Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.
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After a long winter I think it’s finally going to be time to ride soon. Tonight found a group of us riding along the Macomb Orchard Trail from it’s start at Dequindre up through the bridge at Van Dyke and then back. Total was around 22 miles, but since I’d ridden around the parking lot a bunch beforehand my statistics are a bit off from what the ride itself entailed. Still, it was great to get out and take advantage of the nice weather.
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After a bike ride this afternoon I decided to (finally) update the River Bends trail map so that it’s more usable. Besides adding more asphalt and a better key I cleaned some things up, added the park’s address, and changed the trail lines to dashed pieces. These dashed lines should make the map more readable when printed in black and white, and the addition of the river, railroad tracks, and more road should make it easier to tell where one is when riding along.
In the future I’m going to consider adding in the Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal and maybe tweaking the route a bit. Maybe there will even be some more single track to add by that next time, too…
Click the image above or here for a PDF of the map: River_Bends_13-Mar-2011.pdf
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Today I found that Ikea’s Lingonberry concentrated drink mix can easily be combined with some water and one banananuun-flavored nuun tablet to make a decent tasting impromptu electrolyte drink. Having run out of HEED this past winter and wanting to go on a reasonable length ride today I needed something calorie-iffic to drink, but I wanted to be sure it had a few electrolytes in it as well, since I tend to sweat a lot. Well, this did the trick.
I’ll still probably pick up some HEED or possibly an Infinit Nutrition product for normal riding, but at least for the next few rides this should suffice. (During normal riding I like to have my CamelBak full of water and a bottle of something sweet on my bike. I can then sip the water when I’m thirsty and drink the bottle of whatever throughout the course of the ride to be sure that my blood sugar stays sane and I don’t bonk.)
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Today found me home from work a bit earlier than I have been lately, and with the nice weather I patched a flat on the Titus and set out for a ride. Since it was just above freezing and (yet another) big snow fall is still melting, I stuck to a paved route as best I could. Still, I couldn’t help but occasionally run into some slush or dirt left behind by the thaw, or even some mud. At one point on a small neighborhood trail I ended up leaving a few-inch deep rut, so it’ll be interesting to see how well this serves as an example of what not to do on a trail. (More information about damage caused by riding muddy trails in springtime can be seen in this flier from the MMBA.)
The route that I rode ended up on the Macomb Orchard Trail which was quite a bit less thawed than I expected. Most of the route was what’s shown above, with a thawed section in the middle full of muck with slush/snow/ice along the sides, but some portions were completely snow and ice covered. Thankfully it was compacted, almost-slushy which made it very ridable.
I’m extremely happy that the weather is taking a turn for the nice. I hope that I’m able to ride this year after work as I was last year, as being able to get outside in evenings and spend some time by myself watching nature go by is extremely relaxing and just the sort of thing I need most evenings.
(Total for the day was 23.53 miles in 1:43:51, following this general route: Home, 22 Mile, Neighborhoods to Shelby, Mound, 25 Mile, MOT West, Dequindre, School, Neighborhoods, 23 Mile, Mound, Shelby, River Bends Pavement, Home via 22 Mile and Neighborhoods.)
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Due to the two-bolt clamp on the stem on the VooDoo Dambala I’d occasionally have problems like this where the bar rotated precipitously while going off a small drop. While at this year’s MMBA Annual Meeting in Lansing I found the 80mm Specialized stem seen above for $10. I fitted it tonight, and hopefully it’ll keep the bar solidly in place.
At 80mm it’s maybe 5mm shorter than the previous Bontrager stem, but I don’t think this will make much of a difference. At least now I’ll be able to ride without worrying about the bar suddenly changing position. And, if it proves to be too short, it was cheap enough to not be a big deal.
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After leaving work today at the RenCen I hopped on the the nation’s stupidest public transport system to visit the North American International Auto Show. I was originally planning on going with some new coworkers during the day, but actual work got in the way of that so I decided to go by myself afterward.
The show was as expected, but worth the $12 admission as I got to wander around and look at interesting things, ride in a Chevy Volt on a small indoor test track in the basement, see a microscope that I would really like to have (a Vision Engineering Lynx Dynascope), and the smart fortwo seen above showing off it’s incredible strength by holding up a (52.2 lb) Magna Excitor 2x Dual Suspension not-for-off-road-use Terrain Bike.
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With the recent thaw and freeze the deep snow of the last two weeks has been replaced with pleasantly hard ground and a light dusting of snow over ice; perfect conditions for winter riding with studded tires. The new single track at River Bends was like pavement with trivial bits of ice and far, far more fun than the last time I attempted to ride it.
Tonight’s ride netted just under 16 miles, which is not bad for the first ride of the year, only one day later than last year’s first ride of the year. It was pretty uneventful, save for some weird car traffic in a local neighborhood. First I had someone pass me then pull in front of me while turning into a driveway, but this wasn’t close enough to be properly threatening. Then, a few seconds later, someone turned right in front of me, realized that they’d just pulled in front of someone and pulled over, then almost rear-ended a parked car while doing so. It’s really silly, especially considering that I’m essentially wearing a car headlight on my head and with a multiple-mile-visible blinky red light on the back of my bike. I guess it’s better than daytime riding when people just don’t see you at all.
Tonight I finally also tried out the Pearl Izumi Barrier GTX shoes that a friend of mine is trying to sell. While my toes were numb after 1.5 hours of riding they were just fine for the first hour, and they seem to be quite a bit better than my Sidis with neoprene shoe covers. They also come with toe studs, and it won’t be possible to get snow inside of them like I can my shoe covers, which makes my feet rather wet. The whole shoe is insulated, they fit reasonably well (perhaps a little loose), and were quite comfortable when coupled with long tights and tall wool socks. I think I’ll purchase these from him.
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In a fit of boredom I just rode a bit over a mile indoors by doing laps of the basement. With it cleaned up there is a clear figure eight-like path around the futon then around the table near my workbench and I was able to ride a whole mile without running into anything or putting a foot down. This took roughly 15 minutes, as I was probably averaging around 4 MPH. I was riding Danielle’s bike (it’s the only one currently with platform pedals) and its computer doesn’t do elapsed time or average but (strangely) it does do maximum speed, which was 5.2 MPH.
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After the bottom bracket issues on the single speed I ordered a new FSA Platinum ISIS bottom bracket to replace the failed RaceFace SRX. This evening after a shorter than expected Christmas I fitted the new bottom bracket and now the drivetrain is working just as it should. Installation went smoothly and after cleaning the chain and slightly readjusting the tension it’s ready to ride.
Now to wait for spring time to come and single speed weather to begin again… Or maybe my neighbors (spanning the four miles to River Bends) will properly clear their snow…
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Today I headed out for an afternoon ride up to River Bends on the Titus fitted with studded tires. Thanks to my neighbors who seem to feel they have no obligation to clear the path/sidewalk that runs along their house, much of the riding near my house was absolutely terrible. The lack of snow clearing was not the issue as I can easily ride through 5″ of snow, but with most of the sidewalk being partially frozen, lumpy footprints covered with dusty snow riding on this segment was simply unfun. Due to the balance, constant pushing, and careful pedaling required riding this stuff was more difficult than the hard climbs at Holdridge.
After making it to River Bends the ride was rather uneventful and typical for the park. The pavement was snow covered but smooth, and the two track had a nicely worn 12″ wide flat section perfect for riding. I attempted to ride the single track, but it was snow covered, soft, loose, and generally unfun. I think I’ll leave that to the hikers until things thaw or melt a bit.
While out in the park I saw fresh trails and the car of a friend who I know from MMBA group rides, but I wasn’t able to catch up to him and only saw him driving out of the lot as I finished riding through the park. It’s good to know that there other folks who are getting out there to ride this time of the year, even if it’s not on the single track.
As residential streets and some sidewalks (mostly business and township-owned) were cleared the rest of the ride was uneventful. I encountered the typical surprised drivers who didn’t expect to see someone at a crosswalk, much less someone on a bicycle, but there were no notable encounters. Weirdly cars seemed very cautious about passing me on the residential streets, but perhaps they saw me riding on icy patches were afraid of me falling in front of them. I’m really glad they chose to be cautious of just plowing past.
Final stats for today’s ride were departing at about 14:30, traveling 13.08 miles over 1:22:50 for an average of 9.47 MPH with a max speed of 19.97 MPH.
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