Bicycling

January’s Ride Report

Every ride leader was supposed to submit a list of folks who were on the ride and give a brief description of anything interesting that happened to the newsletter editor/publisher. For a majority of the rides, either Donna or I or both of us were usually in the group thereby freeing the ride leader from those reports. This was another place to interject my personality into the newsletter.

WHENCE & WHITHER:
…Dec 31, Brian Bogardus led Donna Bogardus, Clint Johnson, Sherri Lott, Steve Nolan and Ohio branch member Bud Puskarich on one of the quicker Moonlight Levee Rides in club history. Everyone, except Bud, felt it was a little on the cold side, the temperature was around freezing. He said it was positively sub-tropical compared to the weather he left behind in the Buckeye state. In celebration of the evening, two roman candles (1 dud) and a large bottle rocket were launched back at the South Carolina side of the Savannah River.

…Jan 1, Bud Puskarich, Jay Rumsey, Jaye Pearce, ride leader and cookie bringer Doug Walker, Joey Hopkins and all three of the club’s two seaters, the Bogardi, Steve Nolan & Sherri Lott and Gene & Gloria Luder gathered for the traditional ride to Aiken State Park. Unfortunately, mid-gather, it started to rain. After waiting and waiting, hoping for a clear spot in the skies, it was decided that it wasn’t going to happen today. Donna Bogardus elicited from those who could, a promise to meet at the same time tomorrow and try again. Even though we did not ride, we still ate those delicious homemade Walker cookies. We might have been dumb to attempt to ride in the marginal weather in the first place, but we were not stupid.

…Jan 2, Seven of yesterday’s eleven, plus three different riders rode to Aiken State Park and back today under much better conditions. On arrival they had to settle for store bought cookies, some of which were so tasteless and unappetizing that an orphaned and nearly starved hunting dog (ol’ 293) refused to eat them. Gene & Gloria Luder, Diane Gilden and Bobby Harison went on the official Sunday Fun Ride and staked their early claim on 1994’s Sunday Wonder T-shirt with 10 big miles.

…Jan 8, The Bogardi and Jay Noonkester showed for the mountain bike ride today. They made a single, cold and slightly muddy loop of the Horn Creek Trail at Lick Fork Lake.

…Jan 9, “It was no summer progress. A cold coming they had of it, at this time of the year; just, the worst time of the year, to take a journey, and specially a long journey, in. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off in solstitio brumali, the very dead of Winter.” Bishop Lancelot Andrewes

…Jan 15, In weather that was at least ten degrees below the legal limit (so it really didn’t officially happen and I shouldn’t even be writing about it) one other rider showed up to join leader Gene Luder in a 20 mile ride, Jaye Pearce.

…Jan 16, “The parching air Burns frore, and cold performs th’ effect of fire.” John Milton

…Jan 22, Crystal clear blue skies and upper 40’s greeted the group today. Unfortunately today’s ride leader Woody Huffines had a dose of the flu and couldn’t come out and play. But before his voice totally gave out he deputized Doug Felix as substitute ride leader. Doug found the Bogardi, Jaye Pearce, Bill Young and Clint Webb eagerly awaiting him at Odell Weeks. With so little route preparation time and the posted distance being 25 miles, a century loop was in order, and #4 it was.

…Jan 23, On what started as a sunny ride Alice Walker lead husband Doug, Steve Nolan, Bill Young, Dennis Ducate, The Bogardi, Clint Johnson and all three of the Club’s Js (Noonkester, Pearce & Rumsey) out through Couchton and Montmorenci , then home. Three people showed up with handwriting samples, and Dennis had the early lead in the sloppiest contest until Steve showed up with a note that he either worked on all night or had Jeffrey forge for him two minutes before the ride.

For the January 23rd ride, the title and description I totally made up were: Handwriting Day Ride Please bring a hand written note to Alice Walker telling her why you would like to ride in today’s ride. Prizes will be awarded for the neatest and also the sloppiest handwriting.

February Ride Schedule

I was the editor/publisher of the newsletter for the Aiken (South Carolina) Bicycle Club for most of the 90’s. The best part about it was creating the ride schedule because I kept the format my predecessor created, giving the rides names that referenced something that happened on that particular date. The club did a ride on both Saturday and Sunday. Ride leaders volunteered for the day and the the length of the ride at the monthly meeting of the previous month but I made up the ride title. Here is the ride schedule for February 1994…

Sat. Feb 5 – 8:00 AM
Track Kitchen Ride. The Cold Weather Rule is suspended for this 8:00 am ride. Don your warm woollies and cycle with Woody Huffines <642-7257> on this 1.5 miler to the Track Kitchen, a horsy Aiken institution, to put on the breakfast feedbag. (3 miles/E)

Sun Feb 6 – 1:00 PM
Longest Drive Ride. Donna Bogardus <642-0767> will lead this edition of the Sunday Fun Ride, 23 years after Alan Shepard hit the longest golf drive ever. It was also the longest drive to get to the course, 239,000 miles. (10-15 miles/E)

Sat Feb 12 – 1:00 PM
The Vanishing Red M&M’s Ride. Doug Walker <649-5929> will lead today’s ride on the 18th anniversary of the FDA’s banning of red dye #2 in food, drugs & cosmetics. (30-40 miles/M)

Sun Feb – 1:00 PM
Disavow Your Copernican Beliefs Ride. Ride along with Doug Felix <649-1780> as he retraces Galileo’s route into Rome to stand trial before the Inquisition in 1633 for his belief in the heliocentric theory of planetary movement. (10-15 miles/E)

Sat Feb 19 – 1:00 PM
Diathermy Machine Ride. Come ride with Bill Young <648-3898>, as he offers up his idea for a new loop 4 today. Hopefully, when finished, no one will need the services of this device first used 70 years ago on this date. (25 miles/M)

Sun Feb 20 – 10:00 AM
Bankruptcy Ride. Clint Johnson <649-4972> will lead a careful off-road ride so as not to duplicate Austria’s trick of going belly up back in 1811. Put your MTB on the car rack for the ride to a local trail. (10-12 miles/E-M)

Sun Feb 20 – 1:00 PM
First American in Orbit Ride. Join John Glenn lookalike ABC V.P. Ed Leibfarth <279-9161> on a fun ride that promises to be shorter than Friendship 7’s 4-hour & 56-minute flight in 1962, but no less exciting. (10-15 miles/E)

Fri Feb 25 – 6:15 PM
Moonlight Levee Ride. Brian Bogardus <642-0767> will lead this night trip along the Augusta Canal. Meet at Weeks @ 6:15 for the caravan-o’-cars over to, or meet at the Confederate Powder Works Chimney @ 7:00. (12 miles/E)

Sat Feb 26 – 12:00 Noon
National Currency Act Ride. Jaye Pearce <642-3856> leads her second ABC ride, 131 years after President Abraham Lincoln assured his place on the $5 note by signing this bill into law. (40 miles/M)

Sun Feb 27 -1:00 PM
Double Golden Ride. Come out and help Leslie Romano <649-6204> celebrate what she says, is her and husband Joe’s 100th wedding anniversary, by riding approximately 1/10 of a mile for every year of what, up until now, Joe thought was matrimonial bliss. (10-15 miles/E)

Indoor Cycling Update

As predicted back in December in my first post about riding indoors for the winter months I have pretty much worked my way up to a 45 minute session three times a week.

The indoor cycling videos are great, but the only sounds to accompany the visuals is either nothing or a very quiet, unoffensive elevator background music -boring! So I have started to listen to a podcast with the visuals. Right now I ride on Tuesday, Friday & Sunday. I picked the first two days because that is when my favorite car guys from Everyday Driver put out a fresh episodes of their podcast. On Sunday, my standby is something from the 99% Invisible archives.

For the heck of it I have been keeping track of the time I spend on the bike. Midway through I started writing down the mileage figure from the display, although I don’t know for sure how accurate it is in real world measurements. In December and January I rode a dozen times each and in February I rode eleven. I didn’t start the mileage count until the 4th ride in December, but in those 9 “rides” I covered 62.3 miles in 5 hours and 25 minutes. This translates into an average 6.9 miles a ride at an average speed of 11.5 MPH. For January I covered 103.9 miles in 8 hours and 41 minutes for an average ride of 8.7 miles at 11.9 MPH. Everyone of February’s rides were 45 minutes long totaling 8 hours and 15 minutes to go 98.8 miles, so the average was 8.98 miles covered at 11.97 MPH.

When I stop pedaling it has been only a few seconds or tenths of a mile over or under for the last several sessions. But yesterday was the very first time the display said I had ridden exactly 9.0 miles after 45.00 minutes. While not exactly a round number at the end of yesterday the total mileage that Donna and I have put on the exercycle read 700.5 miles.

Indoor Cycling

Last Friday the sun was shining and the weather told me it was 45 degrees outside, and with that sun shine it felt more like the mid 50s. So, for the first time in around 4 weeks, I actually went for a bike ride outside. And looking ahead at the weather it looked like this would be my last time outside riding until spring.

I put on my tights and a long sleeve undershirt with a short sleeve jersey over it and took off. Between the time I decided to ride and actually riding the sun had disappeared behind some clouds and it felt every bit of 45°. I would get warm climbing a hill and be chilled when going back down, but still enjoyed the fresh air.

We bought an inexpensive indoor exercycle for Donna to work on strengthening her drop foot so she could rejoin me in bicycling again and when it got chilly in October I actually used it a couple times too.

A couple of decades ago I tried indoor cycling to keep in shape, but never really took to it. We tried one of those where the rear tire ran on a shaft connected to magnets for resistance, but it felt so sterile. Then I borrowed a set of rollers from another bike club member thinking that because rollers required you to use your balance it might seem more like actually riding. That was marginally better, but still boring as hell. Both these were setup in the garage and all I could look at was the wall. I added a fan to simulate movement. I tried adding music to listen to, but nothing worked, if I made it 15 minutes into a workout it was a great day. After a month or so of trying, I returned the rollers, donated the mag trainer to Goodwill and resigned to limited cycling over the winter.

Here in Oregon there will not be limited cycling because, while a few folks around here do ride year round, I’m not hardcore enough. The indoor exercycle is it. But I can stand it a lot better than those earlier attempts back in South Carolina. Firstly, the bike is indoors in the family room downstairs. Secondly, we have turned the 55″ TV so that it faces the bike nearly head on six feet away. And thirdly, we have found a YouTube channel called Indoor Cycling Videos so I can pretend I’m actually bicycling outdoors.

The videos range from 30 minutes to a couple of hours and are mostly from over in Europe. There are road bike rides and mountain bike ones as well. Almost all of them have a readout along the bottom showing time, speed, distance and hill gradient. Because this exercycle has a heavy flywheel where you control the effort by twisting a knob on the downtube I try to make the resistance larger when going uphill and less when the gradient reads negative.

Most of my outdoor riding around here was right was around an hour in duration. Riding indoors on this type of bike really can’t do coasting because the pedals are connected to the flywheel unlike outdoors where coasting down hills is a nice respite. Also I can’t really stand up on the pedals and spin like I can on the road bike. Indoors I am really sitting and pedaling all the time, so for now the 30 minute indoor rides are enough. I may try and move up to 45 minute ones, but probably won’t go longer than that because just sitting for that long won’t be fun.

Bicycle Tires

Last week’s Tire Juggling post got me thinking about our collection of bicycles and their tires. We currently own five bicycles, one tandem, two road bikes and two mountain bikes. Every one of those bikes have different size tires on them. Our tandem has 26″ tires. My mountain bike because it has a large size frame it is mounted on 29″ tires and Donna’s being a size small frame came with 27.5″ tires. My road bike has 700c tires while her road bike has 27″ rubber.

Whenever we go for a mountain bike ride I carry two different size spare tubes and trust me, those 29″ & 27.5″ MTB tubes are big. At least with the road bikes, a 700c or 27″ tube will work with either size size and for the tandem a 26″ tube is all it takes.

If 5 bikes sounds like a lot for two people, ha, at one time in the 90’s we had seven. We had a pair of dedicated club ride road bikes and a pair of road bikes set up for commuting to work. We had a pair of Bridgestone mountain bikes and a Santana Sovereign tandem. But those 7 bikes required only 3 different tire/tube sizes, the tandem and road bikes were on 700c tires, the commuting bikes sported 27″ tires and the mountain bikes rode on 26″ tires.

Where Were You Mike?

Two weeks ago I was on a road bike ride when I flatted. Go read Thanks Mike and come back, I’ll wait.

Today is Sunday and I didn’t take my usual Sunday morning ride out to the end of Lakeshore Drive and back. The Oregon Interscholastic Cycling League was holding a big race near the mid-ride point, so I thought it best to avoid the area. I also started the ride a little later than usual, so I opted for the mountain bike and just rode the local alleys, a bit of a couple bike paths and some neighborhood roads.

While headed home the front tire started to buzz more than expected of a knobby tire on pavement should. As I continued on, the buzzing increased in volume – whirrrrrrrrrrrrr. I had a puncture. I made it a block and a half before the tire was so flat that if I turned the handlebars it would probably squirm right off the rim.

I have a seat bag that has a spare tube and a flat kit just for this occasion. so in theory I should be able to fix my problem. But I didn’t even try. At this point I was just 6 blocks from home so I didn’t need a Mike rescue this time, I just walked the last 4/10 of a mile home.

And to answer my parenthetical question of two weeks ago, it is not always the rear wheel.

Thanks Mike

Today is Sunday and I took my usual Sunday morning ride out to the end of Lakeshore Drive and back. This gives me a nice little 15 mile ride, but today I only made it about 4-1/2 miles. At first it sounded like I sucked a tumbleweed into my back wheel, but when I looked back, there was nothing visible, but audible was a different story – hisssssss. I had a puncture.

I did a quick U-turn thinking maybe I could ride a ways back towards home, but that wasn’t happening. As soon as I got going in that direction the air had all escaped. I walked a few steps to get out from in front of someone’s driveway and settled in to see about patching my new hole in a tube.

I’ve been carrying around a modified water bottle with flat repair stuff inside just for this occasion. It used to be on the tandem so the spare tube in there wouldn’t fit the road bike, but there was a quick patch kit, 3 tire irons and a CO2 inflater with a couple cartridges so in theory I should be able to fix my problem.

I had just removed the rear wheel (why is it always the rear wheel?) when a fellow in a Honda CRV stopped next to me and zipped down the window, “Need some help?” I replied, “Not sure, but I might.” I told him I thought that I had the stuff to fix the issue, but hadn’t really checked yet. He pulled over, walked back and asked if it would be easier if he just gave me a lift home. It took me roughly 38 milliseconds to run through the hassle of doing the work on the side of the road in my head and the possibility of failure before I said, “If it isn’t too much trouble, I’ll take that ride.”

Turns out, he is also a cyclist and knew first hand the hassle of trying to fix a flat on the side of the road and the indignity of walking several miles home pushing, not riding, your bike. And one time when he had a flat someone stopped and offered him a ride home, so this was his way of paying that fellow back and leveling the cosmic score.

Later in the morning, for a test I attempted to fix the flat with the stuff inside that water bottle. I could, but in 10 minutes in my garage, who knows how it would have gone out there in the wild.

Thanks Mike.