It's the Little Things...

So it was another fairly successful day. I set a couple new personal bests; I finally rode the whole North Branch Trail which, in turn, set my new furthest distance record. And I did the whole ride at a new best average speed (for a "long distance" ride). Still slow compared to the old pro's, but better for me none-the-less.

It was so foggy and damp when I got onto the path today that within a couple of miles water was dripping from the brake handles on the bike and off the visor of my helmet. I was soaked! The bike ended up completely loaded with silt and leaves, as did the fronts of my legs. My fingers were pretty cold at the start of the ride and my toes began to get a bit cold too, but before long the sun began to burn through and all was good. It was a glorious morning for a ride.

To all the other riders out this morning who asked if I was OK when I did another one of my famous clippless tumbles while trying to cross Harp road, thank you for asking. And thank you for not laughing until I was out of site.

I was running a new seat and shorter handle bar stem today and the combination felt darn good. At the end of the ride, the sit bones in my butt were sore, but my other nether regions felt just fine. I'm satisfied with that. I can work on toughening up my sit bones, but there just wasn't much I was going to be able to do to help the ol' twig and berries. The new seat is an S1 from Neuvation Cycling and seems to be a pretty nice piece for the money and so far it is certainly more comfortable than the Fuji seat that came on the bike. Natural leather seat, Kevlar sides, Carbon-nylon bottom and Titanium rails for 59 bucks is hard to beat. So far, after one good ride, I give this seat a thumbs up. We'll see if my sit bones begin to feel better with some more time on the saddle.

One point of interest. After only about 10 miles today, my left hip started screaming at me on any sort of incline. I noticed that if I stopped pedaling with that foot down and lifted myself off the seat just slightly, the pain immediately went away and left me feeling oh-so-wonderful. It occured to me that this new seat was slightly shorter (from the rails to the top of the seat) than the previous seat. So I stopped and raised the seat post about 1 cm and the hip pain completely went away. Once again proving that fine tuning of a bike is key to making the long rides easier, and it is important to carry some tools.

• 37.01 miles
• 2'33"
• 14.6 mph avg.
• 24.3 mph max.

And Home Again, Home Again, Jiggidy-Jig

The ride home went much better as far as the quality of roads I found, and the traffic situation worked out pretty well too. However, let me just say that I am absolutely and completely whipped. Beat like a dog. Folded like a lawn chair. Crushed.

Must be because the bike paths are generally in such wooded areas that the wind doesn't play such a factor. The wind coming home today, although not incredibly strong, was straight into my face and it just completely killed me. It was just brutal at some points. It felt as if the bike was going to come to a complete stop and I was just going to tip over right there in the street and pass from this earth. My legs are completely non-functional tonight. Getting up the stairs to come to bed was a task. I'll bet they are going to hurt tomorrow. I've got a long way to go to be a distance rider to be sure.

On a better note, I picked up a 90mm handlebar stem on Ebay last week and it arrived today. And I've got another seat on the way - one with the taint hole to relieve a little bit of pressure from the twig and berries, if you know what I mean. So, the bike tweaking continues. I'm going to be revisiting the overall fit of the bike in the coming days, now that I'm learning a bit more about how the bike should fit aside from what feels right.

Oh and here's a pisser. I am still battling Swagmanbikeracks.com regarding the bike racks that I purchased a couple weeks ago and decided that I wasn't 100% satisfied with. Apparently there is no difference between returning an item and exchanging an item as far as their customer service department is concerned, meaning that they want me to pay a 20% restocking fee in addition to paying for shipping back the racks that I do not want as well as for sending me back the racks that I do. So, I am officially going on record as saying that the Swagman bike rack company sucks. Please disseminate this information to your friends, relatives, and loved ones. I am still looking into what options I have available to make their lives a bit more difficult, but I am sending the bike racks back to them in the next couple of days regardless.

Total for the day (both trips):

• 29.37 miles
• 2' 02"
• 14.0 mph avg.
• 23.6 mph max.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off to Work I Go...

My charming and delightful bride has to leave work early in order to pick up my beautiful daughter from school and taker her to dance class on Mondays, meaning that I do not have to pick her up from school. Seems like the perfect day to ride the bike into work, no?

So that is exactly what I did this morning. In fact, I'm sitting at my desk right at this very moment, stealing company time to tell you about it.

My first impression is that it is easier to do 30+ miles on a bike path than it is to do 15 miles on public streets in morning traffic. But everything went well. Nobody tried to kill me or threw things at me or called me names, so I guess I did my part as a cyclist well, and everyone else did their part as drivers well too. Thanks to all the drivers out there this morning between the north side of Chicago and Mt. Prospect who didn't kill me, or call me names or pelt me with empty (or full) coffee cups. I appreciate it.

Second, most streets around here suck for road bikes. If I keep this up, I may need to invest in a commuter bike... My charming and delightful bride will love to hear this news.

I mounted the GPS on the bike again this morning, in case I needed to find some alternate routes and I noticed that the speed indicated on the GPS was identical to the speed indicated on my bike computer, to the tenth of a mph. So at least I know that my bike computer is accurate.

• 15.18 miles
• 1' 02"
• 14.8 mph avg.
• 21.7 mph max.

Dump Trucks, Gravel, Pot Holes and Humps

Well, I'm pulling a couple more night shifts at work, so today was going to be a great day for a nice long ride.  After talking with some friends, and doing some more reading at various places on the Web, like www.bikeforums.net, I decided that the rides I've been making are getting long enough that I should start bringing more water and some sort of fuel.  I set up the bike last night with a handlebar bag to put some snacks in and swapped the water bottle cages between the Fuji and the Schwinn, as the Schwinn has a bigger cage that will allow me to use my 24 oz. bottle rather than my 16 oz.  And I had picked up a couple of Odwalla bars the other day specifically for this day.

This morning I had the brilliant idea to break the Sweet and Salty Peanut Odwalla bars up into pieces and put them in a baggy, then keep that baggy in the handlebar bag on the bike.  I also tossed a couple FRS chews in as well, thinking that when I got thirsty for something a bit sweeter and tangier than water, I could have one of these chews and then just chase it with a drink of water, rather than going so far as to carry two bottles at this point.  I loaded up the Fuji and headed out.

My plan today was to take a shot at running the North Branch trail completely.  I had more

water, and snacks to keep me going.  I wasn't going to pay much mind to my pace, but instead just try to zone out and keep on riding.  Today was going to be a big day.  Someone had run the trail yesterday and said that, except for one spot, the water had receded and the trail was dry, so I figured that I was good to go.

About 6 or 8 miles into the trail, I came onto some signage saying that the path was closed for construction.  I didn't know if the trail truly was under construction, or if during the floods, they had just used this sign to block the path.  So I made the decision to go around the signs and keep going.  It wasn't too much longer that I actually came upon the construction equipment.  At this point I probably could have gotten around all the workers and equipment on the trail, but that just seemed a bit rude and like some sort of poor cyclist form.  So I said good morning to the guys working on the trail, thanked them and headed back toward home. 

But on my way back, I decided that, rather than just come home and call it a day, I'd explore the neighborhoods awhile.  And that is when I found something just a bit irritating.  On this side of town, the main streets are pretty chaotic for riding a bike.  Bigger streets like Montrose, Lawrence, Nagle, Harlem, etc. are two lanes with cars parked along the sides, so there really is no good shoulder to ride on.  Where there is a shoulder, it is often full of cracks and pot holes.  But if you get off the main roads and onto the nice, smooth, quiet side streets, the city has filled every one of them with speed "humps."  So, no matter where you try to ride it is rough going.

Ehem... excuse me, Mr. bicycle-friendly Mayor Daley?  I'm not impressed.  If nothing else, why not just put a break in the middle of the humps, like they do in the alleys to allow rain water to drain?  Then a cyclist could just cruise through the middle of the humps.  You can't put them on the sides of the humps, because all too often there are cars parked in the way.  These streets don't see so much traffic that a cyclist can't ride in the middle of the street here and there.

But I digress.

I rode for quite a while, sticking to side streets where I could, battling traffic and pot holes when I had to.  Man, nothing will motivate you to get the pedals cranking then riding down Cumberland Avenue with cars whizzing by at 50 mph.  Then I rode into Mt. Olive cemetery for a bit, which is certainly a nice quiet place to ride.  Except that I couldn't find a way out and basically just circled the joint until I ended up back where I came in.  Looks like they are dealing with a few issues from the heavy rains too.  I think some of the dearly departed got their first bath in a long time...  I saw this cool old "graveyard Jeep" and decided I needed a photo:

It is a bit hard to see, but the Jeep has cool boom on it for moving dead people stuff around. When I went by it was holding a large cement slab in front of the Jeep.  It looked like the cover they put over a grave once the coffin is lowered in.  Creepy.

Oh, back to the Odwalla bars.  Did you know that if you break them up into pieces, put them into a baggy on the handlebars of a road bike and then take them out for ride, they will jiggle themselves back into a solid mass again?  That's right!  They are self healing!!  Bad idea on my part.  Next time I'll just leave them in their wrappers, but open them up so that I can grab them out of the bag, take a bit and drop them back in.

So, all in all, this was not the bike run I was hoping to make today, but anytime on the bike is a good time.  My lungs and legs ache in that good way.  Oh, and I broke the 200 mile mark on the Fuji today.  And to think; when I bought the bike my goal was to put 100 miles on it before the end of season.

Consumer alert:  Remember those Swagman bike racks I purchased and wasn't complete crazy about?  (I wrote about them here.)  I've decided to exchange them for fork mount units, however the fine person at Swagmanbikeracks.com is not being very customer friendly.  Apparently their 100% Satisfaction guarantee means that you have to pay shipping in both directions plus a 20% restocking fee.  We are debating the issue via e-mail currently.  Stay tuned.

• 23.91 miles
  
• 1'47"
  
• 13.1 mph avg.
  
• 23.9 mph max.

A Break From Our Regular Program

Since Chicago was inundated with upwards of 8 inches of rain a couple days ago which resulted in my bike path being more suitable for fishing than biking, and just due to the day to day business of working and being a Dad, I haven't been on the bike in a couple of days. I'm pulling some night shifts again at the end of this week, so that will give the chance for at least one good long ride, provided my primary bike path is not still under the north branch of the Chicago River by then.

So, allow me to take a moment to help spread some information that I feel needs spreading:



Thanks for you time! We now take you back to your regularly scheduled senseless dribble.