Category: cycling

Tire / Wheel Damage

March 24, 2008

Tire and Wheel Damage
(Click to embiggen…)

Oh, also, here’s the damage which was done to my brand new bike tire and the wheel when I got a flat tire on Saturday. You can clearly see where the sheet metal screw went into the tire, along with where it exited the sidewall / bead area and damaged the rim. When riding along I suddenly heard a thump and slight scraping sound right before the decrease in pedaling ease, and this must have been the cause.

Being kinda busy and tired today I still haven’t patched the tube, but I’ll probably do that and grab a photo of the screw (yes, I saved it to photograph) and the patching tomorrow. Or Wednesday. Or something.

Now I’m going to contemplate sleep. Despite the large amounts of food I just ate, I feel pretty tired.

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Stony Creek Bike Ride

March 24, 2008

Today’s Bike Ride at Stony Creek

Today I was off work, so I had a rather relaxing, but work-filled day. It started out with a now-typical weekend breakfast of yogurt, granola, coffee, and a banana. Then I showered, and decided to work on cleaning up my bike. A little while later my bike was freshly washed with a nicely oiled chain and clean brake rotors. After oiling the chain on Danielle’s bike^† I decided that I needed to go for a bit of a bike ride.

Since the weather was relatively nice (it felt like 40, even though the various online systems indicated it was only 35 or so), I headed up to Stony Creek Metropark. I took my car (with the bike rack) on the highway to get there, and while the rack was nicely stable, my car did seem to drag a bit. It’s clearly not as aerodynamic with a few bikes sticking up off of the back of it.

While at the park this time I ended up riding along the road. It’s a bit smoother and tends to have less water on it, and being a park the drivers are familiar with watching out for those on bikes in the road. I ended up doing two laps along the main road, with a jaunt down to the Nature Center between the two.

This was the longest ride I’d ever done, with the GPS clocking it in as 16.6 miles, and the bike computer at 17.05. Normally I wouldn’t think that is very much, but as anyone who has been to Stony knows, it’s nothing but rolling hills there. I think there is only maybe half a mile of flat pavement amongst all of that; where the main road crosses one of the dams. It was definitely a good bit of exercise.

After coming hope I ended up showering again, sitting around for a bit, then ordering a pizza and enjoying the majority of it with a Trader Joe’s 750mL beer and some TiVo’d entertainment (King Of The Hill, Colbert Report, Daily Show, and How It’s Made).

Here is the KMZ of today’s ride, and here it is in Google Maps, if you prefer to look that way. Again, this was logged with my old Garmin eTrex Legend. This time it was converted with GPSBabel for Windows, because the drivers for my USB RS-232 port are complete crap on OS X. They repeatedly hang, can’t be unloaded via kextunload, and just cause problems. Therefore, next time I place an order with Mouser I will be ordering a good FTDI development serial cable.

^† I never, ever want to oil the chain on a coaster brake bike again without either a workstand or a second person to help. That was not easy.

cycling mapping moved from livejournal

Flat Tire

March 23, 2008

Yesterday I decided to see if I could easily get near the Lakeside / shopping area via bike, with as little riding in roads as possible. This worked out well, except while riding along a small connector road which runs behind Meijer and Costco and whatnot, I got a flat. It was a sheet metal screw stuck nicely into the thin part of the new tires. Uggh.

It wasn’t particularly hard to change the tube, it was just a bit dirtier and colder than I would have liked. The area near there is still under construction, so there was a bit of water and mud that I had just gone through. It was also just above freezing, so the tire was really stiff and took a bit of effort to get back on to the rim. Oh, and the Blackburn Shorty pump took quite a while to get to get the tires actually full enough to ride on.

Ah well. At least it got sorted out. If you are interested, here is the route I took, with start and flat tire points marked, and here is the KMZ itself.

Oh, and those tires? They do great on the pavement, in snow, in a bit of mud where there was no sidewalk, and on grass. I’m pretty happy with them.

cycling mapping moved from livejournal

Bike Shorts

March 22, 2008

Last night I picked up a set of Novara Exposure Double Bike Shorts from REI. Thus far they seem pretty comfortable, and the L size fits nicely.

I do wonder how long they’ll last. At $56 or so, hopefully at least a year. That said, I wonder if I’d be able to eBay them for profit after they are worn out. After all, there is a market for used women’s underwear. I’m sure there’s a market for used men’s bike shorts.

UPDATE: eBay does not seem to garner high prices for worn bike shorts, nor other men’s shorts in general. I imagine I’ll just have to throw these out once they are worn out. That’s probably for the best, anyway.

acquired things cycling moved from livejournal

Cold!

March 21, 2008

I was able to knock icicles off of trees while riding up to the bank. Danielle and I are going to meet up with my parents, grandparents, and a bunch of other family members at a church fish fry tonight, so I needed some cash to pay for fish and chips.

I found that:

– Riding to the bank takes the same amount of time, even when I have to wait at 23 and Schoenherr for the lights. (Likely because making the left turn to the bank takes two or three light changes in a car, and one on a bike.)
– It’s funny to ride past long rows of backed up cars.
– The ATM isn’t very viewable from a standing position, likely because of a polarizer to make the display more viewable in sunlight.
– Being on a bike puts your head at head level of as a typical mid-size SUV driver. This is good for making eye contact.

I’m contemplating getting a skull cap and something to keep my ears warm while riding, but that costs money and I don’t think (hope?) that the sub-40F cold will last much longer.

Also this episode of This American Life, Episode 352: The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar is particularly good. I listened to it while showering (yes, a long shower) and then burned a copy to disc for my grandparents to listen to.

cycling moved from livejournal weather

Bike Rack: Confirmed

March 20, 2008

My Bike & Groceries
(Click for full size…)

Last friday I received some email from the person who had promised me that a bike rack would be installed at the VG’s near my house, apologizing that it hadn’t yet been installed. Sunday, on the way to and ‘s place, Danielle and I drove through the VG’s lot and saw a bike rack next to the front door.

I haven’t needed groceries yet, but with finishing up the yogurt, carrots, bananas, and smoked salmon within the last few days, and combined with some rather nice after-work weather, I figured I’d put the basket on the back of the bike and go pick some things up.

The basket, tires, and lock all worked out great, even though the basket does occasionally touch my bum while riding. As it’s only 1.5 miles to the store, that’s not a big deal. The cheap black bungee cords I picked up for holding things into the basket seem to work pretty good, and if they somehow get lost or break it’ll only be another $2 or so from Lowe’s to replace them.

I’d brought a brown paper bag to the store with me so that I could not take up another new bag, and that seemed to confuse the checkout guy a bit. He first took it and put the potato chips (Better Maid Hot, I hope they are good) and bananas in there alone, then went to get me another bag for other things. After a little prompting (and my saying that I’ll just carry the chips myself) he packed things differently, and it all fit nicely in the bag. That single bag then fit in the basket great, I was able to strap the top down, and ride home.

The lock worked out pretty good as well. It’d be nice if it was just slightly longer, but it worked. I found that the left strap on my helmet can’t be wholly undone, so it’s safe to lock it in the cable. Someone could cut the straps on it, but a helmet without straps is pretty worthless.

Now, time to figure out what to have for dinner. I would go for a longer ride, possibly trying to find a reasonable way to get to Riverbends, but it’s really windy and it’ll take at least half an hour to find and prepare food, I think.

Oh, darn. I just realized that I forgot to purchase bread.

around the house cycling moved from livejournal

Continental TravelContact

March 18, 2008

Continental TravelContact 26 x 1.75″ Tire

Today after work I picked up two Continental TravelContact tires for my bike. While the tires that it came with are pretty decent, I wanted a smoother rolling tire for when riding on paths and other paved areas. While I’d previous purchased some rather all right Forte FastCity ST/K mostly smooth tires, I found that they are just too narrow for anything other than pavement.

After a bunch of reading online and a bit of conversation here, I ended up going by REI and purchasing a membership, two tires, and two tubes. I wasn’t sure if the tubes already in my bike tires would fit, so I got these. I’ve got a spare 1.5″ – 2.0″ Forte tube, so that’ll continue to be my spare (these are 1.75″).

As you can see above (or in this top view), the Continental TravelContact has a really smooth center, with knobs on the edges. I took the bike out for a quick ride this evening after fitting the tires, and they definitely roll both more smoothly and easily than the knobby tires which were on there. I had no problem riding / hopping over some of the remaining piles of snow either, and they feel a good bit more solid / sure footed than the narrow FastCity ST/K ones I’d tried before. So, all in all, these seem like pretty nice tires. Hopefully I’ll have some time to ride this weekend and get a good bit more use out of them.

Oh, I also swung by Lowes on the way home and picked up this cheap lock ($12) for securing my bike when running up to the grocery store. It’s the sort of area where one could leave their car doors unlocked and most likely not have a problem, so I think this should be good enough for keeping someone from just riding away. I wouldn’t trust it for all-day use in a secluded area, but for a bike rack near the front door of a large grocery store, it should be fine.

UPDATE: I just remembered that I forgot to roll out the front tire and measure it’s circumference. Ergh. I’ll have to do this tomorrow. If I’m going to instrument something (in this case, the bike) I like it to be reasonably accurate.

acquired things cycling moved from livejournal

Bike Tires

March 17, 2008

So, not long after getting my bike I picked up a pair of Forte FastCity ST/K tires. These are relatively narrow, somewhat smooth tires designed to make a mountain bike work better on roads. This they do very well, but they are awful on other surfaces.

The knobby tires which came with my bike seem to do well on trails, but whenever I’m riding on pavement they are a bit rough/rumbly, and just a bit harder than the smooth tires to pedal / go fast with.

I’ve been finding that what I really want, to match how I use the bike, is something which is smooth rolling on pavement, but will still be okay when I have to deal with spots of mud, puddles, and riding around on grass / dirt paths, two-tracks up north, stuff like that. Not true mountain bike uses, but more go-anywhere tires.

Looking around online I came across these, Continental Traffic tires, which seem to have a nicely smooth but still grooved center, and bigger knobs around the edge. From these reviews they look like they’d be pretty all right.

Do any of you have an opinion on these, or possibly recommendations for similar tires?

Thanks very much!

cycling moved from livejournal

GPS + Bike Stuff

March 16, 2008

Google Earth Plot of my Bike Ride
(Click for full res image…)

That right there is a plot of the bike ride I went on yesterday. Yes, it won’t make much sense for those of you who don’t know the northern Sterling Heights / Utica / Clinton Township area, but it’s a ~12 mile round trip.

If you’re wondering how this is made, I simply had my old Garmin eTrex Legend GPS mounted on the handlebar of my bike, logging the route as I rode. Then today I connected it to my Mac via a serial cable and USB adapter, fired up the Mac OS X version of GPSBabel+, set the input to the USB serial port, type Garmin GPS, selected to transfer only Tracks, and set the output to ‘Google Earth (Keyhole) Markup Language’, or KML file. Then I just opened the file in Google Earth, edited it a bit, deleted the points and left only the track, and saved it off as a new KMZ. Here is a screenshot of GPSBabel+ set up the way I use it for transferring data from my GPS to a KML file.

Note that when using the GPSBabel+, if I select Waypoints, Tracks, and Routes I only get Waypoints. If I select just Tracks, I get the data used for this plot. If I select just Routes, GPSbabel (or the crappy USB adapter, or something) hangs, with a process I can’t kill, even with -9. (This is why I suspect it’s the crappy USB adapter or its driver.). Also note that GPSBabel+ is a OS X GUI for the gpsbabel command line utility.

If you’d like to poke with the data for the map, and open it in Google Earth (or whatever) yourself, grab 15-Mar-08_dodge_park.kmz.

This link opens the file in Google Maps for you, with street names and such.

cycling mapping moved from livejournal

Today’s Bike Ride

March 15, 2008

My Bike, Kinda Dirty
(Click for bigger…)

Today (Brian) and I met up at Dodge Park in Sterling Heights to go for a bit of a ride. We ended up riding through the park for a little ways, then down Utica to Schoenherr, up 16 Mile, through some subdivisions, and down Dodge Park (the road) back to Dodge Park proper. Brian was pretty cold by this time, as his shoes are pretty airy, and due to a fall (while he was getting used to his new clipless pedals) which got his glove wet. That, and he had to meet some people for Japanese food at 5pm.

By this time we’d gone around six or seven miles, but I was wanting to ride some more, so I headed back into the park and along the river, eventually going under M-53 and up to Riverland Drive. After this I stopped and had a Clif bar (I hadn’t eaten much today), then headed back. All in all I did just over 12 miles. I could go a bit more, but I don’t want to completely kill my legs in one day.

At a few points while riding I had to go through 3″ of standing water, and almost everywhere ridden was either wet, muddy, or snowy. Despite almost all of it being pavement, only the residential roads were dry, which, as you can see meant that I had to wash my bike off when getting home. I hosed it down and gently brushed it with a soft car washing brush., and it’s pretty clean now, but I could use some degreasing cleaner to sort out some parts of the frame.

I grabbed a GPS track of the whole ride, so hopefully I’ll have a nice plot tonight, layed over Google Earth or something. Now, time to shower, go to Target and get a more proper shirt for biking in, swing by work, get some Indian food, then… I’m not sure what else.

cycling moved from livejournal