Awesome Sh*t Ride

Travel schedule is out of hand, I‘ve slept in my own bed for 1 of the last 9 nights, and will get just 1 more in the next 6…if I’m lucky. Needless to say I haven’t seen much saddle time recently, so when I had a free hour this morning I jumped at the chance for a quick ride even though conditions were awful:

• Grey sky with rain in forecast
• Cool 31 degrees
• Soft ground made it feel like I had two flat tires
• When not riding on soft ground I was on glare ice

But (and this is a “BIG but”) I was on a bike and the bike was on dirt, so it did my heart and soul a world of good.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Could have used one of these today!

What a welcome break from the indoor trainers and treadmills!

Three of us (Sebastian, Antonio, and I) rode, pushed, and carried our bikes across the fields of MCSP and then rode the Struble to the covered bridge and back. Full suspension worked well on the packed and rutted snow/ice sections, but I have to say Antonio's brand-spanking-new Specialized 29er hardtail looked pretty sweet and the lack of rear suspension did not seem to slow him down at all.

And of course the return leg through Downingtown included a stop at Rincon Tarasco for some authentic Mexican food (and music).

Highs forcasted this week to be in the 40s and 50s...with any luck the trails will turn from treacherous ice into glorious mud, we can say goodbye to the asphalt and texting soccer-moms and return to the woods where we belong...

Chris

Review - Dinotte 200L

ITEM: Dinotte 200L lights
PURCAHSED online from Dinotte in 2007

PRICE: About $300 (was a gift)
RATING: Excellent

I got a couple of the 200Ls. One 200L flood for my handlebars to light the ground immediately ahead and another 200L spot for my head to shine some light wherever my eyes are pointing. I got the 4 cell lithium ion battery pack for the flood and the 2 cell pack for the spot.

I've been using these lights for three seasons now. They throw a lot of light and the beam patterns are good. This was a huge step up from my NightRider halogen setup. I have friends with HID and they definitely throw more light, but they are so expensive they just have one unit. I think I am better off with the two units for the money, even if they are not quite as bright as HID.

The dual setup is great - the bar mount throws a wide beam directly in front of me and the shadows help in depth perception. And the helmet mount is always pointed where I am looking, which is more than I can say for my handlebars. The dual setup is also great for redundancy - in my case when a friend forgot to fully charge his light, I was able to loan him one of mine so we could ride back home safely.

The mounts are elegant in their simplicity (this translates to reliable), but the bar mount could be difficult to align if your bars have any sweep to them. This was easy to fix by taking off the bars and dropping one of the rubber bands around the steerer, then putting the bars back on (see photo).

The cable connections are solid and weatherproof. One of the cables on my setup can be tough to disconnect but this is a minor inconvenience. After 3 years of riding, one of the wires began to fray where it enters the light housing. This was because I was mounting the light on the bar and the battery on my top tube, so the wire was constantly flexing as a rode. I fixed it with a dab of epoxy and I now fasten the batter to the stem so the wire is no longer being stressed.

The batteries are extremely light, especially after the NiMH I had with the NiteRider. Dinotte does say that battery performance may vary, but I am seeing way less run time than advertised. My run times are closer to 2 hours than the 8 hours they advertised. Not sure if this is how I am charging / discharging the batteries, but Lithium Ion are not supposed to be as finicky as NiMH, so this is a disappointment.

I had a bad cable in the original shipment so called Dinotte. They were extremely pleasant and dropped a new cable in the mail that same day, no questions asked. When you are spending this kind of money on mail order equipment, it is good to know they will stand behind their product.

STRENGTHS: Construction, Service, Versatility of dual setup

WEAKNESSES: Cable can be difficult to disconnect, battery life not what I expected

Both Ends

Mike and Andy on Drunken Sailor

We had no idea what conditions would await us today. Sure we knew it would be chilly (20° at ride time). But what about the trails?

It turned out they were just about...well...perfect. If you have ever seen machine groomed trails at a XC skiing facility, then you have a sense for the trails today. The single track was 12-18" wide and well packed. Grip was 8/10. The only real problem was a couple of frozen stream crossings (and a frozen Camelback).

We had to ride in a narrow envelope. Downhill or off camber turns had to be ridden flawlessly, and straying even 2" off any of the single track would shut you down in a hurry. It took almost 2 hours to do the Lakeside Trail and Bonus Loop, but we must have seen 15 other riders out there, and at least 10 of them were grinning ear to ear.

Wide Section of Singletrack

We rode without mishap until we left the safety of the single track to visit some ice fishermen. Ice fishing at Marsh Creek is nothing like the scene in Minnesota. Here it amounts to a lone fisherman or two sitting on a bucket in the middle of the lake staring at a hole in the ice, probably wearing a pair of electric socks and sipping from a flask. Very Zen but...  Anyway when we spotted a pair with a special hut/yurt type thing, power auger, etc we decided to investigate. There was just enough snow covering the ice to make it ridable, or so so we thought until one rider went down. Hard. Instantly our mountain biking instincts kicked in and we laughed as hard as possible without going down ourselves. Eventually we inquired to be sure the victim was OK. I've been on both ends of that - laughing at someone else's misfortune, and laying there in agony listening to the laughter from others. I guess we've seen enough crashes - none of them life altering - so we can afford to be light hearted about it.

Hopefully it stays that way.

Review - Performance Booty

ITEM: Performance Winter Booty
PURCHASED at Performance Bicycle in 2008
PRICE: $20 on sale
RATING: Excellent


Neoprene uppers and rubber sole with cutout for cleat. You actually cut out the opening based on your cleat type. These booties zip on over your riding shoe. They are size 14 and barely fit over my size 12.2 shoe, so as a rule of thumb you should probably add 3 to your shoe size when purchasing these. 


They have served be well through 3 winters of riding in snow, mud, and temps down to the single digits. Once you get into the low-teens my feet still get a little chilly, probably because there is not much between my foot and that cold metal cleat bolted into the shoe. I remedy this by stuffing one of those chemical type mitten warmers into the booty before I ride on a particularly cold night. I suppose a $300 riding boot would be warmer, but at $20 this is pretty good value.


STRENGTHS: Inexpensive, warm, dry
WEAKNESSES: Sizing is tricky

When Less is More

I've maintained fitness but no matter how much or how hard I ride, I see little improvement in my cycling performance. How can this be? Well if I am to believe dozens of medical and fitness professionals who have published on the Internet, it'd because I've been neglecting my mitochondria.

And I believe EVERYTHING I read on the Internet.

Here is how it goes. If you're aerobic then your mitochondria are using oxygen to burn fat (virtually unlimited supply). If you're anaerobic you have outstripped your body's aerobic ability and instead of burning fat you are burning sugar (limited supply). So we need to develop our aerobic capacity in order to reduce fat and empower our bodies to go long distances.

I learned today road riding that the aerobic zone is a very low heart rate. Much lower than we are accustomed to when mountain biking. We need to slow it down. This will burn fat (instead of sugar) and develop improved aerobic capacity. Remember, LSD.

Six Things I Learned on a Road Bike

Who would have thought that road riding could make your smarter?  Road riding! Just back and here is what I learned:

1. The aerobic zone is very little effort, in fact it's hard to work that little
2. Riding my SS has created some bad habits (attacking hills)
3. It's probably not practical to train aerobically on mountain bike / trails
4. I should have three rings on my road bike
5. The idea of a CX bike makes a lot of sense right now
6. People are nice

My goal today was 45 minutes of aerobic exercise and to not get hit by a texting soccer mom on Creek Road. I failed at the first goal because it turns out to be very difficult to keep your HR in that narrow aerobic zone. In one hour of riding I logged just 33 aerobic minutes. Seemingly any level of effort would push my HR above the prescribed limit. While in the aerobic zone, it felt like I was barely working and could have ridden like that all day. It was effortless. I welcomed the hills because it was an opportunity to push a little...but every time I pushed even a tiny bit my HR crept up over 75%. 

So for training purposes I need to unlearn the SS habits of attacking hills and probably need a granny ring in order to keep HR low on those hills. And frankly the MTB trails may not be the place to train (it was hard enough keeping HR down on undulating roads, it would be near impossible on mountain bike trails).

Now on to the CX bike thing - I think there might be merit in trading the road bike in on a CX bike. Why? Well I'm not, don't want to be, and never will be a dedicated pace-line type roadie. For me road riding is an occasional change of pace and a way to stay in shape during the off season. Perhaps I will  try bike touring at some point, but aerodynamics and counting grams is not important to me. A CX bike - with a more relaxed geometry and beefier build - may be more comfortable and appropriate for touring and I could bypass some of the soccer-mom-infested stretches of Creek Road by hopping some singletrack for a few miles.

And speaking of soccer moms, I did achieve my second goal of not getting hit by one. In fast I was impressed yet again by the wide berth given me by automobile drivers - maintaining safe distances and letting me roll through intersections. I know I am just one soccer mom away from the ditch (that's why I don't like riding roads) but I think it is worth pointing out that 99.9% of the populace are generally nice people.