Spring Riding Fever

The school year is winding down, we're having some B-E-A-Utiful weather, and it is about time I got back in the saddle. I am soooo looking forward to it. Now, for the time being, I have to be sure to be safe. The last time I posted, it was right after an accident on the bike and I have had to get a new helmet. This is an essential purchase.  Why? Because you don't want this to happen.

BTW: I am curious to know why he would be riding with a front wheel that is so much bigger than the rear wheel. Did he "frankenbike" that?

The Art of the Crash

I have been lucky. In the 5.5 years, or so, that I have been cycling with any regularity, I have only suffered 2 crashes. The first one was caused by a driver cutting me off... intentionally, I might add. That incident was rather minor, as all it really entailed was me standing on my brakes so hard I popped up out of my seat and landed on my handlebars, bending the right side downward far enough that I had to replace them.

This past weekend was a much more serious accident in that I was hurt, but fortunately my bike was not. As you shall read in my previous post, I was riding in a parking lot with my sons. My older son challenged me to a race, across the parking lot and my brakes failed.

Now, here is what I call the art of the fall. I had only a few moments in between realizing I would crash and the event horizon. I knew that if I turned away from the curb too sharply I would fall over immediately and get a face full of an asphalt sandwich. This was the least preferred option.

I could hit the curb straight on and do a swan dive over my handlebars, but ruin my rim and wheel. Granted, it would look pretty cool, but it could still hurt, and would ruin part of my bike.

Fortunately, I realized there was a third option... and I went for it!

I turned slightly to the left, so that my wheel hit the curb at an angle. This made it turn sideways and sling me over onto the grass at a similar angle. By so doing, I was able to turn enough to land on my right shoulder and roll after landing. This was the best option, and (as planned) it didn't ruin my bike or wheel.

What it did, however, sling my head directly into the ground when my shoulder hit. This was a most unpleasant experience, and one that left me with a nasty headache for a couple of hours afterward, but given the options, it was the best and the one to leave me with the least amount of pain and damage.

Crashes happen very quickly, and we never know what will happen or when they will occur. Perhaps that's why we call it an "accident" and not an "I-meant-to."

Goodbye. Boodbye, my friend...

The weather has been unseasonably warm, and my sons wanted to go to practice riding their bikes. So, I took them up to the local tech school's parking lot. Son #1 was doing quite well, and I will be taking his training wheels off when I get the chance. (Honestly, I should have done it by now, but that just hasn't happened yet.) Son #2 is slow, but getting the hang of it.


Well, Son #1 decided to challenge me to a race across the parking lot. This really wasn't fair as I am older, faster, and was on my Puch. So, we agreed to give him a head start. I waited until he was about 2/3 the way across and then I got down on it. I hit about 21mph bolting across the parking lot and almost caught up (I was planning on letting him win anyway... it's what dads do) when I needed to hit the brakes in order to slow down, when...

TOTAL BRAKE FAILURE!

I don't know what happened, but the calipers would not clamp down hard enough to stop me! I knew immediately that I was going to crash since I was going too fast to turn away without eating asphalt. So I quickly chose to hit the curb. I will talk about the art of the fall in my next post (which you likely read first since this shows most recent posts first). Long story short, I hit the ground... HARD.

I've been in a couple of crashes over the years, but this was easily the hardest one I've ever had. I landed on my right shoulder, and my head hit the ground hardest. This is precisely why I always wear a helmet!! No matter what, always wear a helmet. Honestly, I was only doing this to set an example for my sons, because I never imagined that I would have a crash simply riding in circles around a parking lot while my boys cruised around on their bikes.

So now I have to bid farewell to my helmet of the past 4.5 years. It's been a good run, and probably 1,000 miles. I know that's not a lot in the long run, but it was a good helmet. Granted, the dark blue totally clashed with silver and coffee colored Trek. I will particularly miss the stickers. Seriously, I don't know what "Calvin's Dog Biscuits" are or how I acquired the sticker, but anything that says, "Life is Short, Eat Biscuits" is a winner in my book.

So I have taken a photo to remember it before throwing it away. I now have a new silver one that will match my Trek, and will last through my next crash. I hope that is many, MANY miles from now.

Am I alive?

I swear, it has been way too long since I have been on here...

Our school year went longer than normal this year and I haven't been out of school for a whole week yet. I have, however, managed to get on my bike a couple of times. The fun part is that I have been riding the Puch rather than my Trek. I am finally getting used to the skinnier wheels, and I have to say that I do enjoy being able to ride a little faster than I can on the hybrid. (Skinnier wheels means less surface area, which means less friction.)

However, today I learned the hard way that this bike needs a serious brake adjustment. Fortunately I was not in danger of getting hit, but I could not stop as fast as I needed to prior to making a turn. I should be able to do that myself, but I am prepared to head to my LBS if needed.

I didn't have my camera with me when I took a ride at Petersburg National Battlefield last week. I would love to have a picture of my bike with a cannon, but so far it seems destined not to be. I will remedy that for the next battlefield that I go to. Until then, I will continue riding for local errands as much as possible. I'm looking forward to a good summer of weight loss.

Ready for 2011 Cycling!!

Spring has sprung, and I am ready for riding. This has been a viscous year for me and cycling. The winter was harsher than expected with a LOT of snow and ice; we had another baby (which takes away a lot of "free" time); and I have had a bad winter for sicknesses (flu, food poisoning, etc.).

Now the weather is finally coming around, my health is improving, and I have a new bike rack for my car (thank you credit card rewards points!!). So now I am going to take my bike to work with me and I am going to go for a ride immediately after work, before I come home. I would ride to work, but I am not ready to get up early enough for a 21 mile commute. Heck... I drive and still have to get up at 5:30. I'm either too lazy or unmotivated to get up at 4 am just to get to work early enough to shower there... and then not get home until wicked late.

So for the time being, I am just going to ease back into my riding with a few 5-10 mile rides and we shall take it from there.

Why Congress needs to read laws before passing them.

In case any of you (all three of my readers) missed it, I am in the process of taking this blog a little further out into the world of cycling in general. I will likely start posting something every Sunday since I don't ride on Sundays. (It's part of what I consider keeping the Sabbath Day holy.)

Well, I came across this gem earlier this week while perusing some information on stuff hidden in bills passed by Congress before anyone reads the bloody thing. (Yes, I am surprisingly conservative. That's not something that you find very often with cyclists and hard core recyclers.) Alas, I digress...

Now, I found this article on treehugger.com that reveals some of the stuff that snuck into one of the bailouts Obama pushed through Congress. Did you know that you can be reimbursed up to $20/week for applicable expenses associated with bike maintenance if you cycle your commute to work?

That's right, hidden away in the bowels of legislation among the tax exemptions for using wooden arrows and various cost analysis assessments for racetracks (please explain how these stimulate the economy), is this nice little tidbit for the benefit of those who wish to ride their bikes to work.

I don't care why you ride a bike (health reasons, environmentalism, cost efficiency) I'm just glad to see that there is finally something worthwhile in DC happening in favor of those who are truly using alternative transportation.

Why do I do this to myself?

A friend of mine here in town wanted to go riding with me. He's a couple of years older than me, but he's also out of shape. Now, what makes this super "not fair" is the fact that he's one of the skinny "out of shape" people. It's so unfair...

Anyway, I wanted to ride out to a park north of town, but he didn't want to because he works near the park and "it'll feel like I'm commuting to work." I can understand that (but I do wonder, since when does 1.5 miles count as a commute?). So I make another suggestion, and wouldn't you know it... he used to "commute" that way too. I wish he had just sad that he just wanted to go ride the trail that I have blogged about the last two times I went out.

So I figured that this might be a little fair. He's "out of shape" and wearing blue jeans. I, on the other hand, am wearing fat people workout clothes. He's got the Trek mountain bike (made for off road stuff) and I've got the Trek road-based hybrid. In the end, we took the trail and were fairly evenly matched. Well, maybe not so much.

He did a lot of stopping for sightseeing at the bridges and to read the signs and so forth. I can understand that, and I even did that on one of my rides. So, I understand the delays. What I did not get, however, was how a skinny dude with better equipment was going so far behind me. I had to keep slowing down to let him catch up. Then I would get back into my normal cadence, and pass him again, only to slow down for him to catch up, and get back into rhythm, and you see the cycle (no pun intended). I was shocked at how quickly this tired me out even MORE than riding my ill-equipped bike on an off road trail.

Then, just to make things even more interesting, there was the tree that had fallen across the path. Yes, a mighty oak had decided it was tired of standing and chose to have a bit of a lie-down... right across the trail! Well, my friend decided that he wanted to keep going, so we portaged the bikes through the wreckage and continued on the ride.

By the time that we got home, we were both exhausted. I cannot do that on the wet trail again, or so help me... okay, that was an idle threat. It's really not going anywhere.

Unfortunately, I did not take my phone with me, otherwise, I'd have a picture of the tree. I would have taken a picture with me on top and called it "Manuel the Wonder Tree-Slayer!" or something predictably silly like that.

If nothing else, this gave me 20 miles for the week. I know that I have done that in a day before, but among the various challenges (not riding in a while, weather, friends, etc.) it's a hopeful start back into the lifestyle.