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SpokEasy

Author name: CAL

Another Scorcher!!

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Another scorcher. It\’s not quite 11:00 am. The temperature is already 91 (33 degrees Centigrade), and the heat index is 103! There\’s a heat advisory in effect. Again. Today I went to the regular supermarket instead of the salvage store. I wanted bananas and apples, and the salvage store, I must admit, isn\’t great for fresh produce. Although I did get some nice zucchini there last week. On the way to the store I took the route through the park. It gave me an extra half-mile or so for the Cycle September challenge. I didn\’t need enough stuff to require the trailer; the panniers did just fine. Then I had to walk to a drugstore a mile away; the one closer to home was having trouble getting a prescription I need. I didn\’t try to ride there because it would have meant a couple of blocks being squeezed between moving cars, and car parked along the street. That makes me VERY nervous. Of course — and alas! — on the way back home, I stopped at the drugstore near home for ice cream! I\’m glad I got things done early, and can now stay home in the air conditioning. I\’ve become terribly spoiled about that. I grew up in this climate with no air conditioning. We didn\’t even use fans except when there was company. But we had windows that we could crank open, and this was before there was the crime that we hear all too much about nowadays. Yet another scorcher is expected tomorrow. When, oh when, will Fall and cooler weather get here?

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Cycling in Russia

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Cycling in Russia This blog/page may contain affiliate links. “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.” What is cycling in Russia like? Would I want to tackle such a tour — possibly in the middle of nowhere? It sounds like cycling across Russia is not for the faint-hearted, especially if you sally forth on your own. Apparently the biggest risks are cold (it can get cold at night even during Summer); crazy traffic; and wildlife.   What kind of bicycle? There can be very long distances between towns; and you’ll need to carry enough food to tide you over in case you can’t get to town soon enough. A touring bike is suggested if you expect to be mostly on paved roads. If you’ll do a lot of riding over unpaved roads, go for a mountain bike. I suppose it’s even possible that you must be prepared to camp; so a bicycle with a rack is wise. You can use panniers to bring food; and a tent and sleeping bag can be strapped to the top of the rack. Just be sure you don’t pitch your camp in prohibited areas; check on this before leaving home. It all sounds like more than I’m capable of handling.  If I were to cycle Russia, I’d stick with tours of the larger cities; and I don’t think I would go solo! My Russian vocabulary consists of only a few words; so things might get tricky. Moscow offers ten routes that let you explore the city on two wheels. Saint Petersburg? Like Moscow, St. Petersburg has some amazing architecture. I always wondered how those domes were built: not only their onion-like shapes, but those stripes in different colors! Eventually I learned that the domes are wood; and the colors are tiles. Kiev? That actually isn’t Russia; but Kiev seems to be more bicycle-friendly than it used to be. And I bet I’d enjoy seeing the Great Gate! ABOUT ME I began this website primarily as a way to present the story of how I accomplished a century ride on an adult tricycle. Other riders of adult trikes might want to know whether it’s possible. It sure is! You can read all about it in My Story. I live in New Orleans; and  retired in January 2023. More time for cycling! Website designed by Cecile Levert © This website is the property of its author. DISCLAIMER I am not a cycling coach; nor a health professional. This site is based on my own experiences, opinions, etc. If you need help, please consult the appropriate professional.   FRESH FROM MY JOURNAL Joyeux Noël! December 21, 2023 Fröhliche Weihnachten! December 20, 2023 Christmas Past December 20, 2023 Relearning December 19, 2023 Load More TRANSLATOR

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\”Challenge\” Is Right!

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Calling this a challenge is right! During Love to Ride challenge periods, I ride more than usual. To be more specific, I make a special effort to ride to work every day. No matter how much my legs like pedaling, that can actually get rather tough. It means giving up my weekly off-bikes day, which I see as a day to recover after my long Sunday ride. Just now, riding home after work means pedaling in 100+ degree heat indices. It makes me wish I had a cooling vest waiting for me at home. For the most part, I leave my weekday morning rides as they are. I\’ve started to do some work at riding faster for up to five minutes at a time, at least one day a week. But today is only September 5, and I mustn\’t burn myself out. Participating in Love to Ride, whether during a Challenge period or not, lets you earn badges. Past rides may be entered for the purpose of earning badges (although past rides don\’t count towards whatever Challenge is in progress). That\’s how I got the Legend Badge: 10,000 miles! (In fact, I\’ve earned the Legend twice over and then some!) The Supercomputer Badge (ride to work 200 times in a calendar year) has so far eluded me. Living only one mile from work makes it too easy for me to walk on those days when I don\’t feel like riding to work. So far in 2019, I have only 39% of the ride-to-work days needed, and there aren\’t enough work days left in the year for me to make it. But there\’s always 2020. Maybe next year I\’ll be up to the Supercommuter Challenge? To call that a challenge is definitely right!  

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Be Informed

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Before you leave, be informed. Sure, it sounds like a great trip! But it you don\’t want your trip to turn into a big-time jumble or something worse, it\’s wise to learn about local laws and customs before you even apply for a passport. There are general guidelines, and more specific ones for each location you plan to visit. In Italy? Pay attention to #6. No matter how hot you are after a day\’s riding, stay out of that fountain! And #8 is something I never would have though of — not that I\’d buy an expensive handbag. As for #10, be sure to pack along the sneakers. Cycle-touring Belgium? I\’d be in trouble where the beer is concerned, but chocolate? I might find myself wanting to move there! Don\’t refuse vodka if you\’re in Russia? Good reason for me to stay far away from Russia. Number 15? Where I live, \”cucarachas\” are an unfortunate fact of life, but I wouldn\’t want an onslaught of them swarming all over my bicycles. So maybe it\’s a good thing that I don\’t know how to whistle. Cyclists touring Russia might want to keep a set of fancy duds handy; apparently cycling clothing just won\’t do! In the Netherlands? Sounds like a cyclist\’s dream! See #7 and #8. How about der Vaterland? Wow! Cash is still preferred! That would be hard for those from the USA, where debit/credit rules. And another country where \”do not walk in a bike lane\” rules! Where I live, I see people jogging in marked bicycle lanes. If they want to visit Germany, I hope they read up on such things first. As for those rules about keeping it quiet, better use the bicycle bell judiciously. Remember, be informed.  

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Big Four

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What Big Four? Four-leaf clovers are lucky, but bicycles aren\’t clover. The commonest materials used in building bicycle frames are aluminum, steel, titanium, and carbon fiber. Which is best? Per Lon Haldeman, a frame\’s design as much as its material is what makes the quality of your ride.  (See The Complete Book of Long-Distance Cycling, p. 61).There\’s also the practicality of, What can I afford? Aluminum frames are comparatively inexpensive. My hybrid has an aluminum frame (with a stainless steel front fork). Aluminum also has a reputation for making a light, lively frame. \”Steel is real\”  seems to have been around for a long time. A steel frame has a certain amount of \”give\”, thus a springiness. Unfortunately steel is prone to rusting. I\’d be worried about a steel frame getting rusty even if it hadn\’t rained in two weeks, because I live in a humid climate. On top of that, I\’m relatively close to the Gulf of Mexico, and there\’s always salt haze. Might that saltiness in the air contribute to corrosion? Titanium is supposed to all but indestructible. It doesn\’t rust. It\’s lightweight. Unfortunately \”ti\” bikes are very expensive, as the material is hard to cut and weld. Then there\’s carbon fiber, which consists of thin strands of carbon with a resin coating. This leads to carbon fiber bicycles being called \”plastic bikes\”, which I find a bit insulting. It makes the bicycle sound like a cheap, shoddy toy; ironic, as a \”CF\” bike is not cheap (I should know; my road bike is CF). So there you have it. Get Fast! includes a brief discussion of the big four frame materials in Chapter 15. At the time I bought my road bike I knew little or nothing about these things. If I buy another one in the future, I should be able to make a more informed choice. But really, the most important thing is: how good does this bike feel?  

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Cycling in Belgium

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Cycling in Belgium This blog/page may contain affiliate links. “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.”   Cycling in Belgium starts at birth, it seems. I remember reading that in Belgium, I believe it was, they place a cold bicycle saddle against the bottom of a newborn baby. The shock supposedly starts the child on a lifetime of cycling. Odd sort of a kick-start, don’t you think? And indeed, Belgium seems to have a good reputation for cycling. Parts are flatland; and some parts are quite hilly. Something for everyone! Here are some possible routes. Are you a flatlander, like me? Maybe you’d like to keep to the coastal plain region, and use a road/gravel bike. Any route with cobbles would count me out. Cobbles alone sound bad enough to me; never mind cobbles + steep climbing! I hadn’t though much about the terrain of Belgium; but since it’s included in the the Low Countries, I had vaguely assumed that it’s flat. Not entirely, it’s not! If I went on a bicycle tour of Belgium, the climate would be hard on me, I suspect. I should be used to rain (we average 60 inches per year where I live). But if it’s going to be chilly or downright cold as well as raining, I would soon be very uncomfortable. Maybe I need a rain suit! Possibly some long johns, too. Love chocolate? How about visiting Brussels, and the Chocolate Tasting Tour? It sounds like this tour in itself isn’t done by bicycle; but how about the choc-o-tour as a sidelight on a bicycle tour that includes Brussels? After all, as Eddie Merckx said, “Ride lots.”

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Medic Alert

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Medic Alert can be a big help. It\’s useful even if you don\’t have a serious medical condition. Medic Alert is your ID if you become ill or injured, and can\’t speak for yourself. You never know what might happen. You might crash when you hit an unexpected slick spot in the road. Suppose you developed heat-induced illness if you ran short of water on a hot day? Or, perish the thought, there\’s always the chance of a losing contest with a motor vehicle. If you have a medical condition that needs to be known if you\’ve fainted, or been knocked unconscious, a Medic Alert device lets emergency personnel know about it. Severe allergies? Diabetes? Heart condition? The wearable device provides your most critical medical information along with Medic Alert\’s contact number and your personal ID number. Emergency responders can quickly access the information they need. MA is served worldwide, and has affiliates in nine foreign countries. If you\’re planning a bicycle tour abroad, MA would be a wise idea. It\’s like the good old Scouts\’ motto: Be Prepared.      

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Labor of Love?

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Labor of Love Can riding your bicycle be a labor of love? Monday is usually off-bikes day. But today is a day off from work, and Cycle September is on. So I went for a ride. It will help my team! After having put in 37.5 miles yesterday, I tried to take it easy, which wasn’t all that easy. The breeze was from the Northeast,  which meant a headwind on the way home. It was blowing at 9 mph; not all that strong per se, but that’s enough for me to feel it, particularly when I’m trying to go easy! A 9 mph wind is nothing to that hurricane. Dorian’s max sustained winds have dropped to 155 mph since last night, but he’s still one mean storm. To make things worse, he’s now almost stationary. What movement there is, is still westward. After I got  home from my jaunt on the road bike, I took the hybrid for a ride to the ATM. Luckily those machines don’t take holidays, and I thought it would be wise to get a little extra cash, in case things come to the worst with that hurricane. Let’s hope that Dorian won’t be a second Labor Day Hurricane. He’s bad enough now! Eerily, Labor Day in 1935 was on September 2. I tried something new before this morning’s ride: Bob’s Red Mill Muesli Cup. I got it on sale day before yesterday, and I hope I find it on sale again soon. In the meantime, I’ll put in some more miles for Cycle September — as a labor of love.

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Those Were the Days?

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\”Those were the days\” sounds like looking back on the past with nostalgia. But was it always so much better in \”the good old days\”? They say of tennis that you need out out-think your opponent, rather than outrun your opponent. This training sounds like it\’s aiming at something quite similar; and it sounds brutal to me. Ride all those miles (kilometers, they say here), and ride a lot more with all those \”attacks\”? I guess that\’s one way to get strong, but not the method I\’d choose. Such a ride would have me feeling like #10 on this chart. It sounds to me like the training mentality back then was a boot-camp style, All hard, All the time. Joe Friel would probably have a fit about that! When did those riders get to recover? Were they more prone to overuse injuries, and premature burnout, than today\’s serious cyclists? We must remember that things change over time. What was \”normal\” in Fausto Coppi\’s day is now likely to be viewed as detrimental. Sixty or seventy years from now, serious cyclists may well be horrified by the way things are done in the present; and they\’ll be saying, Those Were the Days?!      

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Cycle September 2019

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Love to Ride\’s Cycle September 2019 challenge begins today! I kicked off the month with a ride of 37.5 miles. Not with these time-trialing wheels, though! I\’m nowhere near fast enough to be thinking about time trialing. In fact, I tried to take my time (no pun intended) today. Today\’s mileage was actually quite a big jump up from what I\’ve been doing. Last Sunday I rode only 29 miles, and they say you shouldn\’t increase your mileage (or time) by more than 10% from week to week. At least today felt a bit cooler. It was overcast a good deal of the time. I wore my sun sleeves, which helps keep my arms from getting quite so hot. Much of the time I was riding the small ring. At one point, when I tried to shift onto the big ring, my chain got dropped! I didn\’t have any helpful YouTubes at hand, either. I need to watch this one about ten times, and then maybe I\’ll remember it next time. My road bike seems quite prone to chain drop lately, and I\’ll be getting it checked at the bike shop soon. In fact, that bike is about due for a complete tune-up. If it will take more than a day, I can ride the hybrid while the road bike is in the shop. But I hope the time without the road bike is minimal. Cycle September 2019 is on!

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