your daily bicycle log

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

There once was a time I could do that :(

Note to self, attempting over 20 mile singletrack route not the best idea after three months of being more or less entirely sedentary. I didn't take my heart rate monitor, but plotted an estimated reading in red on the graph below. Also added a line for general strength/stamina/skill level in purple.

http://img37.picoodle.com/img/img37/4/7/14/f_cyc1m_b2d3862.gif

gps + google maps = awesome. here's a pic of the second day's ride, a more modest ten miles at nant-y-aran near aberystwyh:

http://i26.tinypic.com/aaku1t.jpg

(exaggerated terrain of course)

(google maps earth)

nant-y-aran Nant yr Arian

that's awesome.

MY BIKE LOG:

SAT: ROAD BIKE, GOT SHUT OUT AFTER A LAP AND A HALF, CENTRAL PARK IS CLOSED FOR BON JOVI. LATER SEVERAL MILES ON CRUISER BIKE...TO VIEW NYC WATERFALLS......THEY SUCK.
SUN: BUILT A BRAND NEW 29" SINGLE SPEED, BY A COMPANY THAT RHYMES WITH BURLY, BENT THE FRAME...ON WHAT I GUESS ID CALL MY SEMI LOCAL SINGLETRACK. BUMMER. FIRST RIDE!!!!!!!!! ARGH!
MON: FULL SUSPENSION ON MY LOCAL. SUPER HEAVY FRAME...BIT OF RAIN....2 LAPS, TOTALLY EMPTY, EERIE AND FUN.
TUES: ROAD **NEW** SINGLE TRACK...RAN INTO 4 DEAR AND A TURTLE ON SINGLE TRACK, WEIRD. I YELLED AT THEM!!! SUPER EMPTY! WHICH IS ALWAYS WEIRD. SUPER FUN!!
WED: ROAD BIKE (weather pending) PROSPECT PARK

BIKES, YAY!!!

My Bike Log

Friday: Prepare for a morning ride before heading off for the weekend - pump up front tyre, head off to kitchen to fill water bottles... BOOM! Front tyre explodes blowing weakened rim apart (it was old and very worn). Spend the morning wonkily wheeling the bike to the bike shop instead.

Monday: Go to collect bike. New wheels not arrived. Doh!

Tuesday: New wheels still not arrived. Urgh! Borrow crazy-big Cannondale mountain bike loaner from shop. It only makes me realise how much I love my own bike.

Wednesday: Wheels better be here today... I desperately need to ride.

ddb, is the Surly okay? What can you do about the bent frame?

Krakow, what's your bike? And what wheels are you getting?

Neither bike nor the new wheel is anything fancy.

The bike is an 7-8 year old Dawes Discovery 501. It's been ridden to near-death several times over and very little original other than the frame is left. I love it to bits though. It's now running as a singlespeed, which gave it a whole wondrous new lease of life for me.

I just got a new front wheel, as I like to ride things properly into the ground, so the old rear wheel can stay for now. I just got the standard that my LBS orders in, a couple of steps up from their most basic. It's a Mavic A119 rim on a Shimano Deore hub by the stickers. I could have got something better/cheaper by shopping online, but I like to support my LBS for all the times when I really need them.

they couldnt rebuild the wheel cheaper, or the hub was trashed?

SURLY IS IN MAIL....I HOPE IT WILL JUST BE REPLACED AND THAT'LL BE THE END OF IT.

IT WAS A GREAT BIKE...FELT REAL NICE!!!!!

I don't know, I didn't consider that. It was just the rim that was damaged, so the hub probably was OK, but I doubt it was in the best nick given the age and abuse.

I'm going to attempt to update this strange blog thing on the go during my ride to Paris over the weekend - have a look if you're interested at all.

http://lanternerouge.tumblr.com/

I've finally got around to doing a sponsored bike ride. I've been meaning to do the London-Brighton ride for a few years, but never quite got round to it. Then just recently I accidentally gatecrashed the London Bikeathon ( Bikeathon ) and that (plus Mark C's ride to Paris) spurred me on to actually do something, instead of just thinking it would be a good idea. So I signed up at short notice for the London-Cambridge ride here: http://www.bike-events.com/ and rode 63 miles* to get there in sweltering heat today. Fours hour and sixteen minutes of actual riding, plus about 45 mins worth of stops. Here's me covered in sweat and dead flies about five minutes after the reaching the finish:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3157/2706899433_4af274fcca.jpg

*actually 68 miles by the time I got home, which is easily the furthest I've ridden since I mostly gave up cycling in 1991.