Ride Journal: 8/3/2008

There are probably as many reasons for biking as there are reasons for bikes. Just off the top of my head, you can use your bike for:

Exercise
Commuting
Work
Cruising with friends
Touring
Racing
Everyday transportation

I’m sure there are more. But that’s a good starting list. When I first decided to build myself a bike, I really had no idea what kind of biking I was going to do. I knew that I liked to bike around to local shops, and I figured that I could use the bike for some exercise, but I didn’t really have a concrete idea of what kind of biker I would be.

After about 3 weeks of semi-regular riding, I’m starting to find my ‘biking persona’ — what a terrible phrase. I’m not very excited about biking without a purpose; I rarely go out on directionless rides. I like riding as part of doing. So rides to the grocery store, as my wife and I did today, are perfect. Biking to a restaurant to meet up with friends is another great idea. Basically if I have a place that I need to go, or an errand that I need to run, I’d like to bike it if feasible.

Looking into the future, I can see myself getting into bicycle touring. I’m especially intrigued by sub-24-hour overnight rides (more at Rivendell Bikes). It seems like an awesome way to combine a long bike ride with a relaxing weekend. But until I invest a lot of money in camping equipment, any of my rides would have to be to towns with a nice bed & breakfast. Red Wing seems like a good option. Only 50-ish miles each way, and Red Wing is a great town to spend a weekend in.

Any serious touring, however, would probably require that I get a different bike. It’s hard to tour with only one gear, no fenders and limited storage options. Maybe that will be my project next summer, building myself a sweet touring bike.

Ride Journal: 8/3/2008

Route

I spent five days after the bike in order to give a pulled muscle some time to heal. By today I was itching for a ride, and it just happened to be time to pick up our weekly CSA delivery. Perfect.

I biked up the same hill I mentioned earlier and had a much easier — although not easy — time of it. I attribute this to three factors.

• Practice
• A higher saddle position
• Just sucking it up and pedaling

The saddle change is thanks to the excellent articles over at Rivendell Bicycle Works. Their unabashed Tolkein fanboy-ism aside, they look like an awesome crew of people.

Ride Journal: 7/27/2008

Route

A quarter-century ride! Although gmaps says I biked under 25 miles, the cycle computer says 25.21, and it’s been pretty reliable so for.

I started the ride with no destination in mind, but as I passed 12th Avenue, I decided to check out part of the route for my upcoming bike tour. And once I checked that out, I figured that I might as well check out a different part of the route. By that point, it was easier to just ride the whole tour route instead of turning back for home.

As I got close to my house, my mileage was just over 24 miles. Obviously that would be unsatisfactory, so I detoured a few blocks out of my way to break the 25-mile mark.

I certainly feel better than I thought I would after biking 25 miles, while keeping up a decent average speed of 12 mph. I’m definitely glad I bought padded shorts at REI yesterday, otherwise I’d be much more sore.

Overall, the route for the upcoming tour looks pretty good. The ride between Richfield and Linden Hills has some steep hills, but I expected that. And none of them were bad enough to make me think about rerouting the ride.

Ride Journal: 7/26

Route

Just a few blocks from my house is the Mississippi River, across which lie all sorts of treasures. Izzy’s Ice Cream, Trotter’s Cafe, some great coffee shops, etc. All places that I want to bike to. Only there’s one problem – a gigantic hill. I’ve avoided biking across the river for weeks, just so that I don’t have to slowly wheeze my way up the hill while jeering cars speed by.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to get better at riding hills other than by riding hills, so yesterday I finally decided to give the climb a try, although I planned to take side roads instead of biking on the main road.

For this first ride I kind of zig-zagged my way up; I’d zig a block up the hill and then zag for a block off the hill. This worked pretty well, although I noticed that if I could manage two uphill blocks in a row, I’d actually be over the worst of it. Maybe next time.

Ride Journal: 7/24 - 7/25

7/24

I was exhausted. Even this short ride was nearly too much. Despite my physical lameness I got to the Hub and bought a bunch of crap, including a cycle computer. Afterwards I swapped my old stem out for one with an adjustable rise (meaning I can control the height of the handlebars). So now I don’t have to hunch over so much. That will make my back happy.

7/25

My first ride with the cycle computer and the new stem. Other than a mysterious creak, the bike felt great. Investing in the new stem was a good call. It wasn’t cheap, but it was cheaper and easier than buying a new fork, which is the only other way that I could have raised the handlebars.

I’d resisted buying the cycle computer because it just seemed so lame. Why do I need to know how fast I’m going when I’m just biking up to get some groceries? But my inner nerd finally won the battle, so now I can tell you that I biked 5.29 miles over 27 minutes and 12 seconds, giving me an average speed of 11.67 mph. My top speed was about 17.5 mph. And my Sigma was 5! What is my Sigma? I have no idea. Time to dig out the manual.