7 posts tagged “biking”
(Crossposted from another blog)
So I have biked all of the bikeable areas of Rancho San Antonio now.
Sadly, there aren't very many. I blame asshole mountain bikers for
wrecking too many trails trying to look like the mountain bike
advertisements. Many of the trails I know that I could bike without
running people down or causing any more wear than a jogger, but I'm
just not allowed.
I biked up the Mora Trail for a stretch..... it's uphill most of the way, so I ended up running out of steam and not wanting to risk my need-to-be-adjusted-after-150-miles-of-fun deraleurs uphill to downshift to the smallest chainring and thus portaging it up the hill. Got my heartrate pumping. Mora trail is hard to find... the Meadow Trail is bike-friendly until it hits Deer Hollow Farm and then it's not bike friendly, so I kept looking to the right trying to figure out where the Mora trail forks off and it turns out that there are three trails that fork off the Meadow Trail and two of them have no-bike signs and one of them doesn't. And once you get uphill, on top of the Mora Trail there's a water tank and a beautiful vista.
I finally figured out, after a bunch of combinations and permutations, how to properly pack my tripod. I just use the cargo netting atop my trunk bag to hold it. I was trying to have it hang down like a pannier bag on the side and that just wasn't working. But I took my tripod and my 35mm camera loaded with ISO 20 microfilm and the 28mm and 70-210mm zoom lens, plus the G7. Do I get enough crazy photographer points? It was 20 speed film that is more like 12 or so in Rodinal and so even in situations where a more normal selection of films would be handholdable, I needed to use the tripod.
So, I biked a mere 8.47 miles and reached a maximum speed of 27.2mph downhill (I used the brakes a lot). I was getting 20mph on some of the level sections, which isn't half bad for a mountain bike and an out-of-shape nerd but probably not nearly as impressive for a road bike.
I'll post the pictures in a bit. Still have to finish the roll and develop them and/or download the digital shots.
I think the correct route would have been to do the ride in reverse. The uphill segment would then be on much less steep streets and then I'd be able to coast the whole way down the Mora trail. And I think the next thing to explore is to ride to Deer Hollow Farm, lock the bike, and then go hiking.
Still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my day....
(Crossposted from another blog)
So I just finished my morning bike ride.
I'm still in recovery at the moment. It wasn't a distance ride as much as an up-and-down hill sort of ride where I was glad that I got a hybrid instead of a road bike.
I biked up to the Stevens Creek County Park from Wireheaddia and then wandered through the various trails. I did a LOT of up-and-down and was picking up a lot of prickly thingies.
Oh, I got prickly things on my leg hair, too... But, since we've already established I am not shaving my legs, I guess I gotta deal.
My current biking problem is that I don't have the cardiac endurance to do hills very well. I can get up a certain distance on the energy stored in my legs at a low cadence, but after that, I have problems keeping going, even in the granny gear. But I can bike on flat ground for miles and miles now, so it's probably just a matter of building up some more endurance.
I also wore suncreen so I didn't get sunburns and look like I'm wearing red thigh-high stockings for the next week. :D
So I picked up our crusty old Ford (it's newer than the Honda, looks nicer, but it is also less reliable) from the repair joint today.
On the way there, a woman wanted to know where the Sunnyvale airport was. I'm not entirely sure what she meant by that. She said she remembered it from a long time ago and she was kind of elderly. I pointed out Moffett, which wasn't what she'd meant. I pointed out SJC, but that also wasn't what she meant. I think she might have been thinking of Santa Clara Valley Airport, which was bulldozed in 1955.
I observed a whole bunch of fire trucks, police cars, and ambulences converging across the 237 from the Blue Cube. Not sure what was going on there.
Biking is the ultimate anti-depressant, by the way.
(Crossposted from another blog)
So our _________ was acting up today and I had to fix it. So ____ and I spent a bunch of time on the phone with _________ (who, I might add, are prone to EXCEPTIONAL bouts of stupidity in a "getting paged at 2am" sort of way).
But... ehrm... long story short they "wiggled a few wires" and the problem went away, which ended up with _____, _____, and I all rather displeased.
So I was leaving work rather late. And I was a few minutes late for the VTA train, so I told myself "Gee, Wirehead, you aren't going to get that much done at home tonight because you'll be cranky and disgusted and whatnot. Why don't you just bike all the way home?" So I did.
Somehow I managed to end up right in front of Moffett Field when a C-130 was taking off over my head. It was beautiful and awe-inspiring in the sort of way that precludes having a camera ready or even being able to take a picture of it.
I need a brighter bike light.
-
The cycling seems to be working. I *feel* better. And I am getting better about the uphill parts. I can do them faster without bailing. I took two days off last week to recuperate from all that I've been doing to myself (largely because of the sflickr meet and me wanting to get in really early on Friday) and that seems to have helped with the various aches and pains.
- I got my bike-emergency-kit.. A pump with a built-in gauge, a multitool, some spare tubes, and tire levers. I've actually never had a flat on a bike. Ever. So I've been fairly cavalier about it so far... but that's probably not going to continue forever, so I got a little sack that sits under my saddle. I got one of the funky packs with a quick-release cleat, but it wouldn't mount with the way my saddle was built, so I had to get a different one.
- I was out biking last night and I realized that I probably need a more potent headlight for the bike.
- I got pulled over because one of the rear headlights on the car was broken. Apparently the officer was concerned that my driving was too erratic for a sober person. Funny part is I can't remember the last time I've had anything alcoholic, so it's prolly been a few weeks.
- So, with upgrading to WinXP, my hyperthreaded processor starts to actually work hyperthreaded. And it's great, mostly because I can scan and still have a responsive system... and it doesn't seem to be scanning much slower, if at all. Also, now I have 2 gigs of RAM instead of one. So I feel like working through my scanning queue again because I don't have to sit and have the computer be *dedicated* to the task.
Finally, here's a silly bit of video:
I only rode VTA for a few stops to avoid an especially sticky bit of street yesterday and today, I am now doing 5 miles there and 6 miles back. For some reason I thought I was only doing 3 miles there.... but I am doing a lot more than that...
So, good exercise.
Some decisions I've made about my biking:
- I am not going to shave my legs.
- Everybody's always training for a triathlon or a race or something if you ask them what they are up to. I am not training for anything in particular. I am going places that interest me and commuting to and from work.
- I intend to deliberately never purchase any silly looking bike jerseys
with a bunch of logos on them. Unless I'm actually being sponsored by
somebody, which isn't very likely (see above).
- I will not watch the Tour de France nor do I particularly care who wins.
- It will not be necessary to test me for controlled substances. I'll show you the @%##! prescription bottle. (very long, private, and fairly obnoxious story)
I've picked up some bad habits over the years on my bike.
Back when I was a kid, my parents would always have me bike on the bike trails or on the sidewalk. But it turns out, statistically speaking, that it's a good way to get crunched.... and it's also illegal to ride on the sidewalk.
So I've pretty much taken the Critical Mass approach that "We're just traffic" and follow the bike path. I give parked cars enough clearance to avoid a door prize, even if it means that I'm right along the edge of a bike path. And otherwise I just make like traffic and avoid main thoroughfares. At the part where Grant and Foothill Expressway run parallel, I end up taking Grant and riding in the street because there's a lot fewer cars on Grant.
My first girlfriend broke her ribs going over the handlebar while going downhill. She blamed it on the use of the front brake. According to the advice I've heard, the real thing that sends you over the handlebar (excepting the case where you are on a fixed-gear bike and you stop pedaling and the accumulated kinetic energy in your biking system sends you flying) is not bracing against the handlebar... and on dry pavement, it's best to use the front brake exclusively. So I am working on my feel for the brakes. I felt it the other day... I just laid on the front brake and realized that I really needed to be bracing hard or I'd be going flying.
In the right conditions, my bike will wheelie. I was fascinated because I'd never managed to get a bike to do a wheelie. I accidentally popped one in my morning commute and then I spent my entire evening commute popping them on the way home. My goal is not to be able to do a way-back stunt wheelie, because that's just a fast road to a broken bone (and Vicster and Mrs. Wirehead and probably others will give me crap about doing too much stunt biking) but to be able to avoid stuff on the ground with wheelies and bunny hops. So I can pretty reliably pop a wheelie now. I'm just working on the control necessary to pop it at the exact right spot so as to not end up with the spokes on my front wheel all bent out of shape because I ran into a curb.
Apparently it's most efficient to maintain a fairly fast cadence... which I cannot do at the moment. The advantage is that it gets your bum off the saddle and moves more support to the feet and you work better.... but it requires some muscles that I don't quite have developed enough yet because it starts to hurt after a bit. On the other hand, I can maintain a slower cadence pretty easily.
I also found out that I can use an old P&S camera case as a holder for one of my flashes. So I can now efficiently carry the G7 and one flash on my handlebars, for extra biking fun.
