Cycling

Photos from my Icefields Parkway trip between Jasper and Lake Louise are now up. I'll write the trip up in more detail later. Probably.

On Sunday my father-inlaw, a friend of his, and I made a bid for the Highwood pass. I have wanted to ride over Highwood pass for a while, and this trip was partly why I wanted to get a new bike: a fixed gear 42-16 isn't something I want to climb a 7% grade on. My original plan was to get dropped off at the north end, and ride from one gate to the other, either getting picked up there or ride another 40 km to Longview. Riding from the gate to the top and back was a good start. Maybe next time I'll go gate-to-gate and back again or from the north end to Longview or something.

We had originally planned to ride the pass the weekend before, but rain made us reconsider. From the outset it was agreed that we would go at our own pace. After the first hill climb together, I set off at a faster pace. I didn't make as good a time as I would have liked, but it was ok for my first major ride in a long time.

After about 5 km I started thinking to myself that I should stop and go to the bathroom somewhere. But then I would look at my computer and think, I just go to 10 km. Ah, I'll wait until 15 km. And so on. Until I was at the last climb before the pass, and I had to stop and eat a cliff bar because I was running out of energy. That put me back in it though. I did have to chant "almost there" in my head though...

Gallery is having issues, so I'll post the pictures later.

UPDATE: Photos are now available.

Lots of stuff has been going on lately. I've started riding to work again, on a Norco CCX cyclocross bike. I ended up getting that one over the Trek or the Devinci because it has a short top tube. I felt really stretched out on the Devinci. The Norco was also cheaper. I'm pretty happy with it so far. It has developed a squeak somewhere in the bottom bracket area, so I've got to try to figure that out, otherwise it's been good.

The ride to work is pretty good, but I have make sure I don't go too fast, because we don't yet have showers at work. I should probably be having bird baths anyway, since it's pretty easy to get sweaty, even on a 4.2 Km ride. Especially when I try to stay ahead of the buses so I don't have to play leap frog with them. When I'm feeling lazy I just hang behind them and breath diesel fumes. Yum.

At the same time I got my new bike, I got parts to replace the things I broke on my fixie. Kona Bulge cranks and bottom bracket (on sale!) from Bowcycle, and a 44 tooth chain ring non ramped chain ring from MEC. Since the Norco came with different pedals (egg beaters), and the fixie has SPD's, I either have to swap pedals or swap cleats, and thus far I've been to lazy to do either, so I haven't really tested the new set up yet. That and I started sanding the frame where the chain ring took a bite out of it, and then started sanding surface rust, so now I should probably paint it or something before I ride it too much....

It feels great to be back on the road!

I went for a ride with Stephen today. We made our way along the river and ended up at Bow cycle, where I scoped out a new cyclocross bike for a bit. On my way home, coming down a pathway to 19th st, I was slowing down by resisting the pedal rotation, and my crank turned into a marshmallow. The arms that hold onto the chain ring tore off and the chain ring bent and then broke. I'm glad that it bent in toward the frame (there are some significant gouges in the frame) instead of out toward my leg. I also glad that it didn't do it when I was riding up hospital hill. Fortunately I wasn't going to fast.

Pictures of the wreckage are in the gallery. I guess I'll have to find a new bike until I can get new cranks, chain rings, and bottom bracket. That bike needs different wheels too. I guess I'm taking the bus next week.

I tried to ride my fixie up Mt Douglas this afternoon. I got maybe a third of the way up by zigzagging and huffing and puffing as I have never before huffed OR puffed. Then I went a little too far on to the shoulder of the road and my front tire slid out when I tried to zig my zag. So I ended up pushing it the rest of the way up. Which is probably good, because it didn't get any less steep, and my heart and lungs would have given up sooner or later.

So I took some pictures and walked around, then headed down. There were actually quite a few people up there. On the way down, there were cops and fire trucks and ambulances, due to someone having managed to flip thier car. I'm not sure how they did it... but maybe people can take a look at the picture I took and offer a theory.

I took the "seaside" tour route, which offers very little in the way of seaside and rather a lot more in the way of residential side streets. I wanted to find my way to University by a certian route that avoided "Cardiac Hill", but unfortunatly I found myself at the bottom of... Cardiac Hill. I should have taken my map with me. I couldn't make it up Cardiac Hill last time I tried, and had to push this time too. Gah.

Oh well, by the time I can make it up Cardiac Hill and Mt. Douglas on my fixie, I can be sure that I have made significant gains fitness wise.

In case you think me mad, the Victoria Wheelers cycling club holds hill climb competitions, which seem to have been annual up until 1999. The Mt Douglas one was done in record time in 1999, 5:02. A goal to aim for I guess (haha).

For some irrational reason (fun), I stripped the derailleurs and back brake and stuff off of my bike, and got a wheel with a track hub. I also replaced the bottom bracket and cranks, which were totally shot anyway. So now I have only one gear, I can't coast, and my legs are sore in weird places from using my legs as brakes. And I can almost do a track stand (which is possible on a normal bike if you are on an incline), except for my pesky lack of balance (which is improving).

There are a bunch of supposed benefits to riding fixed, but the most important is fun. If I get stronger, that's good too. This Sheldon Brown guy has lots of good info on all things bike related, and even helped me out on Usenet by telling me what tool I would need to remove the bottom bracket bearing cups (very old non-standard Shimano stuff).

So far I've ridden only two fixed trips, but we plan on going to Sydney tomorrow, so that will give me a chance to really get a feel for it.

There are photos from out little trip downtown available. This was the first time I ever took pictures from on the bike. It was set on the wrong mode though, and we had more than the usual number of rejects. Gallery generated with Ryan's Cornice mod, but the plain jane template is my own. Cornice mod is cool.

We went around to the local bike shops and got Tamara on a few bikes today. She tried out a Cannondale touring bike and some hybrid. She descided that she would prefer the drops (ram horn handle bars) to a flat one and that a proper touring bike would be better than a hybrid. Only one shop actually had bikes built in her size; another shop is putting one they had in stock together for her to try out.

My bike needs a new bottom bracket and cranks. There was a bit of play between the bottom bracket axle and the left crank, which is what I think used to cause it to "clunk" on occasion. When I got the clipless pedals they exacerbated the problem and the crank actually started walking off the shaft. So there's been more play in it since. I can't decide if I should fix it, which would be at least $100, or just get a new one alltogether. You know, one for which parts can actually be found, without having to replace huge chunk of the component group. I should see how much rust there is in the frame. Might as well chuck it if the frame is going to rust out from under me in a year. It wouldn't be bad to replace it. The top tube is a little bit too long for me anyway.

Some one was wondering where I got the term "brevet", which I also misspelled as "bivet" in my last post. The cycling use kind of lines up with the dictionary definition. From the Randonneurs USA site, I stole this definition:

brevet (bruh vay) - Literally, the word means "certificate", "patent", or "diploma" in French. In "randonneuring", it means two things: certification of having successfully done a randonné, --indicated by a small numbered sticker placed on a completed brevet card --, as well as, by extension the long-distance event itself (at least 200 kilometers in length). Completing a successful brevet means one's ride has been certified and registered in France, and the rider's name is added to the roll of honor, going all the way back to 1921. These challenging rides can also entitle the rider to enter longer events such as Paris-Brest-Paris or Boston-Montréal-Boston. As used in the "randonneuring" world, the terms brevet and randonnée are often interchangeable, but in common cycling usage, a randonnée might be considered to be less structured or formal than a brevet.

My recent 80 km excursion got me thinking that it would be fun to do longer and longer trips. It would be nice to see some more of the Island and do some camping, and then we can use that camping stuff Stephen gave us! So I started googling around for stuff, and it turns out there is a whole branch of cycling called Randonneur cycling, which is basically marathon or endurance cycling. Various clubs hold events called brevets (say "brev-eh", not "brev-et", you dirty anglophone!) which basically consist of getting to various checkpoints within a specific time span. It's not usually considered a competative sport; more a of personal best kind of thing. The sport's big event isParis-Brest-Paris, a 1200 km trek in 90 hours (some do it in as little as 45) held in France every four years.

I mentioned doing an Island end-to-end to Tamara and she suprised me by saying that she would be up for that. She doesn't enjoy our 13 km jaunts on the Goose to downtown, but that probably due in large part to the fact that her bike sucks. So we are going to look at getting her a touring bike sooner or later.

Touring is sort of the black sheep of the cycling world; everbody want to mountain bike or road race. I've been trying to find out want is really needed for a touring bike; some things are obvious: rack mounts, triple chain rings and approriate gears for hills, fenders. Others not so much: long wheel base for more relaxed turning, softer tires for a better ride. I finally found a decent article about touring, or rather about it's death. But there are a few hints about what to look for in a touring bike.

Of course we can't just do a 1000 km trek with no training; I'd like to do some of the shorter brevets, and Tamara needs some long rides too. We would also not do the end-to-end as a brevet; we'd do something like a 100 km per day. Five days up, five days back, lots of sight seeing.

I expected to sleep in this morning, since it's been a long week, but I got up at seven and couldn't get back to sleep. Tamara made waffles, and I looked outside and decided to go for a short ride, you know, on impulse.

Two hours and 40 km later, I'm calling Tamara from Sooke: "I know I said I'd only be an hour, but my ride got a little out of hand."

80km isn't bad for practically the first ride of the season. I have to start taking more water and food with me though. I had to buy water and a powerbar in Sooke, and then Subway in Langford. Waffles and coffee can only carry me so far.

I was able to drag Tamara away from Nethack long enough to inflict a 25.16 km cycling trip on her. I took us 1 hour and 57 minutes or actually riding, and more like 3 hours all together, because we stopped at a farmers market thing about 8 km north of Victoria and had some nice cream of tomato soup and a forgettable sandwich.

We averaged 13.6 km/hr. Tamara is pretty saddle sore now. She hasn't ridden her bike in quite some time.

The ride gave me a chance to test my clipless pedals, which required some adjustment (this being the first ride), but were very nice overall. I didn't fall over at any point, but I almost did at the first stop sign. Hopefully I can avoid doing that in traffic on my commute.

On the way home my left crank arm decided it would be funny if it came loose. It was well on its way to falling off before I figured out that it was the loose crank arm causing the incredibly poor stroke on the left side. I though it was the pedal or something. Fortunately I had the tools to fix it, just a hex key. Apparently I didn't tighten it enough the first time, since I had to do it again when I got home. Hopefully I didn't round off the axle or anything.

"Who knew a cooler could also be a handy wang coffin?" - Bender

I managaged to cycle all the way to the Scwartz Bay ferry terminal this afternoon. Unfortunatly I left my camera at home, so I have nothing to backup this feat. 60km round trip; probably my longest continuous trip ever.

According to my computer, I took 2 hours, 31 mins, and 43 seconds. That's the amount of time my wheels were actually turning. It was probably a little longer than that, on account of traffic lights and water breaks.

Max speed, 49.9 km/hr, avg speed, 23.7 km/hr, although I did a lot of streches at about 27 km/hr, and a few at 33 km/hr or so. It was a little quicker going up than coming back, due to tiredness and headwind on the way back.

I was tempted to add on another 40 km and make it a metric century, but my enthusiasm for that faded around the 50 km mark. But I didn't bonk or anything, so I guess the grilled chicken on foccacia sandwich is working for me. Could have probably used some energy drink or something. Might have help a bit on the way back.

Next time I'll just carry the water bottle in my jersey and leave the backpack at home....

Lot of fun!