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Archives for March 2014

Expensive Organized Rides

03.09.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 18 Comments

As I sat indoors on an unseasonably cool, gloomy day today, it occurred to me that an organized ride is coming up that I was thinking about doing this year. I got out the laptop and jumped onto the ride’s website.

Oh, no! The ride was Saturday — and today is Sunday! That’s what I get for “thinking” about doing a ride, but not adding it to any kind of a schedule, and holding off on registration until I’m “sure” I want to ride it. I just — forgot.

I wonder, though, if that forgetting was any kind of a clue that maybe I really didn’t want to do the ride in the first place. I’ve written before about my ambivalent feelings toward organized rides — how they’re a way to get an expensive t-shirt. Then I changed my mind, and rode a few in the ensuing months. I enjoy the camaraderie of riding in a large group, but without the hassle of being in a pace line. Mostly, when I do organized rides, I keep to myself or stick with only one or two friends.

Waiting for the start of an organized ride early in the morning.
Waiting for the start of an organized ride early in the morning.

There’s another ride coming up in May that I haven’t done for several years, and would enjoy doing again. But when I looked at their registration page, the $60 entry fee put me off. It seems that what used to be $25 rides — $30 if registering on ride day — have now ballooned into costly ventures. I don’t know about you, but I think $40 is about as much as I care to pay if I’m going to join a t-shirt ride. I know it’s expensive to put them on, to provide the expected food and maybe drink at the end. I’ve volunteered as staff on a couple of rides, and I think I have an appreciation for the effort it takes to put one of these together. But I have to draw the line somewhere.

I’ll be passing up that ride in May, although I might do another one within a week or two of it. This time, I’ll make up my mind early, and be sure to get my registration taken care of — before the price goes up.

 

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Categories // Rides Tags // organized ride

Passing Tricia

03.07.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 3 Comments

A group of older cyclists can be found most Friday mornings at Austin’s Veloway, the three-mile track reserved for bikes and inline skaters. They are mostly in their 60s and 70s, but some are quite fast. They sometimes pedal easily around the track, and sometimes put the hammer down.

Starting a Veloway lap. (Not Tricia or the old guys.) (Click to enlarge.)
Starting a Veloway lap. (Not Tricia or the old guys.) (Click to enlarge.)

 

While some of these riders use Strava, others take a different approach to gauging their rides. You see, an acquaintance of mine — Tricia — likes to ride the Veloway on Friday mornings, too. She’s not in their league. In fact, she rides a mountain bike or a hybrid — not a road bike. But for her, the Veloway is a safe, nearby alternative to dodging traffic on the roads in our neighborhood.

 

So, as Tricia pedals around the Veloway, she’s likely to be passed by these faster, older riders. Not once, but several times. How do they keep track of segments and KOMs without Strava? By how many times they pass Tricia.

 

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Categories // Odds 'n ends Tags // Strava

Hold Your Line!

03.02.2014 by Ray Niekamp // 5 Comments

Recently, I was riding with a group I hadn’t ridden with before. We got along well, and seemed to have similar abilities. About halfway into the ride, we crossed a busy road and got onto a rough street in a rural town. The street made a 90-degree turn to the left to go into the town’s business district.

I was in the middle of the group, making the left turn, when suddenly, a rider to my left called out, “Watch it, there!”

I flicked my handlebars a little to the right to make room for him, concerned that I might bang into the rider on my right. The guy who had come in on the left realized that he had nearly caused a crash, and started apologizing profusely.

“Yeah, I was coming down that small hill and had more speed than the rest of you,” he said. “I was swinging a little wide there. Sorry ’bout that. I didn’t mean to crowd you.”

Well, maybe not — not intentionally. I had picked a line for the turn and stuck with it, mindful of the positions of the riders around me. He had been trailing the group a bit, so we weren’t aware of his presence nearby. His speed caused him to make a wider turn than I was, but since he was on the inside of me, he almost hit me.

The drawing is crude, but you get the idea.
The drawing is crude, but you get the idea.

What should he have done? Braked harder. That would have allowed him to control his turn and stay on a line to my inside. He had been riding behind the group most of the morning anyway, so falling back a little at this point would have made no difference. Besides, we had a rest stop coming up in just a few blocks, anyway. He’d have gotten there pretty much with the rest of us.

In a turn while riding with a group, be predictable. Stick with your line. I’m hearing about too many crashes lately, and many of them result in serious injury.

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Categories // Safety Tags // group rides, Safety

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