Bicycling

Do You Think I’ll Live To Be 80?

I recently picked a new primary care physician. After two visits and exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing “fairly well” for my age.

A little concerned about that comment, I couldn’t resist asking him, “Do you think I’ll live to be 80?”

He asked, “Do you smoke tobacco or drink alcoholic beverages?”

“Oh no,” I replied. “I’m not doing drugs, either.”

Then he asked, “Do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?”

I said, “No, my other doctor said that all red meat is very unhealthy!”

“Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf, sailing, hiking, or bicycling?”

No, I don’t,” I said.

He asked, “Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t do any of those things.”

He looked at me and said, “Then why do you give a shit?”

Old New New Year’s Tradition

Last January 1st I remarked that we had started (after all of 2 in a row) a new tradition of taking a hike in the Sumter National Forrest on New Year’s Day. This year our hiking companions were non-committal and a pleading phone call from an old friend made us revive an old tradition with some folks who continued on in our recent absence. We joined the Aiken Bicycle Club on a ride to Aiken State Park.

In the intervening 5 years or so since we last did this with the ABC a couple of things were different. 1) Donna and I were riding a tandem instead of separate bikes and 2) the Aiken State Park was now called Aiken State Natural Area. (I wonder what the difference is?)

The Natural Area is a 22 mile one way trip and seeing as that is about 2 miles further than we have ridden in a long time and there was a catered lunch waiting there for us, we opted, along with about 1/2 of the cyclists, for a ride back to Aiken in a car with the bikes on a trailer.

Because it was such a beautiful day for January, we had plenty of daylight left when we got back and tomorrow promises rain, so we climbed into the Miata and went for a 50 mile or so drive.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 0

Long Distance Sunday

Springlike day here in Aiken. There was a big chance of rain all day, but it only came down for a short while this morning and quit. About 9 o’clock we wanted to go for a bike ride, but wet streets and lingering green splotches on the local radar made us think twice.

By 10:00 AM the green was gone and the streets were mostly dry and after a couple of clothing changes to be dresses right for the warmth, we pulled the tandem out of the garage and headed off.

This was to be a test of the new seat which has been sitting obediently on the bike since before Thanksgiving. After 8 miles it felt pretty good. When we got to the 8 mile point at a tee in the road Donna suggested just turning around and going back the same way we came. The normal right hand turn to complete the 15 mile loop passed right by a church and it seemed like a lot of traffic heading that way. I proposed alternate 3, turn left. It meant a 20 mile ride, but it was a nice day and we were feeling good.

The last couple of miles were a little painful, but not because of the seats, it was our backsides. We have only been riding 12-15 miles and the extra 30 minutes in the saddle were more than we were used to.

I have to admit that I’m enjoying the tandeming much more than I did when we first had one 10 years ago. I’m not sure what the reason is, and I’m not going to lose sleep trying to figure it out, but I look forward to riding the tandem more so than riding the half bikes.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 371

Here’s One I’ll Delete Later

After only one ride on the tandem I knew I didn’t like the seat that came on it. I tried a seat I had laying around, a Flite Titanium, but that was literally a pain in the derriere. Recently I tried the Terry Dragonfly seat off the road bike because it was so comfy there. On the tandem you are sitting a lot more than on the single bike, so what worked there didn’t translate as well to a double bike, so I broke down and bought a seat with a bit more padding from the same company – the Terry Fly CroMoly Saddle. Butt testing to begin soon.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 358

How’s That Work?

Donna and I went for a bike ride this morning and ended up for breakfast out again. This time we switched things up a bit and went south of town, so instead of eating at the New Moon Cafe we dined at Best Bagels. We get one bacon, egg & cheese bagel and a second plain toasted bagel. We each then get one half of each bagel and swap tops and bottoms with half the B,E&C split between them. We learned long ago that getting two bagels loaded with breakfast food stuffs is too much for us to eat, not that we couldn’t do it, but it makes the last 3 miles home on the bike more difficult.

How is this for a neat trick, I went for a 10.8 mile ride while she went for 13.2 and we rode the tandem! Turns out her new cyclecomputer has two separate settings, so it could be swapped back and forth between two bikes if you were so inclined and somehow when I set the tire size calculation number I entered it for bike number two and the computer was set to number one. I broke out the instructions and set #1 to the same number tire size as #2, so no matter what the computer is set for, it will read correctly.

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.