SpokEasy

SpokEasy

Author name: CAL

Give Them a Hand

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Let\’s give them a hand! Give whom a hand? Prithee allow me to explain. The mention of cycling is likely to conjure up images of pedalers with well-developed leg muscles. And of long rides; and of Grand Tour races. Cycling, however, is not restricted to the able-bodied; thanks to hand-powered bikes. Several times I\’ve seen a man around here riding a hand-powered adult tricycle. He had a model that was very low to the ground. I don\’t remember for sure whether it was delta style (two wheels in the back; one in front); or tadpole style (two wheels up front; one in the back) style; but he sure was moving that thing! Let\’s give a hand to all the hand-powered cyclists out there! A big worry with such a bike would be traffic. Low-slung tricycles and bicycles (such as recumbents) are harder for motorists to see. A warning flag would be a very wise idea, in addition to a reflective vest; and a helmet, of course. If some disaster deprived me of the use of my legs, I\’d want one of those hand-powered trikes. I\’m sure it would take a long time for me to develop enough strength and endurance for even short rides; but I suppose I\’d eventually be able to go farther when I needed to. Maybe even enough to go on long Sunday rides! I know I want to keep up my cycling in whatever way I can, because it\’s hands down one of the greatest pleasures in my life.

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Hot Chocolate Time

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It\’s hot chocolate time! I\’ve found a brand at the salvage store called Abuelita®; that is, \”Granny\’s\”. It\’s in solid discs, rather than powder or granules. One disc makes four cups of the beverage; but you don\’t have to drink it! I\’ve discovered that the solid discs make nice munching. I would figure out that! The discs are scored so that they\’re easier to break, if I don\’t want the whole thing at once. I wish I could make today hot chocolate time. It\’s gray; raining and damp; and (for me, anyway) chilly. Unfortunately, with stitches still in place from oral surgery four days ago, I might be wise to avoid hot drinks. If you want hot chocolate without spending a lot for the mixes, you can make your own! There\’s a recipe for it on page 81 of  The Complete Tightwad Gazette. I adapted it to this: 2 cups instant non-fat milk powder + 1/4 to 1/3 cup sugar + 1/4 cup Hershey\’s Special Dark Cocoa Powder®. Put all ingredients in a quart jar, cover tightly, and shake well. That\’s all there is to it! Use 1/4 cup of the mix to 1 cup hot water.  So mix up that cup of hot chocolate; pull on some cozy socks; settle down in front of the heater; and enjoy!  

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A New Lease on Life?

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Do you want to give an old bicycle a new lease on life? Perhaps, for whatever reason, you don\’t ride any more. Maybe you upgraded and bought a fancier bike, and haven\’t been riding the \”back number\”. Yet you can\’t stomach the idea of throwing the bicycle away. After all, it still has plenty of miles left in it. In my home town of New Orleans, there is Plan B. Bicycle Plan B, that is. I would think that similar programs exist in many other cities as well. You could call it a recycling program for bikes! A program such as Plan B can let your now-unused bicycle get to someone who wants and needs it, but can\’t afford to buy a new bicycle from a regular bike shop. When I decided that the time had come to let my tricycle go, I took it to Plan B. The timing turned out to be most fortuitous. When I took the trike there, it happened to be just when a man came in who had been checking with Plan B for a while, hoping to get an adult tricycle. His had been stolen, and he wanted another one. I was glad to let \”Valkyrie\” go to him; he needed the trike. I hadn\’t used it for much except getting groceries since getting moving on two wheels. I did warn him that my bike shop had said that the tricycle was \”on its last legs\”. He couldn\’t afford to pay nearly as much as the value that Plan B had put on the trike, but I didn\’t mind. I wasn\’t trying to make a killing. Also, I didn\’t want him to pay a lot for the trike only to have it break down beyond repair in a week or two. And for all I know, good old Valkyrie is out there still, enjoying new lease on life!    

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Euclid Never Imagined This

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Euclid never imagined this, I\’ll bet. Way back in B.C., when Euclid was developing the principles of geometry, bicycles were undreamed of. Yet now we speak of frame geometry. Choose your figure! Do you want a right triangle; or a parallelogram? Perhaps a trapezoid; or a pentagon? How about a circle?? All kidding aside, frame geometry is an important aspect of choosing a bicycle. If you want a bicycle to ride just for fun and exercise, it would be wise to avoid a racing bicycle with \”aggressive\” geometry. Such bicycles are apt to be too \”twitchy\” for the recreational rider. My own road bike is of the \”endurance\” variety. Gosh — Euclid never imagined this! If he had, bicycles might have been invented in his own day! Any road bike feels twitchy for the rider new to road bikes. At any rate, mine sure did; and it took me several weeks to adjust to it. At first I did morning rides on the hybrid as usual; and I set aside some time in the evenings to work at getting used to the road bike. It was rather frustrating to feel that I was back at square one. But taking it slow and easy while staying uninjured, and building confidence; is far better than trying to go too fast, too soon; and ending up in a cast. And don\’t let your frame geometry run afoul of a hypotenuse — hey, wait, that\’s Pythagoras!

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Gear Ratio

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Gear ratio? What\’s that? If you\’re brand new to multi-gear bicycles, all those gears can seem a little intimidating. What are they all for; and how and when do I shift gears? Here\’s help. Of course, you don\’t have to be running non-stop gear ratio calculations in your head while riding. I, for one, would find it far too distracting; especially as math has never been my strongest point. If you do go for math, you can entertain yourself with both gear ratio and gear inches. Practice soon makes shifting gears second nature. I side with the advice to stay off of the big ring if you\’re a beginning rider; it\’s too much stress on the knees. When I first tried the big ring, I could feel how much harder it was to pedal. It was so much harder that my earliest efforts were limited to a few seconds! I had to build up a little at a time. Someone, I don\’t remember who, said that you should use your gears so much that you wear them out, unless you live and ride where it\’s absolutely flat. Well, you don\’t have to live in hill country to need to shift! There are no natural hills where I live; but I wore out my road bike\’s original cassette after about 14,000 miles. I need to change gears to adapt to various wind conditions, if nothing else. Okay, what\’s my gear ratio? Let\’s see: on my 50 chain ring and my 24 cog, that\’s 50 ÷ 24 = 2.08?

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Ramrod Straight?

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Do we need to be ramrod straight in the saddle? After all, how often did our mothers tell us, \”Sit up straight\”? More often than we liked, no doubt; and we likely got tired of hearing it. On the bicycle, there\’s probably no need to be as erect as the Buddha. And I seem to remember reading that, at one time, trainees at the Royal Spanish Riding School had ramrods down the backs of their jackets. This was to force them to sit up very straight. Can you imagine how torturous that must have been? All the same, it\’s better not to slouch while cycling. Slouching makes it difficult for the lungs to expand properly; and for a fact it doesn\’t look attractive. I\’ve noticed that I need to be careful that I don\’t arch my lower back upwards. I seem to have a tendency that way; and after a while my lower back starts to feel strained and sore as a result. Luckily it\’s pretty easy for me to correct it, and get rid of the discomfort. I also tend to slump across the back of the neck and shoulders. And I agree that it\’s hard to focus on posture improvement while battling a headwind, or pushing big gears during force-development exercises. All that said, I\’m not going to stress out about it. I don\’t have to be ramrod straight. This is riding a bicycle; not charm school.

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Metamorphosis

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A cyclist undergoes metamorphosis, just as a butterfly does. A a butterfly goes through several life phases; and there are phases in the development of a cyclist. Here are mine. When I first began riding, I got an adult tricycle. At the time I had some balance/dizziness issues; and I didn\’t dare to try riding a bicycle. A three-wheeler was the answer. I rode that trike far more than I had expected that I would; and apparently all that vigorous exercise did me good. After about two and a half years the wobbliness in my head was much reduced; and I started to consider a two-wheeler. Thus began Stage II: riding a hybrid. It took some doing to adjust to two wheels; but the century bug was gnawing at me big time. I had already done a 100-miler on the tricycle; and was so eager to do one on the hybrid that I began prepping for the ride before I was fully comfortable on two wheels. Not quite a year after I bought the hybrid, my metamorphosis entered Stage III: I got a road bike! Thus began another adjustment period, during which I worked at adapting to the very different feel of a road bike. Stages IV through VII are yet to come, unless my participation in six Tours de Cure  and a Bike MS  count as one stage. OK, let\’s call those rides Stage IV. Now, how about Stage V? Work up the gumption to try a race? Or a bicycle tour? Stage VI? Things are getting really sticky now. Learn to ride a tandem? Or a bent?  Stage VII? Stage VII seems so far off, I figure I can afford to come up with the wildest ideas possible. Besides, sometimes the craziest ideas metamorphose into something really good!      

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Mountains

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I live far away from any mountains; but I love them. Behold, my favorite mountain! I love the way it stands out, and looks so strong and bold. Visions of it spring into my mind whenever I hear the French horn flourish that opens the Rosenkavalier First Waltz Sequence. The occasional visits to mountains when I was a kid excited me. But would I like them so much if I had to ride a bicycle through them to get everywhere I wanted to go? As a life-long flatland dweller, I\’m not so sure. If I  were to be transported — permanently — to high altitude, it would probably take several weeks for me to adapt enough to the thinner air to be able to ride at all. And much longer before I gained the lungs and heart to go for long rides, even UN-loaded. Nairo Quintana I\’m not! My legs would need a lot of adapting, too. So would my head, if I had to ride along sharp switchbacks with no railing along the edge of the road. Looking down such a precipice makes me feel vertiginous; even though I\’m not afraid of heights per se. Then there\’s the adjusting that my bicycle would need. If I had to tackle steep climbs on a regular basis, my 12-30 cassette might be too small! Remember that, when it comes to cogs, bigger is easier. And my 50/34 crank set might be too big; for chain rings, smaller is easier. Maybe I\’ll be better off enjoying mountains vicariously: looking at pictures of them; and the lupine; and the snow. I enjoy pics of the mountain wildlife; and pics of the Tour de France mountain stages. Oh, and one last thing: don\’t make mountains out of molehills.

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eBikes

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Ever consider eBikes? I’ll admit it. When I first heard about electronic bikes; and even saw/heard people buzzing around on them,  my knee-jerk reaction was that they weren’t “real” bikes. How can it be a “bike” if the rider isn’t pedaling? It also struck me as a lazy way to “ride”. How could riding one of those things be “exercise”? Isn’t the motor doing the work? Then I read a letter in “Letters from our Readers” on page 05 of the December 2018/January 2019 issue of Adventure Cyclist; and it gave me a different perspective on ebikes. As the writer pointed out, electronic bikes can give people who are no longer able to use a regular bicycle (such as older folks with knee problems) a way to keep riding. An ebike doesn’t cause the air pollution that an internal combustion engine does, and doesn’t make nearly as much noise. What about the safety aspect of ebikes? I think I\d be worried that the thing would run away with me! But it looks like a lot of things that apply to riding a conventional bicycle also apply to riding its electronic counterpart. Be visible; learn to handle the ebike at low speed before trying to push the pace; and so on. For me, I think the hardest part of riding a ebike would be having that buzzing almost next to my ear. I have noise sensitivity issues, so as long as I’m able to ride a regular bicycle, I intend to do so. All the same, an ebike is an alternative to keep in mind.

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Oh Yeah?

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Oh yeah? Enough surprises for a while? Was I wrong! I got yet another surprise today. A few minutes ago I went into the kitchen, and was astounded to see a lizard perched on the edge of the counter; one of those little green ones that are very common here. (Most people call them chameleons; but they\’re actually anoles.) I was hanging out in my bathrobe, having recently returned from a ride. I though of catching the critter in a jar; and letting it sit long enough for me to get dressed and take the jar outside. Then I could let the lizard go. Oh, yeah? That\’s not so easy! Anoles are hard to snag. They seem to be quite wary; and they\’re very quick. Even if you manage to grab one in your hand, it\’s hard to hang onto it. Then I remembered: anoles eat insects. Beginning in June I\’ve had a lot of tiny six-legged invaders. I don\’t know why the sudden invasion; I\’d never had that problem before. But a lizard in here might take care of some of those cucarachas!

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