your daily bicycle log

I took my new bike out for the first time today. One lap of Richmond park and my neck seized up, but I managed a decent speed and didn't fall off. Mostly I just wanted to get the feel of it and practice riding with cleats. It was a lot of fun after all those boring gym rides! Same again tomorrow.

stripped down commuter bike to frame (left only headset cups), cleaned it, regreased and reinstalled bb, new chainring, new shift lever (dear jtek, if you can't afford to include a barrel adjuster with your overpriced $80 barend shifter, i think you're doing something wrong), new cables, new brake pads, new (used) handlebar, new tape, new rear rear cog, new rear cassette joint, clean and reinstall fenders and rack. then next day, get inline barrel adjuster, scrounge 4mm ferules, cut just-installed shift cable, and reinstall. fucking bike. i love you.

that bike gets a lot of miles, and NO regular maintenance, so i shouldn't bitch too hard. also, i found a wrench who knows how to overhaul the nexus 8 igh, so soon, it will get its ~15k tuneup.

last weekend i rode with behind a 16-year-old cat 2. he peeled off before we hit the climbs. set several PRs, then on the way back bonked harder than i ever have. nearly passed out on the bridge. not sure if it was the effort or downing a brownie the first half of the ride and then nothing the second half.

Puncheur sportive today - average temperature less than 1C. A very hard slog, but I finally got gold standard (by mere seconds following a desperate sprint at the top of Ditchling Beacon).

first time back on bike for four months after crashed to avoid getting knocked off and broke collar bone and tip of radius at elbow. neither still fully healed, but I cba'd any more. a cold and sleety - and slightly wobbly - 12 miles was more than enough, thanks.

that sounds grim

well i won't be going up ditchling beacon any time soon, but was v pleased to be back on my bike. had a biggish operation on my right side a few years ago, and almost the entire right side of my torso has seized up.

Sunday morning did the LA marathon crash race - people on bikes race the marathon course while the streets are mostly closed, but before the race (about 4:30am.) Rolling start, with two miles before the actual race start (although it's first to the finish line, so.) Racers with bibs in front, folks on beach cruisers with boom boxes in back. The three of us originally planned to take it chill, so we started right between those two groups. We got excited and started cutting through the crazy swarm, keeping an eye on each other while we evaded hazards like a dude downhilling at 28mph on rollerblades and fixies skid-braking. Once we hit the first straightaway and saw everyone working solo we started licking our lips. We did steady rotations eating people up. At one point we had eight people hanging onto us, all very polite about letting us back in when we pulled off. Hadn't looked at the course map since we hadn't planned on racing so the final turn / straightaway took us by surprise. Done. Time for McDonalds.

The most fun I've had on my bike I think. Thinking about starting racing now.

marathon routes seem perfect for bike racing (or at least what I think would be the funnest bike racing). short, linear (no laps, no forcing crazy corners into the route), and in the city (probably).

crits make for good, high-speed spectating, but the bar for entry seems high---at least with regards to confidence/experience in a peloton. but a 26mi dash on open roads (open enough for a lol hueg marathon) seems like it would encourage exactly what you describe: flurries of breakaways with small teams not exactly in contention with each other. mixed abilities/cats in the field and there's enough chaos to prevent a boring self-aware peloton. and a short course w/drafting could see some neat battles between TTists and sprinters. climbers would be SOL but who cares. and if its in a city, you automatically get casual jerks (j/k) to show up and give it a shot. i know ppl that would/could never compete in most standard road races (stage, TT, crit or otherwise), but would murder in a 26mi all-out gun. not surprisingly, these people also do well in alley-cats, which are basically 20-30mi sprints anyway.

cf mass-start nordic ski races. these are alarmingly popular in the upper midwest, with tens of thousands of people, of all abilities, just showing up in random towns in mn and wi and skiing really hard. the only cycling equivalents that i can think of are all unsanctioned: alley cats, things like the wolf pack hustle, and gravel races. one-day short- or middle-distance rides that anyone can do.

like, i've always assumed that one of the reasons that road racing in the US wasn't that popular was because, done in a trad euro way, it required closing 100+ mi of road a day, for too long, and at inconvenient times. so we have tight little crits, that shut down a few blocks or maybe a small-ish town for less time. and yet any half-decent urban area will kill 26mi of street (easy to come by, in the city) for an event that takes the average male ~5hr. the avg person does not need that much time to ride a bike that far.

lonely guy thinkin baout bike racing

wolfpack organized the crash! still supposedly illegal but LAPD was assisting at some intersections.

i approve of your ideas and hope they are widely adopted. roadies are so hung up on tradition sometimes.

roads r for cars, duh.

you'd be amazed how fucking ~upset~ people living in the middle of fucking NOWHERE can be when they encounter a road with a bike race on it. the best was the guy who harangued me, the lonely marshal, who chilled at the end of his driveway 5 miles south from idaho springs in like 1996.

Guy: GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY DRIVEWAY WHAT THE #($(# 393(#(q#( @(*@( YOU MOTHER(@(*(@! $(@#)(@@$> GODDAMN BIKES SHUTTING DOWN MY ROAD YOURE ALWAYS IN THE FUCKING WAY! (@@(@#(u$(@ (etc., for 5 minutes)
Me: hi, i'm hunt3r, i'm just making sure nobody gets killed, hopefully including me. you really need to calm down. do you want coffee?
Guy: GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (()!@(*@()(@(

another year i occupied a tiny piece of dirt on the side of the road 200 yards from the parking lot to the mud puddle where you can "CATCH WILD TROUT"! nobody was visiting the trout puddle. :^( i was alone for an hour, with nobody around. then the head trout wrangler walked down the driveway to the road, up the road, and sternly requested me to leave because i was taking up parking space.

i've always assumed that one of the reasons that road racing in the US wasn't that popular was because, done in a trad euro way, it required closing 100+ mi of road a day, for too long, and at inconvenient times. so we have tight little crits, that shut down a few blocks or maybe a small-ish town for less time

Apart from at the very top level (i.e. The Tour of Britain pro stage race) road racing over here doesn't involve closing down any roads. Nearly all road races are done on circuits in the middle of nowhere. The idea is to find a loop 6-12 miles long on minor roads, preferably avoiding any villages and definitely avoiding traffic lights, and have marshalls/police stopping traffic at every junction when the race is approaching. You kind of go round in a bubble between the lead cars and the trailing cars, but it gets complicated when the bunch fractures into groups and traffic infiltrates its way into the convoy. Also, nobody stops oncoming traffic (except at the junctions) so the rules say you can get disqualified if you cross the white lines in the middle of the road, but I've been in races where we've covered the full width of the road on country lanes with blind bends (which seems suicidal) and generally you have to cross the line to find space to move up (and then pray you can squeeze back in before the oncoming traffic hits you).

Finally finished my new bike!

http://krakow.zenfolio.com/img/s1/v54/p1491563830-3.jpg

She's a blast to ride so far.

The never-ending winter is severely restricting my cycling. I was supposed to race last Saturday but there was non-stop rain so I gave it a miss - I only managed 20 miles all week and haven't ridden since then. I was going to enter a race this Saturday, but they're now forecasting snow again. I think I might need a different hobby.

krakow, did you kindly explain to your new bike that your are an insane bike maniac, and that her destiny is to be ridden unfathomable miles in despicable conditions, until she begs for mercy, and receives none?

Haha, indeed. She's supposed to be my nice weather bike! It's tough during a rather unpleasant late Glasgow winter though.

Armstrong got a new bottom bracket yesterday so that he doesn't feel neglected.

Heading to London for 4 days next week, then Belgium / North France to spectate the Spring Classics the next week! Super psyched. Going to try one of those public share bikes in the UK and try and rent a decent road bike to tool around Belgium (staying in Ghent). Can't wait!

cool

http://www.cyclingtips.com.au/2012/04/ghent-cycling-culture/

would like to see the ronde someday

Snowing heavily, my race has been cancelled, looks like another weekend without any riding. I'm beginning to despair of ever actually getting close to race fitness.

(In the end I did a 20-mile ride through horizontally-blown face-stinging sleety-hail-snow stuff)

So... just days after finishing the above new bike, on her third or fourth ride, I was hit by a car on Thursday night in the east end of Glasgow!

It was about 7:30pm, so properly dark here, and I was heading along a main road when a car coming in the opposite direction turned across/into me to turn into a side road. I was well lit, travelling about 15-20mph, and it was entirely their fault - they didn't stop to make the turn, but didn't see me and simply went ahead, far too late for any evasive action.

I hit the passenger side, up near the windscreen, which was smashed, bounced back, flew through the air and onto the middle of the road. They pulled in and I hobbled with the bike to the side of the road. Ambulance to A&E, was there for 5 hours getting x-rays and cleaned up. Thankfully no breakages or head, neck or back damage, just a nasty cut to one leg and nasty bruising to the other and various minor grazes and bruises/bumps and very shaken. Very lucky indeed given the force of the smash.

Definitely my worst one so far.

I'm already feeling much better thankfully, though taking it easy - not sure when I should or will ride again, will wait a while rather than rush it.

I was away for the weekend to celebrate my mum's 60th birthday, which luckily I was still able to go to, which really helped, as it was a weekend of luxury, good food, gentle walks and good company, so kept my mind off things as well.

When I got home yesterday night I started feeling a bit more down, looking at my bike in the hall and remembering the smash and thinking that the idea of getting back out on the roads battling traffic actually scares me right now.

Bike is a bit bent up, wheeling it today or tomorrow to the bike shop for checking over and repairing, which the driver says they are happy to pay for. I have their details and they were very shaken and sorry and have phoned to check I was ok.

Shit, that's terrible

krakow, that's awful, i'm sorry to hear it. i hope you and your bike recover quickly.

and wasn't it you who posted a pic of your scalp all zippered one time? and this was worse?!

Thanks. I hope so too. Still totally off the bike, not sure when I'll ride, as my legs bore the brunt. My left knee isn't feeling so great after having to go back to work yesterday.

Yes, the stapled scalp was me. This feels worse, because it was the first time that I have been hit by a car, which I am finding particularly scary. The head injury was due to me falling off the bike and head-butting the corner of a wall. All my accidents until now over the last few years of serious cycling have been solo falls, with no-one else involved, and at low speeds. This was the first one at any kind of speed and with a car involved.

I'm sure I'll be okay in the end, but I'm struggling with feeling quite down because of it at the moment.

best of luck krakow. just getting back on bike after crash last year and it's... not fun? a little frightening tbh. dont have road confidence, which in itself probably makes me less safe in itself. will persist obv but these people with their big metal speed boxes don't realise how vulnerable they make you feel. and that's ignoring the ones who are deliberately aggressive.

I saw (from my car ;_;) the most egregious road rage the other day. cyclist was waiting at a light and the temerity to be center lane in front of a range rover (true story). granted, the biker was track standing but it isn't illegal to showboat. the range did that inching up thing, and the driver was clearly incensed. the light turned, the cyclist got off to a slow start (lol track bikes), and the range whipped around him and made a pointed tack back, nearly clipping the biker. not the move of a hurried inattentive commuter, but of someone who was pissed. off. I wanted to call the cops but what do you say? "I would like to report a dangerous jerk."

Cut down by tonsillitis last week, just finishing a week's course of antibiotics. I'm on holiday this week so it's finally a chance to get some rides in. I've ridden four days in a row, gradually building up the intensity (with a view to racing on Saturday). Met up with my brother today to ride on some unfamiliar and distressingly hilly roads. On a long descent I tried to catch up with him (I was doing 42mph, he was faster) and tried to change into top gear only for the chain to come off. I got it back on (still riding) but a link was bent so it kept slipping for the rest of the ride. One horrible climb (with bits at 20%) defeated me: I felt like my heart was going to explode and had to stop for a minute before resuming (and then had to grind up one-footed while I repeatedly failed to clip in). Feel like I've overdone it now (not wise considering I'm supposed to be convalescing) and I need to replace the running gear on my bike so that race on Sat might not happen.

had the loveliest commute today, 37 deg, overcast, no wind, the roads still wet from rain. mainly, i enjoyed the intense aromas of earth, of earliest spring. the kind of morning you hardly ever get in denver. shit, it was pleasurable.

my nexus is finally getting a proper service overhaul, so i cut some 1.25" pvc, took a 19 cog from a cassette, threw them on ancient but functional wheel, and made my iro a single speed. larfs, i didn't have enough old spacers in my junk box to space out the cassette body. the local bike shop wanted me to buy a $40 set of al spacers. ha, the fuck i look like. pvc is good enough for a few days.

my chainline is off by 1.2mm, so plenty good really, but i dropped my chain twice due to the short-toothed, gated cassette cog. i'm gonna look for a cheapie 18T SS cog, but i doubt i'll find one. riding a ss is pretty fun, the only hard part was getting up the parking garage ramp from a dead stop at the bottom.

i did not know that there was a tiny local fixie hole in the wall shop right by me, got a sprocket for $5! victory.

My bike is in for repairs, the shop doesn't have the parts yet, snow is still falling outside, racing on Saturday may prove impossible (again)....

Good news: it's not snowing and I've got my bike back

Bad news: the left shifter (front mech) is broken so I'm trapped on the big ring for the timebeing (I'm getting a new one next week, but can't get it sorted in time for tomorrow's race - repair bill is now > £300)

Good news: the Hillingdon circuit is flat enough to race entirely in the big ring

the cheapie cog works great, wondering if i even want my 8 spds back anytime soon. bike is 3 lbs lighter, drivetrain much more efficient, and quieter. parking garage thing sux tho.

bit belated but really sorry to hear about your accident alex. Last week I almost had the same thing happen to me but had just enough room to break.the car that did it was the police which was quite infuriating (it was the middle of the day,was on a busy bike lane were there's always likely to be someone coming).

i cycle to and from work each day.10 minute ride from my neighbourhood to downtown vancouver.pretty much q fairweather cyclist otherwise.last weekends we had some nice weather and i was particularly stoked to get out and cycle for miles just checking out parks and beaches.

it's like this: Denver. You don't need fenders, just sunscreen.

http://www.rei.com/share/rei-blog/2013/04/denver-cycling-town-champ.html?stop_mobi=yes&sf11192356=1

Well. I got stuck in traffic on my way over to Hillingdon yesterday and by the time I'd managed to sign in, get my numbers, shoes, mitts etc. on and get on my bike there was less than a minute to the start of the race so I had no warm up at all. There was a big field for a 4th cat race (I was number 56) and there was also a women's race with about 20 in it, set off a minute after us.

Hillingdon is where I had a nasty crash a couple of years ago and it has a reputation for crashes. It's not particularly technical and it's almost flat - maybe that's the problem, the course isn't tough enough to force a selection so you keep big bunches all the way. Also in 4th cat races it's the kind of course where people try their first race (precisely because it's an easy course). The riding seemed particularly poor yesterday, lots of people switching all over the place on the chicanes with no real concept of holding a line. Also there were some hopeless beginners (including someone who got lapped at least five times) who weren't really sure what to do when they were lapped and kept getting in the way. After about half an hour there was a crash in front of me with one or two riders going down - I managed to avoid it by going off the circuit onto the grass and then chased back on.

The race was supposed to be 35 minutes plus 5 laps, but we were closing in on lapping the women's race so they decided to extend it a bit. Somehow our bunch of about 50 managed to go past the women's bunch without any incident and then shortly after that they held up the 5 laps to go sign. With maybe four laps to go there was a massive crash in front of me - bikes flying everywhere. Again, I managed to escape it by going cross country and chasing back on. As we came past the finish line we shouted out to them that there had been a crash on the other side of the circuit and that there were injured riders. A minute or so later we came round to the scene again - I think there were still some casualties lying in the road. Suddenly there was the horrible metallic sound again and another half dozen riders came tumbling down. Once again I managed to escape it by going onto the grass, but this time I'd come to a virtual standstill and unclipped one foot. It took a real effort to chase back on this time. By now our bunch was down to just over 30, but I really wasn't in the mood for taking any risks at all and rolled in right at the back of the bunch instead of sprinting.

Afterwards there were people limping around with blood on them all over the place (including one guy with a prosthetic leg). Another rider who was in the race posted on a forum - he was brought down in the final crash "my LOOK 586 is totalled, carbon drop out is snapped off and I'm informed these can't be fixed. Not a happy bunny at all, it'll cost me £2000 for a replacement. Particularly pissed off as the crash was really nothing to do with me, an innocent bystander you might say. At least no broken bones which would have been disastrous, but I did see an ambulance there afterwards, so maybe someone was not so lucky. Anyone know anything? The riding was again shocking, the worst I've seen there. People just down seem to understand (or care) that if you try to go for the apex from an outside position somebody down the line is going to get squeezed, and I suspect that is what happened yesterday, several times."

On top of this, I'm ill again - I obviously wasn't fully recovered from the tonsilitis and I've given my body more punishment than it could handle.

Wretched, fours racing is really quite terrible. Racing a cheapo light al frame is not a bad strategy, I've known several who did it, when they had nicer shit in the stable.

Tbf they're still on the brakes at each corner in the threes too ime so...

First proper weekend on the bike in a month and I've done 178km in two days. 100 yesterday, quite gently then out with a buddy today and his friend who just moved here. He was riding a tri bike and is pretty strong, I spent most of the day chasing back on but I got couple of strava PR's out of it on roads I ride a lot. Took 30s off a previous 9 min, long drag uphill, 20 extra strava watts.

otoh, it's also like this:

http://i486.photobucket.com/albums/rr222/Chass3ur/whycryweather_zpsfab4c899.jpg

actually 70 deg at my place now. 8-10" snow by tomorrow night :(. my first race is wednesday.

First Tuesday evening coffee shop ride of the year, very short but fun especially with it being 23˚C. New PR on the Eliza furnace trail chain ganging into a headwind. Also had fun on the last hill, again nothing significant but a 10 or so people passed me at the bottom only for me to overhaul all bar one of them by the top. Still a fat lump but at least I can now spin up a climb just below threshold and make some skinny wretches look silly.

Strava tells me I am a top 5 fat mantis in Pittsburgh.

rode out to see my club's (nb: i don't race) women's team do a 120 mile race with 13k feet of climbing. unfortunately i mis-timed my arrival at the support tent and didn't want to wait 90 minutes, so i had to bail before they got there.

i did get a daiquiri and some chocolate cake, though ... which made me feel seriously woozy in the last half of the 80 mile ride.

i need to eat better on the bike. thinking about buying the Feed Zone Cookbook but seriously doubting whether i'll ever make food in advance.

Cant eat better ANYWHERE than daiquiri and cake congrats #doinitright

just one mantis's opinion obv

Hi bikes

think ive agreed to do the ring of kerry cycle in july, 170 hilly km. Wtf.

bikes say: consider our daiquiri and cake training plan

I rode a tour in Kerry when I was 14, it rained a lot and and I learnt to drink Guinness, Murphy's and Beamish a lot, in large quantities.

Poll obv

Anyroad, ive a p decent hybrid, but i take it id be wise to borrow a thoroughbred if possible?

This is what you need:
http://www.bikeforest.com/large_wheel_unicycle.jpg