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Archives for June 2013

A Million Miles?

06.04.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

Over the last couple of days, messages have been flying back and forth on our bike club’s Yahoo group concerning miles ridden. One member posted an item that a 92-year-old from the Baltimore area has ridden his bike about 150,000 in his lifetime. He wondered if any of our members would ever even come close.

Immediately, he got his answer. Steve said he was near that mark, at 176,475 miles since 1994. And he has actually been riding since 1985, but didn’t want to dig out his spiral notebooks to look up his mileage totals from ’85-’94. Steve’s advantage is that he’s 28 years younger than the guy from Baltimore, so he figures he’s got plenty more miles to come under his pedals.

Mike B. said he averaged about 8,000 miles per year between 1983-2007. Since moving from California to Texas, his annual mileage is down to about 5,000 per year — but that still brings his to about 217,000.

David, our bike club mechanic, noted that he’s been riding since 1989, and over the last decade has averaged about 6,500 miles per year. He thinks his total to date is about 142,000 miles. But David is still in his ’30s. “I didn’t wait to get old before I began riding,” he said.

Let’s see…I started biking in mid-2007. My mileage to date is a whopping 20,105. Looks like it’s a long shot for me to even make 100,000 in my lifetime.

How about you and your riding friends? Anybody with ridiculous mileage totals?

Here’s the story about the guy from Baltimore. You’ll have to sit through a commercial before the video runs.

Oh, and it turns out 150,000 miles is not such a big deal anyway. It appears the guy with the most lifetime bike miles is a fellow named Freddie Hoffman. He’s had over a million miles under his belt — for years. Here’s his story.

By the way, riding long doesn’t necessarily mean riding better. Mike B. from my club observed, “I tell people that my bike riding is like my pool playing — for the amount of time I spend doing it, I should be a lot better than I am.”

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Categories // Odds 'n ends, People Tags // mileage

I Am A Lousy Learner

06.02.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 4 Comments

Summer has hit Central Texas with a vengeance. It’s been hot, yes, but because of more rain than I’ve seen in several years, it’s been humid, too.

I was out on a club ride last weekend when suddenly my derailleur started acting up. I had trouble shifting from the big ring down to the small ring. I stopped to fiddle with it a bit, and got the problem straightened out.

But then during the past week, it cropped up again. I put the bike up on my stand and went after that derailleur. It took me two hours to do what a competent bike mechanic could do in 10-15 minutes, but the adjustments worked, and later that day I did a local 21-mile ride.

The next morning though, it was balky again. Not shifting from the big to the small ring. Again, some less than gentle ministrations and I was rolling, but this time, I decided to take it in to our club mechanic.

I explained to him about the derailleur adjustments I’d made, and how my ham-handedness probably screwed things up. He didn’t comment, but put the bike up on his stand and flicked at the front derailleur cable.

“Did you lube the pivot points?” he asked.

“Ahh, that’s about the only thing I didn’t do,” I replied.

Then the light went on. “Are they gummed up from my sweat?” I asked.

He moved the derailleur with his hand. “Looks like it,” he said. “Summer’s here, and up until about a week ago we didn’t have to worry about it too much. But now, we sweat on rides. And the front derailleur is a prime target for sweat.”

I did a face palm. We’d been through this before. But as he said, we’ve had nice conditions for our morning rides until just recently, and I hadn’t been sweating much.

He got the derailleur moving nicely between the big and small chainring. I paid him his usual pittance, and red-faced with embarrassment, loaded the bike into my car.

This morning, we did a hilly club ride and I was using all my gears constantly. The derailleur performed flawlessly.

I sweated like I was in a sauna. The first thing I did when I got home was wipe the bike down.

I’ve had this lesson before. Somehow, I just didn’t retain the information.

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Categories // Maintenance Tags // Maintenance, sweat

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