My typical issue with being asked what I’d like for a gift: I usually just get something, if I need it or really want it, or I’m saving up for it and it’s too pricey to be a gift.
So, this is more of a list for myself, to remind myself that there are things out there that I’m saving up for.
I bike commute from my neighborhood (Montrose and Damen) to my work, at the Adler Planetarium. Usually I take the bike path, because it’s faster (so I can sleep in longer.) It’s about 9.5 miles each way. When it snows or is icy the park district can’t always keep up with the path so I’ll typically take Damen down to Lincoln, then that to LaSalle south to the loop, then just bop around until I’m either at Roosevelt or over by 11th st and Michigan to take the bridge.
While on my ride home last Thursday, I noticed a bunch of people with bikes down by the Shedd Aquarium. And I mean about as far down as you can go, which is not an easy place to get to on a bike. They were riding around, so I met them on the other side and asked them what was going on. They gave me a flyer for their upcoming race, called ‘Stairmaster’. It was the sixth and final race in the Tour Da Chicago 2007 alleycat series. (I wish I’d have known about the Bricklayer… I coulda been a contenda…) So they invited me along for the rest of the ride.
From that much of the ride, I was interested to do the race, but wanted to see the rest of the course first, just to make sure I could hack it. I’d just got my new nerdy GPS cyclocomputer and thought that this would be a perfect way to try it out. I figured out a way to load the course in, so it’d help me in case I got lost. Didn’t work out that way.
I went to ride the course on Friday night, and found the first few locations just fine. But when I got to the stairs at the SE corner of Adams and the river (just west of wacker), I found myself in this weird little narrow space. And it got pretty tight, pretty fast. I ended up pushing my bike in front of me, on an angle so it’d fit under the bridge supports… on a narrow plank walkway, rotted in places, with a rickety railing. In some places the boards below had rotted out and someone had just laid a newer board across the top. I got out from over the water and the path wound behind a bunch of industrial cooling equipment, then through some new construction and over a bunch of newly mulched trees. I wound up at a dead-end; the next bridge had one of those starburst gates on it (like down at the marina) to keep anyone from going around the outside of it, and off to the left was a fence, most of which was covered with barbed wire. D’oh.
I ended up considering my options, then ended up heaving my bike over the fence and going over after it, in the only non-barbed-wire bit. The whole while I’m thinking, “Man, either this race is a bit too hard-core for me or I took a wrong turn somewhere — I didn’t see any of this crap in the video that guy posted of a pre-ride…” So I tore up my pants really well, which sucked (they were Burley rain pants, and those guys stopped making clothing). And I ended up on Lower Wacker, which if you’ve ever been on it… is like a racetrack. The 30 mph speed limit signs are just there for decoration, everybody goes like 55+. So I got to bike out of there and try to find my way back onto the course. Anyway, I ended up figuring it all out, went back to the Adams / Wacker thing and figured that out too, etc.
Saturday rolled around. Had a nice big breakfast with the Jeskeys at the Heartland cafe, then we went looking for some stuff to patch up my pants, but it was looking pretty hopeless. So I got some other stuff together and headed down there. Stopped by this place at Racine and School called Higgins (packed with drunk green-wearing morons) to meet up with Mike and Brian (who was in town to get looped) for a few, then threaded my way down through that garbage … people puking, people trying to hail cabs (standing in bike lanes, not looking, etc), pedestrians starting fights with people in cars… fun times.
I got down to Garfield park, tossed in my five bucks and got a manifest. Glad I brought extra safety pins, I put it on my sleeve. There were probably about 100 people there and I figure maybe about 70 of them were racing, it was hard to tell. We went on the pre-ride (neutral lap) around 7:45, and between having 70 people walking down the same circular stairs at Roosevelt and the lake (to the Amtrak service drive) it took a while.
We got back to the start point around 9 pm and the race started about five minutes later. I stayed in a decent spot but I think I was just being fairly cautious about lights and oncoming traffic (staying alive has its pluses), so I fell back a bit. For the most part I felt I did okay because I don’t think I got passed much, and managed to catch up to people here and there. At some point the GPS thing shut itself off, oh well. I got a bunch of bruises from banging into stuff too. Ended up finshing around 10:30 (I think) which I figure is pretty good because I normally do 9 miles in 30 minutes, averaging around 19 mph. Add one minute for each flight of stairs (there’s 15 of them or so) and that’s 45 minutes. So I consider that decent.
I finished 23rd, though like I said I’m not sure out of how many — maybe 70? I’m happy with it for a first race and want to stay tuned for upcoming stuff.
There was a party afterwards, but a bunch of us went to a taqueria first — good thing because I only had $7 on me — so I missed hearing who won and all that. Free beer, whatver. Interesting to see how different groups of people knew each other, what they do in real life, etc.
Then I rode home, straight up Damen. I figure it was like a 50 mile day, 18 of which were the race.
I used to have the Lake MXZ300 boots; I bought them in October 2004, and I wore them through the 2004-5 and 2005-6 winter seasons. By that time one boot had a hole in the neoprene upper, and the soles of both boots had become detached from the uppers. I essentially wore them into the ground by wearing them at least five days a week.
The laces of the those boots were really lame; they were very thin and stringy, and the hooks from the velcro straps would catch on them and pull out that ‘fuzz’ from the laces, shredding them up. They still worked fine, they were just a mess.
I’m sure that Lake Cycling was more than aware of this when they designed the next version, the MXZ301-2006 boot. It was the first one to use the ‘boa’ lacing system. This features a dial on the outside of the boot, which tightens a steel lace (coated and covered) that draws the upper shut, instead of normal laces. I’d had a set of laces like this on some snowboard boots before, and the steel lace in one of those had actually split and there were these sharp little steel bits coming out in one place. So I was already a bit leery of this thing.
I had been using the new boots (bought in October 2006 or so) for only a few weeks when the BOA dial on the left boot fell apart on me. I managed to jerry-rig it back into place, called Lickton’s and Bob was kind enough to send me a wrench to tighten the weird screw down. But I’d still notice it turning just about every time I tightened that left boot. So it made me paranoid, always watching it.
Eventually it fell apart, despite my diligent monitoring, and one of the little metal pieces inside of the dial (which ratchets it shut) broke off, making it even harder to keep ratcheted shut. It’s at Lickton’s right now and we’ll see whether Lake replaces it with another 2006 or with the newer MXZ301-2007. Of course I hope for the latter but I’d be willing to pay the cost difference, just to be rid of this design. I really hope that they’ve fixed it in the new design, because the boots are great — it’s just the lacing thing that’s not quite solved yet. Me, I’d take the velcro straps back.
So I’ve been nerding out for a while now over cyclocomputers. How fast am I going, what’s my cadence, all that junk. Until recently I had the CatEye Dual Wireless with cadence. I broke the cadence sensor arm twice. Using the scientific method I determined that: their design sucks.
I bought the Garmin Edge 305 cyclocomputer (with GPS, barometric altimeter, speed/cadence sensor, and heart rate monitor) last week; I’d been reading reviews of it since they came out with a Mac version of their software in January, but didn’t have the money until the last toy was paid off (a NAS for our camp). I got it on Friday, installed it and did a test ride to the bike shop (I needed a new cassette; I got a new chain and it was skipping. Goodbye to another $50. Ah well.) The cadence and speed sensor is nicer because it doesn’t have an arm on the cadence side; it’s built into the body of the device, so you just angle it over toward the crank arm. Much better. I downloaded the test ride data, and it plotted my course, broken up into laps (whenever I hit the lap button it divided) on a map of Chicago.
Since I’m a nerd who loves data I figured I’d spring for the model which also has a heart rate sensor. You wear it around your chest and it sits right below the breastbone. It slips a little but I probably just need to adjust the elastic thing.
The main cyclocomputer comes with two mounting brackets, plus a rubber wedge to angle it up if you mount it on the stem, which I did. Out of the bag, the brackets are pre-threaded with cable ties; one bracket is aligned vertically (to go around the handlebar) and one horizontally (to go around the stem.) However, if you remove the cable ties, you can easily pull the bracket apart and turn it 90 degrees. This was helpful because I broke one of the brackets within one day of getting it. (Be careful, they’re fragile.)
I also lost the cadence magnet within a day of getting it. Oops. Fortunately I had the one left over from my cateye so I just put it back on. (I am not nice to this stuff, I guess.)
The Mac software can do workouts and receive a data history from the device and convert that into a course. However, it cannot read in course files (*.crs) like the PC software can. The mac version can display two graphs; the PC version can simultaneously display 4, though that’s fairly spammy, trying to see all the different legends. The PC version can also let you click on a specific point and see the exact data for that point; the Mac version isn’t there yet. (Surprise!)
I think the device was programmed before the new daylight savings time stuff went into effect, which just means that the clock will probably be wrong for a while. It’s not bugging me enough right now to try and work on the issue but it makes me wonder whether users can do firmware updates, or if that happens automatically through the software or what.
The map function is pretty cool but I haven’t been able to figure out how to ‘pan around’ the display; the up/down arrows zoom in and out and the map is centered around your current position.
There’s the barometric altimiter, which supposedly helps improve the accuracy of the height measurements (there is a nice screen with a graph of altitude; you can zoom in and out of it), but I think that if you put the device in a pocket, or go indoors, there’s enough of a change in air pressure that it’ll screw up the readings.
So… I guess that means it’s important to hit the start/stop button whenever you’re going to do that. It’s easy for me to forget because the CatEye had the auto start/stop that was pretty useful, and it didn’t have a ‘history’ so I’d just reset it whenever I started a new ride, making sure I’d written down the previous info. I’m still trying to get used to the idea of holding down the lap/reset button for 3 seconds to ‘clear’ the previous ride and start a new one. Some little part of me says, “Is my old ride still going to be there..?” It at least seems to be smart enough to start a new ride when you’ve downloaded the data; I noticed the clock reset to zero after downloading today’s ride.
The auto start/stop function can be triggered when you come to a stop, or when you go below a certain speed. At first I thought that sounded pretty cool but at one point it got pretty annoying, so I turned it off.
I also had an issue when I was working with the device indoors. It had lost the GPS signal and helpfully offered to continue without the GPS receiver turned on, to save battery power. That’s cool, I thought, and said yes. Then I totally forgot about it when I got outside and didn’t have any positioning data for my whole ride. Once it’s off, it has no reason to check for a signal, to save power. Common sense, but an easy mistake to make.
In trying to get ready for a race, I found this website that a guy from the UK had written. More info about it on this page. That generated a GPX file, which I was then able to upload to this page and convert into a Course (*.crs) file. Then I brought it into the PC-only version (as of this writing there was a new version on March 7, 2007; make sure you have at least that version) and was able to upload it to the device. What a pain.
Anyway, once the course was on the device, I went to the ‘Training’ menu and picked ‘Courses’, then ‘do course.’ There’s an option there to ‘edit course’ but I haven’t tried that yet. So I tried to ride the course I’d programmed while doing the ‘neutral lap’ of a race (one up front to get everyone familiar with the course), and it was complaining whenever it ‘lost course’ or ‘found course’, etc. And I’m thinking, “SHUT UP! Just… record data!” So I didn’t end up using it during the actual race, I just started the timer. I wonder if it’s because of the unorthodox way I programmed in the course (described above.)
If the courses thing worked better, it would be pretty cool; there’s a separate main screen that is specific to a course, that lets you see different subscreen views by pressing enter, like a map on the lower half with speed up top, or whatever. Or course-specific altitude, etc.
When the device loses GPS (like when you’re on Lower Wacker drive…) it puts up an alert that requires you to hit the enter button to acknowlege that. And again… it’s like… SHUT UP! I wish there were an option to make those non-fatal alerts time out and disappear after a certain number of seconds.
There’s a navigation section, which lets you find waypoints you’d previously marked, including a big compass display. I suppose that’d be useful when trying to get somewhere and you’re not familiar with the territory, or if you were on a geocaching trip or something.
The backlight is nice, and can be configured to stay on for different durations — including to not turn off. That’s pretty nice if you’re all about the numbers even when it’s dark. It automatically comes on when you push a button and it’s dark out. Not sure if that’s time based or light level based or what.
Some of the assumptions that the device makes when it isn’t receiving data are just downright stupid. Or maybe it’s just the software. Regardless, I’ve apparently gone speeds of 1011.5 mph, burned 63,715 calories, etc. Not sure if that was tied to losing GPS or being turned off and back on during a ride, or what.
I’m still keeping my Excel spreadsheet each day, as best I can from the data… at least until there’s a stable version of rouleur-log to use, of course. I tried the motionbased website and it didn’t seem to work properly, even after I installed the Safari-only plugin, etc. But I’ll probably try it again, look at it from a PC, and try to at least get a good idea of what it’s capable of doing. Maybe it’ll give us some ideas for rouleur-log, anyway.
Overall conclusion: I’m happy with the thing, I’m sure I haven’t found all of its cool features (or annoying bugs) yet, but so far I’m having fun with it and it’s giving me more data. And, uh, that’s what it’s all about, right…?
I had a great time on the MS bike ride, which took place about a month ago now. (Been busy, and the lappy was sick…)
As we got close to Grand Rapids, we saw a huge thundercloud (cumulonimbus, anvil shaped) over GR. Alisun’s mom was asking her, “Is it raining very badly where you are?” Nope, it was sunny and blue skies, except for that one big cloud. Weird localized weather. We were really lucky when we got to the exit because cars were backed up for quite a ways – but we were close enough to the exit that we could just pull into the rumble strip for a while and turn off at the exit — the accident was a bit farther up.
So their new house is looking pretty nice, they’ve settled in. We played Euchre and ate pizza, and at some point in the evening my parents got on iChat AV and met Gary and Linda for the first time, ‘virtually’. I also had a chance to test HD reception as I had brought a spare EyeTV 500 with me. They only get a few channels, but those look quite a bit better than the regular analog versions. Plus they get a few ‘weather subchannels’. Early to bed, beer helped.
Up early, got over to the high school a little later than I’d hoped. Registration was pretty painless. Met up with my ‘team’ (who I’d found through Mark, Tammy’s husband; she is my camp director and her day job is with the NMSS. Got all that? There’ll be a quiz.) They were sponsored by a local credit union. All told there were twelve of us and we raised over $12,000 if I remember correctly. Good deal!
First leg was nice. It was already a little balmy as temperatures that first day got up in the 90′s and lots of sun. We were pacing around 17 but it was all over the place. At the first rest stop all of the people working were really cool and they’d even made a bunch of PB&J’s for us. (At subsequent stops, we usually had to make our own.) Slathered on sunscreen and rode on.
About halfway to the next rest stop I ditched Mark, we were just moving at two different paces. I caught up to a few guys from the team who were going a little faster at the next rest stop. Joined up with them and they were funny; they would do like 20+ mph in the flats, but peter down to 15 mph on the hill climbs. Then they’d call me a monster for ditching them on the climbs. I’m just trying to maintain the 17-18 mph pace they agreed to go! But, whatever.
The stated ‘goal’ for these guys was their magic number, 1324. (This was a blonde in too-short shorts.) As it would happen, fate played a cruel joke on them and she had a bike issue just as we all caught up to her. Ha ha. Suddenly, the carrot was gone.
Next rest stop was in someone’s front yard. They had these tiny shetland ponies, or were they really huge dogs? Kept refilling the camelbak. Thought about busting out the helmet-cam but wasn’t ready to commit to that yet. Went on.
The Christian Motorcyclists group that helped with traffic was really cool. They were all very nice and one guy had even made a stop/go sign that he used.
I can’t remember if there was another rest stop, but I don’t think so, before #4 which was around 44? miles, for lunch. Right down by a lake and one guy had jumped in, bike clothes and all. He said the water was ‘warm, but still quite wet.’ Okay. Also saw a guy sitting over by the medical vehicles who looked like he was having issues but I think they were just checking in on him. His name is Kevin, he’s got CP, and he was riding a trike. Only one pedal and crank, that’s the side that works. Back to this guy in a moment.
Lunch was nice. Jumped in the line ASAP as it was getting LONG. They had a refrigerated truck to keep all of the food in. There had to be at least 1500-2000 people doing this thing, I have no idea. That’s a lot of food. Sat in the shade of a tree with our group, and more of them trickled in over time. The burgundy minivan was our team support vehicle, and a cute kid was our mascot. She was usually pretty happy, or conked out.
Busted out helmet cam, tried clipping on the mike but realized long after getting home that I’d plugged the mic in the wrong place. So, no sound for the maiden voyage of helmet-cam. Oh well. Got about an hour of footage. I kept the camcorder in the camelbak (Lobo)’s big pocket and the battery for the cam in the smaller, upper ‘slit’ pocket of the flap. The mic, though it turned out to be pretty useless, was clipped to a front strap on the backpack shoulder straps.
Right after leaving the lunch site we headed across a long dam and up a pretty sizeable hill which everyone was grousing about. Tell you what though, that one was NOTHING compared to one which I’ll talk about in a bit… we three guys rotated off as usual but after a while it seemed like the other two would fall behind me a bit. It was getting frustrating. At one point in the footage you can see where I pulled off to the opposite side just so I wouldn’t be in the way of other cyclists while I waited for these two. Grr… before our next rest stop, we hit the decision point. I think this was at mile 57 but I could be totally wrong, I have no idea, really.
One guy (Al) came with me, the other one (I won’t mention his name here, as I still respect him) decided to stick with the 75 mile course. We picked up to about 18 mph and were doing pretty well. Got about 4-5 miles into the course and we catch up with that guy Kevin again. I was seriously impressed. Here’s a guy with CP and a bum leg and he’s doing the HUNDRED mile loop on the first day? Dang.
Century loop rest stop was cool, got our pins and saw Jim Freer, who was kind enough to cap my scratchy shifter cable end for me. Also met a guy who, truth be told, kind of reminded me of the comic book store owner from the Simpson’s. But hey, he was nice enough to volunteer to do the event, so that’s what matters, right? 
Back on the road. Heck of a long leg this one was. We stopped by the lake to get our picture taken by this lady who was pretty cool, especially because I hadn’t checked the camera settings and it was recording a movie. Oops. Finally got a ‘picture’ and were on our way. Passed this REALLY disgusting scene a while later where someone hauling the ‘best’ kind of fertilizer had apparently spilled some of it in a huge, thick puddle on the ground. Fortunately we did NOT have to ride through this, just past it. So the smell didn’t linger for TOO long. Got some NICE hills in there too. This was definitely the more enjoyable of the two century loops.
We were sure glad to see the place where the courses rejoined. Next rest stop was at an orchard or vineyard or something, I think vineyard… was starting to look a bit ugly but the weather held for us. We didn’t stay long, just like 5 minutes, and were back on the bikes.
I’m hazy on the next bit but I think this is where we took a bunch of county roads at right angles to each other while it sprinkled a tiny bit, and I got a phone call but the reception was terrible and I think it was a wrong number anyway. Frustrating to have to stop for that though.
Now here is where it gets NUTTY. We cruise down this huge hill a little while later. Keep in mind that we’re on the main course again. Of course, a huge hill DOWN probably means a big one going UP… anyway, we start going down this Dead End road. Okay…? Then between some big cement dividers, pulled aside so bikes can ride through (sort of.) Then over some pretty new looking wooden bridges, over a river or a marsh or something.
On the far side, after some nasty mud, was the WORST HILL EVAR. It curved around deceptively as it went up this hill that just… didn’t… end. For a long time. I mean, the majority of the people we passed were off their bikes and walking them up this thing. Oh well.
At the top was a very busy road, where people were doing like 55 mph. Not a lot of shoulder to ride on either. This whole leg was kind of lousy, but it was probably the only thing available. Not many turns and we came to the last rest stop, for us this was probably about mile 92 (for others it was 67?) and they were GRILLING burgers and hot dogs. So nice. Not very well organized but who cared by this point. You just found plates and walked around in circles until people put buns and meat together for you. Back on the road within about 15 mins.
We kept up with a guy doing 22-23 for a while and Al was right there with me. We got into Holland a little while after this. The sun had come out again for the last 5 miles before the previous rest stop and beat down. Made it through all the slow streets in Holland ‘south’ and got to Hope College. Called Alisun and Linda who were VERY close by and they showed up in no time flat. Very nice. We drove back to GR for some much needed R and R.
I have to confess I cannot remember what we ate. I think it was pasta of some kind. Carbo loading. What I do remember, is kind of gross, because I went to bed early, I was all excited for the next day, and instead I ended up being kept up and out-of-sorts for the better part of two hours from like midnight to 2:00 am. Which HURT because I had to wake up at around 5:30 to drive back to Holland for day two. Ate an apple or two and hoped I’d recover. (Needed Immodium AD, ikywim.)
Got to Hope. Got the bike off the car and set myself up. I’d brought a spare pair of shorts, in case. (I ended up putting those on after the first leg of day two!) Looked for medical guys. Asked if they had Immodium. Nope. They would get some for us if they had time. They didn’t. Grr. Ate another apple. Definitely a cooler morning. Nice mood and banter on the first leg with Mark and about 4-5 other guys from the team. Good way to start out.
I was a bit peeved at Al and (nameless) because they didn’t wait for me at 7 am, they had figured I would catch up to them. I did at the first rest stop, which was in some kind of park, but… I don’t know, I had always had this mistaken impression that teams were supposed to ride together. I know that teams splinter off into subgroups based on friendships and rider abilities, but for the first leg? Seemed like a ‘team’ thing to do, ride together. Whatever, I guess.
So, first rest stop, caught up, those two were about to leave, fine, I pulled on those second pair of shorts and off we went. We were at the next rest stop before I knew it, at some kind of campgrounds. Lots of people in line for the bathrooms, oho! Guys! Trees! Nature. So anyway. back on the road. Saw an ambulance but it wasn’t the MS ride, it was at someone’s house.
At some point the notorious 1324, whom we had seen at this last rest stop, and intentionally left before, caught up with us. The idea being that she would be this carrot who would keep everyone going at a better pace, just to keep up. Heh. Well, (nameless) saw her at the tail end of this huge pack (which we dubbed the Pelleton) who went by us doing about 19+ and he starts WHIPPING up there to keep up. I had no problem but we ditched Al for a while. Reversed roles…
So the next rest stop was at a small bike shop. They were saying, ‘look out, this next leg is a long one’ but I don’t think it was any longer than most, it was maybe 12 miles. Chica took OFF with the group almost as soon as we got there. They said, ‘forget it.’
Next leg? Odd slant road with a guy on a tandem with his kid. Which was cool, except the road was dangerous and not much passing, and he was trying to be all macho or something and speed up when you’d get close (he had a mirror.) Hello, moron. We’re doing a regular pace here and you’re cramping our style. Finally passed dumbo and child. Some cloudy weather but nothing terrible. Waved at the support van as they passed and they almost stopped thinking we needed help. Or was this the time that they didn’t recognize us as they passed. Heh.
Lunch stop! Elementary school. More nicely set up than the day before, or maybe just arrived at a good time. Med vehicle driver — got Immodium yet? ‘Nope, and guess what? I’m having the same issue myself…’ Guess what, dude? A) Not helping, B) TMI, C) Don’t care, I’m the one on the bike here. Whatever. Keep eating those apples, for the pectin. Saw Tammy, she looked busy as usual.
Once again noted that 1324 was making ready to go and used this as a means to get the gents moving. We kept up okay for a while, their group pulled away less quickly this time, which was a good sign that our pace was better. Passed some Sunday drivers coming out of church…
Can’t remember loads about the next bit. I think this was the rest stop where they kept telling us to make sure we saw the misting fan, and where we ditched (nameless). Al and I were doing maybe 18 at this point, not bad. Next rest stop before we knew it, and nameless caught up after a few minutes. I talked to 1324, who was from the Holland area, and made everyone feel either old or out of shape by laughing and saying she’d only just taken up cycling like 2-3 months before. Hah.
Al and I decided to go for the second Century loop. Think tumbleweeds. Long stretches of desolation. Well guess what. This stretch went for almost.. I want to say 17 miles before the rest stop. We went to an ice cream place as a detour because we just KEPT NOT GETTING THERE. I busted out helmet-cam again. Turns out we were maybe 2 miles away.
Second Century loop rest stop. Same comic books guy (do they just stick him there because he’s less social?) and another pin. They were laughing because we were the last two idiots to be on the loop on the second day, though we’d just seen another guy leave before us.
Not 1 or 2 miles out from that stop, I get a front flat tire. I probably just let it get too low, snakebite. I’ve done that once since, too. Oops. It’s fricking hard to keep those tires inflated… anyway, it starts raining. Al jumps in, I have a spare tube, he helps bigtime to get the tube on, just as we start pumping with my crappy hand held pump, SAG vehicle shows up. Nice! They have a real pump with a gauge. I should’ve pumped up the rear — I was worried about it the whole way.
Finished the last 10 miles or so and people were still playing music and cheering, got the medal, went to the cafeteria and ate the remnants of the food, woot. Pretty tired. Saw the guy get his hair cut off because he met his pledge goal and said that’s what he would do if he made it. Called Alisun and they showed up a while later. Changed, headed back to Chicago.
Woot. First MS 150, did the double Century, raised over $1500. Thanks to all who helped me reach that goal, I will wear my MS jersey with pride!
I’m preparing for my first long organized bike ride. I have never done a century before. So… I decided to do the MS 150 ride, which can go up to a double century, if you’re foolhardy enough to try it. I’ve been getting a lot of support from friends, family and coworkers; I have raised my goal twice and now estimate I’ll have raised over $1000 towards finding a cure for Multiple Sclerosis.
I’ve been riding my old Jamis Aragon for almost a year now, to and from work, but I decided it was time to upgrade. That thing is HEAVY steel (it’s a cross / hybrid bike) and in a fairly upright position. I have put over 3,500 miles on it in the past year, replaced hubs, tires, upgraded a bunch of stuff… I was running out of things to upgrade. 
Time to start all over again!
A week or so ago I was going to ride the Lake Shore bike path, to and from 71st street up to Bryn Mawr (about 36 miles round trip) two times, figuring 72 was close enough to 75 for government work. Except… I kind of got sidetracked on my first trip down. For a while I’d been wondering about my front wheel. I’d upgraded the back wheel to a beefier entry-level XT rim, and put a Continental tire on it, but the front was still a fairly stock, cheapo rim which I’ve beat on quite a bit. And I’m convinced that it’s a little out of true, but I may just be paranoid.
I stopped at this bike shop I’d heard good things about, on Michigan just south of 14th, called Cycle Bikes (formerly recycle bikes) and asked the guy what he thought. And, uh, allowed myself to get distracted by other bikes… and saw a nice Jamis touring bike, cromoly 520 with carbon front fork, marked down because it was last year’s bike. I was riding a 23″ (58.42 cm) frame, not quite enough length, and this bike was a 62 cm which is better suited to my height and leg length. It has Tiagra components, flight deck integrated shifter/brakes, Ritchie wheels and other components.. etc. Nice bike! Called Mark (who originally sold me my first bike many years ago) and got the thumbs-up from him, so I bought it. Had them put a rack on it and I moved over my cyclocomputer, lights, pump, etc.
Ended up doing the rest of my two there-and-back rides on the lake shore path that day on the new bike and left my old bike there; I went back to pick it up the other day, and had him put the same crank bros. steel eggbeater pedals on there for me.
We also did Bike the Drive, which was great. Wish we’d have registered earlier so we could just start off by riding down the drive in the morning with our numbers attached, and started earlier in general so there’d be less “Sunday bikers” (pardon the expression) to deal with. I mean, it’s bad enough when you have to ride on a bike path every day that’s congested by walkers, joggers, rollerbladers, other cyclists, and those morons who rent those ridiculous 4-wheel things. (Don’t get me wrong, I’d still take it over driving a car down Lake Shore Drive at certain times of the day!) But it’s even worse when you have ALL FOUR LANES of Lake Shore dedicated to cyclists and some folks form a nice slow line of riders like six people across, blocking up a few lanes. That’s just pretty ridiculous.
So BtD counted towards about 48 miles that day and I did the bike path again that night in its entirety, about 84 miles in total that day. After that I felt ready for the MS 150 ride. Have been trying to take it easy since then but it’s hard, some days I just feel a compulsion to go really fast on the new bike.
We went to REI on Memorial day and picked up a bunch of stuff — some new socks, a new jersey, spare tube, crank-bros. multitool, etc. Also got a cleaning kit for my camelbak and did that last night.
Today I took the new bike in for a pre-MS-ride tuneup, and on the way over there I almost ran over this woman and her kid as I rounded the corner by the Shedd aquarium; I skidded quite a bit and looked down to realize I was getting a flat tire. Managed to keep most of my weight on the back wheel and nursed it over to the Cycle Bike shop; got the tube replaced and had them put kevlar tires on there. Also had him cut in some brake levers on the inner portion of the handlebars, so I can ride with my hands there and still have the brakes handy.
So now I have a spare tube, some spare tires, a multitool, enough jerseys, yadda… hopefully I’m ready for the ride! Wish me luck.
Apparently, May is national Bike to Work month. Something probably went around about that last year, but I didn’t do anything about it at the time. But Alisun and I had been talking about it for a while, and sometime in mid-June 2004, we tried it out. First, we rode our bikes halfway to work one weekend (5 miles there and back) to see how it was. Not bad at all. So we started doing it.
Since then, I’ve got about 2,500 miles under my belt, most of which are from the 20-mile daily round trip. I lost 26 pounds. And I figure I probably saved about $600 on gas, not having to put it in my car.
When it’s nice out, I average between 18-26 mph, depending on the wind. When it’s cold out, my average has dropped to between 14-19 mph. So it can take me anywhere between 30 mins and an hour to get to work, or from work.
I have been keeping a log, in Excel. Send me email if you’d like a copy, to start your own. I use a Cateye Cordless 7 cyclocomputer, which is wireless. I’d like a newer one with more functions, but I haven’t settled on one just yet.
I’m lucky because we have executive shower facilities here, and I have a place I can keep the bike indoors at both ends of the trip. My boss approved the purchase of a wardrobe cabinet, because the operations guy complained about the unsightly pile of dirty clothes I had on my floor. I keep a small hamper inside of it, a personal kit for showering, etc.
Once every week or so, I’ll bring my car and exchange my dress shirts for clean ones, then take the dirty ones to the cleaners, go do loads of laundry, etc. Or when I have large packages delivered to work, I may drive. But for the most part, I try and minimize the number of times I have to drive.
There is a really awesome cycling community in Chicago, which ranges from Chicago Bike Federation to Bikewinter.org to Critical Mass to Rat Patrol… only a few of the various groups I’ve had the pleasure to meet and hang out with. And we’re lucky to have the mayor’s support, apparently he’s into biking as well. I’m sure that goes a long way towards proper funding of programs, etc.
I have put quite a lot into my bike, which is a 2000 Jamis Aragon ‘cross’ bike with a 23″ steel frame. New seat, new front and back rims and tires, different cartridges, chains, bigger front cog with three separate gears and crank shafts, new deraileurs, etc. Plus winter cycling boots, eggbeater pedals, head and tail lights, the cyclocomputer, etc.
But I’d say that bike maintenance is still cheaper than car maintenance, and more enjoyable and hands-on. And it still is awesome to have my commute be my form of exercise! Much better than driving on Lake Shore, where I show up to work frustrated, then leave from a stressful day of work and just get more upset by the commute. Being on the bike lets me pour all of that excess energy into the pedals, and just relax.
There was a joke someone submitted to Reader’s Digest a long time ago about an English guy who’s giving a presentation at an ice rink, and he keeps asking the facilities person if it’s Icy or Dicey there. Well, of course the guy has no idea what the guy is asking — it’s an ice rink, for heaven’s sake, he expects it might be quite Dicey out there on the ice. Until he finally understands that the guy, in his British accent, is actually wanting to know whether the electric current is AC (ahh-see) or DC (DaySee?) This of course has very little bearing on the extreme stupidity I’m about to relate, but I think of it from time to time. Welcome to my nebulous blogosphere, or something.
Few weeks ago I’m riding my bike to work, as usual. Except the conditions have been really hot and cold, lots of snowmelt, re-freezing, more snowfall, etc. This led to a condition where a lot of water froze everywhere, then new snow fell on it. Black ice that you could hardly see.
I should have known it was going to be one of those days, when I slipped FOUR times. Once, I’d only just left the alley and was about to head down the sidewalk towards the bike path. Shoomp, down I go. I have clipless SPD cleats and Lake MXZ 300 boots, so it’s not very easy to recover from an ice slide when clipped in. For me, anyway. Some crazy homeless guy starts telling me about how I should sue the flower shop I fell in front of. Yeah, okay, thanks, dude. I go on.
I’m taking things pretty tentatively, I get to Wilson and there’s the slighest of curves shortly before the intersection, and I go down pretty hard. I slide all the way across the width of the path, maybe 10 feet or so. I know at this point that I’m going to have some nasty bruises. A guy all the way across the park over by the lake gives me this kind of a wave, I give him the thumbs-up sign to say I’m okay. People are cool, sometimes.
Okay, to heck with the path. I get onto inner Lake Shore at this point, and take it all the way to the bridge underpass at Ohio, which has a nasty hairpin turn halfway down the ramp. That was the third wipeout, it was very snowy, etc.
Somehow I managed to get all the way past the Yacht club (notorious ice melt which freezes right when you go around the curve there) and to the peninsula where I work, when I decided it’d be smart to take the sidewalk, despite my earlier experience with one at the start of my journey. WHAM! Down I go for a fourth time, right in front of a mom and her little kid. So I try making a joke out of it, all exaggerated, “Wow! Be careful, you guys!” Big grin, etc. so hopefully her daughter wouldn’t be freaked out. And mom explained that they’d had a slip and fall earlier, etc.
So I’d like to think that it was this fourth fall, the icing as it were (if you pardon my pun), where Fate just stepped back and went, “Okay, dummy, three strikes already, you’re toast.”
I get in to work and open my bag. First thing I realize is that one whole corner on the laptop is bent. Lower and upper casing, LCD, everything. And the craziest thing is, it all still works perfectly, with the exception of the backlight. Meaning you can look at the screen at a very severe angle, and see things appearing on it like normal, they’re just not backlit. And when I removed the framing from the DVI connection (very carefully, with a Dremel tool), that worked just fine as well. So, not at all worth a Tier 4 repair ($1300) on an at-the-time, $1800 laptop. Had fun telling my boss about that one, but figured I’d just as soon get it out of the way.
A day or so later I was hit with a bigger, and much worse realization. I’d taken my external 250 GB firewire drive in to work with me what day. And it had some minor cracking on the case in the rear corner. Well, when it began to spin off, it was oscillating. And the head made that ‘click’ noise when it tried to engage. Yeowch. Of course, I probably let it ‘try’ far too long, and I tried more than once, hoping that by some arcane magic, things would right themselves. No such.
I got on the phone with Allison from DriveSavers. She explained that their Economy rate for recovery attempts was anywhere from $500-$2700, but not to worry, she’d only seen one $2400 and a few $2100′s. Plus, I said the person from Apple (who I’d asked about the laptop repair) had mentioned them. Wow, that was good for an immediate 10% discount. Neat. Then I explained to her (and truthfully) that the most important thing on the drive, to me, was to recover a few gigs worth of photos, from the summer camp I volunteer at, which is for kids with cancer. So apparently there was a 20% discount for that, instead of the 10%. Alright, I bit the budget bullet and began working out the numbers, how many paychecks and how much I could spare, etc.
Packaged up the drive as per their instructions (3″+ of padding on every side!), sent it off to them, and ordered a new 250 GB enclosure to be sent directly to DriveSavers (if they recovered anything, they’d need a way to store it), and waited a week (Economy rate means 5-7 business days.) Got a call, and the guy was nice about it, but said he was unable to get anything from the drive at all, the heads had probably crashed and wiped out the data. It was completely toast. I thanked him for trying, and they were really cool. They even waved the $200 ‘attempt fee’, and even the shipping costs. People are pretty cool, sometimes.
For the most part, I lost my entire music collection, but I had the bulk of it on my 30 GB iPod. Plus a bunch of those crazy eBaums type movies that you can download. And a bunch of Sifl n’ Olly episodes as MPEGs, but I had those on a data DVD. The hardest was the photos, both from camp and the personal ones. And wedding photos from our friends’ wedding, but fortunately we’d at least printed those out for them. This was before I had Gallery online, etc.
I was still pretty bummed about the whole thing, but at least I learned a huge lesson from this. Not long after that I ordered the MacTruck case from Radtech, which I like a lot. It looks like a secret agent’s briefcase. I feel like I should handcuff it to my wrist, that’d be pretty entertaining. Maybe I’ll try and hack something up… heh.
Anyway, it still is hard to think about, but hopefully this will dissuade someone else from doing the same thing, I guess. Now, I’m so paranoid about the whole thing, that I plan to have at LEAST one external drive of the same capacity to back up every laptop and desktop we have (soon to be three.) Plus, if we get any additional external drives (eg actually for external storage,) then there has to be a SECOND, identical drive, to back THAT up. Sounds expensive? Yes, but balance that against a $2700 bill… or not getting your data back at all. (Priceless. For everything else, there’s… yeah yeah.)
re: the Flat. Alisun had a patch kit, and we found the culprit. Big shark-tooth of glass in my rear tire, that went through both the outer and inner portion of the tire. Two patches later… seemd okay. Reseated everything.
Stopped by the bike shop and got a patch kit, levers and new tube to keep in my bag, just in case. Also kicked myself for not having had my phone charged, have to get better about that.
Sean at the bike shop showed me the Michelin Cyclocross Jet tire, but they sell it there for like $50. I think they’re about $40 online, with shipping…
* * *
I have been biking to/from work with this chain around my waist. I’ve used it to lock up my bike, and that is much easier to do than the U-Lock was. But it’s fairly heavy and takes some getting used to. I didn’t know quite how much that… and my computer + case weighed together, plus clothes.
I got on the scale twice, before and after getting ‘suited up’ to ride. I weighed roughly 40 pounds more, between the 8 pound chain, the computer and case, etc. I think it’s a necessary evil, considering what I managed to do without the case. But still… I’m thinking of it like ‘cross training’.
* * *
I was riding in yesterday morning, just starting out, when this guy passes me on the path. I had just turned onto the path proper when he went by, so once I got up to speed, I drafted him for a little while. It was clear that I wanted to go faster, so at an opportune time, I passed him.
Right now, the area between Fullerton and North is torn up for the installation of a new water main. The path is narrower, but not (yet) impassable. Regardless, they still put up huge barricades and orange plastic fencing, which people promptly moved or tore down. For a few days, I tried their detour, which involves: Crossing the Fullerton northbound off-ramp and southbound on-ramp (BAD/DANGEROUS), taking the crappy path along the Lincoln Park zoo (I normally just take the parking lot road instead), detouring way around the open stretch of park to go to the North underpass (goes North/South, under North, heh), then down the sidwalk to the other North underpass (goes East/West, under Lake Shore). Well, that’s all crap.
Apparently this guy didn’t take the detour, so I ended up behind him again. Which gave me a goal again, to catch up to and pass him.
I caught up right as the light was changing at Grand, which is the westbound street coming away from Navy Pier, and said, “Well, guess that detour isn’t necessary yet, huh?” And then realized he was the guy who was nice enough not only to stop the other night, when my dumb self didn’t have a tire fix, a ride, or a phone for four miles… who not only helped me look for a phone, but also went ahead to look and doubled back to let me know. And he said, “Wow, you really blew by!” totally paying me this compliment. To which I blathered something about cross-training, this heavy bag and chain, yadda. Which could only have made him feel worse, and almost immediately after was his stop. So I felt like a total jerk.
What I should have said was, “I wouldn’t have gone so fast if you hadn’t passed me right at the start, you gave me a good goal!” Must keep this in mind, cycling karma.
* * *
I rode the detour area today after Alisun told me took it yesterday, having seen others do it, etc. (Would YOU jump off a bridge if… yeah yeah.) So one whole lane of the path is torn up and packed back down. Big deal. I scared some lady jogging because she made a huge and unnecessary detour around a couple of rocks which were jutting out into the (already half-width) path. I rode over the rocks, on her right, because there was the most room there. And she kind of jumped because she heard the rocks crunching, and on her right, went “sheesh!” And I’m like “Sorry!” But give me a break. If you yell, “On your right,” or ring a bell at someone or whatever, half the time it has the exact opposite effect that you were desiring, because a lot of the time, people don’t think fast enough to jump in the correct direction, or they just stop and look, or go the wrong way. And you slam on your brakes, and it’s worse than just passing them like you wanted to in the first place. That, or they’re going right down the middle of the path. On rollerblades even. With a dog on a long leash. And headphones. Don’t get me started.
While riding home tonight, about two miles out of ten, I got a flat on the rear tire. This, the Continental. Five ply. Not sure what kind of tube I have in there, haven’t looked yet. Didn’t have the patch kit on me. Cell phone was dead. Decided I’d walk until I found a phone or someone with a cell. After about four miles of walking (45 mins-1 hr) got to the construction site, the security guy there let me use his phone. Alisun was nice enough to come pick me up. We’ll see tomorrow if I wrecked the tire by pushing it all that way. I tried to keep most of the weight on the front tire.
Grr.