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Short Rides

07.14.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 7 Comments

My wife has a favorite ride in the neighborhood. It’s only a nine-mile out and back route. It features a long, mild uphill on the way out and a fast fun descent — really a slight downhill incline — for much of the way back. It takes her anywhere from 40-45 minutes to finish it.

I ride it a lot with her. Sometimes, there’s a time crunch, and that’s about all I can fit in. Other times, I’d just as soon do a ride with her as go off on my own. I can’t call it a favorite ride of mine, because it’s not challenging, and in my mind, it’s too short.

But short or not, it’s a bike ride.

My friends over on Bike Forums were discussing this point earlier this week. It seems a lot of them have the same reaction I did: If the ride lasts less than an hour, it’s not a “real” ride. But one old-timer jumped in to point out that a ride is a ride, and regardless of length you will get some physical benefits from it — and the mental benefits might be better.

“Besides,” he added, “just by being out there puts you way above average for your age group.” (This post was on the 50-plus forum.)

We did the ride the other morning. It’s been really humid around here lately, but we’ll put up with that if an early start means we get to finish well before the 100-degree temps we’ve been having kick in.

The first mild incline takes us to the cross street where we turn right. I usually pull over and wait for Pat here, but this time, she was less than 100 feet back. I led her out to the dip into the dry creek bed, then the long incline coming out of it. I got to the end of the street over a mile farther on, and waited at the curb for her to catch me.

She led me around the corner onto a broad new street in a recently-build subdivision. The street ends at a T-intersection with a busy road. We make our turnaround there. We stopped so Pat could take a business call on her cell phone.

On the return leg, I kicked it into overdrive for the long downhill. It’s a fun part of the ride for me, and I don’t hold back. Pat trails me by quite a distance here, and I wait for her before we have to make a left turn at a stoplight.

We’ve got one more nice mild downhill and one longish mild uphill in the last two miles of the trip. When we got to the house, my computer showed that we’d done the nine-mile trip in 37 minutes, for an average speed of 13.8. You couldn’t tell by me. I was breathing harder than normal, and was drenched in sweat. I’d had a good workout.

When I get on my bike, I plan to ride at least an hour — preferably an hour and a half or more. But I don’t always do that. And that’s all right. Short rides are rides, too.

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Categories // Rides Tags // Rides

Change Those Computer Batteries!

07.12.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 8 Comments

As I’ve mentioned before, my wife and I are participating in training rides for the Mamma Jamma ride to support breast cancer research. Sunday’s ride was in San Marcos, Texas, the town where I work, about 30 miles south of Austin. We were both looking forward to the ride, because it would be on new roads for both of us.

But while bowling Saturday, I pulled a muscle in my hip. Walking around was painful. I wasn’t sure if riding would be smart.

Pat said she would do the 17-mile ride. There were also options for 37 and 49 miles. I wanted to do the 37, but when I walked outside to get the paper at 5:15 Sunday morning, the heat and humidity were already oppressive.

“I’m going to do the 17 with you,” I said. “It’s going to be rough out there today.”

She was glad to hear that, because it meant she wouldn’t be on her own. Not that she would be anyway, because Mamma Jamma rides always have ride leaders. Today’s were from Tough Cookies, an Austin-based women’s bike and triathlon team.

At the start, I watched enviously as the 49 and 37-milers took off. The weather wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. It was about 80 degrees, and humid like Florida (yech!), but enough clouds moved through the sky that the sun was mostly blocked. Still, I was going to favor my hip.

The 17-mile riders, as you might imagine, were the slow group. Within minutes of the start, one had tire problems. A sag car with a floor pump caught up to us, and the sweep rider started to pump up the tube. But it had a bent valve, and looked like it would take some time before it was ready. Four of us, including the Tough Cookies leader, decided we’d leave on our own.

The ride was slow, but nice. My hip didn’t hurt at all — I think the flexing did it some good. We rode some quiet country roads east of town, then crossed I-35 and traveled some more quiet country roads I’d never seen before.

I looked at my computer to check distance. Nine-point-something, it said (I have a heckuva time reading the thing without bifocals). Two or three miles later, I glanced at the computer again. Oh-oh.

Speed measured zero. Cadence measured zero. Mileage was still 9-point-something. I didn’t think we’d bounced around enough to knock the sensors off kilter. At a convenience store, we stopped to refill water bottles. The computer was blank. I checked the sensors, and they still lined up closely to the magnets. My batteries had died.

Now, this shouldn’t be a big deal, but when you’re an OCD record-keeper like I am, it can be catastrophic. I calmed down though, reminding myself that I would just take the data from the ride leader’s computer at the end.

We wound through seemingly endless rows of apartment complexes, which house students from the nearby university. Back out in the country, we made good time and reached our starting point quickly. The sun was just starting to come out from behind the clouds. I was drenched in sweat, but the breeze had cooled me during the ride, and I was quite comfortable. I walked over to Kathleen, the ride leader.

“So, what was the mileage and time?” I asked.

She looked at her computer. “Nine-point-six-eight miles,” she said. I grimaced.

“Which is wrong,” she added.

Her computer had died, too.

An acquaintance of mine makes it a point to change his computer batteries on New Year’s Day each year, “Whether they need it or not,” he says.

My batteries had died just a year after I got the computer, but these replacements were still going strong (I thought) a year and a half later. Now I know better, and I’ll be replacing them annually, too — say, on the Fourth of July.

So instead, I logged onto Map My Ride and mapped out the route. 17.8 miles. We were out there for about an hour and 50 minutes, but that included a 15-minute convenience store stop while we waited for the slower riders — who never did catch up. The average speed worked out to 13.4 mph. Okay, that’s close enough.

But I’m not going to let that happen again. Later Sunday afternoon, I hit the supermarket for some new batteries. The computer was running like a champ on my Monday morning ride.

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Categories // Accessories, Records & stats Tags // batteries, Cyclocomputer

Are You Watching the Tour?

07.10.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 9 Comments

I wasn’t going to. All the doping cases have me fed up with the world of pro cycling. For the past three years, I’ve done posts about the different teams in the Tour, and who their sponsors are, and what they do. This year, I didn’t. I just don’t care anymore.

But now the Tour is underway…and every day, I find myself tuned in a little longer, absorbing a little more detail about the race…

Saturday, I was at a friend’s birthday party, and lots of other cyclists were there. Sure enough, one of the most commonly-asked questions was, “Are you watching the Tour?”

Not one person I talked to hadn’t seen at least some of it. One fellow said he’d missed the day’s action, and asked me what happened.

“Oh, Vinokurov decided to go for it,” I said. “He tried to catch the breakaway. Almost did it, too. It was really something to watch him attack.”

I caught myself. I knew as much or more about what was going on as my friends did, even after vowing that I was through with pro cycling.

“But I was yelling, ‘Doper! doper!’ all during his run,” I quickly added.

How did I get sucked into the Tour again this year?

It was innocent enough. My summer school teaching duties ended last week, and I now have some time on my hands. I didn’t try to tune in. In fact, I missed the first two days.

Then I started sneaking peeks. You know, the fabulous aerial shots of the French countryside — the castles — the chateaus. Then when they were passing through farm country the farmers created a large bicycle mockup with those huge round hay bales. And the wheels of the bike went round and round. And the wheels were formed by tractors driving in circles. Big tractors. It was terrific. I called my wife to come see.

So then we sat and watched. And watched until the end.

“That’s Mark Cavendish,” I told her. “He’s the best sprinter in the world. He’s British, but he rides for the American team HTC Highroad, so we can root for him.”

“So who do you want to win?” she asked.

I caught myself again. Don’t forget, I’m anti-pro cycling.

“Uh…I don’t know,” I replied. “I guess I don’t have a favorite. Any of the American teams would be fine with me.”

“Who are the American teams?” she asked.

“Well, there’s BMC…”

“Oh, from Houston. I’ve been by their place lots of times.”

“No, we went over this last year,” I said. “It’s not BMC Software. BMC is a Swiss bicycle company. But the team is based in Santa Rosa, California.”

Then I went through the other American teams: Radio Shack (she knew about them, from last year’s Tour), HTC Highroad, and Garmin-Cervelo. I ticked off the top riders on each team.

“Who are you rooting against?” she asked.

Team Sky's Xabier Zandio

“Team Sky,” I said. “They’re sponsored by BSkyB, the British satellite TV company. Rupert Murdoch owns 39 percent of BSkyB, and wants to buy the rest, but that phone hacking scandal is holding him up. I’ll root against anything with Murdoch’s name attached to it.”

“Anyone else?”

“I’m not crazy about Alberto Contador,” I said. “I’d like to see Andy Schleck get his revenge this year.”

“Is he American?”

Andy Schleck

“No, Luxembourger. He and his brother Frank started Team Leopard-Trek this year. It’s based in Luxembourg, and is kind of an all-star team. My favorite rider, Fabian Cancellara, is on that team.”

“So you’re really for a foreign team.”

“No, like I said, I’m for any of the American teams.”

“Who’s going to win?”

“I think it might be Cadel Evans this time.”

“Is he American?”

Cadel Evans

“He rides for BMC, but he’s Australian.”

“Good grief,” she said.

“What can I say? It’s an international sport,” I answered.

During Sunday’s melee, Vinokurov wound up with a broken pelvis after a horrific crash that kn0cked several big names out of the Tour.

Monday will be a rest day. So I can get out and ride my bike, and maybe go a little longer than usual, coming off a weekend. Then I can get as much yard work done as possible, so there’s free time during the rest of the week to watch the race.

“Hey, did you read on Velo News what they said about…” called out one of my friends at that birthday party.

“Nah,” I told him. “I’m not that into the Tour this year. I haven’t read anything about it online.”

Then I reminded myself that Velo News’s coverage is pretty good. I’ll have to check it out — and even bookmark it.

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Categories // Racing Tags // Tour de France

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