Tag Archives: bicycle lights

He Blinded me with Science

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I no longer look at the weather before I head out. I know it’s cold – that’s a given – I won’t be too hot wearing my stretchy pants. Don’t need to carry my shorts for the warm ride home because there isn’t going to be one. It’s going to be windy, likely a crosswind in the morning with a head/crosswind on the ride home. The wind will be okay in the morning and anywhere from annoying to hurricane level in the evening when all I want to do is get home and relax. I know all of this in the back of my mind, yet when confronted with it as I stare into my iOraclephone first thing in the morning, it can be enough to send me out on four wheels. If I’m going to continue to ride this winter, it’s best I don’t know just how bad it’s going to be. Which reminds me, I’m might need snow tires soon.

When I started writing, it was ostensibly because I wanted to pass on my newbie experiences to the next budding Fredcyclist. The idea being I could answer some of those new-rider questions not with any authority, just the results of my own trial and error methods. It’s veered away from that and into a blather of this is what happened on my little commute today and that’s boring. Part of that detour off course is a result of this: I’m at a post-newb plateau.  I’ve learned the easiest stuff…maybe?

I’m not smart or learned by any means. My authority on matters cycling comprises the following nuggets: don’t pedal while leaning hard unless you enjoy pavement-surfing with your flesh; make sure you have air in your tires; ride as often as possible. On the other hand, here’s what I’ve learned:

• Yes, you do want stretchy pants with a chamois if you ride any distance unless you like friction burns on your most sensitive areas.
• “Slicks” or street tires on your mountain bike are definitely smoother and quieter but they were not the limiting factor in my quest for speed. The factor turned out to be me.
• Lube your chain or the squeaking and squawking will make you even more insane.
• Tires don’t hold air indefinitely – my 80psi slicks drop to 40 over a couple of weeks but make for a handy lie excuse reason you can tell yourself when you get Chicked.
• There may not be any car traffic on the bike paths, but a rear light will keep the rest of us from running you over in the dark because we are riding with
• The 3-LED headlight from MEC – makes an excellent targeting device for on-coming cars and may keep other riders from clipping you in the dark. Also serves as an excellent defense against establishing effective night-vision while simultaneously completely failing to illuminate anything far enough away to still avoid. Note to the city of Calgary – if you really loved cyclists, you’d fluoresce the yellow stripe in the middle of the path.
• If you insist on using a 1 million candle power strobe-light on your helmet while riding on the darkened bicycle path, I reserve the right to push you into the canal while claiming disorientation and blindness thanks to your head-mounted smugness device. Save it for the road where it’ll flash in everyone’s mirror after they’ve passed you and are no longer in a position to nudge you with a bumper.
• The colder it gets, the slower I go. I blame the increased air density and layers of clothing. It has nothing to do with laziness.

It was most definitely this increase in clothing layers and air density that turned me from rabbit to rabbit-chaser this morning. As is typical of my rides these days most of the path traffic is on-coming, which is good because my MEC night-vision-disruption light which as the name implies handily keeps my eyes from adjusting on the darkest sections of the path, combined with riding sans prescription glasses means I’m essentially navigating to work by muscle memory and feel. When I was kid with a big-block drum-brake hotrod, I learned all about over-driving your brakes – travelling faster than your brakes could stop you. I’m now over-driving my eyesight as, even at my reduced winter speed, there is little chance I will be able to avoid an unexpected obstacle.

Anyway – back to the engrossing tales of What I did on my commute this morning. I was passed, unexpectedly and totally off-guard by a high-cadence-pedaling rider whom I’ve seen once or twice before. My first instinct was to ignore the obvious Cat 6 race we were now in and continue as I was but as Dwernie noted last week it is not possible to simply ignore this challenge. I gave chase and didn’t lose any further ground until we got to the pedestrian bridge. I managed to maintain some semblance of speed but failed to stand and hammer when he did (note to self – stand and hammer is appropriate when in Cat 6 mode). By the time I’d reached the end of the bridge, he’d almost disappeared and our diverging routes put an end to the match. I was however given a small reward as I wound under 17th Ave and tried to run over a flagging rider making the climb up to 26th. I allowed myself a small degree of pride as I pedaled past him and he got off to start pushing. “At least I’m not pushing” I thought as I wobbled up the slope.

In recognition of the Cyclist’s Imperative to Chase Rabbits, I wish to congratulate Dwernie on his first blood. A successful pass and defense of position – job well done!  Way to represent Canadian Cat 6 riders abroad.

Dwernie

A Beautiful Finish to a Freezing Start.

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This week started off miserably cold with Monday’s 6 degrees & rain giving way to Tuesday’s 3 degrees. Not the kind of weather a guy looks for heading into fall. Mother Nature had a trick up her sleeve though as today’s banner image greeted me this morning with a nice 17 degrees. I rode home (slowly) in 27 degrees and they’re calling for 30 all weekend. That’s my kind of weekend.

I rode my heart out this morning, chasing down Thomas who turned out not to be Thomas despite the matching backpack and shorts. Being as it was not Thomas I did the next logical thing – bid the gentlemen good morning and gapped him as hard as I could. I can’t lie – it felt good to be able to do that. I don’t care what his reasoning is for getting caught and gapped by a guy in runners on a mountain bike either – I’m taking it as a win. Fully in the groove I rode the rest of the way to work at full-steam, thinking about how hard I’d been dropped the day before. Converging from different paths and heading the same direction, I was only a few meters behind him – 15 at the most. We headed towards the Memorial pedestrian overpass and it was there that he looked over his shoulder – him at the top of the ramp hitting the bridge, me coming around the corner to the bottom of the ramp. By the time I’d made it to the top of the ramp, he was over the bridge and heading down the other side (which requires he go up the ramp off the bridge before going down…who designed that?). When I’d made it down the bridge, he was literally out of site. Returning the favour to someone else does a body good.

After taking this morning’s picture (which you can only see as the header by going here) , the subject of my darker and darker morning departures came up. As we head into fall, the sun sleeps in a little more each day so where before I was dealing with sun in my eyes on the horizon as I left at 6:30, it’s still dark at 7:00. Soon I’ll be riding in the dark for most of the commute and there’s no streetlights on the path. I mentioned needing a light and was promised that Santa might bring some cycling goodies. “By Christmas we start getting lighter” I complained. Your birthday is coming up I was reminded. Yes…a week before Christmas –“the shortest day of the year falls between my birthday and Christmas” I moaned. “Stupid December birthday, all the cycling stuff will be gone from the shelves” I continued “and I’m going to freeze to death if I don’t get some winter riding gear before then”.

How do you know when you’re married to the most incredible person in the world? When I came home, the three monsters greeted me with a “Surprise! – Happy Birthday dad!”. I wassurprised! Trace grinned a mischevious smile as I changed out of my sweaty cycling gear and got ready for dinner. When I (finally) sat down at the table, the monsters each came bearing a gift, itching for me to unwrap them. First was the Homeland Security approved wrapping from my the middle monster hiding my favourite flavour of Shot Bloks (Cran Razz thank you). Perfect – never have too many of those.

MEC Headlight and Taillight

Next was the headlight/taillight combo set I’d put on my wish list. They’re both LED of course and have 2 modes of operation – steady and disco-strobe flash. Supplied by MEC they’ll bolt right onto the Chinook so the next time I make a sundown departure, I won’t be (as) worried about being crushed under the wheels of some sleepy commuter on his way to Tim Horton’s.

MEC Roubaix Cold Weather pants!

Last but by no means least, wrapped in a blue and orange paper were the MEC Roubaix winter riding pants I’d been going on about for weeks. “Need those pants. Boy it’s cold out this morning, sure could use those pants. Froze my knees solid this morning, going to have to give up riding soon if I don’t get some proper pants”. No opportunity to remind anyone who was in ear-shot that I really wanted needed those pants was missed. It worked!

My awesome wife – Best Wife – took it upon herself to celebrate my birthday in September so she could get me to stop whining feed my cycling addiction! How cool is that? And. AND! She made me cinnamon buns for dessert. My life is profoundly excellent.