your daily bicycle log

Went on an mtb skills course today. Learnt a new technique for unweighting/lifting the front wheel - instead of pulling on the bars, you push! Well that's oversimplifying but basically it was a fucking revelation. I've never been happy taking jumps 'cause pulling just never worked for me, this changes everything. Also had three spectacular falls. Hey, shows I was challenging myself, right?

Apparently the hub is destroyed.

£90 later I have a bike on which pretty much everything except the frame, front wheel and brakes are new. Expensive, but it feels like a new bike. Incredible. I can't believe I let it get that bad.

amazed that i'm not sore from saturday.

did 40 minutes after work, enjoyed the evening, saw some wild turkeys.

Found : one of Pashmina's dad's frames

so cool.

very low mileage due to owner's severe myopia.

60mm though. wish i was 6'5". ;_;

You could be shorter if you use a more oldschool frame sizing methodology. (My grandfather, bike shop owner, not nearly as estemed as pash's dad, pretty much went with the biggest frame your nuts didn't touch when standing flat on the floor, my surly is a 60 and I'm only 6'1", I like it that big)

Got honked at by a livery car on DeLancey who approached me from behind right after the light changed to green. I decided it was good time to ride as slow as I could for the next block. When I pulled on Bowery, I called him a dickhead in his side window.

murder this morning--

started off with 1x15 tempo at 80rpms

then did 4x6minute intervals with each minute constituting 20seconds at 380 watts (90rpms), 40 seconds at 300 watts (80rpms)

obviously the only person who cares about this is hunt3r and maybe w4lter/wilter

well its your daily bike log.

to mssger guy who just dropped at my reception: why u wear sidi ergos for ur job, why?

I got hit by an SUV on Friday night. I apparently did some "crazy Spiderman leap" according to 10 yr old eyewitness which resulted in me not ending up under this lady's fucking Suburban (she didn't stop until like 5 seconds AFTER she hit me). I'm fine...a couple bruises where I hit the street, but my rear wheel got run over. My neighbor is replacing it, in the meantime I am riding the fuck out of this poor tiny Huffy.

I didn't get any of the lady's information, I was so pissed when she actually got out after 30 seconds to check on me all I could do was shout GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE AND LOOK WHERE THE FUCK YOU'RE GOING NEXT TIME.

31 road miles today - four laps of Richmond Park. It felt great, and I was definitely using tougher gears at certain points. My god, progress!

Desperately need new shoes though. Do these look like a decent compromise?

They look just fine, much like my Adidas, however check you can walk in them without too much heel lift , the one complaint with mine is that my ankles get shredded if I walk too far in them.

kids who yell out the window of cars to startle you are annoying.

its a good thing i have my mp3 on and cant hear them.

not as annoying as kids who pull nines on you (<---- happened to my roommate)

also, another cyclist got killed here a couple weeks ago.

apparently made a last-ditch try at a left hand turn at Western and Logan Blvd and got broad-sided by an oncoming car who was also trying to beat the light. No helmet, 1am, 22 yo, DOA.

not as annoying as kids who pull nines on you

oh, kids will be kids

So I realize I'm kind of lazy and lame about upgrading anything or being fancy, but I just put a new chain and freewheel on my Dunelt last night and it's gorgeous and rides so beautifully for the relic that it is. Am actually looking forward to having winter ass kicked by upcoming 50m Sunday.

Another run in with a livery service

Now I need a pretty, shiny new front wheel.

not as annoying as kids who pull nines on you (<---- happened to my roommate)

-- gbx, Tuesday, April 29, 2008 6:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

happened to mine too

Ticketed by Brooklyn cops in my own lobby for riding my bike up onto the sidewalk to get inside.

literally 10 feet

yet another one, this time two blocks from my house: 24 yo school teacher, at 2.50pm. driver not charged.

I know Chicago is not that bike friendly (or at least drivers seem very un aware in my limited experience) but two death in a week is awful.

Ticketed by Brooklyn cops in my own lobby for riding my bike up onto the sidewalk to get inside.

-- Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Wednesday, April 30, 2008 8:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

wtf! cops hate you

Oh please. On my first day ever riding a bike in NYC, a cop pulled over in front of me and BLOCKED THE BIKE LANE and then yelled at me for moving onto the sidewalk to avoid them. Which I wouldn't do now, but I was feeling shaky and nervous and unused to traffic and fuck them, anyway.

Don't oh please me!

Yesterday: biked with sleep to commonwealth in park slope and back

Around 35-40 miles, mostly as part of the 5 Boro but with some freelancing in between because we started late and skipped parts, and then rode extra in other places. Expected rain but got sun, now my hands are crazy burned.

Does it mean my bike fits poorly if after riding all day my legs aren't even stiff but my shoulders and neck are killing me?

Also when I did the same ride last year I was the slowest rider in my group and felt lousy and killed myself keeping up. This year felt much better, even though I don't have a lot of miles on this season!

Laurel, were you wearing a backpack?

A msgr bag, but it only goes on one side and both shoulders hurt equally.

i would say if anything is sore other than legs, it is a bike fit issue

I was afraid of that. Highland keeps my legs built, my pedaling muscles are fine if a tiny bit fatigued. Will eventually have to solve the fit problem but not without about $900 and a new bike.

the messenger bag won't be helping especially if you are leant forward and it's pushing into your spine.

Unfortunately, the feeling of my Ulock digging into my thoracic vertebrae is a whole different kind of annoying.

if its a very sharp pinching sensation right between yr shoulders, its more like a chamois-time issue imo.

Yessss, that's more like it. Should I assume that "chamois-time" means "time spent in the saddle", or is there something else I'm missing?

yeah riding time. ive always suspected its from holding up yr head for so long while leaning forward. it is a position-related thing, but not necessarily a fit issue. i guess if yr body doesnt adapt, it officially becomes a fit issue. i dont think it does much damage, and it never has persisted ime- the next ride its gone.

my first long rides of the yr, more than 4 or so hours, im prone to this, and my road bike set up has been the precisely same for 12 years. im gettin pretty old tho.

Thanks, that sounds right. I def have the stiff neck from looking up. I'd like to spend less time leaning on my arms but it was stop-and-go yesterday due to crowding and road construction; I think I may have officially ridden at my slowest speed ever without falling over.

im gettin pretty old tho.

That's okay, we can't all be spring chickens like cutty.

ha, how old do you think i am?

Younger than me.

So I was in Paris this weekend and made half a dozen journeys on a Vélib. I'm sure most of you know what a Vélib is but just in case, it's the system they have where anyone can pick up a bike from a large number of bike stations around the city, pay a Euro and ride it to wherever you need to go, where there'll be another station for you to drop it off. The bikes are fantastically abundant, easy to use, cheap and massively popular - it felt like every second bike on the road was a Vélib at times.

http://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/images/transports/velib.jpg

The bikes are hugely heavy, deliberately styled in a way that means you wouldn't want to steal them (and if you do, you lose a €150 deposit - you have to have a credit card to use them). They have a 3 gear Nexus hub - the hardest gear can allow you a fairly comfortable 15 mph at best, but since they don't come with helmets I don't think it's a problem.

In a city like Paris, it makes huge sense to have a scheme like this - cyclists are so much more part of the fabric of the city, and there are excellent (for the most part) bike lanes (though I don't know if I want to go round some of the bigger roundabouts on a bike ever again). I wish we could have something similar in London, but practically, it's not going to happen. And the almost total lack of helmets feels worrying too.

There is a similar scheme is london but the coverage is poor and the bikes always seem to be vandalised.

xposted from the Chicago thread, but I thought maybe someone here might be intersted in this:

http://www.biketraffic.org/htmlmail/legislative_alert_5_6_08.html

We had a yellow bike thing here for about 6 months last year - you bought a key from the city, which unlocked any of the bikes...problem was they were decent bikes and got stolen the fuck out of.

didn't see that, dan!

from what i've heard, however, it's a reaction to the latest death (at Armitage and Kedzie). Cute 24 year old school teachers that are about to get married getting killed by guys who then don't get cited = bad publicity for the city, it seems?

thats cool.

did u see the story of the group ride in sydney that got jammed by some ahole motorist who got in front of the group and locked em up basically? it seems amazing someone would do that, but about 5 yrs ago some scumbag did that to the bus stop ride in boulder. the driver then got out of his truck, i thought this huge 6'4" track guy was gonna kill him. driver not cited as far as i know.