your daily bicycle log

Here's the map of today's ride through NW London - turned out to be 43 miles in an end, thanks to a detour to the post office! Haven't yet figured out the speed/time, but it was much more (sub)urban so more traffic lights, traffic etc.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/biondino/cycle070608.jpg

i rode a usual rec/training ride on my 28 lbs commuter today. the road was swarming with riders, but not too many with a rack and fenders. the ride features 1400 feet of climbing in one shot at 5-7%. i dont think i'll use that bike again for this purpose (i mean, 28 lbs sheesh), but the internal hub has plenty of range. i have a 48/18 on the bike and didnt even use 1st gear. after 2500 miles or so, i'm pretty happy with the nexxus internal 8.

i was 2 or 3 mins slower on the climb.

Can you tell us a bit more about hub gears, the pros and cons, and what they're like to use? I'm not sure 8 gears would feel enough but maybe I'm spoiled.

Another question - how do you figure out the amount of climbing you do - 1400 feet in your post above. I have a ride planned that I think is going to involve a lot and I'd like to be able to brag about it :)

Here is the ride in question, using toporoute's excellent new "terrain" feature:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/biondino/Surreyride.jpg

And here's the elevation profile:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/biondino/elevation-1.jpg

Which I make more than 3000 feet of ascent! Blimey.

p.s. if you can't see images in the above post, let me know, I'm having hosting issues

sheldon brown's material at harris cyclery's site has exhaustive analysis of the hub's gear ratios. basically it's 8 speeds with an overall range about the same as a 11-34 cassette, as i recall.

pros- minimal maintenance, clean drive train, chainguard friendly, you can shift while standing at a light (this is a surprisingly useful feature).

con- really heavy, the shifter mech that is kludged to drop bars is poor, wheel removal is a pain in the ass (no qr), significant loss of efficiency in planetary gears. and if it blows up, i'm pretty sure you need serious professional help.

its really not an appropriate hub for the fast rec-riding and credit-card touring that you seem to prefer, mark. i think commuting and maybe light to moderate loaded touring are its appropriate applications.

the vert calculator on the mapping software is probly as useful as anything else in rolling terrain. i mean, vertical is much easier to calculate in the mountains, because you typically are going up and down in big chunks. on rolling terrain, it gets sort of subjective. rollers are totally exhausting, but if i were making "vert rules for actual real climbing" id say only count climbs of 200+ ft with avg grade of 4%. arbitrary, but thats my criteria.

the climb i referred to really starts at about 5800 and tops out just over 7200 feet about 6 miles later, with a bit of a less steep lull in the middle. the top portion is more like 7 or even 8% (its where that 55mph speedo reading came from upthread). anyway, its an easy calculation...

What's credit card touring? Sounds slightly disparaging :)

Sorry to be such a Tuomas btw.

its when you dont have to carry shit on yr bike since yr tour has sag support and trucks for yr gear. "unloaded touring."

nothing wrong with that sez me. i worked one summer for a cycle touring company where we did 12 straight weeks of that (from seattle to maine).

k, what are the signifiers in english place names that makes them so identifiably english? because just looking at the map immed above, theres no way id mistake those names for usa despite the shared language. worplesdon!

of course, gatwick is kind of a tip off.

It's sort of hard to say in that so many American place names are named after British place names. The -cester or -chester suffix indicates a Roman fortress or encampment, for example. But there are enough Worcesters and Westchesters in the US for it not to seem weird, despite the lack of Roman settlements.

it's been storming here all week :(

Urgh - did you have any rides planned?

a friend and i were hoping to do a couple hour loop yesterday, but i think we would've gotten blown off the path.

No-one has cycled in three weeks!

On saturday I cycled :) for the first time in over two months :(

Blazing sunshine was good, hangover was not. Sometimes fresh air and exercise can do wonders for a hangover. But not always.

Yeah, I keep going away on the weekend. My friends did that amazing North downs loop posted above, without me :(

i did my first ride in a couple weeks, 60 miles with a lot of climbing. missus traded workout times with me, so i got to hit the road at 5:30 am instead of in the heat. f'ing great.

My friend set off cycling from London to Bristol along the Thames and canal. Jealous.

Hi chaps,

I had my first spill on my new bike today! I was very nearly at work, heading up Shaftesbury Avenue from Piccadilly Circus, and the lights were green, although traffic was backed up. A couple of blokes crossed, about 25 feet in front of me, and a woman steps out after them, looks left, sees me (we make eye contact) and steps back onto the curb. Only to step FORWARD again 1 second later, by which time I'm upon her and I bang into her unavoidably, going about 17 mph, I reckon. It's a glancing blow - she doesn't go flying - but I lose my balance, bounce off the railing a couple of times, then the railing runs out, bike turns right and somehow I've got my feet out of the cleats and manage to jump off. Bike falls to the ground but doesn't hit anything, so I hope it's okay - only visible damage is the bar tape torn as you'd expect, scuffed pedal ends and somehow the saddle angle has shifted downwards.

There's one of those community support officers on the scene and he checks we're both alright before telling me off for going too quickly through the lights (even though they're green etc.). She apologises, asks if I'm okay - which I pretty much am though I have a couple of very painful fabric burns on my arm and side from where my t-shirt rubbed against the railing. She offers to give me her number in case the bike's damaged - I'm pretty sure it's not but we'll see.

Funnily enough, she was beautiful - a very classy looking, business-like Australian blonde, late twenties. She said she panicked, having been hit by a cyclist only 2 days before (his fault that time). She gave me her work number so perhaps I should hope there's something wrong with the bike....

**INSERT JOKE ABT BENT DERAILLEUR**

when crashes are teh hot.

not often

that accident sounds like a mentos ad

k im calling the top on fixies; i just saw john mccain in dockers ride by on a fixie. with cowhorns.

now my buddy who twisted my arm to do triple bypass just bailed on me. :(

2 hour ride on Dartmoor this morning - will post a route/elevation thingy soon.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/biondino/dartmoorroute.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/biondino/dartmoorelev.gif

CHUDLEIGH!
nice

That descent was so little fun I can't tell you. It was wet, poor road surface (had integrity but was coarse tarmac), narrow country lanes and omg so steep. However, on the downslope of that little spike after 11 miles (where I turned round because, as moors often experience, there was a massive black cloud sitting on the particular peak and it was already raining heavily where I was), I managed to reach just over 45mph, easily my fastest ever. Terrifying it was, and my god, rain hurts at that speed!

Here's me modelling my new Rapha jersey with Hound Tor (approx mile 15) in the background. Note wound from recent bike prang on right arm, and also, cows.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/biondino/MarkHoundTor.jpg

let me know how the opposite direction goes for you

i got in one last decent ride before saturdays big show. 57 miles, a pretty good set of climbs. Only 3300 ft total, but lots of short steep sections of 9-10%.

no cows. i saw one fox and 5 or so mule deer tho. this fox was walking down the road directly at me on the canyon road as if to say "yeah yeah, what?" it didnt even leave the narrow road as i passed.

Sounds pretty cool (and twice as long and twice as much climbing as me - god knows how you guys do it, I was exhausted). What chainring/cassette do you have? I took my old Trek to Devon as I knew it'd rain, which is so much slower up the hills and has a 12/25 cassette and 53/39 chainset (the Focus has 12/27 and 50/34), and there were a couple of slopes where I could really have done with my compact.

my dry ride sounds more pleasant than yr wet one. i left at 5 am, so it was nice and cool (too cool on one descent).

i was riding the standard setup-- 53/39 on front and 11/23 on back. i would have appreciated a 25 though. i will bring a 25 for the mtn passes on saturday. they're not steep, but the ride is so long, i think i might break down quite a bit. 120 miles will be my longest ride in---at least 10 years.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/3636/highdrys8.jpg

http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/940/highdr2elevji6.png

wow toporoute works may better than mapmyride

Holy crap. And there is NO way I could go up that final hill in my graph, no chance at all.

si se puede

ma non posso

dear bikey dirtbag weirdo on mtn bike who passed me, slowed down, then chased and taunted me when i finally went back round you ("ohhh, yerrr sooooo fast. DO YA WANNA GET SLAMMED??! DO YA WANNA GET SLAMMED? HUH DO YA?!! FAST GUY?!!! too fast to wear a BACKPACK!?" and tried to run me in to the parked cars and dumpster: you are a complete fucktard.

after i shoved him pretty when as he pushed me towards a roadside dumpster he turned off.

pretty hard that is

adrenaline causes me to make no sense apparently. so i pushed him back then he turned off.

What a cocking cock. If necessary if things had got nasty could you have outrun him?

wiser not to make that bet
after about 30 seconds of his carrying on i slowed up to tell him i had no beef and ask him his deal. he just escalated it from there.

You should have said "how is it that you're not driving a car?"

oh man

he was a bit of a scary dude with a large heavy krypto chain readily available. didnt wanna mess with that.

wow

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v642/emperorhand/SpeederBikeChase.jpg

so theyve rerouted the big ride from evergreen to vail tomorrow bacause the water company has closed the dam road due to imaginary terrorist threats.

theyve actually routed ONTO the road thats gonna be blown up, so we dont have to battle cars on swan mtn road. i doubt ill miss the extra vertical.

when ppl cant make music videos the terrorists have won

122 miles, 3 mtn passes, 7.2 hrs riding, done. weather was perrrrfect, but i somehow forgot to sunblock my left arm, which is now lobster-toned.

weather is fucking perfect out and i have a new bike and stuff to do >:(

122 miles! kudos