Bicycling

On The Road Again

Got the freshly machined piece for the tandem’s seat clamp on Friday. Remounted the seat on Saturday evening. This morning we went for a 15 mile ride and everything worked just peachy. Thanks Tool Room Guys.

We ended the ride at our favorite Sunday morning breakfast spot, The New Moon Cafe, for fresh fist-sized muffins. Mmmm. While we were standing in line the fellow in front of us asked if there was some sort of bike thing going on because he had seen a few bikes around this morning. He is a semi-regular like us and drives a bright yellow custom Harley full dresser. We said sure the SC Governor was sponsoring a bike ride from Aiken to Columbia. He said no, I mean motorcycle, not bicycle, pointing to my Lycra attire, to which we shrugged who knows.

Death of a Seat Clamp

Death of a Seat ClampSpent a few hours yesterday setting up the tandem.

I installed new tires and tubes to replace the 10 year old ones that came on the bike. They were in surprisingly good shape, but why take chances on the possibility of failure due to dry rot when barreling down a hill at 50MPH!

Wrapped the stoker’s handle bars with some new tape. The old stuff was dried out and not very comfortable. I bought enough to do the captains bars too, but didn’t use the second roll. The captain’s handle bar tape was in better shape, just a little faded and it was the same kind as the new stuff I bought, so the setup matched already. Now we have a spare set of tape for any future needs.

Next I installed the cycle computer for the stoker. There was an old Vetta already mounted on the captain’s bars, but my stoker likes to have her own, so she can see how far, fast and long we are riding. One of the joys of tandeming is pedaling like mad down a hill and reaching crazy fast speeds. The stoker cycle computer keeps the captain from having to answer, “How fast we going now?” questions every 15 seconds during descents…

Next I changed out the captain’s saddle from an older Vetta that was there with a newer fangled Flite Titanium with the cutout in the middle for the comfort of your private bits. I then took some measurements off the road bike and duplicated them on the tandem for the captain.

For the stoker on this bike you really can’t do that for handlebar reach, otherwise the handle bars would be in the middle of the captain’s thighs. But sitting a little more upright is not a problem on the back of a tandem, in fact Donna said she even enjoys it more there. Setting up the seat to pedal distance is still important. After our short ride of a couple a weeks ago Donna mentioned that she felt too low, like the seat needed to be higher. When I measured Donna’s road bike and compared it to the tandem they were already really close, hmmm, confusing. Until I realized that the softride beam gives when you sit on it to preload it. Loosened the pivot bolt and pulled up the beam a couple of inches. Not scientific, but a start. On the next ride we see how it feels. It is a one allen bolt adjustment, so I’ll pack the appropriate wrench and we can adjust mid ride if necessary.

This morning we headed out for ride to check and see how well I got it set up. Things went great for the first mile. Then a loud pop came from the back of the bike. I thought her foot had popped out of the pedal, but Donna said no, it felt like under seat. We stopped and dismounted. The seat felt secure but seemed to be leaning a little. When I looked under neath I could see why. One side of the seat clamp was broken. Oh well. We rode carefully back the mile in which we came and parked the tandem. All dressed for a ride we pulled down the single bikes and went for a short 12 mile ride north east of town.

Happy Anniversary (Early)

A couple of years after we moved to Aiken we joined the local bicycle club, oddly enough, named the Aiken Bicycle Club. We were quite active for about ten years and then when health issues curtailed our cycling we slowly drifted out of the Club.

When we first joined the club we were riding our 10 year old 12-speed touring bicycles. Mountain biking was just starting to really blossom in popularity and some of the Club members starting buying these bikes and heading off to the local trails. We soon joined the fray, bringing our bike total to four, two touring road bikes and two mountain bikes.

As we improved our cycling, we went on longer and faster rides with the club. We now needed some newer, lighter road bikes to keep pace. One of the fellows who was a regular speedster on the twice weekly bike store rides was upgrading to a high dollar carbon fiber Kestrel and offered to sell me his CF/Aluminum combo Giant bike, I jumped. After some shopping we bought Donna a nice new Bridgestone road bike. Our Stable of 2-wheeled vehicles was now six in number.

Towards the end of 1994 our bicycling madness peaked, we spent nearly $3,000 on a Santana Sovereign aluminum tandem (the price has gone up a bit in the last 12 years.) Part of the reason we went into tandeming was peer pressure, two other couples in the club had these bicycles built for two. One were long time duo riders, but when the second couple bought a Burley Rock ‘n Roll and told us how much they enjoyed it, we took the plunge. We got a credit card application in the mail with some super low interest or something and for our wedding anniversary present to ourselves we made a trip to Atlanta, test drove one for all of a couple hundred yards and bought the thing. Donna loved the tandem. She just had to pedal and enjoy the scenery, none of that pesky shifting or braking to worry about. We did have a blast with it, on club rides with regular folks it was like driving an 18-wheeler amongst cars. Downhill we blasted at speeds unrivaled, but uphill we were hauled right back in.

While I enjoyed the tandem I really missed the single bike. As the captain of a tandem it is your job to let the stoker know about bumps, when you were shifting, when you wanted to coast, brake, etc, and I had a hard time with all that. I was so used to riding on a bike by myself, I would just do without thinking, which would draw the ire of the stoker. About that time my prostate problems arose where it was uncomfortable to ride for long or I would feel bad for days afterward, so riding slowed to a trickle. I convinced Donna to sell the tandem, we got about 2/3rds of what we paid for it after riding it for a year and a half. She was more sorry to see it go than I.

About 4 years ago we ran into the couple from the Club and asked them if they still rode their Burley. They said no not really, so Donna asked if they would sell it to us. “No,” they replied, “we are going to get back into it.” We understood perfectly, from a high of riding about 3,000 miles a year we had fallen to 300 miles if we were lucky and still had 6 bikes between the two of us.

Fast forward two more years and we had at least sold off the least used of the 6, the mountain bikes. We asked our selves, should we sell the commuting bikes as they were just collecting dust in the garage, but said, “No, we are going to get back into it.”

Fast forward two more years to last last Friday, I get an email from the Burley owner, did I still want to buy it? Sure, what do you want for it? He said he’d take the $400 I offered him 4 years ago. Today our anniversary present to ourselves for this year showed up in the driveway:
Burley Rock 'n Roll

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291

And On The 7th Day…

Didn’t get a patch kit, so bicycling this morning was out. Couldn’t get motivated enough to commit to a hike. What we did do is our weekly grocery shopping after a gourmet breakfast of Hardee’s Biscuit ‘n’ Gravy (530 cal – 34g fat – 8g sat – 10mg chol – 1550mg sodium.) Turns out we wouldn’t have gone away because we got a morning shower that started as we were pulling into Hardee’s.

Hated getting caught in the rain after just washing the car yesterday, but hey, precipitation happens. In what I think may be a sign of sickness, when we got home from the store I went out in the garage and dried the car off hoping to keep that just washed freshness.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 258

Bike Afternoon (sort of)

Two weekends ago before we went for our little bike ride I noticed that there was a slight wobble in the rear wheel. Living dangerously I broke out the spoke wrench and gave 3 or 4 spokes around a full turn. Loosened two and tightened two depending on which direction I needed to pull the rim. I got most of the blip out, but after our ride the wobble was back. Time for a professional. Last Thursday I dropped off the wheel at the local bike shop and when the mechanic went to put the wheel on the truing stand, she noticed my problem right off, the rim was cracked at one of the spoke holes and the nipple was puling through.

We had to order a new rim, so she said give her a week. This afternoon we went and picked up my newly rebuilt wheel. She was just finishing up the job when we arrived, putting the tire tire back on and pumping it full of air. We were planning on a late afternoon bike ride, but I had a few hours so I just put the wheel in the garage. The rains came this afternoon, so riding was out, but I went out to put the wheel on the bike because Plan B would be an early morning ride on Sunday. The tire as flat.

I pulled out a patch kit from a cabinet and the rubber cement for applying the patches was long evaporated. Donna has some glueless patches in the seat bag of her bike, I could use them. I found the hole easy enough and applied the patch. Pumped up the tire and mounted on the bike. A couple hours later I checked the tire, flat again. We never did have good luck with those glueless patches. We may head out and get a patch kit tonight or forget about the bike ride tomorrow and go for a hike in Hitchcock Woods.

Ride Report

Got nothing much to say tonight, but I do need to make up a ride report from this morning’s ride for the Aiken Bicycle Club’s web site. So in lieu of any bitching and moaning tonight, I present, 20 Miles in the Morning:

When Donna and I rolled to the end of our driveway we almost did a 180. The road looked like it had recently rained and the clouds seemed low enough graze our helmets. We knew that at least 2 of the usual group were not going to be there, so we reluctantly headed to the Odell Weeks center. Someone from out of town had called me on Thursday and said she would be in town visiting and could she ride with us, so someone had to show.

Not long after our arrival at Weeks, Jenny pulled in and started to unload her bike. By 8:30 no one else was there so the 3 of us started out. It was still threatening looking and the roads were damp, but off we went anyway. Glad we did, as each mile clicked off the weather got a little nicer. So much so that the sun actually made an appearance 3/4 of the way through the ride. Right about that time Donna rolled through some glass and flatted. The next 5 minutes were spent chatting while the two ladies watched Brian get his fingers greasy from the chain and knees dirty from the tire. We finished with a nice tailwind down Pine Log.

At the end Jenny thanked us for going for the ride, we thanked her for showing up because if she hadn’t, Donna and I might have just gone back home.

Smooth Move Mr. Cyclist Guy

As mentioned the other day, I did in fact make the Sunday paper. I had actually forgotten all about it until I picked up the paper off my lawn this morning.

A picture of the cute kid who went to Camp Sertoma that is partially funded by the sale of the license plate he posed next to was at the top and the first one written about in the article. I snagged about 5 minutes of my allotted 15, by having my picture and words taking up the second half of the article. I wish I could link you to the article, but our little paper hasn’t posted the article yet (and when they do, they don’t do pictures.)

My plate is from the Palmetto Cycling Coalition which is a statewide organization to help promote cycling awareness, both to the general public and state government. Across the top is emblazoned “SHARE THE ROAD.” In the article I am quoted as saying that I hoped that this would make people aware that cyclists are people and not just something in their way.

Cut to several hours later…On our usual Sunday morning ride with some other ABC members we are coming back into town on the last leg of our journey. I was in the front of the group of five riding along close to the white line when a pickup truck blows by fairly close. As I look up to glare at the driver, I see him gesture with his hand towards the right, as if to say get off the road. Obviously he hasn’t read his morning paper yet. Usually, I just give a friendly wave as if I misinterpreted their intention, but for whatever reason today it struck me wrong, so I gave him the finger. He is about 30 yards up the road by now and returns my one-fingered salute in kind. And his brake lights come on, but just for a second. Perhaps his wife in the passenger seat was screaming at him like mine, who was riding right behind me, was screaming at me. Now I’m hoping he didn’t read the paper because maybe he would see my smiling face (and name) and put it together that was me on the bike.

Because yesterday was so busy, when I got home last night I barely had the energy to post, let alone read my usual blogs, so imagine my surprise when I read this blurb in Will’s blog and thought how close I had come having something like that happen to me.