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Archives for February 2011

Jumping Red Lights

02.06.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 9 Comments

So, I’m on a longer-than-usual weekend ride, and I come to a “T” intersection.  I’m going to turn left, off a narrow two-lane road onto a busy, four-lane arterial.  But I’ve got a red light.

I stop, and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Geez, this is a long light!  Maybe I can goose it up a bit.  I walk the bike over to the stop light, and push the button to display the “Walk” signal.  And wait.  And wait.  And wait.

Finally, the cross traffic gets a red light.  But my light doesn’t turn green.  The traffic moving from my right to my left has a left turn arrow, but no one is turning left.  So everyone is stopped at the intersection.

I’ve got two cars waiting behind me.  They’re both going to turn left with me.  I want to get out in front of them.  Oh, the hell with it.

I push out into the intersection and make my left turn.  I’m a good fifty yards down the road before the light where I was waiting turns green.  By the time those cars catch me, I’m safely in the right lane, and signaling a right turn for the next corner.

About an hour later, much the same thing.  Another “T” intersection.  I’m planning another left turn, and once again the light isn’t changing.  So once again, I pull out into the intersection, complete my turn, and I’m well down the road before any cars can catch up to me.

Proponents of vehicular cycling urge cyclists to ride as they would if they were behind the wheel of a car.  That means I’d have to stay in my place until the light goes green.

But from a personal safety standpoint, it made more sense to me to get a jump on the cars.  And both times, it worked just the way I had hoped.  I put distance between myself and them, and I think the drivers behind me might have appreciated that I wasn’t in their way, either.

And notice, I did not jump ahead at a red light where I was traveling in the same direction as the rest of the cars.  I would never do that.  I made these moves only at “T” intersections.

Was I wrong?

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Categories // Safety Tags // red light, vehicular cycling

Backpedaling – With a New Old Crankset

02.03.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

I put in considerably fewer miles in January than in the last few months of 2010, mainly because the weather was so uncooperative.  But even so, I did come to one major conclusion about my bike:

I have to change cranks again.

Regular readers might remember that my bike fitting in April showed that I needed shorter crank arms.  The ones I had were 175 mm, and the fitter recommended 172.5.  I was able to change over much sooner than I thought, because guest poster Don Blount had an older crankset that he had upgraded, and was nice enough to send it my way.  The difference 2.5 mm made in the pedal stroke was noticeable, and an improvement.

But then came New Year’s Day.  The left crank arm fell off during a ride.

I prepared myself after that.  I put an 8 mm Allen wrench into my seat bag, ready to tighten the pedal bolt if I ever needed to.  Unfortunately, just a few days later, I needed to.  I stopped during a ride just to check it, and sure enough, the same left crank arm jiggled a little.

I mentioned the problem to a bike mechanic, and he told me the crankset was shot, and needed to be replaced.  I didn’t really want to, and figured I could just tighten it as needed.

But I’ve needed to tighten it more often than I thought.  And it’s very unpredictable, too.  On a recent 30-mile ride, the bolt stayed tight, even after I’d traveled some grungy roads.  But on an easy Veloway ride of half that distance a few days later, I had to stop on the second lap to tighten it down.

So, I’m retrofitting.  I still have the original equipment crankset and bottom bracket, and I’ll just swap out one for the other.  That means I’ll be going back to 175 mm crank arms.  Well, I lived with them for more than two years, and they performed fine – just maybe not as optimally as shorter arms.  For the casual kind of riding I mostly do these days, I don’t think it will be a bad thing.  Except maybe, I’ll just have to be more careful about lifting the inside pedal on tight turns.

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Categories // Components Tags // components, cranksets

Getting Away By Bike

02.01.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

It’s the coldest weather I’ve experienced in the 10 years I’ve lived in Texas.  My former homes in the Midwest are snowed in by the biggest snowstorm of the year.  I’m not thinking much about biking in these circumstances.  But we can use the time away from our bikes to make plans.  And when doing that, it’s a good idea to dream big.

David Houghton dreams big.  His new website, Biciklo, is a guide to biking tours around the world.  The premise is simple.  Let’s say you want to go somewhere – maybe somewhere exotic – and while you’re there, you want to get in some riding.  You could make arrangements to rent a bike and get a map and explore on your own, or you can go on an organized biking tour, with experienced guides who know cool out-of-the-way places and who can look after the mundane details of the trip.

Lots of different companies compete in this field.  How can you compare them and figure out which is the best for you?  That’s what Biciklo does.  Log onto the website, www.biciklo.com, and click on a country you’d like to see by bike.  Let’s say Spain, just for kicks.  You want to go for a period of two to 10 days, and you want to do some road biking.

Descending on the Costa Brava.

Holy cow! I counted 112 different tours in Spain, offered by at least 30 different companies.  Once you get those returns, you can start culling them to find the kind of tour that fits your interest.  Some feature overnight accommodations in luxury hotels, other say overnights are “indoors.”  The tours are described as easy, moderate or challenging.  Prices are quoted in Euros, Pound sterling, or U.S. dollars, depending upon the company offering the tour.  Of course, there’s a link on each tour to the company that offers it, so you can get further details from their sites.

Most people keep a “bucket list” – list of things they want to do in their lifetimes.  Biciklo’s Houghton suggests keeping a “bike-it” list.  He hopes his site will help promote bicycle touring as a healthy, environmentally sustainable way to travel.

If you want a break from Old Man Winter, even vicariously, take a look at www.biciklo.com.

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Categories // Travel Tags // touring, Travel

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