without the winter gym it would be harder and by the 4th or 5th ride we will be back into the swing of all.

We do not push the pace at all on these rides. Over average is 2-3 mph below what it will be later in the season.  It is really a great way to truly just appreciate the surroundings.  Since these are not club rides (just the two of us) there really is no pressure.  We do not need to keep up.  We can stop whenever we want.  We can change our plans.

It is work to get started again.  But it is also nice.

Glenn

My previous post “The Bicycle Part 1 of 2″ was either a fit of imagination, my dream or really happened.  None of that matters.

Part 2 is the real world, at least for most of us.

We own the bicycle(s) we own.

Whether or not we get into synch with the bike depends on several factors:

1. A good fit.  Are you positioned correctly on the bike?  Is your seat comfortable?  Do you suffer pain or fatigue in any various body parts.
2. A good attitude.  It really doesn’t matter if you are laid back, highly competitive or somewhere in between.  Nor does it matter if the ride is a workout, challenge or just to ‘smell the roses’.  You should be enjoying the experience or if on a really push ride, looking forward to the aftermath.
3. A willingness to make a quick decision.  If the group is riding too fast, too slow, too hilly or too flat for what you want to do, you need to decide, which, today, is more important — the cycling or the company.  If the former, you should break off and do your own thing.

With the above three processes working, you can be in synch with any bike you are riding.

That was really the point.  We all imagine having the perfect bicycle.  Its a lot simpler to seriously work with what we have.

Glenn

This post was supposed to be a continuation of the previous post, but that will have to wait.

Thursday September 25, 2008 was cloudy and mild, with rain supposed to hold off at least until late afternoon.
Susan and I did a really strange thing.  We did NOT go bicycling.  We went to the zoo.  Not just any zoo, but THE BRONX ZOO.

Let me explain some things about the Bronx Zoo, before I tell you what happened.

• I have been going to this zoo for 55 years.
• When I first went and for many years, thereafter:
  • big cats were in concrete floor cages with a few tree limbs
  • apes were constantly being moved from one small quasi jungle habit to another
  • the elephants should have died of boredom
• Then, over time, the zoo started to figure it all out
• Eventually they became WCS (The Wildlife Conservation Society) and everything changed.

It has been three to five years since my last visit and the place was nice then.

Now it is more like a park with animals than just a zoo.

There are plantings, trees, flowers and even gardens all over the place.

From what I can tell, every animal is in some sort of natural habit environment.

There are no steel bars — there are wire and glass windows — or with some exhibits open air between you and the critters.

Since much is inside or partially inside, you can go anytime of year.

For those of you who have not been or not been for awhile here is a partial list of things to see: African Plains, Aquatic Bird House, Baboon Reserve, Butterfly Garden, congo Gorilla Forest, Tiger Mountain, Jungleworld, Madagasacar!, Money House, Worlds of Birds, Darkness and Reptiles.

The place is big, clean and well appointed with staff anywhere you go.  You can walk, ride or do both.

What happened was we tried the “there are things to do besides bicycle” philosophy.  What a concept!

We will be back on our bicycles as soon as it stops raining — but it was great interlude.

Photos are here.

Glenn

The bicycle lay in a ditch off a lonely stretch of route 66. Yeah, funky as that sounds, that’s where it was.
The bike was not rusted or beaten up, just abandoned, in a ditch, out on highway route 66.

Of course I had to stop the car and look at this.  There were no manufacturer markings on it, but it did not look as if anything had been sanded or scraped off.   It seemed to be my size, or perhaps I just decided it was. It was painted with a weird plethora of colors, that, somehow, seemed to work. Bicycle Art for sure. There was no air in the tires…also unbranded, but otherwise everything seemed to work. The shifters and brakes looked like one of the major brands, but, once again, no markings of any kind.

I began to think, I was, perhaps, back in my college days and “on something”.

Anyway reality or not I was going to ride this thing. I got my pump out of the car and inflated the tires to 110 psi, just to be safe. Nothing exploded. I donned the minimum necessary bike gear (yes, my bike clips worked fine) and started to ride.

To say I became one with the bike would be a stretch. I did feel more in sync, however, than with anything else I ever rode. I was not more powerful or faster, but, within my limits everything required less effort. I could almost swear the bike prompted me when to shift gears. That alone got me off the bike, looking for the new electronic shifting I had been reading about.

Riding that bicycle was as close to the ultimate riding experience I’d ever had.

When I returned to my car there was man waiting with a huge smile on his face. “I see you have experienced ‘the bicycle’”, he said. I agreed. Unfortunately for me, the bicycle was his (he had put his  name and address in the seat tube to authenticate this to me) and I had to part with it. He could not tell me anything about it except he had bought it at a yard sale.

There is more, but that must wait til next time.