The Lounge of Terrestrial Wheelmen

[SportWagon]

I don't pass cars if they have their indicator on. I fall in directly behind them to let them know that I'm not passing.Silly me (as a poster, that is)



I forgot to mention I was using the bicycle lane.

[overpowered]

I forgot to mention I was using the bicycle lane.That doesn't change the risk factor. It just leads cyclists into trouble, thinking that they can safely filter forward when they can't. A lot of drivers will do the right thing and not right hook you. Some won't.

I move out of the bicycle lane when approaching intersections, driveways and ramps. I ride in the center of the right most travel lane. It strongly discourages the right hook. It also reduces my risk of people pulling out in front of me from all of those by making it easier to see me because I'm in the place where they are looking for cars and not in the place where they are not looking for bicycles. Many people don't look for bikes in the bike lane. Many only look for cars in the travel lane. The best way to be seen is to be where drivers are already looking. Even if they do still pull out in front of me, I have more room for evasive action by using the full lane.

I also do it for forks when I'm going left at the fork -- I ride in the right most travel lane that's going left and I move into that lane hundreds of feet before I get to the fork so that I'm not in a last second merge situation.

[SportWagon]

I forgot to mention I was using the bicycle lane.That doesn't change the risk factor. It just leads cyclists into trouble, thinking that they can safely filter forward when they can't. A lot of drivers will do the right thing and not right hook you. Some won't.
Actually it almost certainly changes the risk factor. Not eliminate it, but it will be different.

I think most drivers would have made their right turn, if not when I slowed down at least two driveways behind them, then when I slowed to almost a crawl (not quite trackstand) as I got closer.


I move out of the bicycle lane when approaching intersections, driveways and ramps. I ride in the center of the right most travel lane. It strongly discourages the right hook. It also reduces my risk of people pulling out in front of me from all of those by making it easier to see me because I'm in the place where they are looking for cars and not in the place where they are not looking for bicycles. Many people don't look for bikes in the bike lane. Many only look for cars in the travel lane. The best way to be seen is to be where drivers are already looking. Even if they do still pull out in front of me, I have more room for evasive action by using the full lane.

I also do it for forks when I'm going left at the fork -- I ride in the right most travel lane that's going left and I move into that lane hundreds of feet before I get to the fork so that I'm not in a last second merge situation.To have moved out of the lane would probably be unexpected by at least some drivers. There was more than just the single car at the intersection, though traffic couldn't be said to be heavy, even for the single traffic lane.

In fact, the intersection has a silly bicycle box at the front.

Bicycle lanes are relatively new in the city, and these are very new, having been modified last year from two-lane wide single lanes. Without the bicycle lane, the issue would have been different. Likely the car would have pulled further over to the right and I would have ended up behind it, if not others, naturally.

The first portion of lanes they added was wonderful. I'll describe it later. It fixed a bad intersection in a very logical way. But when they made the lanes the entire length of the road, it was worse. Especially since they added central traffic furniture.

Oh... On a narrow bridge near here, single lane each way, they use these signs together with sharrows now.

http://www.edmonton.ca/transportation/Single-File.jpg

[overpowered]

To have moved out of the lane would probably be unexpected by at least some drivers. There was more than just the single car at the intersection, though traffic couldn't be said to be heavy, even for the single traffic lane.They do expect to find traffic in the middle of the lane. They might not expect bicycles but when there's a bicycle in the spot where they are looking for a car, they see the bicycle. The point is that they are not looking in the bike lane. When you're in the place that they aren't looking, that's when you aren't seen.

That is how my last collision happened. I was in the bike lane and the driver did not see me. If I had been in the travel lane, she almost certainly would have. I have a lot less problems with people pulling in front of me when I use the full lane because they always see me and even the ones that do look for bikes see me sooner when I'm using the full lane.

[SportWagon]

But the problem here concerns a car which did see me and decided to wait for some reason, apparently wanting me to pass on the right.

It's somewhat problematic having one straight-or-right-turn lane to the left of another (ie. the bicycle lane).

Boo! Strava no longer hazards a guess at instantaneous speed.

[overpowered]

It's somewhat problematic having one straight-or-right-turn lane to the left of another (ie. the bicycle lane).That's what I'm saying. By moving out into the travel lane, I don't have to deal with this problem. The problem is created by putting straight through traffic on the turning side of turning traffic. I avoid being on the turning side of turning traffic when I'm going straight through.

[Tom Servo]

Just got back from a couple of weeks in Italy. Was interesting seeing how things went for cyclists there (though I only got to ride in one city).

There were basically no bikes at all in Venice. Not sure if there's some rule against them or if they just don't work (there are a lot of stairs to climb over the many canals), but there were also no cars. Pedestrian paradise.

Trento was amazing. The central, old town part of the city was car limited - only drivers with special permits could drive on those streets, and they were well aware that they had to yield to everyone. The rest of the city was reasonably normal when it came to cars, but they all seemed to handle the massive number of cyclists very well. I don't think I heard a single horn my entire time there. They also had a lovely separated path along the river by the city. We got a couple of bikeshare bikes and rode all around town one morning - it was great.

Florence was when we started hitting the stereotypical Italian drivers. The sidewalks, though, were borderline criminal. Some could not be wider than 18 inches, while the streets were wide enough to support parking. The one time I saw a sidewalk more than 4 feet wide it had a bunch of cars parked on it.

Rome was similar when it came to the driving. The drivers there basically ignore the lines in the road, don't stop for stop signs, and text. However, it was so jam packed with other drivers that a) nobody could get going all that fast, and b) everyone expected to have to brake regularly. I saw a lot of people riding there and the drivers all seemed to be able to handle it fine. There was no attitude that you should be able to get up to 10mph above the speed limit and never have to slow down like you have here. And, again, very little honking.

I wish I'd gotten to ride in Rome. I think it would have been spectacular. 'Course, I like road bikes and those roads are like Paris-Roubaix, so maybe it wouldn't have been so great.

[overpowered]

Don't you have a Roubaix?

Back in the 80's a co-worker of mine went to Naples and said that the roads were pandemonium. The lines on the road meant nothing. If a space could fit a car, a car would be in it.

[Tom Servo]

The Roubaix got stolen a couple of years ago, have a Madone now.

And yep, that's a pretty accurate description. If there's room, someone will try to fit their vehicle in it. On the other hand, it really seemed to keep drivers from going on auto-pilot. Mopeds and bikes were constantly filtering around all the cars, and I didn't see the same type of "get out of my way" mentality you get here.

Sadly, though, I did see just about the same level of texting & driving there as I do here.

[overpowered]

Bikes banned from park, partly based upon Strava speeds.

http://www.tetongravity.com/story/gear-tech/strava-speeds-help-mountain-bikers-get-banned-from-california-park

[Tom Servo]

Weird how they'll do that for bikes, but when cars speed, they just bump up the speed limit to the 85th percentile.

[overpowered]

Weird how they'll do that for bikes, but when cars speed, they just bump up the speed limit to the 85th percentile.Sadly true.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-hzgI4JK2k

[SportWagon]

Bikes banned from park, partly based upon Strava speeds.

http://www.tetongravity.com/story/gear-tech/strava-speeds-help-mountain-bikers-get-banned-from-california-park
Hmm. As I indicated, when I was last looking strava no longer showed your speed as you moved your marker along your route. Though speed could be inferred from times and distances. But I wonder if strava removed the easily visible "instantaneous" speeds because of this.

[Freude am Fahren]

Or maybe it's just a "premium" feature now...

(edit: go to analysis? then mouse along the bar graph for speed?)

[G'day Mate]

So, Giro anybody?

[Cam]

Nah, I haven't been training. Maybe next year.

[G'day Mate]

:lol:

[overpowered]

Filtering is something that I usually avoid. This is one of the reasons:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vGeVDsIgHY

[overpowered]

Servo posted the original video on this a while back. Driver has been charged.

http://laist.com/2016/04/28/justice_delivered_almost.phpUnsurprisingly, he pleads not guilty:

http://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/news/tn-gnp-me-assault-20160511-story.html

[Tom Servo]

I'd think at least the false report at least would be pretty easy to prove since the video of the entire ride is out there.

[overpowered]

A very good article by Keri Caffrey about the debate between bicycle drivers and segregation-is-the-only-way advocates.

http://commuteorlando.com/wordpress/2013/05/12/if-you-want-to-stop-having-this-debate/

[overpowered]

No team car. No team mates. What do you do?

http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/05/news/gila-racer-finishes-stage-1-on-spectators-bike_404605

[G'day Mate]

That actually happens surprisingly often, although usually they borrow a fan's roadie

[Tom Servo]

It's bike to work day here in Los Angeles. Michele hasn't been biking to work much since she started having to go to work a lot earlier in the day, but we rode together to her work today.

No pitstops along our route (which I found surprising, part of it was along Venice which has probably one of the longest bike lanes anywhere in the city), and I didn't feel like I saw more commuters than normal. The bike racks at her work were more crowded than usual though, so maybe there were more people riding out there.

On the downside, a rider got killed in Panorama City up in the valley this morning. Not what you want on bike to work day, though it doesn't sound like the rider was riding to work at the time.

Michele told me over IM that she feels amazing this morning after having ridden in, and had forgotten how much it improves her day. I think we found a route where she's pretty comfortable too, so I'm happy about that.

Still would have liked a free bagel though.

[overpowered]

Why Bikes Make Smart People Say Dumb Things

https://medium.com/cycling-in-the-city/why-bikes-make-smart-people-say-dumb-things-9316abbd5735#.j8pbvcptp

[Tom Servo]

To add to bike to work day, was riding home with Michele over an area near here called the Northvale Gap. Saw a guy helping a woman with her bike, and asked if they needed anything. "She's got a problem with her chain." Took a look, and I have no idea how she did this, but the chain was outside the little guide-flap on the outside of the derailleur cage. Honestly, can't figure out how that could possibly happen, but apparently it did.

Told them I had a multitool in my saddle bag, unscrewed the bolt in the outside pulley of the derailleur, reseated the chain, and screwed it all back in. Took maybe 45 seconds. Guy told me "You've done your good deed for the day, have a nice bike to work day", and the woman seemed so happy to not have to walk her bike home.

It's these moments that make me so happy to bike. Having a broken down car has become a situation where you don't trust anyone but the AAA guy. And you know it'll cost you. This was an ultra quick repair that an inexperienced person could make to help an even more inexperienced person. Took a couple of minutes, made all of our days better, and on we all went, happy to be on our bikes.

I feel like the world would be a better place if everyone just biked for a week.

[Kchrpm]

I feel like the world would be a better place if everyone just biked for a week.
That's adorable.

[G'day Mate]

Seems legit - rding makes you happier.

[Kchrpm]

As long as there isn't a hailstorm in the middle of spring, or a tornado warning in the middle of summer, yeah.

Don't get me wrong, riding a bike can be a lot fun. Especially if you do it a lot and your body is conditioned for it, and you don't have to deal with inclement weather. One of my coworkers randomly bikes to work. I'm not saying that Swervo's wrong, because he isn't. It's still just an adorable thought. I like picturing everyone I work with, from lanky Igor to rolly polly grandpa, riding a bike to work last week, all praying that the torrential downpours that we randomly get avoid the hour or two it will take them to get home.

[Cam]

You can ride in inclement weather. Simply prepare for it with the proper gear. Your attitude is the problem, not the weather.

[G'day Mate]

I don't even prepare, I just have a towel at the other end. I'm an "all-weather" guy though - that's not for everyone.

[overpowered]

If it's cold, you're going to need some cold weather gear or you're going to freeze. Hypothermia is not fun.

[Kchrpm]

You can ride in inclement weather.

Of course you can. I don't think you'll be as happy at the end as if you were in a car for 10-20 minutes during a hail or thunderstorm vs on a bike for an hour or two in the same storm.

My "attitude" is that I'm not that interested in riding bicycles. It's not a problem, it's a personal choice.

[Kchrpm]

And the "adorable" thing wasn't really meant as a dig. I have similar thoughts about personal choices I make where I think if the whole world tried it for a week, everyone would be happier as well. I think those thoughts are adorable, too.

They're things that have worked so well for you, that you wish the entire world could experience what it is you feel because of them. It's great to have something that feels so good. Hell, I tell almost everyone I meet about Meetup.com because of that feeling.

[Cam]

Not cycling is a personal choice and it's perfectly fine. Yet, here you are in the cycling thread, mocking the cyclists by calling us "adorable." Your intent is not relevant. You are choosing not to ride, and you are choosing to troll us. :rolleyes:

[G'day Mate]

One happy little Colombian

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/giro16st14-chavezwins.jpg

[Kchrpm]

mocking the cyclists by calling us "adorable."

I am not mocking cyclists. I am saying the idea that the world would be a better place if everyone __________ is adorable, whether I agree with it or not.

I wasn't aware that the thread only allowed for cycling devotees and not just interested onlookers.

[overpowered]

I thought it seemed condescending. Whatever. I'm fine with you offering your opinions.

I encourage novice or occasional casual riders to participate in this thread. We can't all be hardcore like G'day.

[G'day Mate]

It was only a few years ago that I was kinda in that bucket!

[Cam]

I wasn't aware that the thread only allowed for cycling devotees and not just interested onlookers.
Oh, come on. Where did I say that? :rolleyes:

You calling us adorable, in the context you used it, implies that you think it is silly, therefore, it is condescending. Again, your intent is irrelevant.

Several years ago, Tom Servo and George were slightly overweight dudes who drove everywhere. They tried cycling and liked it. Now they both cycle nearly every day. Both have lost a significant amount of weight and laud how much better they feel. Their lives have changed for the better. That's "adorable" to you, I guess? Can you not see that you mock them and the rest of us that cycle every day?

You sure you don't want to give cycling a go? ;)

[Kchrpm]

I never said cyclists were adorable. I said the idea that the world would be a better place if everyone biked for a week was adorable. I would say the same thing if someone said the whole world would be better if they tried veganism for a week, or painting, or photography, or sculpting, or improv comedy, or anything else. At no point did I suggest that just because people enjoy cycling that they are "adorable." There's a huge difference between personally enjoying a past time and supposing that the entire world could be improved if everyone in it tried it as well.

I have considered, and will continue to consider, buying a used bike and going riding at a local park. It's not high on my list of things to do this summer, but it's not at the bottom. Admittedly it was much higher when I had local friends that wanted to go riding with me.

[Tom Servo]

It is true, though. I am adorable.

[George]

Same ol' stuff, different afternoon...nothing you guys haven't seen before, but this is where i ride on the weekends.



Yeah, yeah, rattlesnakes. Right. Nothing new here. G'day is laughing at me as he spits out pieces of crocodile, I'm guessing. :D

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00877_zpslic1jocl.jpg

I've shown you guys this before, too, but this was today. It's just right up the road from my shack. Elevation 6280' above sea level. It was a beautiful day, as so many are here.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00878_zpsz9hyolyz.jpg

[Random]

It is true, though. I am adorable.

Michele can make her own account if she wants to post, you know.

[Cam]

I would say the same thing if someone said the whole world would be better if they tried veganism for a week, or painting, or photography, or sculpting, or improv comedy, or anything else. At no point did I suggest that just because people enjoy cycling that they are "adorable."
It would be condescending to them too.

[Cam]

I bought a new helmet to replace the extremely well-used helmet I have been using since 2006.

Now to get out and ride more.

[George]

I've been wanting to get a helmet with larger vents for better cooling and a more comfortable chin strap that isn't self-loosening. One of these days, I will. Fluorescent yellow, methinks. I don't understand riders who wear black or battleship grey helmets (and clothing), but I guess that's because as I get older, I realize safety is more important than fashion.

A couple pics from my first bicycle-on-train commute to my new job below.



It's 2.6 miles each way to the train station from my house, and then just a little less than a mile from the train station to my office at the other end of my commute in the center of downtown Denver, so it doesn't offer much in the way of exercise, but it was fun to do, and it won't be the last time.

This job isn't nearly as conducive to regular bicycle commuting (and riding all the way, especially) as my last one, but, I'm thinking about either leaving the road bike in my office, where there is ample safe, indoor storage, and using it as a "lunch bike", or better yet, buying a beater from craigslist to leave at the office for lunchtime exploration and foraging for grub at any of a zillion funky eateries in the downtown area. I'm thrilled to have said goodbye to chain-restaurant and fast-food hell in the suburbs where I used to spend all my time.

There's every kind of restaurant within walking distance (and even more within cycling distance!) that I can believe. There's even a pizza restaurant near my office that opens at 8:00 AM, and they don't serve "breakfast pizza" at all. You can get a slice of pepperoni pizza for breakfast right there on the street. I haven't yet, but it's nice to know I could. There are more burrito stands and gyro shacks than I can count, and a Japanese style noodle joint that smells so good that I just MUST eat there one day, but it's right near where I catch the train home and I'm always wanting to get home sooner than stopping to gorge and having to wait for the next train. There's also a diner a block from my office that Jack Reacher would be proud to sit in, where he could see all the doors, of course, and guzzle black coffee. I could go on, but let's just say I'm enjoying city life and a brief respite from my years-long habit of bringing my lunch to save money and eat somewhat healthier than if I bought lunch somewhere. I'll get back to that soon enough, but for now, I'm loosening my belt a notch, and my wallet, too.

I mentioned the idea of keeping a bike in my office, or in the never-used conference room, in casual conversation to a couple people at work. No one seemed to think that would be a horrible idea, and I even got a couple "that would be cool!" replies. I'm imagining something like my wife's '90s steel-frame hybrid with 700c wheels, with some kind of upright-ish bars that aren't straight - maybe moustache bars or North Roads bars, for example - and a 1x7 or 1x8 drivetrain that I'd like to give a try at putting together myself, now that I have some bike tools, a tiny bit of experience, a lot of enthusiasm, and a repair stand.

I have more thoughts I may share after a month of observing bicycles and bicyclists in the heart of a city, but for now, here are a couple pictures I took yesterday. I missed my MTB with the rack(s) and suffered with a backpack and the resulting sweaty back, but the road bike is smaller all around - shorter wheelbase, no racks sticking out, and much narrower handlebars without protruding shifters to get bumped, so I figured it was the better choice for the train, which as ZZ Top would say, gets "packed up tight" as it gets closer to the city during the morning rush.

I was glad for the speed and acceleration of this thing in traffic, too, and was reminded of someone's remark in this thread - Tom or G'day or OP, probably - some time ago about getting honked at even though he was doing the speed limit. Yeah, I can see that now, at least for short sprints, anyway (in my case). I couldn't have done that on knobby tires.

Here I had rolled it forward at bit just before leaving for the day, so it looks like it's in the way of people coming in and out through the door, but there is tons of room in here to lean a bike against a wall, filing cabinet, etc.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00886_zpsin8erllo.jpg

I guess it's getting closer to time to install the handlebar tape I bought last June during Bike To Work Day when I stopped at a LBS for a hearty (and free!) pancake breakfast in the parking lot.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00883_zps2wk3dk1d.jpg

Too bad it didn't come out in this picture, as it's very apparent in person, but if you look straight up from where the handlebars join the stem, there's the gold dome of the Colorado state capitol building. I'm about three blocks away.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00881_zpssh76kxhl.jpg

I took this picture in the park across from the capitol building to email to my friend who gave me this bike back in 2013, I think, to show him it's still alive and well. He lives in Seattle now with some fancy carbon fiber road rocket, but I think he'd like to see the old Allez is still running as well as ever (and much better than when I got it).

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00887_zpsnxyratma.jpg

[Tom Servo]

Color me jealous, great pics.

BTW, I got a Giro Aeon helmet when they went on a pretty good sale a while back. AFAIK, at the time that was the top of the line Giro helmet, MSRP was around $300. The strap is still self loosening. I think that's just a thing with bike helmets.

[Freude am Fahren]

I've been thinking about a new helmet as well. Mine is a basic bell unit you get at sports authority. No very aero or anything. It's also like 8 years old, though I went a while without wearing it (or riding).

I used to monitor Chain Love and see good ones for good prices, but wasn't in the market for one, now that site is gone.

[G'day Mate]

Has anyone else been following the Giro? Exciting conclusion starts in half an hour!

[Tom Servo]

Hard to do here in the states :/

[George]

Today's ride...


...was a road ride, which hasn't been my usual weekend thing. Sure, I've commuted plenty on the road bike, but I've always preferred the mountain bike on weekends. I may have to consider giving them equal time. Today's ride was long and fun. It was wonderfully cool today and I got away with just the one water bottle, although it was empty by the time I got home.

That's I-25 to my right. I'm on a country road just east of it. I've always wanted to ride up this way on a bike, but the one time last season I tried, I crashed (ran out of energy, not a bike wreck) before I got to this point, which I considered the starting point.

Today, fueled up with a large breakfast of bacon and eggs and potatoes and enough coffee to make even Jack Reacher say he'd had enough, and a bunch of water before my ride, too, I felt strong the whole time. The other neat thing about riding away from town instead of toward it is the ride out from my house is all uphill. It makes the return trip a lot more fun for me than it might have been after this much time in the saddle if I'd started out in another direction.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00913_zps0hekq89g.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00917_zpsubbfj5u8.jpg

It was huge and impressive in person, but it's almost invisible in this picture: Snow-covered Pike's Peak in the center of the picture. I think my camera has a "distance filter" or something that makes faraway things much harder to see in a picture than in person.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00918_zpspaliwaea.jpg

A few steps off the highway here, since I had stepped closer to snap a picture of wildlife I've never seen before in Colorado that was gone by the time I locked my back tire in disbelief and whipped out my camera from the under-seat bag. Oh well, they're still good pictures of the scenery hereabouts.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00922_zps2mezoxzi.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00921_zps6eycsxsc.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00923_zpsr4spljrm.jpg

My trusty steed, which you guys have seen a zillion times before. Only included here out of surprise in seeing the top tube perfectly lined up with the horizon. That was purely unintentional.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00924_zps3ld7otq9.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00926_zps5atbifmg.jpg

Like almost every other body of water around here, that's a man-made reservoir, not a natural lake.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00927_zpsfw9v3ltk.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00928_zpssxcdckew.jpg

Here you can see a rainstorm rolling in from the west. My camera picked up some snow-capped mountains to the right side of this pic. In person, you can see them from as far south to as far north as you can see, while facing west. In these pictures, the snow blends in with the clouds, I guess.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00929_zpsp3alytgd.jpg

My "distance filter" at work again. This was supposed to be a picture of far-off Denver. It's invisible here, but easily seen in person.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00930_zps9lztaf6i.jpg

Hey, I think I found the perfect club for me! :D

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00932_zpsbfos1tp1.jpg

Well, since I missed getting a pic of the bear I saw earlier, we'll have to settle for this. Moo.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00933_zpseefgjl4l.jpg

And almost home again, just before the rain.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00935_zpssbislzku.jpg

[SportWagon]

Someone here (not me) went on only one ride last week...
https://www.strava.com/activities/592446751

Well, actually I went on only one ride too, but one-tenth as long. A walking accident cancelled all my planned cycling the previous long (Victoria Day, May21-23) weekend (I'd hope to do the 67km ride on both Saturday and Monday). The skinned knee and associated movement issues were not totally healed even this weekend, but the healing hole on the rough deep skin seemed to fare well enough just covered in Polysporin. The sunscreen around it did catch quite a few small flies during the trip, but the Polysporin not so much, for some reason. I seem to be healing, but did seem to confirm that riding the previous weekend would have been harmful.

[SportWagon]

Sheldon Brown can (could) spell derailer any way he wants. Firefox insists on a red underline under derailleur. Perhaps I need an acute above the first "e"...

I happened to be looking through old posts, and indeed, Firefox does underline derailleur, but not dérailleur.

Which is arguably incorrect as an English spelling-checker.

[overpowered]

You can always tell Firefox to add it to the dictionary.

[overpowered]

Left hook in a London cycle lane:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKX0fAgUqJ4

[Freude am Fahren]

I love the moment when the cyclist mentions the camera and the driver's look is just priceless.

[G'day Mate]

Jeebus, looks like he was trying to beat him to the corner and missed by a long way

[overpowered]

That's what a left/right hook is.

[G'day Mate]

Not always.

[overpowered]

It is for someone who doesn't try to pass someone who's ahead and clearly turning.

[G'day Mate]

Or next to, but either way my observation was that this driver appeared to have committed from a particularly long way back.

[SportWagon]

What happened to your knee, Swervo? (You commented in strava)

Me, I fell down walking across the street and skinned and impacted my left knee. There was not a lot of pain, but initially heavy, but not very obvious, swelling. As well as the small patch of road rash. I'd got ready to go cycling the next morning, but decided it wouldn't be appropriate, and mowed the lawn instead. And for the rest of the 3 day Victoria Day weekend, I spent a lot more time sleeping than I usually do. Though often in short periods, getting up to move the leg occasionally.

After a week it was rideable, and I rode 67km, though my sweat decauterized the scab somewhat, making it looks somewhat icky. It was covered in Polysporin too.

Getting on for two weeks now, it's mostly recovered, with the shrinking scab now about a 3/8" sided triangle. As the swelling went down, I began to realize how severe it was; the swelling had moved the apparent location of the impact about 1.5 inches up my leg. Causing me to wonder how I'd landed on that point. But now the scab from the impact is right on the top tip of my kneecap. A little odd feeling in the bands under the thigh after my ride, as they adjusted to the swelling going away, maybe. But that's gone away now, and I seem to finally have identical mobility in both knees.

[Tom Servo]

I have no idea. Just started to hurt a lot, pain increasing with how much I bent it. It's still getting better, but yeah, not sure what happened there.

[SportWagon]

Deep inside some part of the joint, or in some particular tendon(s) on the sides?

[Cam]

Clearly, Tom is KICKING TOO MUCH ASS!

[Tom Servo]

Tendon on the side it feels like. It's not within the joint, it's more on the outside of the knee. Almost feels like it could be a pinched nerve.

[Random]

Arrow to the knee?

[overpowered]

Tejay van Garderen has withdrawn from the Olympic cycling team because if he gets zika, he could transmit it to to his wife which would be very bad given that she's pregnant and due in October.

[George]

Arrow to the knee?

My guess is he's cornering so fast that he's dragging his knee like a motorcycle road racer.

[SportWagon]

Tendon on the side it feels like. It's not within the joint, it's more on the outside of the knee. Almost feels like it could be a pinched nerve.I pulled something like that once when I was about 18. Just stood up after some hard riding, IIRC, and it went Ping! Wasn't clear whether it was the muscle, the joining structures or a combination of both.

I discussed it with a high-school running coach and active runner who happened to be married to someone where I was working, and he said rest should just fix it. And I guess it did. All my life though, I could feel it occasionally, though not severely like when it first happened, after strenuous riding. The coach had suggested seeing a doctor might get operation-happy surgeons involved, though. :)

[SportWagon]

So last Saturday's ride was reasonably sociable.

Going up Middlebrook Road I realized I was gaining on a couple of cyclists. These days I don't usually catch up to other cyclists, but I seemed to be slowly narrowing the gap. Then, as they went up a small rise ahead of me, I saw a dog withem. I thought perhaps they were walking it and that was why they were so slow.

But, no, they left it behind and then as I climbed the same hill it came bounding out to greet me. A friendly but assertive large sheep dog, recently shorn, I think. It looked sort of like "Tramp" from "My Three Sons" (one of them at least) or the dog from "Please Don't Eat the Daisies".

He barked vigorously and made uncertain movements, causing me to stop for fear of running into him. At that point he gently came up to me, sniffed the sunscreen on my thigh and went away apparently satisfied. There seemed to be a very short stretch of road he was protecting, and I was able to get restarted (uphill) and pedal off.

The couple actually stopped to alter their clothing, so I caught up with them then. There was a guy about my age and a woman perhaps twenty years or more younger, on custom-built "True North" bicycles. We chatted a bit and I rode off, and the guy caught and passed me on a later hill, and then I kept pace with them for a while and chatted before I again rode off, sometime before the climb into Elora.

Towards the end of my turn-around loop in Elora, I saw them go straight through the intersection with my return road but they were a block or so ahead, so I didn't manage to say "hello again".

Going back down Middlebrook a vigorous young couple passed me, and I recognized the little island with trees on their jerseys as the flag of Prince Edward Island. I don't have much extra these days, and they just sort of slowly slipped away in that manner that cyclists ahead of you do sometimes. At Highway 86, however, they got caught more by traffic than I did, so I caught them on the relaxed ride down to the stop-sign at the fork by the General Store by the bridge. Apparently they weren't from Prince Edward Island, but liked to visit it a lot.

I stopped in West Montrose while they just rode away up the hill. Today I discovered, by fly-bys, they were doing the ride on Strava.

[overpowered]

L.A. County Sheriffs don't know the law or understand signs either.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV35szI2nN8

[overpowered]

Best bike throw tantrums:

http://velonews.competitor.com/2016/06/news/chris-horners-bike-throw-stack_409157

[Tom Servo]

L.A. County Sheriffs don't know the law or understand signs either.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV35szI2nN8

Not only that, but the guy who filmed that ended up having a meeting with the Executive Officer for Security for Metro. They have a contract with LASD to provide security, so Metro pays them directly. The security officer said that he has directed LASD deputies to cite cyclists in the bus lanes if they're "impeding". Of course, every example I've heard of this so far happened when no bus was anywhere nearby, and as this example shows, the deputy said "You're not even supposed to be over there." They just think you're not allowed in the lane at all, they're not worried about "impedance".

In the meantime, the signs say "Bikes OK" on them. Metro has made it pretty clear in the past that bikes are allowed. Then from their twitter account, they responded with something akin to "The key word is 'impeded' here." Of course, you can't really impede someone on a multi-lane road unless you're purposely swerving across lanes to block them from passing. They followed up afterward saying they were looking into clarifying the matter.

Metro Bike has remained oddly silent on the issue, and that's very troubling.

In the meantime, these bus/bike lanes pass directly in front of my office, and they're *always* full of drivers using them to try to bypass traffic. I've seen drivers blow right past deputies while in the bus lane during rush hour, but I have yet to see a single driver pulled over for it.

Then this morning I had a sheriff's deputy pass me about a foot away - his crown vic was in the bike lane with me when he passed. There was no other traffic, the only other car was an LASD deputy in a Ford Explorer right behind the one in the crown vic, but he gave me tons of room when he passed. I messaged LASD and Metro to ask why it's okay for deputies to drive in bike lanes when passing cyclists, but it's not okay to ride a bike in a lane labeled "Bikes OK". I have not gotten a response.

This is really frustrating as these bus/bike lanes have actually been very nice for the most part. Even most of the jerk drivers that use it when they're not allowed aren't dumb enough to harass a cyclist in them, so it's made for a very comfortable experience during rush hour. My average speed is usually just a bit faster than the buses, so it all works out quite nicely. I'm not looking forward to when I have to deal with a deputy who thinks he can make up the law on the spot.

[overpowered]

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-h8Z6WNdhEyM/V1zH4nB-YeI/AAAAAAAAA18/1M9lMqDhL6suobaQab_roDH8f2b0ugXfACL0B/w729-h814-no/13417565_10209982469059119_6079680029957547562_n.j pg

[George]

Went mountain biking with a friend from 7:45 until 10:00 this morning. Wish I'd snapped a pic of his bike for you guys to check out, as it was pretty cool, to me, anyway. Made in USA Trek, full suspension, carbon rear triangle, lockout forks with a handlebar switch that looked like a gear shifter but went to the forks (I've never seen that before!), Cane Creek headset, and apparently out-of-style bar ends, judging from what I see on the trails and on the internet these days. His bike was new enough to have a threadless stem, but old enough to have V-brakes and 26" wheels.

I barely knew the guy, a neighbor who we've recently met since he and his wife have a son the same age as our twins. We've met since the kids in the neighborhood all play together this time of the year (summer vacation, with kids running wild everywhere). It was the first time I'd ridden with him, but I think we'll do it again.

I went out later by myself to ride some more, because I didn't feel as if I'd gotten enough exercise earlier. Came home soon after (20 minutes, perhaps), knowing I was done for the day. Guess I'd had enough after all.

Resting now, with my family's blessing, as today is my birthday. I might even take a nap...just on general principle, not because I'm exhausted, because I'm not, but hey, naps are good and seldom to be had as the father of two young'uns. I did a bunch of yardwork yesterday and I'm thinking this afternoon could possibly be a rare day of rest for me.

I put new handlebar tape on the road bike, also. It's blue, and I used green electrical tape to finish it near the stem. Groovy! I may grow to like bar tape that doesn't match anything else on the bike.

Cue up Breakin' The Law! :rawk:

[Tom Servo]

Happy birthday, George!

[overpowered]

Your ride didn’t change anything (https://pvcycling.wordpress.com/2016/06/09/your-ride-didnt-change-anything/)

Rides of silence don't result in change. Real change is harder than that.

[overpowered]

Today I was going south on old 101 in Leucadia, approaching Encinitas proper. Between them is a major road which leads to freeways that's basically at the bottom of a small canyon leading to the ocean. When the light is red (as it was today), I stop near the top so that I can have some speed to help me get back up the other side. When I've got the green light, I avoid that bike lane like the plague because it's right in the door zone. However, when I stop, I stop in the bike lane. Today, just as I was stopping a woman threw the door open right in front of me. If I hadn't been stopping anyway, I would have hit it.

I tried to calmly explain why what she did was extremely dangerous and a violation of CVC 22517 and if I was a cop I would have given her a ticket. She tried to play it off as no harm no foul. No big deal, she said. I said it is a big deal when people get killed or seriously hurt due to your careless behavior. You have to look every time. She just shook her head and walked away.

[overpowered]

https://media.giphy.com/media/dblG7KmnuMjvO/giphy.gif

[G'day Mate]

Jeebus, who and where was that?

[overpowered]

I don't know.

[G'day Mate]

Aha (https://youtu.be/k_AuTPF65Yw?t=40s)!

So based on him being the 3rd Sky rider across the line I think it's probably Danny van Poppel.

In fact ... definitely (http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/racing/watch-danny-van-poppels-amazing-save-slides-across-road-233424).

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ck7OR2oXEAAZLyW.jpg:small

Also, which nutter put that kind of turn so close to the finish of what looks like a sprint stage?

[SportWagon]

My long-time best friend did the www.palmbiketour.org/ ride (Pedal Across Lower Michigan) last year, and is intending to do it this year.

He's in a different hallway, and I didn't catch him before he left today.

I'd in fact only just realized that Kalamazoo really is near lower Michigan.

Someone else, who also bicycles, was leaving their office near his and seemed to say my friend had heard of the Kalamazoo incident and was somewhat worried, though they were in a bit of hurry leaving.

The above website does have a "Prayers for Kalamazoo" "poster".

Actually, when I check the map, I discover Kalamazoo really is further south than I thought it was, and is definitely in Lower Michigan.

Though, in fact the route this year is quite north of Kalamazoo, as far as I can tell by typing the daily place names into Google maps.

http://www.palmbiketour.org/palm-2016/

[George]

Saturday morning ride report, with pics...



Thought it would be more crowded today, but the forecast is for 100 degrees F, so maybe some people stayed indoors. I rode for about two and a half hours and went to a place I hadn't ridden since summer of 2013 when I had the full-suspension Mongoose. A couple times today I thought some suspension might have been nice, but it's not anything I'll pursue.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00998_zpsv7vqkwj8.jpg

Looking over a cliff I haven't been on top of before. I heard on the radio yesterday that our skies are hazy due to wildfires in Arizona and New Mexico.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01000_zpstkb5wlb2.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01001_zpsredwf2on.jpg

Returning from the overlook...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01005_zpsalnqsxva.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01006_zps0k6vmye6.jpg

Heading down into the more gnarlified single-trackage :rawk:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01008_zpsigkjnwx1.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01015_zpsrzrl0ico.jpg

Wicked jump straight ahead! (made me think of the Stunt Jumps in GTA V)

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01009_zpsdngbh79f.jpg

Actually, the trail turned right on that rock. If it hadn't, riders would have been launched over the top of small trees ten or twelve feet in the air. There was a light dusting of, well, dust and dirt that made turning a somewhat slippery situation.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01011_zps9fegpe3z.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01013_zpsjv0g7onn.jpg

Wait, is that water out here on the dry plains? Yep, that's practically a roaring river around here.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01017_zps955p3nbv.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01023_zpsba7c1e5r.jpg

Wait, is that BLOOD on my shifter?

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01025_zps0rcivvtg.jpg

Yep, guess so, thanks to my finger smashing into the back of the brake lever on one of those places where I would have enjoyed a suspension fork back in the difficult area. There were some jumps on the trail, which I took full advantage of, but then a couple jumps had more jumps and sharp bumps right after them instead of a flat and smooth landing zone. Ow.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01026_zpstpzypjz0.jpg

I sat here for a minute and drank more water. I brought three bottles of water, given the heat today and being in such a remote area alone. Suddenly a bright blue dragonfly landed to the right of my front wheel below. Neat.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01027_zpscj5drwup.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01028_zpsvvoqqma6.jpg

Snake tracks? Maybe. I don't know what else could have made marks like these. A kid with a stick, perhaps?

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01029_zps89a2keoo.jpg

This seemed to be the start of the stream I showed you guys earlier. I think there was a spring to the right where the grass is dark.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01030_zpsosipa4se.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01031_zpsgxkjf0zi.jpg

Later on, the trail went through some bushes that were taller than a standing rider. I yelled things like "coming through" or "coming down" in some of these places, since I didn't want to crash into a cyclist coming the other way at speed. None of this long trail was particularly steep, but there were many long, sloping, smooth areas where it was easy to go very fast.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01037_zpsw6pyr91a.jpg

Looking up at the cliff I looked over earlier.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01040_zpspow2xove.jpg

Last weekend I discovered the gate to this area, recently closed as previously shown...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00804_zpsqwajm3ne.jpg

..is now open! Hooray!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01039_zpsjngvu4qd.jpg

[overpowered]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se6jLGF5_a8

[George]

Sunday morning ride report, with pics...



Great Father's Day weekend so far, except my father isn't around (he's alive and well at 83, but he and Mom are in South Carolina now). I jumped out of bed this morning for a road ride with a mission: get a good, long workout, but be back with some key breakfast ingredients in time to feed the family before they left for church. My wife is teaching Sunday School today, so they had to be there a bit earlier than usual. I got to stay home today, so I'm like Homer Simpson in the episode with the bear claw slippers, eating a stick of butter wrapped in bacon in his underwear while his family is in church without him. Actually this is close to the truth today...read on. :D

We have a grocery store nearby that has a "hot bar" of breakfast out on weekends - scrambled eggs, quiche, french toast, green chile (this is Colorado, after all), scrambled eggs, and so forth in big steam trays, all carefully sheltered under glass sneeze guards. It's a high-end kind of store - the one where all the wealthy hippies shop - and the food is fresh and continually brought out.

They even have a dude in chef's whites making omelettes and breakfast burritos to order. You can get a plate to eat there or use special boxes that are cardboard but have some kind of a coating inside - wax or something, I dunno - and take your breakfast to go. It's priced by the pound, like a salad bar (they have that too), and the cashiers weigh your box at checkout.

I don't do this very often, but sometimes I go there to get two things that are easier to buy already made than to cook at home. One is hash browns. It's tough to make good hash browns at home. Somehow they're never as crispy and good as they are in restaurants, so I bought a heaping helping, since we all like hashbrowns, and my son will eat 'em until they're gone or forced to stop. He loves hashbrowns with ketchup.

The other is bacon. Frying bacon at home makes a mess. Baking it on raised wire racks on a cookie sheet is neater, and it comes out better, IMO, but then there's the mess of all the bacon grease in the pan afterwards. It's easier to buy some from the hot bar already cooked. We served sliced apples and strawberries too, and eggs cooked to order by yours truly. I also brought my lovely bride some fresh coffee before she had even gotten out of bed, before my ride. Of course I spun that as having made coffee for her, and I just happened not mention that I like to have a couple cups before riding. It's my performance-enhancing drug.

There's a bike rack in front of the store. It's one of those long ones similar to the ones we used to have in the bike cage at my last job, if anyone remembers those pics. It's designed to hold many bikes, but this morning someone had a bike locked up sideways, taking up 75% of the rack for one bike. This didn't bother me, as I was able to lock mine to the end of the rack with no trouble at all, but I figured you guys might get a chuckle out of that.

I rode with a backpack that my Dad gave me recently, as he said he wasn't going to use it anymore, and I really like it. The backpack I've used for commuting to work, before I put racks on my MTB to eliminate sweaty back syndrome, is made of some heavy cloth, almost like canvas, and parts of it are suede. It's miserably hot, even in cool weather.

This one is slick polyester or something and felt a hundred pounds lighter than the other one on my back. It also has a compartment for a hydration pack and a little slot for the drinking tube, should I ever want to do that. I brought couple plastic grocery store bags with me to put the box o' breakfast in, to guard against hot bacon grease dripping into the backpack and/or down my back as I rode. I had no qualms about walking into the store still wearing my helmet, sunglasses, gloves, and cycling clothes (although I did have a pair of breathable cargo shorts on over my cycling shorts, if only as a convenient place to carry my wallet, phone, camera and keys).

I had to stop at a traffic light near home and the smell of bacon was quite noticeable to me. I thought then I was lucky not to have been chased by packs of dogs as I rode. :lol: I also thought that "Backpack Full Of Bacon" might be a good title for my next album of instrumental foolishness, but I admit that's a ripoff of the Blues Brothers' "Briefcase Full Of Blues" album title.

New backpack, new bar tape, and a gorgeously clear day. Yesterday's smoke must have moved on, as the still snow-capped mountains were clear and beautiful today.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01044_zpsbr4obvjp.jpg

Almost home, pausing at the local community vegetable garden. You know, the winters here are long and everything is brown and bleak for months on end, that when things finally start to get green and grow, it's like they make up for lost time. And they should, because in July and August, a lot of it goes brown again from heat and lack of moisture. That's wild prairie grass surrounding the garden, as tall as my bike.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01045_zpsu8lak0mp.jpg

It's hot today, but dry and windy, and this windmill, which I've shown you guys before, was spinning fast. I seldom get down this way on a bike, since this is more of a pedestrian area and I don't want to be "that guy" trying to cycle through all the dogs on long leashes and baby strollers and whatnot, but this was the most direct route home with my very important cargo.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01046_zpsthbhhjgh.jpg

[overpowered]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsXGMeMc75U

[George]

I'm also seriously thinking of doing a series of four mountain bike races in August. Link: https://raceroster.com/events/2016/9237/highlands-ranch-mtb-series

I've been eagerly waiting for these since I learned of them last September. Yeah, September. I'm always a day late and a dollar short.

Looks like they're all about ten miles long. I've read the descriptions of all four and they're very similar. Here's one:

"The Backcountry Burner Cross Country starts and finishes at RedTail Park, the course will be one approx 10 mile loop throughout the entire Highlands Point trail system. The route has a total ascent of 677.45 ft and has a maximum elevation of 6,302.49 ft."

I figured I'd sign up for the Cat C (Novice) class. Two things that I wasn't aware of are holding me back from registering right this very minute:

1. The day and time. They're on Wednesday evenings at 6:00 PM. Wednesdays? Why not Saturdays?! I don't know that I can get home from work, changed, and ride over there by 6:00, four Wednesdays in a row. That's a tall order now that I have a long commute to and from work, and am in a new position with a lot of responsibility.

2. The cost. They want EIGHTY DOLLARS for all four races. Why? For a number plate for the handlebars and for someone to log the race results on the website? Now, consider this race is put on by the community association that already owns and maintains the trails. They aren't paying the town to block off streets and pay off-duty law enforcement officers to direct traffic, as they might for a 5K foot race or a marathon or whatever. They probably have a few people as race officials, I'd imagine, but from looking at last year's results online, it looks like there were around 100 riders for each race. That's EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS of revenue. That seems way too greedy to me.

The day and time are more objectionable to me than the cost, but I think the cost may be the deal-breaker. I'm not sure I want to spend $80 to add a lot of stress to my busy work weeks in leaving work early, trying to get home in time to make each race, disrupting my family's evenings four Wednesdays in a row, and so forth. It's also non-refundable, so if a race or two were to get cancelled due to rain, they keep the money.

If the races were, say five dollars or even ten dollars each, and on a weekend - I just cannot believe they're not - I'd be thinking and talking of nothing but this from now until they're over, but as is, I'm thinking I just might continue to ride for free by myself on weekends on the very same trails. Still, I remember running 5Ks and one 10K race many years ago, and those were a lot of fun. But eighty dollars' worth of fun? I dunno...

Thoughts from any racers here?

[Cam]

Don't race, just ride.

[George]

Yeah. It's the day and time that's killing me here. If they were on a weekend, I would have already paid the entry fee.

Upon further contemplation, the trails around herre are mighty nice, and I suppose the MTB races probably provide a big chunk of the annual budget to maintain them.

I need to find a Saturday morning cross-country race to do sometime. Ten miles sounds about right for me. I surely can't sprint for ten miles, nor probably even for one, but I can ride ten miles at a fairly decent speed without having to stop and rest or anything like that. Maybe I'll drop by a LBS and ask if they know of any, or maybe check out this newfangled internet thing I've been hearing about.

I don't want to "race" specifically, as in competing to win, but I think a race would be a lot of fun and probably push me to both train for it by riding more than normal before hand - and that's tough, now that I'm down to weekend riding - and also ride much harder than normal at the actual event.

[Cam]

I used to think I rode at a fairly decent speed, until I rode with some former and current racers. That's when I realised how slow I am. Yep, I'm a fred. :o

Last summer I went on a local, weekly ride on the other side of town. There is an A (fastest), B (medium), and C (slowest) group. I went out with the B group and got dropped. I am too embarrassed to go back. :o

[overpowered]

Serious amateur racers are fast. One of my old college friends (who I haven't seen in person in many years) is hardcore. He rode over 17,000 miles last year. A while back I was looking at the Fiesta Island time trial results and he was averaging 29mph for the course which is fairly flatish but has some minor rises and falls and is very windy, being close to the ocean. I would be surprised if I could even manage 20mph on a good day. He's almost as old as me and he still rides insanely fast.

I have never had a legit KoM in Strava and the only times I've legitimately placed high is on steep downhills where descending skills and recklessness and a little luck with wind direction and speed matter more than leg strength and endurance.

[Random]

George, you might ask what the race organizer's insurance arrangements are for the races. If they are purchasing outside insurance, then that could certainly explain the bulk of the race cost.

That said, $20 doesn't seem outrageous to me--I pay twice that to get 4-5 minutes of seat time in my car. :D

[George]

Insurance? Heck, every race I ever ran (we're talking maybe ten, possibly eleven that I paid to do; and mostly to impress the young lady runner that I've now been married to for over nineteen years) had me sign a waiver saying "We ain't responsible fer nuthin'!".

In other news, I have my 115 PSI road tires pumped up (again) and my fancy new backpack packed for my "multi-modal" commute tomorrow, Monday, which has me riding about two and a half miles to the train station. After that, I get to stand and hold my bike against the back-and-forth movement of an ever stopping and starting electric train for 45 minutes, followed by a slightly-less-than-one-mile sprint for life in traffic uphill to my office in dense city traffic. And, or course, by "uphill", I'm talking of uphill by Denver standards, not San Francisco or Seattle standards. I see more single-speeds in town than anything else - maybe 10 to 1 single-speed vs. derailleur bikes, so I won't whine about hills in town.

I might tell you guys more in the future, if anything comes of it, of a young man we just hired who works in my department. He's in his early to mid-20s, I'd guess, smarter than I'll ever be, and he just moved into an apartment right along the Platte River trail (that may not be the official name, but a ton of cyclists use it every day - I cross it on an overpass on the train twice daily and I see scores of cyclists...almost like a race, from the quick glimpse I get). He mentioned that he wants to get a bike to ride to work, and I'd be less than honest if I didn't admit I'd kind of like him to see my road bike leaning against the wall o' filing cabinets in my office tomorrow.

[Random]

Yeah, I sign the same waiver at autocrosses...but they still carry insurance. :)

ps. good to hear that you are employed again. :toast:

[George]

Thank you, sir. My last job got sent to India, and now I'm working for a much higher gross salary, but for a smaller company, so my take-home pay - due to health insurance costs for a company with far fewer employees (40,000+ vs. 500-ish) - is about the same. Well, it's higher, a little, but the change is enough to get me in a political tizzy that I won't say much more about here, except that health insurance should be sold in the free market like life, car, and home insurance.

Mostly, I've just found that not drinking beer and riding one of my two old, cheap bikes at almost every opportunity makes me happier than I can remember being since getting to whatever point in life that Mr. Mellencamp described as "long after the thrill of living is gone."

Edited to add: two old, cheap but well-maintained and properly tuned bikes.. :D

[G'day Mate]

... I see scores of cyclists...almost like a race, from the quick glimpse I get ...

Ah yes, the "Commuter Cup".

So, this hill you speak of, which street is it?

[George]

Give me a day or two to give you fine-tuning specifics. I don't know every street I cross while riding the train, but I'm learning. I'll grab a pic or two before too much time goes by.

I ride the F-line (red) from Lone Tree to 18th & California, as shown below. I see lots of bicycles near (and on) the train, but the overview of the Platte River Trail (I hope that's the true name; if not, chalk it up to honest ignorance) is viewable by me from the train while looking north between the "Colfax at Auraia" station and the "Theatre District - Convention Center" station.

http://www.rtd-denver.com/img/map/2016-rail-fare-map.pngCol

[G'day Mate]

Nah, I meant the last dash up to your work

[SportWagon]

Nice beat-the-heat early morning Sunday morning ride. Unfortunately the day before I'd done my most vigorous ride of the year, only 40km, but perhaps my banged knee wasn't quite healed yet, and the stress caused visible bursitis towards the end. (I wanted to do the ride quickly, to see if I could get back early enough that we could still drive to the breakfast buffet at the Crossroads Restaurant in Elmira; in fact I did get back early enough for that).

So, if you bang your knee and cause some bursitis, maybe keep the rides real easy until it's totally healed?

So Sunday was experimental, seeing if an easy pace would produce zero bursitis, whereas in fact it only produced a little. My particular bursitis quickly disperses with a little rest.

So I decided to rest, use the porta-potty, and eat my second time through West Montrose. And I was just in time to watch a spread-out procession of horse-drawn buggies coming across the covered bridge and turning right just after the small parkette I was snacking in. In fact, a Mennonite cyclist going that same way had preceded me across the bridge, probably expecting me to pass, which I didn't because I'd soon slow and pull off the road in front of him. After resting, and seeing some reduction in bursitis, I set off up the hill out of the valley. Near the top, as I was gently pacing myself some fast cyclist came up almost silently behind me and slipped by quickly but apparently effortlessly. Sadly, he wasn't on strava.

Almost home, going a long Country Squire Road, I see a yellow classic VW Beetle, about 1965 I think coming out of the now cul-de-sac which replaced the old road which actually went somewhere. He turned right to go along the same road, as I soon after turned left on. He turned right at the end of that short road, and seemed possibly worried I was going to try and to the right turn at the same time, bicycle-lane to bicycle-lane. I'm not that silly. But I think maybe he was just having enormous trouble with the manual transmission. I thought my new car had trouble getting started from a stop. Wow! After we'd turned right, I impulsively made a sort of "shifty" gesture with my arm. Not sure why, but he probably didn't see it anyway.

I hope this bursitis goes away. It's not really painful (for a small time it's actually less painful than normal under some circumstances). Nor is it greatly debilitating; it's just not quite right. Seems to "unflare" pretty quickly with rest. Time to find lots of green beans.

[overpowered]

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/--C1q9syrK3w/V2nuXYNWPCI/AAAAAAAAA3c/MkvdQcMZJrkTx4iILPawnacCZSiANl_YgCL0B/w876-h494-no/IMG_20160621_144747_054.jpg

[G'day Mate]

Anyone interested in Fantasy Tour De France this year? It'd be the ...

GTXFFTDF

http://www.velogames.com/

League code is 93220312238 - don't forget to press the "confirm" button on the page after you press "submit"

Fantasy whatever is always a good way to get into something I think. You pick a favourite or two of course, but you also have to make some concessions and get some mid-level guys so you end up following more than just the GC, which is great :)

[Tom Servo]

My Madone has eaten yet another shifter cable. Guess one of these days I should learn how to do the cable routing.

[Cam]

Pic of bike.

I don't get it.

[overpowered]

That drive train does not make sense on that bike. It's a mountain/touring drive train on an otherwise fairly serious racing bike.

[Freude am Fahren]

I think they just liked to look of the wheels and frame.

[Tom Servo]

It's got nothing on the World's Greatest Madone.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kJhXg0zm8F8/VqozMboszdI/AAAAAAABEG0/MuI9fzrq6iE/s1600/world%2527s%2Bgreatest%2Btrek.jpg

[SportWagon]

It's sort of amazing the resolution Strava/GPS will show you.

Here you can see how earlier in the morning I went west, to the covered bridge just off to the left (west), but on my return diverted into the park for a rest stop. And then, before setting off up the mild gradient I wheeled my bicycle in circles a few times as I gloved the tires (not pro enough to do it while riding). Knowing that the furthest east path down into the park is my entry makes it easier to trace correctly.

The buggies were coming south off the bridge to the west, and then turned from Rivers Edge Drive to Letson Drive, heading down Letson Drive to where the meeting hall is.

I think the portapotty may even be visible at the bottom of the picture.

[Tom Servo]

I have hit the money-pit phase again. After I snapped the shifter cable, I took it to the shop to have them put a new one on, and throw on some new brake pads while they were at it. They (rightly) told me I should have them swap out the chain and cassette too, lest I damage the chainrings.

I had them do the shifter cables because I don't want to deal with the hassle of internal routing, but I can swap a chain and a cassette myself. Took the bike back home and put it up on the wall hanger like I normally do. Came down the next morning and it was on the ground, must have fallen off the hanger. Seemed fine, but today I found that if I'm in low gear, the rear derailleur tries to go into the spokes.

Right when I was trying to save money, too.

[overpowered]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkMnk_eCDQU

[overpowered]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKN-a2IcgVE

[SportWagon]

Glad to know that's une fiction tournée en circuit fermé.

[Tom Servo]

Replaced the chain and cassette this morning and gave everything else a thorough cleaning. First time I've taken apart a hollowtech crankset since the last time where I managed to strip the preload cap like an idiot. Happy to say I didn't do that again.

Pretty clear that the rear derailleur cage was bent when the bike fell off the wall, so looks like I'll be replacing that too. It's fine to ride, just can't go in the lowest gear or the cage tries to go into the spokes. Felt kinda silly to be cleaning out the cage on the busted one, but in case I end up riding it I didn't want to get all that nastiness on the new chain.

Still managed to cut myself on the chainring when I slipped trying to get the KMC missing link to go together. Then I read that the easiest way to get that to happen is just hold the rear brake and put weight on the pedals. Sure enough, that did it.

It wouldn't be a marathon cleaning/repair session if I didn't manage to hurt myself, I suppose.

[overpowered]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWfBk-ZiO64&feature=youtu.be

[George]

Came down the next morning and it was on the ground, must have fallen off the hanger.

Wait, you have kids now? Cats? Oh, that's right - earthquakes!

Damn, that sucks. When I don't hoist my bikes upside down and hang 'em by their wheels from ceiling hooks in the garage, I tie them to my workbench with bungee cord type twist-ties. To me, this is like tying up a horse at a hitching rail.

It seems like my kids' sole purpose in life is to come flying out of the door from the laundry room to the garage and knock over as many bikes as they can in the process.

[Tom Servo]

Well, the cats aren't allowed down in the basement, so I have no idea what happened.

On the plus side, the new derailleur showed up today, so I'll probably just swap it out tomorrow morning. It's an expense I didn't want, but it's nowhere near what they're asking to replace the struts on the wife's RAV4.

[overpowered]

CAV!

[G'day Mate]

So ... anyone else following the le tour?

[Cam]

*cricket noises*

[G'day Mate]

Just the reciprocals eh?

[Tom Servo]

Well, looks like it's not my derailleur that's bent. 'Course, wish I'd known that before I disconnected the old one, but it's clearly the derailleur hangar instead. Turns out that once you clip a shifter cable to get it out, you can't really thread it back through the derailleur again, so I got an unexpected crash course in internal cable routing. I'm happy to say I did it with only minor anger and rage...it was hard as hell to figure out how to get the cable in and out of the brifter, but once I figured out the "use a strong magnet to guide the cable through the frame" trick, everything came together nicely. So yaay.

Now I just have to get it over to the shop to get the derailleur hanger straightened out.

[G'day Mate]

Oh cool, that sounds like a pretty good trick

[overpowered]

TdF

Sagan gets his first maillot jaune!

[George]

A couple pics from my latest bicycle commute to work...



:sing: Ridin' that train...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01056_zps02m4vw5d.jpg

I see cyclists with bullhorn bars and drop bars with newer or more high-end brake/shifter setups that don't have the shifter cables coming out the side like mine push their handlebars up behind that grab handle. That seems to hold their bike pretty well, so they can go sit down if the train isn't crowed, or at least not hold on to it the whole way, even if they're standing nearby.

I get on at the end of the line, either the first or last stop, depending on your direction, so I was able to snap these pictures before there was anyone else in this car. I'm obviously in the last car, as you can see from the window, and that's the farthest car from the parking garage and therefore it doesn't fill up like the first and second cars do.

Later in the ride, it's as packed as any, and I stand there for 45 minutes holding my bike with one hand and the higher grab handle on the right with my other. That's okay, but frankly I prefer to sit down and listen to audio books on my mp3 player and stare out the window and not have to deal with the bike at all.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01052_zpswkcapd83.jpg

Recently I had one of those aha! moments, and that was that I could ride the train all the way to work with my bike in the morning, but then ride to a train station halfway home before getting on, or heck, maybe when I plan ahead and bring cycling clothes instead of just any old shorts and tee shirt for a one or two mile ride, I should ride the whole way home (about twenty miles). I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner.

You guys my remember this one-way gate that I posted last winter...well, it was fall, I see by the date...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC00605_zpsgzlgcodj.jpg

Here's a summer shot:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01048_zpsnoxbhjjk.jpg

Those are interesting to me because they were taken around the same time in the morning, give or take an hour, at most. I'm facing east. Notice the sun rises in the southeast in the fall but in the northeast in summer. I realize everyone knows this, but having lived most of my life in the eastern USA with tall trees everywhere, I'm still amazed by the "big sky" out west and how things like being able to watch a storm approach and the where the sun is in the sky at different times of the year is so very apparent and obvious.

Unusual sign warning of possible ass-bustage on the train tracks, I guess. Notice in the background there is a giant blue bear looking inside the Denver Convention Center.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01071_zps07nuxznv.jpg

Did I mention it was a GIANT blue bear? See if you can find the teeny-tiny bicycle in this picture.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01073_zpsympfo2co.jpg


Nah, I meant the last dash up to your work

It doesn't look like much, and it's not, really, but it gets me breathing hard since the only way to get up it is to sprint like hell to keep up with traffic. Here's a discreet and super-quick snapshot from the camera in my pocket after the light turned red. I'm in the center of the lane, facing east on 17th Avenue, having chosen discretion as the better part of valor and not trying to beat the yellow light.

That red bike heading north on Lincoln is of the fleet of Denver rent-a-bikes. They have internal gear hubs and look like they must weigh fifty pounds, but as most of the city is flat as can be, that shouldn't matter to most. There's a rental stand a short block from my office - like a minute and a half walk from my desk - and I've been meaning to look them up online to see what they cost to ride, how to pay, etc.

The guy with the green bar tape barely visible to my right must have been either doing the pedestrian crosswalk and sidewalk routine, which I don't do except in a couple places that are truly scary to me - and those are on some multi-turn-lane crowded suburban boulevards near home, not downtown - or possibly riding between the left lane and the parked cars.

This isn't a "I dropped him since I'm such a strong cyclist" story, but I don't remember seeing another rider going my way that morning, and as I was taking pictures and making mental notes on this day, more than on days when I walk, I think I would have. That handlebar was a surprise to me when I just now got these pictures from my camera. I'm guessing I was faster if only from the desire not to be super-slow in the lane.

With the exception of this small hill, I find it fairly easy to keep up with traffic in the city. I see that single-speed bikes seem to rule the town, but I enjoy getting up in the higher gears when enjoying the wonderfully synchronized stoplights on some quiet, mostly residential streets in the city. Yes, I've done some after-work exploring on the bike - it hasn't been all directly to-and-from the train station.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01080_zpsarssw1qw.jpg

[Tom Servo]

My wife and I made a ride down to El Segundo, then looped back to Santa Monica, then home. We just made it into downtown Santa Monica and had pulled onto 2nd street. A driver was coming out of the parking garage into gridlocked traffic (it's 4th of July at the beach) and is completely blocking the bike lane.

I pull around him to the left, make eye contact, pass between the front of his car and the back of the car he's trying to pull in behind and move on. I find out later that my wife did not have such a smooth transition, but she, probably smartly, didn't tell me until after we'd parked and gone to where we were grabbing lunch.

The guy I'd passed in front of pulled forward when my wife went to do the same. He hit her and knocked her into the car in front of him, then he and his passenger laughed. I wish I'd known, I wish I'd had a chance to go slam their car with a U-lock, then laugh.

What the fuck is wrong with people?

[George]

That is seriously messed up.

I'd have had a hard time not acting out some Jack Reacher fantasies with the U-lock.

(or at least so I claim from the comfort of my house in Internet Tough Guy mode)

Glad she wasn't hurt.

[G'day Mate]

What the fuck is wrong with people?

:smh:

[Random]

:mad:

[overpowered]

What the fuck is wrong with people?Ignorant. Selfish. Delusional. Self entitled. Psychopathic.......

I've noticed an increase in anti-bike road rage of late. I get told to get out of the road/on the sidewalk almost every time I ride and it doesn't seem to matter where I'm riding or what traffic is like. It happens if I'm on the road.

I actually rode home from a friend's house tonight without getting hassled. That's the first ride in weeks with no hassles of any kind. Most are pretty minor but a few have been bad.

The Close Call Database had 4 incident reports in 5 days recently for the San Diego area.

[overpowered]

http://www.thebikecomesfirst.com/ill-share-the-road-when-you-follow-the-rules-motorists-message-at-parade/

:smh:

[overpowered]

This one happened to me a few weeks ago. I was avoiding the bike lane because of the high traffic commercial driveways and the upcoming DZBL. This bus driver didn't like that and decided to move me over with his bus.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A70B3x9qzhQ

His boss thanked me for the video but gave no indication of whether any action would be taken.

[Cam]

Intentional hit

Didn't she get the tag and report it to the police? :eek:

[Fogelhund]

So ... anyone else following the le tour?

Always

[Tom Servo]

Didn't she get the tag and report it to the police? :eek:

No...she didn't mention it at all to even me until we'd parked at the bike center and walked to a restaurant. This happened mid-block between Colorado and Broadway on 2nd street, and at the corner of 2nd and Broadway we talked to an officer directing traffic there, asking if the conversion to a scramble crosswalk was a permanent thing or just for the 4th (it's permanent). She didn't mention it then.

She says she was flustered and that it was a "light hit" and that it didn't hurt, she was just more upset that they laughed about it. I wish she had reported it...the place was absolutely crawling with police officers and I wish she'd flagged one down, told them what happened (traffic was so bad there was no way the guy was going to be able to leave the scene) and asked to press charges.

[Freude am Fahren]

http://www.thebikecomesfirst.com/ill-share-the-road-when-you-follow-the-rules-motorists-message-at-parade/

:smh:

Did some research on the "Doo Dah Parade", and it's kind of the point of that parade to do things like that. I'm sure there was worse in there.

[Cam]

Tom, were you wearing your camera?

[Tom Servo]

I wasn't, and it was a long enough ride that the batteries would most likely have been dead by that point anyway. Also not sure that I would have gotten a license plate. He was coming out of parking garage driveway and making a right onto 2nd. He'd basically pushed his way in (as you have to in that kind of traffic), so he was nearly perpendicular to traffic with his rear wheels still on the apron and very close to the car in front of him, so it's unlikely I would have picked up a plate anyway.

[overpowered]

NYPD Cracks Down on Cyclists After Driver Deliberately Kills Cyclist

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/nypd-cracks-down-on-cyclists-after-driver-deliberately-kills-cyclist-8823505

[Tom Servo]

Hell, worse than that, I'm seeing a bunch of the NYC cyclists I follow on Twitter saying that the cops are out on the Manhattan Bridge bike path (ironically on an electric moped which isn't allowed to be on there), ticketing cyclists for not having bells.

[G'day Mate]

Sounds a lot like Adelaide

[overpowered]

TdF

Wow! Froome showed some impressive descending skills. He took serious chances and made it work. It made sense. He's got 21 pounds (almost 9.5 Kg) on Quintana. That helps him go down hill faster. Quintana can get as aero as he wants but Froome will still be getting pulled harder by gravity. Quintana screwed up by not being on his wheel at the summit and ready for the attack. If he had been on Froome's wheel, he might have been able to take advantage of the draft to keep up with him.

I've never seen Froome do that kind of attack before. I've seen Taylor Phinney do it once (he's even bigger); also successfully.

[G'day Mate]

Hmm, do we need spoiler tags for TDF? Anyway ...

I was expecting Valverde or Porte/Teejay to do the chasing, but Quintana seemed to hesitate at the top and afford him just enough gap that they couldn't pull him back. The next stage is where it's at though.

[overpowered]

https://www.facebook.com/photo/download/?fbid=1160293340700365

[overpowered]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An9O42iMUBw

[G'day Mate]

Hah! I thought I saw a Sky rider punch someone but didn't see the replay. As for pedalling in the aero tuck position ... no way Jose.

[Blerpa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An9O42iMUBw

Frankly? WELL DONE.
Akin to WRC fans, road cycling fans must be the most idiotic and annoying ones ever seen in any sport (football aside)...

[G'day Mate]

Guys like that aren't fans, they just want to get their mug on TV for a few seconds of notoriety.

[Blerpa]

Guys like that aren't fans, they just want to get their mug on TV for a few seconds of notoriety.

That is also a good point.

[SportWagon]

On one of my two rides this past weekend, can't remember which now but probably the first as it ended later in the day, after riding across the little one-lane girder bridge, I took the opportunity of the quiet surroundings to take a drink of water. Looking up after putting the bottle back in its cage, I realized I had not consciously noticed a wrong-way casual cyclist riding towards me on the edge of my lane. Although they seemed to appear very quickly, somehow I pulled over in time and there was no incident. All I managed to yell was "Whoa!". They weren't riding fast, but they were going faster than a walking pace.

[overpowered]

Today's stage was pretty much tailor made for Sagan but he couldn't quite get the full capitalization; well...he did get 90% of the points on the day but not the stage win he really wanted. Impressive for Matthews and Boasson Hagen to both make that break past the cat 1. Matthews hasn't been closer than about 5 places behind Sagan in a flat sprint finish in this year's tour until today. I would not have predicted him beating Sagan at the line.

[G'day Mate]

He's got Impey to thank

[overpowered]

Yeah. They really worked him with all of those attacks.

[G'day Mate]

So I'm thinking about Everesting again.

It wasn't long after my first one that I started to feel like 200 repeats of a fairly simple, steady, 6% back-street wasn't really doing it properly. Now I have my sights set on Crows Nest Road (https://www.strava.com/segments/631354), which is much harder. It's 4km at an average of 5.6%, but most of the climbing comes in the last 1.5km which averages 9% and has a couple of 15% pinches. There's 222m gained each lap which means I only need to do 40 repeats, but thanks to the low average gradient it'll be 320km.

I'm looking at a September or October date at this stage. It's a very exposed climb so I definitely won't want to be doing it in windy conditions. It's also a bit away from Adelaide so I'm not likely to have many sherpas at all.

Longer, steeper, darker, tougher, lonelier ... Rule #5 (www.velominati.com/the-rules/comment-page-8/#5) motherfuckers :cool:

[Cam]

"This impossibly hard thing isn't hard enough for me!" :lol:

That's what she said?

[G'day Mate]

:lol:

Problem for me is that I can't shake the feeling I kinda walked it in on an easy hill. Also, nobody knows it cause it's just some back-street. Crows Nest Road though is Crows Nest Road - people know it. There's not many significant hills left around Adelaide either so I've got to get to it first, but it's winter and things have slowed down so I think it's safe :)

[SportWagon]

Your current weather forecast (Adelaide) looks very spring-like to me.

[Tom Servo]

Well, isn't this depressing...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CnMcAf4XgAEDTbS.jpg

[overpowered]

Sagan's attack of the peloton was smart but risky when it was just him and a teammate since he can't beat Cav or Kittel but then Froome jumping on was brilliant and with 4 strong TT riders doing a TTT for just a few km there was no chance for the peloton to catch.

[overpowered]

https://www.facebook.com/photo/download/?fbid=1256176534407221
https://www.facebook.com/photo/download/?fbid=1256176541073887
https://www.facebook.com/photo/download/?fbid=1256180311073510

[G'day Mate]

Sagan's attack of the peloton was smart but risky when it was just him and a teammate since he can't beat Cav or Kittel but then Froome jumping on was brilliant and with 4 strong TT riders doing a TTT for just a few km there was no chance for the peloton to catch.

I didn't see this one actually (decided I needed a decent sleep and that it was only a sprint stage) and couldn't find a video of the last few kms when I looked this morning. From how far out did they attack? I'm very surprised that nobody responded to a move by the yellow jersey, although with Mont Ventoux coming up perhaps he's burnt a few matches for the 12 seconds (6+6, right?) he gained.

[G'day Mate]

Hmm, apparently they're stopping 6km short of the summit of Mont Ventoux tonight due to forecast strong winds. That makes it at an altitude of 1,435m instead of 1,912 and eliminates about 40% of the climb ... b'oh :(

Oh well, I guess the attacks will just come earlier. I wonder if they still classify it as HC or down-grade it to a 1st category climb.

[overpowered]

I didn't see this one actually (decided I needed a decent sleep and that it was only a sprint stage) and couldn't find a video of the last few kms when I looked this morning. From how far out did they attack? I'm very surprised that nobody responded to a move by the yellow jersey, although with Mont Ventoux coming up perhaps he's burnt a few matches for the 12 seconds (6+6, right?) he gained.I'm not sure. 5-10km maybe. It was the kind of attack Sagan did for the worlds but he took a teammate with him. There were strong winds and the peloton was stuggling to stay together. Sagan and Bodnar jumped and Froome was near the front and decided to go with him. Thomas soon followed. Thomas said it was all he could do to hang onto their wheels for the first few minutes. Initially Froome and Thomas were just sucking wheel. After they had a gap, they started a normal pace line and the gap grew. Froome actually tried to go for the sprint. That was cute.

[G'day Mate]

:lol:

[overpowered]

To be fair, Froome can probably beat a large percentage of the peloton in a sprint -- but not Sagan. No chance.

[G'day Mate]

Well, that was ... ridiculous

[Freude am Fahren]

They really need to control the crowds and motorbikes somehow at these things. Fences or something, I don't know, and less bikes maybe. I'm kinda sick of it getting in the way of the races.

[Random]

Maybe have the lead vehicle be something bigger...a Dakar service truck would work, probably. :D

[overpowered]

Perhaps this should be the lead vehicle:

http://pictures.thewebawards.com/1000/86/A-Giant-Snow-Plow.jpg

[Freude am Fahren]

:lol:

[G'day Mate]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CnVf1Q3UAAA5hFu.jpg:small

[Tom Servo]

Jeez, everyone is getting into this Pokemon Go thing...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CnViAobW8AAWEqL.jpg:large

[overpowered]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JivkgMAnDaE

[G'day Mate]

Finally got a Garmin. Learnt as much in my 6km test ride as I have in any other ride I can think of.

[SportWagon]

Because I seemed to have so many animal encounters, I ended up labelling my Saturday ride as a zoological expedition, although the encounters didn't really start until the last part of it.

I was barked at by a cow-dog at nearly the same place on Middlebrook Road as before, though this time it was on my return trip. And it was one of those scruffy Australian-type Sheep Dogs this time. Once again it came up to me, sniffed me, and went away apparently satisfied that I was not an excaped cow. So that added a bit of time to my ride down to the bridge.

While I stopped briefly in the park, there was a tabby-on-white cat sitting on a nearby culvert, surveying the situation the whole time. I addressed it once-or-twice, and, even when I went to leave it stayed in its vantage point. And then when I took my usual diversion off the main road in Conestogo, a ginger cat dashed out in front of me, but turned and saw me and was so horrified that it decided to turn around and go back to its original side of the road.

After climbing past the dairy farm I turned onto one of the remnants of old Country Squire Road. And there, on my right hand side was a flock of about 20 Canada Geese. Oh well, at least they weren't on the road because in that situation they tend to be stubborn about moving.

Every Canadian has their own Canada Goose to which they impart all their obnoxious behaviour and ill-feelings, leaving Canadians very well-mannered and polite, but Canada Geese obnoxious and confrontational.

Sunday I took a learning cyclist on my West Montrose route.

Mostly I was a good instructor and tour guide, though I got a bit too enthusiastic on my usual speed segment and didn't realize I'd left him behind a bit (http://labs.strava.com/flyby/viewer/#643838075?c=dpwxqzuh&z=C&t=1NYttk&a=ezBgJgr9XyY&s=7S).

Oh. And at the end I thought he'd decided to go directly home but in fact he didn't realize I was going to go 360 (180?) around the roundabout.

He even snapped a picture of me not bicycling inside the covered bridge.

[overpowered]

Finally got a Garmin. Learnt as much in my 6km test ride as I have in any other ride I can think of.What did you learn?

[overpowered]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUbrh0Ac29M

[G'day Mate]

:lol: The helmet makes that

[G'day Mate]

Gee Yates is doing well, and there's two of him! Will be interesting next year if Orica go with the Yateses plus Chavez in the tour.

[SportWagon]

Final Jeopardy! clue on July 18, 2016


Established in 1903, this European event was originally touted in a newspaper printed on yellow paper

[overpowered]

^ I should probably recuse myself because I've heard the story many times.

Quintana did not have it today. He couldn't even hang on. Disappointed. Tejay blew up. :(

[G'day Mate]

Just watching a Katusha rider change bikes in the time trial. Every time I've seen this - any bike change I can think of for that matter - the rider stops, the car stops behind them, the mechanic gets out, takes the new bike off the roof, gives it to the rider and off they go. Wouldn't it make more sense (if the rider's current bike is not completely disabled) to actually drive past the rider, get the bike ready ahead of them and have the rider jump straight from one to the other? Are there rueles against this perhaps?

[Freude am Fahren]

Given the crowds at that point, it would certainly be difficult, but if they could, yeah that sounds like a better idea. There may be rules about cars passing their riders on ITT's though?

I can't think that he made up as much time as he lost changing bikes on such a short stage though. What did he need to gain, 15sec? And the loss of rhythm? Who knows? I would think everyone would do it if it was beneficial.

[SportWagon]

Mumble. I think someone else here mentioned this before.

Got home this morning from my currently usual early morning ride, went to check my six lap times on the Strava app, and they weren't there!

Somehow the segment was changed to "hidden". You can see it if you login to strava with an actual web browser. But I don't think there's any way to view hidden segments in the app.

Mumble.

Oh well. I followed some advice I think I read somewhere and created a similar "private" segment, which seems a little redundant. But, true, with a private segment, I don't need to think of how to position start and end to maximize number of participants. (I had been the original creator of the segment in question).

Is George on vacation right now?

P.S. I am still nursing my bursitis, if anyone questions my efforts.

[Cam]

I've gone on two rides since finishing school, if anyone questions my efforts. :o

In my defence, it's been 90-100F every single freaking day since May. :(

[SportWagon]

Oh "finishing" is a verb. You didn't go to "finishing school"...

[G'day Mate]

Mumble. I think someone else here mentioned this before.[/i]

Yeah, pretty sure I asked it before but I don't remember any answers

[SportWagon]

My following rambling turns out to be mostly wrong... (But maybe it usefully indicates the confusing nature of strava's distinction between "flagging" and "hiding").

I think any busybody can choose to mark the segment as hidden. I created the segment. Arguably it is dangerous because it has 2 right-turns at stop-signs and actually a 3rd such in the gap between finish and start.

Or, at least, I think if you choose the "Flag" option, which you can for a segment you have ridden, it makes it hidden. I could "unhide" it, but that could become an edit-war. That flags it, and can prevent KOM and viewing results in general, but is not "hiding".

It's not 100% impossible I accidentally did "Flag" myself. No, when I go through preliminary steps for a mostly irrelevant segment, it really looks like "Flag" will do more than hide. Actually see later documentation on personal "hiding" of segments. That seems easy to do accidentally.


End of mostly wrong rambling.

...

Oh. Yes. That is mostly wrong. Strava decides to hide segments for you. It seems that flagging might contribute to them deciding to "hide" but it's not the primary factor.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Strava/comments/2y4c88/under_what_aspects_does_strava_decide_which_are/




Hi! The current logic is that segments are hidden based on a combination of recency and click-through-rate. Basically, if 10,000 people do an effort on a segment (over some window, I believe we use 180 days) and 3588 of them click on the segment to view the details, we assign that segment a "view-score" of 0.3588. Segments with low view-scores are "hidden" by default, and those with high view-scores are shown. There are a few thresholds in place for this view-score that show in different places in the app (real-time segments also uses this metric as a measure of popularity. There's also some logic that allows newer segments to stay visible even with low view-scores, so that we can gather more data about whether or not people click on them. And yes, there's also some penalty to segments that are flagged for hazardousness.

My team is actually working on a much more interesting segment visibility filter based on slightly more complicated algorithms, so this will be changing in the near-ish future.

I'd be happy to answer more questions if this is confusing!



Hmm. It seems maybe that if I "unhide" it does it only for me? That does upon further reading appear to be the case.

It almost sounds like because I did quite a few tries recently, but didn't click for details (definitely not on each lap), but merely scanned the general report for the key answer, they decided I (that is, most people who rode it) weren't interested in it. Oh. And the quote from a year ago says the rules are going to change anyway. Maybe, but it is also beginning to seem quite likely that I accidentally did the "Hide" operation.


I almost made it private when I created it, anyway.

Oh. See also the following which describes how to personally hide segments.
https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216918177-Hide-Unhide-Segments

So maybe I did do it myself accidentally?

Final conclusion: There is a distinct possiblity that is what I did, and it is difficult to tell. Yes, it is quite easy to accidentally do the "hide" while mousing over the segment entry..

And finally, I am reasonably sure, through experimentation and web searches, that you cannot see hidden segments at all in the Android app.

A final point of silliness... It looks like you can even hide your own "private" segments.

======================================
Begin a rewrite...

Strava has two similar but mostly unrelated concepts, "Hide", and "Flag".

"Hide" is actually easiest to encounter naturally. But, paradoxically, if you go looking, for example, on the "View full leaderboard" page (via a full web browser at http://www.strava.com) of a segment from one of your own rides, you will likely spot the "Actions" menu. That menu has a choice "Flag", and using that to set one of the several "flags" does not actually hide the segment. (You can only "flag" segments you have ridden).

However, any ride you are viewing (using a real browser at the website http://www.strava.com ) will list a table of its segments. If you hover over the right-hand side of one of those segments you will see a "Hide" button appear. If you click that, it "hides" the segment for you only. It will not be visible for any rides you look at (caveat, see next paragraph), and you will not be able to find out about it all using a phone app (at least, not the Android app).

Conversely, at the bottom of some rides you will see a heading "Show N hidden effort(s)". If you click that, you will see some segments otherwise hidden. And if you hover over the right-hand end of those segments you will see an "Unhide" button, which will "unhide" the segment, just for you.

However, Strava does take it upon themselves to decide whether segments will default to being "hidden".

https://www.reddit.com/r/Strava/comments/2y4c88/under_what_aspects_does_strava_decide_which_are/




Hi! The current logic is that segments are hidden based on a combination of recency and click-through-rate. Basically, if 10,000 people do an effort on a segment (over some window, I believe we use 180 days) and 3588 of them click on the segment to view the details, we assign that segment a "view-score" of 0.3588. Segments with low view-scores are "hidden" by default, and those with high view-scores are shown. There are a few thresholds in place for this view-score that show in different places in the app (real-time segments also uses this metric as a measure of popularity. There's also some logic that allows newer segments to stay visible even with low view-scores, so that we can gather more data about whether or not people click on them. And yes, there's also some penalty to segments that are flagged for hazardousness.

My team is actually working on a much more interesting segment visibility filter based on slightly more complicated algorithms, so this will be changing in the near-ish future.

I'd be happy to answer more questions if this is confusing!


See also the following which describes how to personally hide segments.
https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216918177-Hide-Unhide-Segments

It seems to me that the interface for this "Hidden" feature is a little confusing. When you "Hide" or "Unhide" a segment, it's not really clear that you are doing it only for yourself. That confusion is exacerbated by the practice of having some segments default to "Hidden".

[George]

Is George on vacation right now?

Nah, I can't afford a vacation. My wife and kids just spent two weeks in both Carolinas and Virginia, however. I just work to try to pay for it all. I did sneak over to San Francisco for a long weekend for work recently, but no cycling, guitars, or other things worth boasting about other than a couple amazing meals were involved.


In my defence, it's been 90-100F every single freaking day since May.

You're too modest. Columbia, SC is the hottest, most miserable place on earth in the summer. I'll stand and cheer when you finally leave that hellhole.

My usual:



http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01239_zps6us3enyu.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01240_zps06exnyeh.jpg

Yup. I do travel by train, most days. I figure riding my bike to the train and carrying a flip-phone (not an iPhone) is a trifecta of 19th century technology. :lol:

Check out the little bitty front tire on this delivery bike!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01242_zpsrlbe4dv9.jpg

Street chess. There are also sit-down tables for chess on the street, but those players look like they'd kick my ass if I took their pictures, so you guys will have to settle for these tourists instead.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01244_zps8laerfcy.jpg

How'd I do with the same picture of my other bike in front of the state capitol? This is about three blocks from my office.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01245_zpsnw2rzwti.jpg

Just down the same street from my office - the Denver Bicycle Cafe (http://denverbicyclecafe.com/). It's a bike shop, a coffee shop, and a bar, too. That's Tom Servo's saddle on my bike, if anyone's keeping score.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01247_zpswfezmvvk.jpg

A picture that doesn't do justice to the the longest, wickedest street in America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colfax_Avenue), which I walk, more often than I ride, daily. Cycling on this street, near the capitol, is fun, since it's easy to keep up with traffic and bikes are everywhere. Drivers seem to play nicely with bikes in downtown Denver, at least in my limited experience.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01248_zpsmlvtl15k.jpg

16th Avenue, one block north of Colfax. I work on 17th, but can see 16th out my window. Sometimes it looks like a bike race is going on, but it's just tons of people commuting or just riding bikes.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01249_zpsozsn6gxg.jpg

An apartment building near my office. As old-fashioned as I am, I have to laugh at apartments advertised as Victorian. I should have taken a picture of the long side of this building, which is all brick and has very few, tiny windows, and no air conditioners in sight. Jeez - I hope the rent is cheap here!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01251_zpsggzw4t2p.jpg

Not my guy, politically, but wow, what amazing artwork!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01252_zps86ocycdm.jpg

With the Bernie mural to the right, I dig into a burrito the size of Rhode Island at Wahoo's Fish Taco (http://www.wahoos.com/) :up:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a284/craigslistuser/DSC01256_zps8alxfjfv.jpg

[Tom Servo]

My burritos from Wahoo's never look that good :/

[SportWagon]

http://gtxforums.net/showthread.php?1581-Sooo-Rock-Hill-South-Carolina

[overpowered]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX1AZuHmxPc

[G'day Mate]

So the week before last I decided that losing some weight would help ahead of Everesting again. Stopped eating chocolate at work, cut back on beer juuuust a fraction ... lost a kilo and a half (3.5lbs) already!

[overpowered]

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-TfLijS6ziVY/V6E8mguanxI/AAAAAAAAA78/B4TkqLnTk8cBfdnqe2DxuKa2JKjsdGgVACL0B/w1013-h1351-no/13923479_10104109133535284_4252349209177395082_o.j pg

[Kchrpm]

Image no worky, likely posted privately on Facebook.

[overpowered]

Alternate source. The guy is a friend of mine and a top quality épée fencer and one of the Dave's I know.

[George]

Ha. Took me a minute, but then I got it.

[G'day Mate]

I don't?

[overpowered]

Focus on where the beer is.

[G'day Mate]

Heh

[Kchrpm]

As someone who doesn't bike or drink, I still don't get it.

[George]

Thanks for the help in the annoying band thing thread, K. Returning the favor...



It's not immediately obvious due to the close shot and the clutter around and on it, but the beer is clamped into or resting on the clamp of a bicycle repair stand. A repair stand holds a bicycle off the ground for maintenance, adjustments, and cleaning. The guy has his beer in/on the repair stand and is checking out something on his bike that might be easier done with the bike on the stand.

Priorities.

http://www.conquerequipment.com/media/catalog/product/cache/6/image/800x800/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/4/0/400-WS100__04.jpg

[Kchrpm]

Ha, ok.

[FaultyMario]

I just can't stomach 80 USD for what is essentially 4 o-rings (http://www.jensonusa.com/SKF-Marzocchi-Seal-Kit). That nobody seems to have in stock.

[overpowered]

It's not immediately obvious due to the close shot and the clutter around and on it, but the beer is clamped into or resting on the clamp of a bicycle repair stand. A repair stand holds a bicycle off the ground for maintenance, adjustments, and cleaning. The guy has his beer in/on the repair stand and is checking out something on his bike that might be easier done with the bike on the stand.

Priorities.It seems like it wasn't so long ago that George was a newbie who knew nothing about bikes. Now he's picking up on subtle bike jokes that even G'day misses and explaining them to others.

I'm so proud. :D

[overpowered]

Bike safety: the great fluoro fallacy

http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/bike-safety-the-great-fluoro-fallacy-20160802-gqiwce.html

[overpowered]

'Shoot the cyclists': Ryanair CEO threatens commuters & elected officials with violence

https://www.rt.com/viral/341953-ryanair-oleary-shoot-cyclists/

[G'day Mate]

Aha! I just saw Fabio Aru do that thing I keep asking about in the Olympic road race

[George]

I'm so proud. :D

Aw, thanks, Dad. :D

My parents gave me my first bike in 1974, a green Ross banana bike purchased at either the Ben Franklin store or Aubuchon Hardware, but it took me until 2013 to get serious about cycling and, really - in all seriousness - you guys have made a huge difference in my enjoyment of cycling.

A request to the regulars in this thread: more photos (or videos), please. Surely you all have smart phones with built-in cameras. Use 'em! I'd like to see what and where you're riding.

[George]

Last night, Friday, some neighbors had a get-together. They call it Drinks On The Driveway. Parents talk and kids play and dogs run around and such is life in the suburbs. It's August in Colorado, and that meant people were putting on sweaters and running home to change from shorts into long pants before the night was over. "The nights are coming down", as my mother used to say in Vermont, speaking of the cool nights that become noticeable toward the end of summer.

A neighbor who I've known for years was there. When I was riding my bike to work regularly at my last job, I saw him often on the trails. My ride to work was five miles and I've seen him (and waved and said hello) everywhere along the way. I was always riding and he was always jogging. He is always jogging. I see him run past our house often, since we live one house away from the start of a popular gravel trail. I've known him, not well, but as a guy I see at neighborhood parties and so forth, for eleven years, now that I think of it. I always figured he was a few years older than me. Maybe early or mid-fifties now. He wears glasses, as have I for 38 years, but he doesn't have much grey hair and he's certainly in great physical condition, so early or mid-fifties would have been my guess, not that I ever thought much about it, until last night.

And I've seen him on his bike, occasionally. He seems to be much more of a runner than a cyclist, but he has a white bike with teal decals that looked quite "nineties" to me when I've seen it, as in the 1990s, the decade in which both my bikes were manufactured as well. Teal = '90s, right?

Well, we got to talking last night, fueled by a few beers, not that that matters, but just to set the scene, and I was talking to the guy who was hosting the party - he and his wife, ya know. He has what I'd guess to be a 2000s-decade Trek aluminum mountain bike hanging from the ceiling in his garage and also what I'd guess to be a late-'80s road bike with downtube shifters. It might be a Lotus. Something with an L is the brand, I think. He said he got it in college, and he's my age, which is why I say late '80s.

He was the guy who showed me how to pump air into a tube with a Presta valve (and loaned me his pump to do so) after another friend gave me my road bike, since I had never seen nor was I equipped at the time to put air in such a strange beast. Yet, despite all my cajoling, I've never been able to convince the host of last night's party to pull one of his bikes down from his garage ceiling and ride with me. Okay, that's fine, but at least I've asked.

In an off-topic sidebar, he's the guy who owned that beautiful, very low mileage, dark green '98 Honda Accord V6 that I considered buying to replace my tired '99 Accord some time back, that I posted about in some other thread around here. My '99 is still running strong, in case anyone's wondering. Hardly, I can hear you all saying, but surely anyone who knows my writing style won't be surprised by a second or third tangent in an already long and boring story.

Well, the first guy I mentioned in this rambling post, the runner, and I decided to go riding on Sunday (tomorrow) at 10:00 AM. He said he has a regular loop he rides that takes a few hours to complete, and he mentioned some landmarks that are farther away than I've ever ridden. No, we won't be climbing Pike's Peak or riding all the way to downtown Denver, but it sounds like a long ride. I'm really looking forward to this.

So, as we were all sitting around on lawn chairs in the garage, by this time, someone asked him what the writing on his tee shirt said. He moved his arms and we could all see it was some kind of shirt you get for running a marathon. He is a very modest man and it took much cajoling from the wine-filled women in the group for him to explain he had won his age group in the marathon he had run to earn that particular shirt. He laughed and said he didn't know that until much later when he saw the official list and his name as the winner in what he called the "62 to 99 age group".

My wife blurted out, "so how old are you anyway?" and he said he'll turn 66 in October.

So, I'll be riding with a very fit 65-year-old man tomorrow. I'll take a picture or two if the opportunity arises. I know I can ride for a few hours without embarrassing myself, and this surely isn't a competition, but I guess I was just amazed when this man started telling us - only after being asked - about all the marathons he has completed in his life. It was a very large number, and he looks great for his age.

[Tom Servo]

:up:

Wishing I could ride this weekend. Actually, really wishing I could get up in the mountains, but a ride would be a close second.

Currently stuck at the house while our shower is demolished.

[overpowered]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8PqH7bltJQ

[Freude am Fahren]

These Olympic bike races are nuts. Both the men's and women's leaders crashed out on the final decent. I'm not sure I didn't just watch the leader of the female race die.

Then both leaders are caught in the last km.

[George]

Maybe I should...

(Olympic spoiler and a mention of my ride today is below, playing off something in Freude am Fahren's spoiler above)



...try out for the Olympics, 'cause I can fall off my bike with the best of 'em!

Ouch.

Gruesome blood and gore pictures below.



Yes, I landed on my chin, as you can see. I guess that's what they mean by a "face plant". Maybe I'll grow a beard for the winter, since I won't be shaving that area for a while. I haven't had one a couple of years, so it might be fun to do again.

My bicycle was undamaged.

My friend's bike turned out to be a Specialized Crossroads hybrid, like my wife's, only a bit older, I think. Flat bar, 700c wheels, and a seven-speed in back. He mentioned he bought it twenty years ago and it cost $500. He said his wife gave him a hard time for spending so much money on a bike but now that he has ridden it for twenty years, she no longer minds.

After our ride, he mentioned it won't go into the lowest or highest gear - I forget which, and he was just telling me, not showing me. Next weekend he's going to bring it over for an adjustment. He said he's never changed the cables. I still have lots of new cable housing from when I bought a roll to do my mountain bike last year, and I'll buy the necessary cables one day this this week. I'll surprise him with all new cables and housing next weekend, if he'll let me install them, which I assume he will. Having done it once before, I'm pretty confident I won't screw it up, but ya never know.


18641865

[overpowered]

OK George. You wanted pictures. Today's ride.


From the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Ivq6YC6ORp8/V6fy_rNGwII/AAAAAAAABAk/wtx9wi4tu28CfqM5lFyVxFAj_x-ryzuAgCL0B/w1443-h814-no/IMG_20160807_144854_411.jpg

With Lower Otay Reservoir in the background. Apparently I wasn't supposed to be in this area. A security guard chased me off about 5-10 minutes after this:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-MoSGayvM8Ow/V6fzG1ii8jI/AAAAAAAABAk/a7GBpc6LpZYi8AmV7qU72V6KLl61kvQbQCL0B/w1443-h814-no/IMG_20160807_150654_537.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-KQzU8eSqmyQ/V6fzHMTKV8I/AAAAAAAABAk/bCQOCAbT3okUrGzxgEdqkdaLBznk1y7zQCL0B/w1443-h814-no/IMG_20160807_151236_516.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uYmj8_eBsJs/V6fzQYhr5GI/AAAAAAAABAk/0aHkjZZMFnQGKFBd1NVgAG2uJwkrzWllQCL0B/w1443-h814-no/IMG_20160807_163135_440.jpg

See that mound in the background and to the right? That's made of salt. This is a place where they extract salt from the water in the south part of San Diego Bay and that's a field of salt that's almost ready to be harvested right in front me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Bay_Salt_Works

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_Iwnew9BRa0/V6fzUtk6NFI/AAAAAAAABAk/_n8Ou0buDG08NBeBfC1AmOZ3jRzmE6jaACL0B/w1443-h814-no/IMG_20160807_163522_530.jpg

Saw some horse back riders on my way to Border Field State Park, near the Tijuana River:

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-qw3Evu2XedI/V6fzZupfQXI/AAAAAAAABAs/I1Sjl7TPeJUcLnZ7cQKSXZpJb7EVxuXpACL0B/w1443-h814-no/IMG_20160807_165833_883.jpg

The border:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-p5oZd3zfXTc/V6fzfGHXnJI/AAAAAAAABAs/3PQqLc_6mi83l2MLoS86Bvo6y1FVUAcaQCL0B/w1443-h814-no/IMG_20160807_171618_280.jpg

The bull fighting stadium just on the other side of the border:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ov2oTPBfklw/V6fzsI-Dn8I/AAAAAAAABAs/GuZoaD6v0XsqjZF824mOZbPKldlsbxFrwCL0B/w1443-h814-no/IMG_20160807_172520_755.jpg

Lots of people enjoying the beach in Mexico, but nobody on the beach on the U.S. side. Islands in the background.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-z27BFi6Wyck/V6fzuiiXFVI/AAAAAAAABAs/2m37gszKoG8IJ5nZ7V7sNhjtn4rMSpVTgCL0B/w1443-h814-no/IMG_20160807_172539_176.jpg

[FaultyMario]

Once I was walking on the beach I wandered off into the U.S.; I used to live like a mile and a half south of the (not so yuge) fence.

Coming from a more tropical part of Mexico, the desert-meets-the-ocean landscape always seemed a bit a eerie.

[overpowered]

That fence that goes into the water used to be a bit more sparse. It was basically telephone poles in the water with lots of gaps. Little kids used to stare at border patrol and step over and then step back as a game. Kind of hard to do that now.

[G'day Mate]

Which of those is Trump's wall?

[overpowered]

Those are fences, not walls.

[SportWagon]

I'm impressed OP can take pictures of his 80 mile while maintaining pretty much the same difference in elapsed and moving time as for his century earlier in the week.

When I took pictures a few years ago I found it slowed my normal progress significantly. Down to about what my current norms are. :p Apart from traffic stops, I usually only stop about once every thirty miles or so.

I think G'day has sometimes found pictures of where I ride by following my rides on strava. (street view).

strava no longer uses Google maps as directly, and Google is making street view harder to find. If (while logged into strava, and, er, viewing my own rides) I choose a segment from a ride, and double-click on the green start blob or checkered end blob, it brings up a Google street view immediately, though even I find it difficult to get my bearings, especially with Google's strange names for the roads. I can then "go back to map", and pick points and get to street view in a not-so-obvious way, but unfortunately my route is not on the Google map. So no following my routes in street view anymore, as far as I can tell.

I did the same thing with OP's century. The segment I picked did not have a very scenic-looking start. (strava also opens the picture in a targeted tab/window which is a bit confusing) https://www.strava.com/segments/4181566 Hmm. I seem to be able to get to street view via that link (unauthenticated to strava), too.

I no longer carry a camera per se. If I use my backup smart phone getting the pictures off will be a hassle. If I use the main smart phone, I'm afraid I'll mess up the strava recording. Perhaps I should try to get rid of that superstition. But there's the hassle of fishing it out of my unseeable back pocket, and the mailer-envelope "case", and putting it properly back afterwards. Plus it's really difficult to see what I'm shooting in bright sunlight.


My friend's bike turned out to be a Specialized Crossroads hybrid, like my wife's, only a bit older, I think. Flat bar, 700c wheels, and a seven-speed in back. He mentioned he bought it twenty years ago and it cost $500. He said his wife gave him a hard time for spending so much money on a bike but now that he has ridden it for twenty years, she no longer minds.

Um. It's time for a new bicycle for me. My wife help me spend O($1500) a little over twenty years ago. I'm not sure how much to spend on a new one. Bicycles have inflated in price a lot more than cars during that period.


After our ride, he mentioned it won't go into the lowest or highest gear - I forget which, and he was just telling me, not showing me. Next weekend he's going to bring it over for an adjustment.
So how far did you end up riding? GPS?

https://www.strava.com/activities/666493561

Adequately describes my strange tire incident. Didn't someone else here have a similar problem, though with less mileage?

[overpowered]

The horse pictures were actually taken while moving.

I did a lot of water stops on the century as well as a fair amount of restroom breaks that cost me time. I had a few less stops yesterday but I also has 18 less miles. The last 20 miles of a century are always the hardest.

[SportWagon]

Using Google street view, I think I see a PLAM tree beside the segment https://www.strava.com/segments/4181566 (obGT)

[overpowered]

I don't know what a PLAM tree is. That segment was on the century, but not on yesterday's 82 mile ride.

[G'day Mate]

I use plain old street view to check out roads now. I just have to search for a spot in the general area to begin with and then plop map-man down.

[George]

See, I thought I did okay in the picture department and then OP not only rides 82 miles, but also gets a picture of a bullfighting ring, among much other coolness! And what's that next to it - an air control tower? Do people fly in to see the fights? And what's to keep people from simply swimming around the fence?

But seriously, thanks for taking the time to take them and post them. I'm sure I'm not the only one who enjoyed seeing 'em. :up:


So how far did you end up riding? GPS?

About three hours, not counting time lying on my side and spitting out dirt and grass. No GPS devices were involved, to my knowledge.

I'll play the Strava game if I ever get a smart phone, I promise. I think it would be fun. Until then, I'm sticking with my sundial, spyglass, and sextant to find my way around.

[overpowered]

I believe that's a lighthouse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse) next to the bull fight stadium. People navigating in boats like to know where the border is.

[G'day Mate]

Service plus new cassette, chain, rings, wheels and tyres. Oh, and brake pads and tubes!

Expensive day.

[overpowered]

what's to keep people from simply swimming around the fence?About a half dozen or so border patrol agents within 200 yards of that corner and another 2 dozen within a mile with radios and jeeps, SUV's or ATV's.

[overpowered]

I didn't know carbon fiber could rust. :twitch:

https://www.facebook.com/photo/download/?fbid=1361342557214935

[SportWagon]

Re "PLAM": https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwie9pKy1bTOAhUL7GMKHQE4BFUQtwIIHTAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DTg T-UGgQ1dQ&usg=AFQjCNGAJ8XbGDkIzHTCP5W2-xq-K1t1iA



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8PqH7bltJQFrom that still picture, they're wrapping the tape in the opposite direction from what I've ever done and how my professionally done (albeit very worn) bars are right now. I've always seen people wrap them so if you twist forward on the top end, you're tightening the tape. (That is, so your fingers on top of the bar point in the direction of the tape). I have now watched the video (albeit without sound) and confirmed they're going in the wrong direction.

Web searches suggest bar taping direction is a matter of "religion".

And, George, here's where sheepdogs occasionally come out to make sure I'm not an excaped cow.

And later I added more, with shots of diddling through the back streets of Elora (Tourist Trap Turnaround), including a view over the Irvine Creek Bridge. And a shot just as I start home where there was an open field in 2011, but now there's what appears to be a climbing bean farm. It was about that spot, a few years back, that a largish deer suddenly dashed across the road about twenty feet in front of me. Or maybe even closer.

[G'day Mate]

Got pulled over by the Po Po this morning ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrcBWQ-R7fA

I don't expect anything to come of it, but this is exactly why I have cameras.

[overpowered]

At least you're not in NSW.

That bike signal was weird and I probably would not have noticed it had you not paused to point it out in the video.

[G'day Mate]

Weird? If you think so, but it's not the only one in Adelaide and it's been there for many years.

They are on intersections where a lot of cyclists tend to turn right, allowing us to pile up in the green box and then get a few seconds head start to clear the intersection before the other traffic is released.

In NSW I would have had my bike impounded and issued a fine worth thousands, no doubt.

[overpowered]

It's kind of hard to interpret as anything other than "bikes go now" when it's a green bicycle signal. I just haven't seen one before outside of videos of the Netherlands and even then, not for turning across traffic like that, which they largely don't do -- they tend to do box turns or roundabouts there. They don't really seem to do a lot of bike boxes like that either. One of the things I don't like about bike boxes is what happens when the light turns green for cars as you're trying to move into the bike box? You still tend to end up in a hooking situation that you wouldn't have if you lined up behind the cars like the driver of any other vehicle. I'm guessing that that extra bikes only light phase helps with that problem a bit.

In the Netherlands, they use those signals to prevent right hooks as cyclists go straight through.

[G'day Mate]

The bike light goes green for a few seconds, then flashes red for a few seconds, then the "main light" goes green. I'd say that if you're paying attention to it as you approach (which you ought to be) then you won't get accidentally caught making your way across the bike box as the traffic is released.

[Freude am Fahren]

I've seen them in a lot of youtube videos. They have them in Melbourne as well, I think. You would think a cop in the area would know about them :rolleyes:

[Tom Servo]

Santa Monica and the cycletrack in Redondo beach have quite a few bike-specific traffic lights, and I believe they've recently added one to downtown LA as well.

[overpowered]

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-8U2tITA9vkg/V6zVhvwmHtI/AAAAAAAABBI/hHmL-UC4OLIarppilbkQr5joDnzNndi8wCL0B/w1920-h1080-no/13975434_1219865954762812_6011766842924800097_o.jp g

[SportWagon]

Positioning of available restaurants on my route allows me to take a major rest and meal at 65km, leaving me a 100km ride to finish the ride. That restaurant is also pretty much at the height-of-land (watershed) for my route. Breaking the ride up specifically like that seems to avoid the 80mile bonk. But my last few centuries have been much more leisurely than I would have previously imagined I would take.

I do remember from younger days getting the bonk at 80miles. Once when we were on our tandem (on the Rideau Lakes Tour). I had us go straight through with no stops to the 80km point where we knew of a restaurant we could visit. We got there in almost exactly three hours, as I expected. We relaxed a bit there, and set off. But still at 130km there was this longish uphill stretch (near Kingston, Ontario), and I looked at it and wobbled and stopped and whined and rested and ate a banana and stuff.

My wife hated it when she got such engine problems, but was generally sympathetic.

[George]

Adapting a...what is that? Quote? Theme? Meme? Motivational somethin' er other?...well, words above for my current situation of sedentary train riding, car driving, lack of former eight-floor daily stairclimbs at work, ass-sitting all day, and very little cycling:

At mile 7, I thought I was dead.
At mile 8, I wished I was dead.
At mile 9, I knew I was dead.
At mile 10, I realized I had been
too tough to kill.

:rawk:

SW, thanks for the pics! Beautiful! A couple of those look just like how I remember Vermont as a kid, and a couple look like little European villages, at least to me. Very nice. Thanks for taking the time to share those.

[SportWagon]

If I use my backup smart phone getting the pictures off will be a hassle. If I use the main smart phone, I'm afraid I'll mess up the strava recording. Perhaps I should try to get rid of that superstition.

So much for that. I used my main smartphone to take some pictures, then checked and strava still seemed happy. But when I got to West Montrose I checked again, and strava initially seemed happy, but I did something which caused the phone to reset.

It looked like it would be not much problem as strava appeared to recover, but I checked GPS and it did not seem to be working. So I powered off the phone and then it wouldn't boot completely. So I changed the battery, and then it booted, and GPS did seem to be working, and strava recovered yet again. Then only problem is it looks like strava counted the entire missing ten minutes (i.e. stationary reboot time) as moving time. :(

I think some day I'll try strava on my backup (SIMless) phone, though I'm not sure how confused strava will get without a mobile connection.

Anyway here are current pictures of the aforementioned bean farm. Those are pinched from my strava uploads. Perhaps some day I'll upload larger versions.

[G'day Mate]

I also took a picture during my ride this morning

https://dgtzuqphqg23d.cloudfront.net/LfIej4FdWXyfGxE4vzttJ_BLyGwcmkgZEsQi_KrCmYo-2048x1536.jpg

[SportWagon]

You live in Middle Earth!

P.S. That looks like the direct strava picture URL. I had assumed those would be non-permanent and/or referer-checked, etc.

I was looking around and found the following segment. I thought I'd posted it before, but perhaps it was a different incarnation of the board.

https://www.strava.com/segments/5539685

Or perhaps I didn't keyword it as " Nürburgring Nordschleife " (Nurburgring).

Ah. Exactly. (I now found it by searching for the strava segment number)
http://gtxforums.net/showthread.php?49-The-Lounge-of-Terrestrial-Wheelmen&p=21854#post21854

[G'day Mate]

So, you think I'm nuts? Adelaide's local cycling mental-case (and top bloke - he was first Sherpa on the scene when I did my own Everesting) is three quarters of the way through his first of five Everestings to be held all over the world in the next 15 days.

If you want to follow him, check out https://www.facebook.com/withallihave/

The schedule for the Everestings (which seems to have changed slightly) is:

(August 17) Mt Fuji Azami Line - https://www.strava.com/segments/1536894
(August 20) Rocacorba - https://www.strava.com/segments/616746
(August 23) Colle delle Finestre - https://www.strava.com/segments/657942
(August 26) Saint Gotthard Pass - https://www.strava.com/segments/1410659
(August 31) Mauna Kea - https://www.strava.com/segments/1504789

The final one, Mauna Kea, is an absolute beast. Two laps will do it!!

[G'day Mate]

You live in Middle Earth!

P.S. That looks like the direct strava picture URL. I had assumed those would be non-permanent and/or referer-checked, etc.

Correct about the URL - we'll see what happens to it I suppose.

As for Middle Earth, the photo was taken here (https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-34.9637128,138.7506881,3a,75y,14.86h,81.91t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2xAC0kHBfGMOCQcq_EPebQ!2e0!7i1 3312!8i6656), within 20kms of the Adelaide CBD.

[SportWagon]

Why did the latest Android Strava App update need to change Me to You? It's surprisingly annoying.

[FaultyMario]

My sweetie jolanda neff failed to get a medal.
There's that.

[George]

Hey Mario, when are you gonna tell us about your dadgum bottom bracket, anyway? Inquiring minds want to know.

Well, I tried to post some pictures of today's first ride - I've already been out for two rides today, and one yesterday, but Photobucket won't let me upload any more pictures. I just deleted about four hundred photos, but it still says I'm at 100% of my storage limit. :(

[Tom Servo]

Try imgur.com.