I read this little blurb in Velo that astounded me. I had to do more research, and apparently it is true. A Finnish company that independently tests tires has concluded that wider tires offer less roll resistance. The real culprit is deformation of the tire. Racers like thinner tires because they believe they roll better. I suppose this is due to the fact that there is less opportunity for a thinner version of the same tire to deform. However, a better tire in a wider size will roll better than its thinner version.
It does confirm something I've found, and this is something we all know from our motor cars. Tires make a world of difference.
I was amazed when I dumped the cheap tires that come with my Specialized Allez for better ones. I run 23mm Continental GP 4 Seasons. When I switch over to summer tires I will run Continental GP 4000s, which is universally considered one of, if not the best bicycle tires ever made. This article certainly has me considering 25mm tires over the 23s, assuming they will fit on my frame.
In any case, if there is one thing I've learned it is that your dollar for dollar your money is better spent in tires, wheels and the correct spoke pattern than anything else.
For example, my Allez also has cheap wheels, but, they are serviceable. My real problem is that given my weight I should be running 36 spokes on the rear wheel instead of 32. My rear wheel keeps coming out of true owing to the fact that I am a Clydesdale rolling over some pretty rough bike path half the time. Since I'm not a racer and not a hill climber, the extra spokes (even a three-cross pattern back there opposed to the more common two-cross) is not going to make much difference. A few more dollars for decent DT Swiss wheels with the correct number of spokes will make my bike that much better.
I would be remiss if I did not sing the praises of my Allez. I bought the cheapest set-up Specialized makes - a double chainring with Shimano 2300 components. All of this is decent stuff, especially for the money. The frame is excellent as far as aluminum goes and given upgrades such as the aforementioned and a SRAM Rival groupset, it will be a long time before I outgrow this bike. I'm also glad I bought an aluminum bike. The stiffness makes it fast and I can handle the rough ride. It is an excellent speedy ride.
The Allez has also proven to me that when I buy a touring bike I want steel, say a Trek 520 or Jamis Aurora. When I buy a gran fondo bike I also want the suppleness that steel provides, say a Bianchi Vigorelli. When I earn a go-fast sports car of a bike I'll go with a carbon fiber frame, and I'll stick with Specialized, probably as good a Tarmac as I can afford (or talk the wife into).
So, I love my Allez.
Here's that article.
Tech Feature: The Work Of Wheel Energy | Cyclingnews.com
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Great article on the benefits of cycling
This is a great article about cycling (despite the fact that it's from the University Daily Kansan and I went to Mizzou). All kidding aside, it raises some good points about why cycling can be a lifelong activity unlike its cousin in suffering - running. It quotes an interesting study from South Africa that found riders only begin to lose speed at age 55 compared to age 32 for other action sports.
So, not that we need another reason to just get on the bike, but here's one anyway:
Start Cycling Now! Or, In 30 Years | Kansan.com
So, not that we need another reason to just get on the bike, but here's one anyway:
Start Cycling Now! Or, In 30 Years | Kansan.com
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
The season is upon us
In Europe, Paris-Nice is followed next month by the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Liege Bastogne Liege. May brings the world's best stateside for the Amgen Tour of California. As an aside, I hope Jen is a podium girl again. (That's Jen on the left).
Anyway, the super team is BMC with Thor Hushovd, Philippe Gilbert and 2011 Tour de France winner Cadel Evans. I happen to be a fan of the newly-formed Omega Pharma Quickstep team, mostly because Levi Liepheimer is a member, but also because Tom Boonen is one heck of a rider. They also have an excellent kit!
Closer to home, we are gearing up for the Tour de Cure on June 10. I am Team Red captain. I just ordered my Team Red kit last night, but have to wait until April to get it! There are three TDC organized training rides next month and I am starting to organize team rides. It will be fun to be out there as a member of a team instead of going it solo, which is fun in its own right. There is a TDC kickoff event on March 20th that I am looking forward to.We have a goal of getting 25 riders on the team. We already have 10, which is great considering its still out-of-season. I have now have to get busy raising money!
Monday, March 5, 2012
Knowing when to quit
I rarely abandon a ride. It goes against my stated philosophy. Time and time again I am rewarded when I push myself to ride a few miles until I get into it.
But you do need to know when to quit. Today was one such day.
First of all, it was deceptively cold due to the stiff winds. This alone is not a reason to stop riding. I'm constantly amazed at how warm you can get just by burning calories.
But, I'd worked all weekend and my legs were just stiff and tight. I could not work it out. In fact, the more I rode, the more they ached. The cold certainly didn't help. After a few miles I began to think riding any more was just risking a few aches and pains turning into a lingering injury that might keep me off the bike for a few weeks.
So, I abandoned.
For the next few hours I wondered if my reasoning was just that - justification for my laziness. Ultimately I decided it's okay to quit once in a while. I'll live to ride another day. Two, three times in a row - that's an issue, but once in a while is just listening to that voice from somewhere inside that says "something is just not right today."
I am sure that there are more than a few pilots whose last thought before they hit the ground was "I should have listened to that voice inside me that said 'don't fly today.'"
But you do need to know when to quit. Today was one such day.
First of all, it was deceptively cold due to the stiff winds. This alone is not a reason to stop riding. I'm constantly amazed at how warm you can get just by burning calories.
But, I'd worked all weekend and my legs were just stiff and tight. I could not work it out. In fact, the more I rode, the more they ached. The cold certainly didn't help. After a few miles I began to think riding any more was just risking a few aches and pains turning into a lingering injury that might keep me off the bike for a few weeks.
So, I abandoned.
For the next few hours I wondered if my reasoning was just that - justification for my laziness. Ultimately I decided it's okay to quit once in a while. I'll live to ride another day. Two, three times in a row - that's an issue, but once in a while is just listening to that voice from somewhere inside that says "something is just not right today."
I am sure that there are more than a few pilots whose last thought before they hit the ground was "I should have listened to that voice inside me that said 'don't fly today.'"
Saturday, March 3, 2012
I have a big decision to make.
I ride so often and enjoy it so much I am considering what was once unthinkable. I am considering selling my scooter.
I love scooters and by extension motorcycles. I love the style and beauty of the machines, the culture surrounding them (particularly scooters), the practicality and fuel efficiency of this mode of transportation and perhaps most importantly the sense of freedom that riding provides.
There are a lot of parallels between the two. One might be surprised to know that statistically riding a bicycle and riding a small displacement motorcycle or scooter carries the same risk. This is something my wife will never understand. She sees motorcycles as dangerous (something I should stay away from), scooters as somewhat less dangerous (and okay for me to ride) and bicycles as significantly safer (something she encourages me to do). The fact is that the risks are relatively small for riding all three, though they increase exponentially for motorcycles if one chooses to ride a 1 liter bike, ride drunk, ride with another rider and ride at night.
I think it's pretty easy even for non riders to understand that the sense of freedom and fun is also similar for both bicycles and motorcycles. What they might be surprised to learn is that it's a lot scarier to fling yourself down a hill at 30 miles an hour on a bicycle than it is to ride 70 miles an hour on the freeway on a larger motorcycle.
The one issue I find hard to get around is the gas savings motorcycles provide over cars. My scooter gets 72 miles to the gallon. My car south of 20 miles per gallon. It cost me $7 to fill my scooter's tank, while the Ford sets me back $70. All other things being equal that $70 tank of gas gets me about as far as $14 on the scooter. As a result, I like to commute to school and work on my scooter, though since my illness I have not done so. This summer gas is going to hit a record high, and I'll want to save as much gas as possible.
That means I have to substitute riding the bike for riding the scooter. School, which is two days a week, is about 12 miles away. That's at my limit of what I'd want to do. Work is too far away for the bike and not safely reached from home - too many freeways to cross. It could be done, but with the kind of work I do it would make for a long, long day.
Of course where I probably burn the most gas is going from home to the grocery store QuickTrip, to the sub shop or (I'll admit it, McDonald's). That can be done by bicycle very easily.
Notably missing from this equation is taking the kids to daycare. That's not going to happen on the scooter, though technically I could do this by bike with a trailer. I think Amy would even let me get away with that once in a while. (Oh, a challenge)!
I could easily buy a nice touring bike for what I could sell the scooter on Craigslist.
Then there's the missed opportunities for future motorcycle/scooter fun. The rallies. The light touring. The dream of motorcycle camping. The sheer awesomeness of Vespa ownership.
Ah, that's what really gets me. The idea of owning a Vespa. A GTS 300 Super...I have to stop.
Of course, I could do a lot of Katy Trail rides, adventure cycling trips, gran fondos, etc., with the money I save from the purchase, maintenance and fueling of a Vespa.
If I only can get my head around riding my bike everywhere.
I love scooters and by extension motorcycles. I love the style and beauty of the machines, the culture surrounding them (particularly scooters), the practicality and fuel efficiency of this mode of transportation and perhaps most importantly the sense of freedom that riding provides.
There are a lot of parallels between the two. One might be surprised to know that statistically riding a bicycle and riding a small displacement motorcycle or scooter carries the same risk. This is something my wife will never understand. She sees motorcycles as dangerous (something I should stay away from), scooters as somewhat less dangerous (and okay for me to ride) and bicycles as significantly safer (something she encourages me to do). The fact is that the risks are relatively small for riding all three, though they increase exponentially for motorcycles if one chooses to ride a 1 liter bike, ride drunk, ride with another rider and ride at night.
I think it's pretty easy even for non riders to understand that the sense of freedom and fun is also similar for both bicycles and motorcycles. What they might be surprised to learn is that it's a lot scarier to fling yourself down a hill at 30 miles an hour on a bicycle than it is to ride 70 miles an hour on the freeway on a larger motorcycle.
The one issue I find hard to get around is the gas savings motorcycles provide over cars. My scooter gets 72 miles to the gallon. My car south of 20 miles per gallon. It cost me $7 to fill my scooter's tank, while the Ford sets me back $70. All other things being equal that $70 tank of gas gets me about as far as $14 on the scooter. As a result, I like to commute to school and work on my scooter, though since my illness I have not done so. This summer gas is going to hit a record high, and I'll want to save as much gas as possible.
That means I have to substitute riding the bike for riding the scooter. School, which is two days a week, is about 12 miles away. That's at my limit of what I'd want to do. Work is too far away for the bike and not safely reached from home - too many freeways to cross. It could be done, but with the kind of work I do it would make for a long, long day.
Of course where I probably burn the most gas is going from home to the grocery store QuickTrip, to the sub shop or (I'll admit it, McDonald's). That can be done by bicycle very easily.
Notably missing from this equation is taking the kids to daycare. That's not going to happen on the scooter, though technically I could do this by bike with a trailer. I think Amy would even let me get away with that once in a while. (Oh, a challenge)!
I could easily buy a nice touring bike for what I could sell the scooter on Craigslist.
Then there's the missed opportunities for future motorcycle/scooter fun. The rallies. The light touring. The dream of motorcycle camping. The sheer awesomeness of Vespa ownership.
Ah, that's what really gets me. The idea of owning a Vespa. A GTS 300 Super...I have to stop.
Of course, I could do a lot of Katy Trail rides, adventure cycling trips, gran fondos, etc., with the money I save from the purchase, maintenance and fueling of a Vespa.
If I only can get my head around riding my bike everywhere.
Friday, March 2, 2012
It's All About The Bike
I just finished a pretty good book by Robert Penn It's All About The Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness On Two Wheels. The title plays off Lance Armstrong's book.
I say it's a pretty good book and if you ask me later I might say it's even better. It did leave me wanting more. I don't know if that's because it could have been written better or it was written so subtly that I wanted to read more of it.
In any case, Penn constructed the book around an interesting premise. Namely, he goes about building his dream bike one component at a time. For example, he employs a well-respected English handmade builder to construct the frame, then uses that experience as an opportunity to give a little history of frame making. He goes to California and rides with the inventors of the mountain bike as he discusses wheel construction. He visits a German tire factory and so on.
The two main things I took away from the book regarded steel frames and wheel choice.
As I suspected, steel is really the best platform for a bicycle frame. My cromoly Nishiki Colorado mountain bike was comfortable all day long, and mind you back in the '90s nobody had ever heard of front suspension. I'm still dubious about the need for front suspension, but then I guess I'm just Old School. Then there was the Schwinn Continental that got me through high school and most of college. The ubiquitous ten-speed. Black with gold lettering. Shifters on the top tube. Drop bars. The real deal. God I would give anything to have that bike back. I have no idea what happened to it. It's probably somewhere in Columbia, Mo., or - perish the thought - in a Boone County landfill. There were bikes before that, most notably a Schwinn Stingray with banana seat that saw a lot of action on the dirt trails behind The Barstow School when it was still a bean field, but none were a sexy and memorable as that Continental.
Someday I might buy a dream bike - a sleek carbon fiber race bike - but for everyday riding and touring my next steeds will be steel. Aluminum has its merits, but steel is the real thing.
The other thing I took away was the importance of decent, correctly configured wheels. Wheels and tires are the single most important decision one has to make in order to have the bike they want and need and will ride for hour after hour, day after day, and still be happy. I'm a big guy. I am a Clydesdale. I need 36 spokes on my rear wheel and I probably need those spokes built in a three-cross pattern. Currently I have a two-cross, 32 spoke set-up and it goes out of true almost weekly. Of course losing weight will help, but, I'll always need a little something extra back there.
This is the set-up I've come up with:
I say it's a pretty good book and if you ask me later I might say it's even better. It did leave me wanting more. I don't know if that's because it could have been written better or it was written so subtly that I wanted to read more of it.
In any case, Penn constructed the book around an interesting premise. Namely, he goes about building his dream bike one component at a time. For example, he employs a well-respected English handmade builder to construct the frame, then uses that experience as an opportunity to give a little history of frame making. He goes to California and rides with the inventors of the mountain bike as he discusses wheel construction. He visits a German tire factory and so on.
The two main things I took away from the book regarded steel frames and wheel choice.
As I suspected, steel is really the best platform for a bicycle frame. My cromoly Nishiki Colorado mountain bike was comfortable all day long, and mind you back in the '90s nobody had ever heard of front suspension. I'm still dubious about the need for front suspension, but then I guess I'm just Old School. Then there was the Schwinn Continental that got me through high school and most of college. The ubiquitous ten-speed. Black with gold lettering. Shifters on the top tube. Drop bars. The real deal. God I would give anything to have that bike back. I have no idea what happened to it. It's probably somewhere in Columbia, Mo., or - perish the thought - in a Boone County landfill. There were bikes before that, most notably a Schwinn Stingray with banana seat that saw a lot of action on the dirt trails behind The Barstow School when it was still a bean field, but none were a sexy and memorable as that Continental.
Someday I might buy a dream bike - a sleek carbon fiber race bike - but for everyday riding and touring my next steeds will be steel. Aluminum has its merits, but steel is the real thing.
The other thing I took away was the importance of decent, correctly configured wheels. Wheels and tires are the single most important decision one has to make in order to have the bike they want and need and will ride for hour after hour, day after day, and still be happy. I'm a big guy. I am a Clydesdale. I need 36 spokes on my rear wheel and I probably need those spokes built in a three-cross pattern. Currently I have a two-cross, 32 spoke set-up and it goes out of true almost weekly. Of course losing weight will help, but, I'll always need a little something extra back there.
This is the set-up I've come up with:
- Tires: Continental GP4000S. Either 23mm or 25mm.
- Rims DT Swiss TK540 36h rear/32h front. I am not at the point I need sleek wheels.
- Spokes: Three-cross rear, two cross front.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Strong and Fast
Today I did my usual 10 miles in 43 minutes. I did this on a bike path, and an average speed of just under 14 miles an hour doesn't seem fast, but I do all of this in what amounts to 8th gear. I hardly ever shift over to the other chainring when I'm on the path.
When I get an open straight section I like to sprint, and today I did a great one accelerating almost instantaneously from 15 mph to 23.8. Still in 8th gear. Sure, not Tour de France ready, but I've discovered I can sustain this pace. Out on the road and in warmer weather I'm looking forward to discovering how fast I can be.
Anyway, today was notable also because it was the first day I could go out in shorts and a jersey without bundling up. It felt great. Liberating.
At the end of the ride I felt great. I felt really strong and ready for more. I really feel I'm in my element on the bike. I have fully transferred that feeling of freedom and fun I had riding the scooter and motorcycle to the bicycle. It is very satisfying arriving at a destination and having gotten there under your own power.
Most people don't realize that before Lewis and Clark, an Englishman had traveled all the way across the continent and viewed the Pacific Ocean from the mountains of what is now British Columbia. He inscribed on a rock "Alex MacKenzie from Canada by land 22d July 1793." Those words in part inspired Lewis and Clark and I think they inspire us all. Whether its completing the Katy Trail, a gran fondo or riding across Iowa, Kansas or even the United States, we mentally inscribe words to that effect on our souls.
When I get an open straight section I like to sprint, and today I did a great one accelerating almost instantaneously from 15 mph to 23.8. Still in 8th gear. Sure, not Tour de France ready, but I've discovered I can sustain this pace. Out on the road and in warmer weather I'm looking forward to discovering how fast I can be.
Anyway, today was notable also because it was the first day I could go out in shorts and a jersey without bundling up. It felt great. Liberating.
At the end of the ride I felt great. I felt really strong and ready for more. I really feel I'm in my element on the bike. I have fully transferred that feeling of freedom and fun I had riding the scooter and motorcycle to the bicycle. It is very satisfying arriving at a destination and having gotten there under your own power.
Most people don't realize that before Lewis and Clark, an Englishman had traveled all the way across the continent and viewed the Pacific Ocean from the mountains of what is now British Columbia. He inscribed on a rock "Alex MacKenzie from Canada by land 22d July 1793." Those words in part inspired Lewis and Clark and I think they inspire us all. Whether its completing the Katy Trail, a gran fondo or riding across Iowa, Kansas or even the United States, we mentally inscribe words to that effect on our souls.
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