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A New Ride (Temporarily)

06.24.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 12 Comments

Went out Saturday morning for my ride. Even got an early (for me) 7:30 a.m. start. Lubed the new chain, clipped on the computer, put in the water bottles, and got on. But on my first attempt to shift, even before I’d left the driveway — SPRONG! — the shift cable broke where it joins the right side shifter.

See that cable that’s parked under the right handlebar? The one that just ends? Yeah, that’s it. (Click to make the photo bigger.)

Son of a!@#$%^&*! This is the second time this has happened to me. The first was in the fall of 2010. And I know what it means — it means I’ll be buying a new shifter. Trouble is, they’re expensive, and after some unexpected costs this month, we find ourselves with too much month at the end of the money. I’ll have to hold off on the purchase for 10-14 more days.

But what good is being in a bike club if it doesn’t have members with spare bikes? A couple of emails later, my friend Rick agreed to let me use his 10-year-old titanium bike. He’s riding his new carbon fiber Cervelo, and is even faster than he used to be. And he used to be fast.

I picked up the bike Saturday afternoon, and rode it around the block to see what kind of changes I’d have to make to get it right for me.

Right off the bat, a pretty major one. My bike is 56 cm. Rick, who is a big, tall guy, rides what appears to be a 61 cm bike. My feet reached the pedals, but just barely.

I lowered the seat all the way, and moved it up as far as it would go. It’s still a bit big, but I can ride it with a modicum of comfort now.

I skipped the club ride Sunday. They were going to do the Dam Loop — one of my least favorite Austin bike routes — and it was going to be hot!! today. Because I was on a new bike, I opted to do the Saturday morning route I would have done yesterday. If my shifter hadn’t broken.

Riding a familiar route on an unfamiliar bike makes the experience seem brand new. The bike is an Airborne, titanium frame as I’ve said, all Ultegra, nice Easton EA 90 wheels with Michelin Krylion tires, and a triple crankset with a 53-tooth big ring. The model is the Zeppelin, of all things. Airborne apparently got out of the road bike business, because their website features mountain bikes and such, with their cross bike model the closest thing to a road bike. As Rick once told me, “Back in 2002, this was state of the art.”

The Airborne Zeppelin.

I think I’ll like my experience with the triple. My average speed for today’s 29.5-mile ride was 15.3 mph. (Just an estimate, since the bike is not equipped with a computer. I know the route distance, and noted my start and end times on my watch — then deducted time stopped at lights to get my total on-bike time.) Anyhoo, it did get me up some hills with a minimum of fuss.

That average speed compares nicely with my recent speeds on that route. In fact, it’s a smidgen faster than most. I’m looking forward to riding this bike over the next two weeks. I’ll post an update on riding a triple titanium later, after I’ve gotten a few more rides under my belt.

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Categories // Bikes Tags // Airborne, titanium, triple

A Change of Biking Pace — The Catrike

06.05.2012 by Ray Niekamp // 11 Comments

In the last post, I mentioned that my friend Don Bynum doesn’t ride a conventional bike — he rides a three-wheeled recumbent, a Catrike. I first saw one of these years ago, when a guy rode one on the first century ride I did. I was impressed by its quickness.

Don likes to tweak those of us who still ride our “prostate crushers” and proselytizes for the three-wheeler. It bears a closer look, methinks.

Recumbent bikes come in two- and three-wheeled versions. The three-wheelers can have either two wheels in the rear — a “delta” — or two wheels in front — a “tadpole.” I think it’s safe to say, without any empirical corroboration, that the “tadpole” trike is the favored variety. A seat (and it’s properly called a “seat” and not a saddle, because you sit in it like a chair) is slung in the middle. The pedals are mounted on a boom that sticks out in front. The resulting balance is excellent — and you don’t have to be moving forward to stay upright.

The Catrike “Road” (Click to enlarge.)

Don tells a familiar story about adopting a recumbent. Conventional upright bike saddles hurt too much. He says he spent about $1500 over a five or six-year period on “anatomically correct” saddles, but “a 10-mile ride would leave me completely without feeling in my ‘tender parts’ for a couple of days.”

He rode a two-wheeled recumbent, but when he decided to move to the Hill Country of Texas, he got the Catrike. “Since I was obviously going to be riding in hilly terrain and getting clipped back in if I needed to pause to keep my heart from exploding, or to enjoy some sight, getting back going was going to be very difficult [on a 2-wheeler],” he said. “There is a great benefit in this area, where hills of 18%+ grade are not uncommon, to being able to simply put on the brakes, relax for a minute, then just start up with no ‘clip-in drama.'”

Don on (in?) the Catrike Road.

During our ride, Don often pulled out into the traffic lane and sailed by the rest of us, even when we were motoring along at a nice clip. On downhills, the thing simply takes off. Don says he’s comfortable hitting speeds above 45 mph, even on curvy roads. He’s posted several videos of him flying down grades.

Its downhill speed is obviously helped by its weight. Don says the Catrike Road weighs about 32 pounds, and he loads it up with other equipment. “I purposely carry more water than I need and often ‘bail out’ my fellow riders who go off into the hills with only two half-liter bottles on board, where no 7-11 can be found,” he said.  “I often carry six 700mL bottles and can add three more in a bag on the luggage rack if needed.”

That extra weight is also a big disadvantage. Whenever we hit even a slight upgrade, Don fell behind. The Catrike is geared low enough that he can climb most any hill he encounters, and often pedals up hills his diamond frame friends are forced to walk. “It needs lots of gears and the low end needs to be really low,” Don said.  “I think my rear cassette has a 32 tooth low gear.” But he says he’s getting better at keeping up with other riders, and on our ride, he would pull in to rest stops less than a minute after we arrived. And he admits it does have a harsh ride on rough pavement.

What about safety issues?

The Catrike is low to the ground, no doubt about it. That means it can be hard to see. Don says the big problem there is riding alongside parked cars. Where a road biker is perched high enough to be seen in a rear-view mirror (and theoretically avoid being doored), the Catrike is down out of sight. But he contends that most of the time, that odd appearance works to his benefit.

You won’t be able to catch much of a draft when following a trike.

“The thing looks so weird that it seems to register on drivers’ addled brains when even a large Harley, much less a Cannondale road bike does not,” he said.  “My big traffic problem has, so far, been people stopping me to inquire about what the heck it is, how much it cost and where to get one — most turn pale at the response to the cost question.” (MSRP on a Catrike Road is $2,950, according to the Catrike website.)

Another important safety consideration — always wear cleats. “There is a natural tendency to, in a moment of crisis, try to put one’s feet down to help stop,” Don said.”  The result is very likely to be running over your own feet and legs, pinning them under the front axles so badly that another person must lift one front wheel off the ground, help get one leg out, then go to the other side and repeat the process.” With cleats, the rider just focuses on braking.

But you’re not likely to fall off a Catrike (Don cautions that delta-style recumbents have a higher center of gravity and are more susceptible to rolling). And even mossy low-water crossings are not a problem. “You get wet,” Don said, “but a steady hand and just coasting through seems very safe.  And if you hit the water at 25-30mph it is very cooling as well.”

Don says trike owners are probably going to have to become their own mechanics, because of the very long chains found on recumbent bikes. Even though the drive train components are the same as you find on an upright bike, bike shops generally aren’t good at setting up recumbents, Don says.

Finally, Don urges trike owners to get out there and ride: “I regret that most Catrike riders seem to be absolutely freaked at the idea of a hill bigger than a freeway overpass in Houston or a ride longer than 10-15 miles.  But that is their loss.”

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Categories // Bikes Tags // Bikes, recumbent, trike

Build Your Own Bike Poll Results

05.22.2012 by Ray Niekamp // Leave a Comment

When I asked last week whether you would be interested in building your own bike — or modifying an existing one — I didn’t realize that I’d touched a nerve. Apparently, a lot of riders out there have at least considered modifying a bike, but a good number have already done so — from scratch.

The final results of the poll are in. We had an n of 75. Here are the numbers:

(Click to enlarge.)

Just a reminder — because the respondents were not randomly selected, the results of this poll cannot be generalized to a wider biking population. That said, I think the numbers are interesting.

A custom-built carbon fiber framed bike by Alchemy Bicycles of Austin.

Twenty-five percent said they already have built a bike from a custom frame. Another eight percent say they plan to do that. I guess making a bike your own has a lot of attraction for a lot of cyclists, and I can empathize with that. The inspiration for the poll, Tim at An Old Guy on Two Wheels, has finished his custom build and has been riding it around town already. He loves it, and that is as it should be.

An old Trek 10-speed modified with brifters and updated components.

For the 26 percent who aren’t interested in working on a bike of their own — well, there’s still time to change your mind.

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Categories // Bikes, Maintenance Tags // repair

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