Comedy of (Mechanical) Errors

Guest poster Jeff Hemmel finds that sometimes, rides just don’t go as they’re planned.

Just as in life, some days on the bike go smoothly…while others make you wish you had just stayed home. Proof? I offer a glimpse into today’s ride…or as I’m calling it, the comedy of mechanical errors.

7:45

Text friends (or at least the short list of friends who also work from home and thus can ride on a weekday morning), see who’s ready to ride. One’s out, one’s not responding. Begin mindless wandering on Internet.

9:00

Still no response, so come up with a solo plan. Just for grins, I’m going to tackle several Strava segments in the area and see if I can post some ridiculously fast times so everyone will think I’m a cool cyclist. Haven’t heard of Strava? It’s a GPS-based, mileage-tracking app with a social-media component…but let’s face it, it’s really just a way for people to compare themselves to others and convince themselves they’re cool cyclists.

9:15

Finally leave the house, heading toward the downtown route favored by the local cycling club. Approach the first segment I’m targeting, bordering a local country club. Pop a caffeinated energy gel into my mouth and get ready to hammer. Instead, realize I have a flat and curse the loss of precious, Strava-busting momentum. That makes two flats in about three days in the same tire…or two more than I’ve gotten in about the entire last year.

9:29

Remove the tire, lay my bike on the grass, and begin my inspection. Yes, I know that guy on YouTube does this process in 45 seconds, but I’m actually trying to find out what caused the flat…not just have it repeated another couple miles down the road. After two minutes of tentative feeling around inside the tire (does anybody really want to discover the cause with their bare fingers?) I find a tiny piece of glass. It’s buried, so I spend the next several minutes trying to dig it out.

9:35

Overcome the revulsion I have about putting something in my mouth that has been produced in a factory and attempt to blow a little bit of air into the tube to give it some shape. Nothing’s happening. Un-strap my Lezyne mini pump (hey, like a Boy Scout I’m prepared), then spend the next several minutes in frustration trying to unscrew the air hose which is housed within the pump body for storage. Curse myself for not greasing the threads.

9:38

Finally pump a little air into the tube, then start wrestling with the tire. After thousands of miles it’s decided to snap itself back into a kinked, twisting figure eight that my frazzled brain simply cannot decipher. Nice elderly lady stops by to offer assistance…obviously she’s never seen an experienced cyclist change a tire before.

9:40

Grab CO2 cartridge and let ‘er rip, anxious to get on with my ride. The tube begins to fill, then quickly the gizmo fails, adding a few greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and causing me to whine like a baby about my now-frozen hands. No spare cartridge, so go back to the mini pump.

9:50

One thousand, three-hundred-and-twelve pumps later and I’m exhausted. My tire is just on the firmer side of mushy. I’m obsessed with this Strava thing so I soldier on, ignoring the fact that I’ll soon be passing through a little rougher side of town with no spare, no patch kit, and no other tough-looking guys in badass Lycra. Okay, I do ponder for a moment who I can call should I have another problem…and wonder how long my puny self and expensive road bike will sit unnoticed while said person comes to pick me up.

9:52

Start to roll once again and realize my tire is mush. Stop, un-strap pump once again, and pump another thousand times (give or take). Tire pressure is now maybe an optimistic 70-psi.

10:00

Once again get underway, but aft water bottle is jumping wildly with every pedal stroke. Inspect and discover the cadence magnet on my crank arm is now inexplicably colliding with the remounted mini pump, which in turn is springing the bottle in question. Pedal in weird, half-arcs until I find a park bench…where I proceed to stare at the situation with all the knowledge and experience of a guy who just took 30 minutes to change a single flat tire.

10:10

Give serious consideration to the theory that a crank arm that can handle all the force generated by a Tour de France winner just bent under the weight of a 16-pound bike frame sitting on a well-manicured fairway. Un-strap pump, put it in my jersey pocket, give up on being king of the GPS-tracking-app mountain, and head home, completing a whopping 16 miles…in 1 hour and 37 minutes.

I did finally solve the mystery, or at least the part of it that didn’t involve my own incompetence. The pump bracket has mounting slots, rather than boltholes. Though the bolts seemed tight, the bracket had somehow slid to the left…just enough to derail my best-laid plans.

Hmm…maybe those Strava guys did it.

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Moisture Wicking Base Layers

During warm weather here in Texas (which is about eight months out of the year) I like to wear just a cycling jersey next to my skin. But if the temperature gets below 70 degrees (21C), I add a base layer.

I haven’t been too particular about what kind of base layer I use. I’ve got three. Two are polyester items from Jockey, a sleeveless and a t-shirt. I have since added another t-shirt from Performance, which fits looser than the Jockey items.

A Craft base layer t-shirt.

The whole idea behind moisture wicking fabrics is to pull moisture from your skin and cause it to evaporate quickly, keeping you dry and comfortable. My experience is that there is something to that, but it doesn’t work as completely as the catalogs would have you believe.

When I get back from my rides, my base layer is usually soaked. There doesn’t seem to be any area on it that isn’t wet with sweat (admittedly, I am a heavy sweater). The moisture does transfer from the base layer to my other clothing layers. If I’m wearing a windbreaker over my jersey, the windbreaker is usually wet, too.

The best luck I’ve had is with the Performance tee. I think that might be because the item doesn’t cling to my skin and make me look like I’m wearing a sausage casing. There are folds and wrinkles that I think might help with moisture transfer. After a brisk ride Sunday morning, I was perfectly comfortable sitting outdoors in cool weather as we relaxed at the coffee shop.

So that makes me wonder: Have you had different experiences with different types of base layer? Have you got some that are your go-to items for certain weather conditions, or are they all pretty much the same as far as you’re concerned?

Now, I must admit that I’m not a real student of the properties of different wicking fabrics. I’ve worn polyester. I haven’t owned a wool base layer, or a wool jersey. I haven’t used high-end base layers, like those from Craft or Helly-Hansen. So I’d be interested in hearing about your experiences, and see if there is a real difference in base layer wicking properties, or if they’re all pretty much the same.

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Cheating Death

No, nothing serious. But lately, I do feel at the end of my rides as though I have cheated death. Each time.

It’s a combination of things, really. For instance, on Saturday’s ride with my wife. Out on the shoulder of a four-lane divided highway, there’s a spot where a bridge crosses another road. At this point, the shoulder is pretty cruddy, with lots of gravel and debris. I usually move just into the traffic lane until I’m over the bridge, then go back onto the shoulder.

But Saturday, a pickup decided he wasn’t going to let me into his lane. I heard him come up behind me. I held my line. He passed within a foot of me. Another similar incident, where the car wasn’t quite as close, happened later on the same ride. I chalked it up to a typical day on the bike.

On Sunday’s club ride, we were out on Fitzhugh Road again, and I was sticking close to my friend Penny, who is coming back from surgery. Fitzhugh is our “roller” route, and is challenging for fit riders — let alone someone who’s just building her endurance. I seemed to be constantly shouting, “Car back!” as traffic was heavier than it often is. The cars are better than they used to be at slowing and following behind us until the way ahead is clear on the two-lane, shoulderless road. Two cars tucked in behind Penny as she labored up a hill, waiting until the road ahead was safe to pass. But a third vehicle, a Hummer, wasn’t about to wait. It braked hard behind the other two cars, with a short squeal of its brakes. As soon as the way cleared, and the cars were able to move around Penny, the Hummer gunned it, squealed its tires again, and passed her — again leaving no more than a foot of space between it and her. The experience rattled her, sine Fitzhugh’s roller are tough enough without having to contend with impatient drivers.

On the return trip, I rode with Rob, a strong rider new to our Sunday outings. “I almost bought it on the way out,” he said. “I hit one of those damp patches on a curve, and my rear wheel wanted to break away. I just got it under control.”

A sheriff’s patrol car raced by in the oncoming lane, lights flashing. Minutes later, it was followed by a fire truck, this time with siren blaring. The guy next to me muttered, “Hope that’s not one of our people back there.”

The thought was still with us when we heard sirens again. This time, a county paramedic unit roared by. Up ahead, we pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store. A state trooper was parked in his squad car. Judy, one of our other riders, chatted with the trooper through his car window.

“It’s okay,” she said, pulling away from the squad. “A guy fell off a ladder.”

“Good,” said my friend David, when we told him about it after he caught up to us a few minutes later.

It was a sentiment we all shared. We weren’t glad some local was hurt — we were glad it wasn’t one of our cycling group.

Cycling is a great pastime. Like many others, I chafe when I’m kept from getting out on the road for several days. But it seems to me that riding the roads is getting dicier. I don’t cycle with the verve I once did — rather, I am super careful of both road conditions and motorists. I still love riding, but I want to make sure I don’t realize my mortality any sooner than necessary.

 

 

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Two Cycling Viewpoints

An interesting discussion flared up on our club’s email board this week. It all started innocently enough. The club president posted that riders new to the club shouldn’t worry about getting dropped on club rides.

“For some part of nearly all of my rides I could fairly be said to have been dropped,” he wrote. “The fast movers [they are NOT all guys] will head off into the distance while I am apparently not bright enough to wait for the slower riders.”

But he added that eventually the fastest of the slow riders will catch up to him, and they will pull each other to the next rally stop.

“At that point it is not at all unusual for some riders from both groups to talk about heading home while others continue to make tracks,” he continued. ”Practically never do I ride home alone.”

Our main club ride is on Sunday morning. We meet at a local Starbucks at 8 a.m., and roll out at 8:15. Most of the riders usually fall into what I call the A group. They can maintain a pretty good clip. Last week, they averaged over 17 mph for a 50-mile ride. That’s a pace that would scare off newcomers.

He was called out by the club secretary, who lives some distance west of town and seldom does the Sunday rides, unless a group heads out to her neck of the woods to ride the Hill Country.

“This message is a bit misleading,” she posted. “I know if I rode with the group, I’d have to bust my rear to keep up, and then would eventually poop out and be dropped.  Not fun.”

She added, “Unless a person is a hammerhead (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), he/she won’t particularly enjoy the regular club rides.”

The president’s wife, who started out as a B rider but worked her way up to A level (athletic woman, she) chimed in with a valid point: “The reason the Sunday ride has become what it is, is because it has been the one consistent ride of the group [departing every Sunday] and these are the riders who have consistently showed up.” ‘Tis true. That may be one reason that the club has a reputation around town of being a bunch of hammerheads.

This has been an issue at least since I joined the club several years ago. I got tired enough of trying to keep up with the fast pace of the rides that I started calling for B-level riders to come out, and we’d do our own thing on Sunday. That met with some success, especially in the more temperate months. The fellow who began the B rides in our club has now rejoined after living elsewhere for several years, and he’s begun organizing B rides again. Turnout is starting to pick up — even bringing in some A riders who want to go easier on a given week, for whatever reason.

The controversy (perhaps too strong a word) may be situated in differing objectives for different riders. The president revealed his point of view later in his post: “Don’t pass up the opportunity to test yourself a bit,” he wrote. That seems to indicate a point of view that cyclists ought to strive to get faster, maybe to ride longer. But it’s just that point of view that puts off a lot of would-be members.

“I do love to ride, and love the workout it gives me,” the club secretary posted.  ”I just prefer to get my workout a little more slowly.  I’m in no rush.  The social factor is a big one for me.  If I’m riding so hard that I can barely breathe, then I can’t talk either.”

That viewpoint is shared by most of those who call themselves B riders — including yours truly. Some riders want to physically improve themselves. Others like cycling for its recreational value. I just posted a B ride for Sunday, so whatever a rider’s tastes, we can accommodate them.

Is this yin and yang between different ability levels unique to my club, or does it exist in yours, too? Comments are open.

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Time to Start Training

Monday was my last day off before the start of spring semester (Yeah, I know — we academics have it rough), so I was determined to get in a ride. Pat called one of our good local riding friends, because she had the MLK holiday off too, and we met at the Veloway for some laps.

Our friend Penny is coming back from a hip replacement, and is almost ready to rejoin our B-level club rides. But she has something more pressing on her mind right now. In March, she and her husband Rick will spend several days riding in the Big Bend area of West Texas.

The Big Bend is mountainous, so the routes they’ll be riding will be challenging, to say the least. Not only is Penny riding to come back from the surgery, but now she’s riding to train for her biking trip. And that lit the lightbulb over my head.

The Bike Noob riding a century several years ago. (Click to enlarge.)

It’s mid-January already! While I don’t have any multi-day mountain rides coming up, I do have some rides I want to do in March. And March is a whopping six weeks away. The easy riding I’ve been doing has been good at maintaining my base. Now I have to start doing something to boost both my speed and my endurance.

What am I going to do? I’m not really sure yet. That’s not really a problem, since I have gobs of training plans around here — both in cycling books and various online sites. I’ll come up with something that will work.

But I know I’ll be working on two different elements: increasing distance and riding faster. On weekends, at least one of my rides will be longer than I’ve been used to. I’ll be increasing that long distance each week, until I’m up to metric century snuff. During the week, I’ll get in a fast ride. My fast rides might involve intervals, almost certainly fartlek, or maybe just maintaining a higher average speed than I’m normally comfortable with.

But I’ll be riding with a purpose from here on out.

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Bike Checks

Earlier this week, Pat and I were about to take a short ride in the neighborhood. While I waited with the bikes in the driveway as she finished putting on her shoes, I glanced down at the rear wheel of the bike — and I was stunned by what I saw.

The left-side brake pad was sitting at a right angle to the wheel rim. I put my fingers on it, and it was very loose. If I had ridden the bike that way, I would have had no stopping power in the rear brakes — and could have been in for a serious on-road problem.

I grabbed my Allen wrench set from the garage and quickly put the brake pad in place and made sure it was tightened down. Then I did a careful inspection — as careful as I could given the few minutes available — to make sure no other bolts were loose, and that everything was working as it should.

What bothers me about this incident is that I’m pretty good at doing the ABC Quick Check. I hadn’t done it yet this day, but would have before Pat came out. But on the previous ride I did, I didn’t catch the loose brake pad. Maybe it didn’t come loose until the end of the ride. Maybe something caused it to come loose while it was sitting in the garage for two days without being ridden (yeah, right). Maybe I had done last Sunday’s club ride with a loose brake pad. I get shivers just thinking about it.

But although I do the ABC Quick Check, I am negligent at doing a more careful inspection of the bike at a regular interval. Things like my tires, for instance. I know I should check them after every ride to make sure nothing got caught in the tread that could lead to a puncture, or if I have any new cuts or gashes in the tire. But I don’t. I check them when I think about it. I just don’t think about it near enough.

Since that experience with the brake, I’ve been over-diligent about checking out the bike. I suppose that’s a natural overreaction, but over time, I’ll ease up on doing it. Instead, I found a nifty little bike checklist, courtesy the folks at Active.com, that I’ve printed out and tacked to the garage wall near the bike. Now, I’ll have an ever-present reminder of the kinds of checks I need to do on the bike to prevent any other easily-detected problems from cropping up.

How about you? Do you have a bike inspection routine you normally use? Share it with our readers.

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Putting It All In Perspective

Guest poster Don Blount looks at different kinds of pain.

Suffering sometimes is all about perspective.

I recently had two old dental fillings replaced without use of anesthesia. More than a few people cringe when I tell them that story.

I did not ask for this experience. Before the dentist started the work, he tested the area with a blast of cold air and then of cold water. “You didn’t flinch,” he said. “So I’m going to try this without giving you anything. Why numb you up and have you put up with needles if you don’t have to, right?”

WHHHHAAAT????? I thought.

Maybe I didn’t flinch because I have a high pain tolerance. Maybe I didn’t flinch because I was too tense to move.

However, he assured me that he would give me anesthetic if I was in pain.

As my dentist poked, prodded, drilled, polished and went about his work, my mind drifted to cycling. Specifically it drifted to suffering on the bike.

Middle Bar.

I remembered some of the climbs I did in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains last year. I was taken on a club ride up road called Stoney Creek. I don’t remember seeing any stones or a creek, I remember a never-ending climb, pedaling squares and gasping for air.

There was another ride on Paloma Road that I I kept telling myself to just keep turning the pedals, keep turning the pedals, k-e-e-p t-u-r-n-i-n-g….. You get the idea.

And there was Middle Bar. I remembered riding (and walking) alone up a bumpy sorry-@#*! road. I never told anyone this but at one point I was going so slowly that I just toppled over and fell like a top that had lost its spin.

I was unhurt, my bike was fine but I managed to damage the new Deda handlebar tape I had put on just a few days earlier.

But all in all, this riding, this suffering, somehow made me a stronger, better rider.

And as I sat there in the dentist’s chair mouth agape, drill whining, I did not think of the fun, easy or enjoyable rides but those difficult rides. And I knew that if I could survive those bike rides then I could survive the dental work because I suffered more on those rides.

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When Nice Drivers Cause Problems

Just the other day, I mentioned that sometimes when drivers are nice to cyclists (it does happen!), it can cause safety problems. Sure enough, on our club ride Sunday, we ran into that very situation — twice.

One of my favorite routes is Fitzhugh Road. It’s in the Hill Country west of Austin, but not too far west. In fact, it’s only about a 10-mile ride to get there, and then the rider can go for as long as 30 miles, on some challenging rolling hills. We didn’t go that far Sunday — in fact, we went only about five miles on Fitzhugh before we turned back.

But here’s the tricky part. When Fitzhugh ends at U.S. 290, we have to make a left turn onto the highway. At this point, 290 is four lanes wide with a center lane. Cyclists take the center lane, because in just about 200 yards, we’re going to make another left turn — and being in the center lane is safer, believe it or not, than trying to ride an iffy shoulder, then cut across traffic lanes to get into position to make a left.

Most of the time, it’s an easy maneuver. Because of the way stoplights are timed along 290, we often can make our left turn from the center lane without dealing with oncoming traffic. But that wasn’t the case this time. We were in a tightly-packed group of 10. The oncoming traffic was as heavy as I’ve ever seen it. We reached the left turn, and had to stop.

But one of the oncoming cars decided to do us a favor. He stopped, and waited for us to turn in front of him. We all stayed put, and signaled him to keep going. After all, he had the right of way. But one of our group decided to take him up on his generous offer, and started to make the turn. The car, responding to the group’s gestures, started up again. Then, more cars headed in his direction caught up. Our cyclist friend could have been t-boned, and the result would not have been pretty.

Later, just yards from the end of our ride, we were in the left turn lane of a four-lane divided road. We were about to turn into the shopping area where our Starbucks meeting place is situated. The traffic spaced out enough that some riders opted to proceed across the oncoming lanes. Others of us weren’t quick enough in our reactions, and stayed in the left turn lane, waiting for all the traffic to pass. But one car decided to be a nice guy. He stopped — in the middle of a 50 mph suburban arterial — to let us make our turn. Other traffic was closing the gap. We had to decide quickly what to do. We all made it across, waving at the guy as we did.

We get enough static from bike-hating drivers that it’s a pleasant change of pace to see someone who’s looking out for bikers. But when their generosity has the potential of causing worse traffic hazards, I’d just as soon have them be less nice.

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Minor Adjustments

Over the past week, I’ve had occasion to make adjustments to the saddles on both my and Pat’s bike. Her bike, of course, needed a replacement saddle after hers fell apart on New Year’s Day. In my case, I got new crank arms, and thought their longer length would require some changes in my saddle position.

Once again I was intrigued by the difference a few millimeters makes. First, my saddle. My crank arms are now 175mm, as opposed to the 172.5mm ones they replaced. So a 2.5mm drop in the seat height was called for, no? I decided not to go quite that far, but did lower the seat by roughly two millimeters.

The first ride after the change left me feeling no real difference. But later that evening, I felt a soreness just above my right knee. Nothing serious, but it was there. I decided I’d have to keep experimenting to get just the right setting.

Pat’s bike had its own issues. I put on the saddle that came as original equipment, and measured the distance from the saddle nose to the center of the headset to make sure they were the same. Then, I made sure the saddle was level. It was ready for her to ride it.

Right off the bat, there were problems. I had not tightened the saddle enough, and Pat worked it loose in just a few pedal strokes. We returned to the house, and I did some more wrenching. We did the nine-mile neighborhood ride she likes to do during the week.

“It feels like my butt is hanging off the back,” she complained.

I checked the level of the saddle. It was off again, the nose pointing slightly up. More tweaking.

On the same ride Saturday, things seemed better for her. She didn’t have the “hanging” sensation, but said she still felt like the nose was pointing up a little. I got out the wrench and the level, and with any luck, it should meet her expectations now.

In my case, I had neglected to move the saddle back to compensate for its lower height. But after two or three rides, I decided it never needed to be lowered in the first place. I raised it to its previous height, and this time, I moved it back two millimeters.

My next ride had some interesting results. I felt most comfortable when I scooted my butt way back on the saddle. It looked like I would have to move it back a lot farther.

But I was leery of doing that. Moving the saddle too far back would affect my reach to the bars, and my arms had a nice bend to them. I remembered how I rode for the first year after buying the bike, with my elbows locked and my arms straight. I didn’t want to experience that again.

On my Saturday ride, I was in a different pair of bibs than I wore the day before. The Friday bibs were by Castelli, with their distinctive thin but dense chamois pad. The Saturday bibs were Sugois, which have a thicker, softer, and larger pad. On the Saturday ride, I was perfectly comfortable riding in a normal position on the saddle. On Sunday, I wore a pair of tights by Performance. No problems.

So, I think I have the adjustment correct now. I’d noted the difference shorts make in the past, and kicked myself for not paying attention to that this time around. I’ve heard Lance Armstrong referred to as “Mr. Millimeter,” because of his ultra-awareness to changes in his bike’s setup. Any more changes in my setup will be in tiny increments, too.

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Taking Advantage of the Weather

Pat had to make a business trip out of town, so I was planning to do a longer ride than I have done lately. A glance outside showed that conditions would be excellent for riding. It was sunny, and the wind was light. By the time I finished attending to some duties around the house, by late morning, we were enjoying unseasonable weather once again.

Much of the country is enjoying this mild winter. The high in Austin today turned out to be 70 degrees (21C), with sun throughout the day. Some places much farther north got up to 70 as well. So my biking experience was probably not different from that of many folks.

I decided to ride to Buda, a town south of Austin, that would give me a nice 32-mile round trip. I do this ride several times a year with the club, but not so much by myself. I was interested to see how traffic in midday on a weekday would differ from traffic early on a Sunday morning.

It wasn’t bad. One spot about four miles into the ride was under construction, and the road was narrowed to one lane. I had to wait for the guy with the stop/slow sign to spin “slow” my way in order to continue. And the high school parking lot we cut through on Sunday mornings had the gates shut, because school was back in session today — so I stayed on the main roads for a little while longer.

The last six or so miles into Buda is along a two-lane road, paved with chip seal. It’s pretty bumpy, and because it crosses a creek, it climbs out of the creek valley for quite a way before leveling off. Once you reach the Walgreen’s in Buda, there’s still one more mile to go to get to the town’s historic downtown. Such as it is.

Buda's Main Street.

I pootled along some of old Buda’s residential streets, because we ignore them on club rides. Really, there’s not much to this town, although it’s seen explosive growth over the last seven years or so as new retail places open along the interstate highway, and new housing developments spring up on the outskirts.

The return trip was just as uneventful. I didn’t get honked at once, and two or three times, drivers waved me through intersections ahead of them — even though they had the right of way. (I have mixed reactions to that. It’s great to be waved on, but sometimes when drivers want you to go out of turn it can cause problems. You might be unclipped from your pedal, for example, and have to react quickly.)

When I pulled into my driveway, the temperature had risen from 61 at the start to 67 (16-19C). I had worked up more of a sweat than I’ve done in the last week, even though I was dressed the same. And I noted that I had exceeded 100 miles ridden for the first five days of any month. The closest I’ve come to doing this was in 2010, when I rode all but one of the first six days of January. I went on to over 4,000 miles that year.

It’s too early to predict if my mileage will be that high this year. I know that in two weeks, work obligations will cut into the amount of time I have available for riding. But the weather is supposed to hold until Monday, and I’m going to get bike time in every day until then. Unseasonable weather patterns to have their advantages.

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