Category: cycling

Today’s bike accident was clearly in honor of Minneapolis. When riding through the Pines at Stony Creek with my sister (her first time on the single track there) and heading across a bridge, one of the boards slid to the side and my front wheel dropped down about six inches between it and the one next to it. As expected I hit the next supporting timber and went right over the handle bars. Whoops.

The board appeared to have nails holding it to the timbers, but they no longer extended through to the other side. In order to keep someone else from suffering the same fate I set the loose board off to the side of the trail. Hopefully others won’t have a problem riding on just two of the three boards.

Oh, and yes, I did email the listed maintainer of the trails there so he’d know about it. Hopefully it’s not a problem.

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Yesterday my friend Brian () and I rode from my house to Metro Beach and back, taking the slightly longer (46.6 mile total) route. Brian has my old Forte FastCity ST/K tires on his bike and we wanted to take paved surfaces as often as possible because they are nearly unrideable on grass / dirt.

The ride was a little difficult through Dodge Park because of Sterlingfest. This three day outdoor party / fair had REO Speedwagon playing last night, so making our way both directions through the park involved lots of walking bikes through crowds. Other than that, the ride was pretty uneventful. There was a good bit of wind and not haven ridden for a month Brian was pretty exhausted at the end, but it was otherwise good.

I used my new CamelBak for this ride which worked out pretty well. One fill of water lasted the whole ride , and thanks to easy use of ice and insulation, having icy cold water was nice. Being able to carry a camera was once again nice, although I think I need to find a way to make it more accessible.

I did get a couple interesting photos and a couple dull ones. I’ll let you decide which is which:

· Brian standing with his bike in front of Freedom Hill park when we stopped in the shade.
· My bike at the end of the path at Metro Beach. Downtown Detroit can be seen in the distance across the water. (As seen above.)
· Brian checking his bike computer in the gazebo at the point while some families ride past and sit on the benches.
· Stopping near the McDonalds at Metro Parkway and Crocker to eat a gel I found a bunch of cheap vodka bottles in bread bags in the trash.
· Brian reading the nutritional information from a Gu-brand Vanilla Bean gel.

When first taking the photo of Brian reading the gel packet I got some really odd CCD noise which almost looks like, but isn’t, lens flare. Unless maybe somehow it’s lens flare caused by only yellow-ish light, but not.

I also found that my bike is having a hard time shifting between two of the gears in the middle of the cogset, but when I went to adjust things this afternoon I found that it only happens under load. So, I think that the chain and maybe cogset are finally wearing to near replacement. I guess it’s understandable as I’ve put more than 941 miles on my bike since its purchase.

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Despite carrying my camera with me, here is the only photo I took during last night’s MMBA Wednesday Night group ride at Stony Creek. I don’t know any of the people in the photo and they are just a small part of the ‘fast’ group. There were a bunch more folks who arrived at the top of the hill, after winding up The Snake, after this was taken.

Oh, and that photo is taken on the top of Mt. Sheldon (not a real mountain), the highest point in the park, which is where I took this photo from on Monday while facing the opposite direction. Just ahead of everyone there and to the left is The Roller Coaster, the really nice piece of multi-segment lengthy, winding, flowy, mostly downhill single track.

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Since I’d picked up a CamelBak yesterday I decided to give it a try today, but only after removing the rack and bottle cages from my bike to make my bike as light as (realistically) possible. While I previously didn’t like biking with a backpack, one of the cycling-specific CamelBaks isn’t too bad. Yes, I got a good bit hotter and sweatier, but after the first couple miles I didn’t really notice it was there.

The lack of extra weight on the bike made it (much) easier to hop over logs and handle log piles, although I did find that the extra weight on my body caused me to stand up a little less, and my butt was getting a bit more sore. No numbness in a bit over 15 miles, though.

While reading a bit on line about cleaning CamelBaks I found that a number of people just empty the bladder then throw it in the freezer. This keeps things from growing in it between uses so one doesn’t have to wash/dry it every time. I tossed mine in the freezer and hopefully it’ll work out well.

It was also suggested to me that I try to ride in the center chainring more often, because it makes it easier to keep one’s speed up which is quite often the key to getting through tricky areas. I spent most of today’s ride trying this and it really did work out well, and I was able to make it through a particularly difficult uphill rutted switchback comfortably. I don’t know if it is this different gearing contributing to more speed, more experience, or both, but I’m feeling much more comfortable covering routes at Stony much more quickly. I hope this feeling of comfort on trails applies elsewhere.

Oh, I also brought my camera (the Coolpix 5400) along with me today. One of the nice things about the CamelBak is that there is plenty of room in it for my normal set of tools, camera, food (if needed), and things like that. Since I was out there alone there wasn’t much to take pictures of, but I did grab that photo above (also here) at the entrance to The Pines, a switchback filled but not too hilly part of the Stony Creek trails. I also grabbed this photo from the top of Mt. Sheldon, the highest point in the park, looking out at Crittenton Hospital in Rochester, MI.

If you’d like to reference things, here is the MMBA provided map of Stony Creek, and the entrance to The Pines is marker #6, the top of Mt. Sheldon is marker #25.

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Wow, tonight’s group ride at Stony Creek had, if I counted right, 25 people. It’s pretty nifty to be on such a large group ride.

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This is more reference to myself, but others may find it useful. Here are the measured diameters of the bike tires which I own:

· Continental Travel Contact (26″ x 1.75″ / Wire Bead) @ ~55psi: 2027mm
· Specialized The Captain Control (26″ x 2″ / Aramid Bead) @ ~40psi: 2110mm
· Specialized Fast Trak LK (26″ x 2″ / Wire Bead) @ ~45psi: 2104mm
· Nokian Hakka W300 (26″ x 2.2″ / Aramid Bead) @ ~35psi: 2099mm
· Kenda Nevegal (29″ x 2.2″ / Folding) @ ~40psi: 2303mm
· Specialized The Captain Control (29″ x 2″ / Aramid Bead) @ ~30psi: 2285mm
· Schwalbe Racing Ralph (29″ x 2.4″ / Folding) @ 27psi: 2316mm
· Nokian Gazza Extreme 294 (29″ x 2.1″ / Wire Bead @ ~30psi: 2278mm

In case you are wondering why I’d measure this, these numbers are needed in order to calibrate a bike computer so that it may be reasonably accurate in measuring speed and distance.

The measurement was taken by rolling the tire (fitted to the wheel and inflated as listed) along the basement floor and measuring with a metric tape measure. Yes, I know the diameter will vary some as the tire is slightly flattened while rolling, but finding that variance will require some long distance straight line riding with a GPS and then a comparison. I may do that later on the smooth tires (Travel Contact), but not on the knobbies.

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With 90°F (32°C) temps, 70% humidity, and pretty much no wind riding today was quite strenuous. At one point I’d overexerted myself and was right near the throwing up point (and probably a bit out of it) when I clipped a tree with the left brake lever / handle bar. This caused all sorts of weirdness resulting in my hitting a tree on the opposite side of the path (about 4′ away), and as I fell I grabbed on to a third tree.

As the bike was wrenched around hitting the tree I somehow hurt my shoulder, most likely because my arm was fairly rigid and suddenly the handle bar was about a foot back from where it had been. I hope this soreness doesn’t last too long.

I fell two other times as well. Once was right over into a huge pile of thorns and vines and the other was on a downhill when in a bit of sand and my front wheel turned and hit a root. After falling into the shrubbery I made sure to survey the area to see if I’d fallen into any poison ivy and thankfully I hadn’t. With the second I actually got off the bike and was mostly still holding the handle bars when the bike came up and over my shoulder.

This is actually the first time I’ve done anything more than just falling over while on the single track stuff. I was really pushing myself at times and right on the brink of exhaustion, so that probably had a lot to do with it. I felt like I was riding quite a bit faster than I normally do, but I was also right on the edge of losing control a few times. Pushing myself feels nice, but I really do need to be careful not to cause permanent injury.

After the ride I ended up talking with a guy named Mark for a while in the parking lot about bike stuff. He said that he shows up at many of the Wednesday night group rides, so hopefully I’ll see him there. Mark also suggested that I drop the pressure on my new tires a bit, which I’ll try on the next ride. I’d been running them at about 50 psi, but he was suggesting somewhere around 35 psi. I think I’ll give this a go.

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