Tag Archives: newb

Conehead

Posted on by

As noted previously, I tend to ride alone.  Not like my daily rides are anything to share anyway – a short commute to work and home again along some fairly innocuous bike paths.  The stuff of legend I know.  One result of riding alone all the time is developing your own habits that may not be compatible with those I will respectfully refer to as my fellow commuters.  I say respectfully as I’ve been dropped hard by more than one of them in the past and I’m sure I will again.

Yesterday as I approached Edmonton Trail, preparing mentally for the climb up to Centre, there was a rider already stopped at the light.  Things, for me, got strange immediately as his stopped position was too far away from the intersection though he was clearly intending to cross it.  I do it one of two ways – in heavy traffic I wait at the crosswalk as it puts me ahead of most of the traffic so I have a clearer view of the intersection and nobody is trying to run me down making their right turn.  Or – if traffic is lighter I’ll ride up to the front of the empty right lane, but on the inside of it.  This rider was back a few feet from anywhere I’d normally stop, so without really thinking about it, I passed him and stopped in front.  I realized too late how it must look and it was admittedly rude but I don’t run into other riders at this light when it’s red.  Ever.  I didn’t really know how to approach it.  I commented on the wind and as the light went green he continued to chat about the state of the bike path.  This is all together new to me – stranger / cyclist chatting.  This too presents a conflict with my established habits.

As a new rider, a new, aging rider watching “the big four-oh” coming at him full speed, a new, aging, 40-ish rider with asthma and a not-that-long-ago tobacco habit, any departure from level ground to a positive angle – meaning uphill – is noted immediately and tends to be a challenge.  My normal course of action had until recently been to simply stand up and mash away while trying not to slow too badly.  As an experiment I’ve been staying in the saddle and dropping into the middle ring (the bottom of the middle ring if I’m honest) and pedaling furiously and while the results have been not all together bad, there are times when standing just seems to be the right thing to do.  Like this section of my ride.

So here we are stranger-chatting as we approach the first bit of incline, him on my right and me wondering if I’m capable of making this little hump while I’m still in the saddle without getting run over by the cyclist that suddenly appeared behind us.  I’m not sure if I earned it with all this headwind riding or if he opted to play nice but by the time we’d made it to the first false flat, he’d stopped chatting and slowly dropped behind.  Before we made it to the next intersection, he was far enough behind me that my habits were no longer his concern.  I rolled through the stop sign and continued to pedal up the gentle slope past the Handi-bus barn to 1st street.  He gained ground behind me and I figured here was where he was going to drop me.  Heading south onto 1st, it turns into a short, steep climb of perhaps 10 meters over 70.  Having ridden the previous 25 minutes home in a headwind, it was nice to have the wind at my back but I was a bit knackered so I stood up and mashed away pushing myself up the hill without so much as a Fred-mirror glance.  Again I was conscious of how it might have looked – me trying to drop my new chatting friend but I didn’t stop.

The truth is though, I wasn’t looking for him, no longer paying him any attention and I hadn’t noticed the 3rd rider since we hit the first slope.  I don’t know if he followed me south on his own route or headed north instead.  I was tired, near the end of my ride and wanted to finish it my way.  I rounded the bend onto 34th and made the climb up to Centre with everything I had and found Centre empty, so I crossed it and went home a sweaty, mushy, happy rider.

9 times or more out of 10, I ride my commute like a man possessed, pushing my mental limits, pushing my legs and lungs.  I like to ride like that, I enjoy that suffering, pushing the boundaries for more growth.

While I am absolutely helpless against chasing down a rabbit, or trying to run away as one myself, it’s  only me I’m competing against.  If I manage to chase down a rabbit, I’ve earned that pass.  I know I’ve been travelling faster for however long it’s taken me to catch them and I can continue that pace (probably).  Passing the rabbit is not a conehead move.  Likewise, being passed while I’m riding hard means they earned it – nothing coneheaded about that.  Pulling in front of another rider at a stoplight and then racing away on the green – it might look like I’m trying to drop them but –honest – they’ve just wandered onto my private track.

Questions from a Cycling Noob

Posted on by

One of the things I discovered being a noob cyclist is that you have many questions about your new-found obsession.   What kind of bike should I buy?  What brand?  Where should I spend my money?  Do I need those weird shoes that permanently mount your feet to your pedals?  Is that butt-floss seat (properly referred to as a saddle) a medieval torture device?  What’s with those stretchy pants?  I feel certain the vast experiences I’ve amassed in my 16 week cycling adventure will do nothing to help you, but I’m going to blather about them anyway.

Last things first – those stretchy pants.  If they were just Lycra on their own, their purpose would be singular – to hide the sweaty marks.  Really.  Black does a great job of hiding the fact that you have a sweaty butt, especially if you’re expending any effort.  Think about this the next time you feel compelled to touch one of those butt-floss saddles on someone else’s bike.  However – they are not simply skin-tight shorts, they have a chamois, a pad inside.  The pad’s purpose is of course to provide some relief from the inevitable friction that occurs between well…anything touching the saddle and the saddle itself.

I have resisted the jump to the Lycra shorts to date, but I’m cheating a little.  On a recent 50km ride in my usual Levi’s cargo shorts and cotton jockey briefs, I discovered what they meant when they talked about friction in sensitive areas.  I also understood the no-cotton mantra.  By the end of my ride I was dying to get off the bike and into a tub of cold water.  Not pleasant.  It put my plans of long rides on indefinite hold until something could be done.  Yet, I was still not ready to be a fat guy in stretchy pants.  Dilemma.

Enter MEC’s Ace Cycling Liner Shorts.  Designed to go under the outerwear of your choice, they offer some of the protection of the traditional cycling shorts, without having to be standing in the middle of a coffee shop mid-ride painfully aware that there is but a tiny lick of Lycra between you and total exposure.  The chamois is, when comparing to the high-end shorts and bibs, thin and according to the MEC site, rated for “medium distance” rides – whatever that is.  How well do they work?  I love them.

I used to experience some “irritation” where my inner thighs meet the perineum even on my short commute.  This could be temporarily addressed by swinging my knees out at the top of the pedal stroke to get some stretch in the area, but this was not a long-term solution and did nothing for the long-distance problem that threatened to wear a hole in places there shouldn’t be one.  It also looked stupid.  Since I picked them up a couple of weeks ago, I’ve not ridden without them.  I wear (and wash – that’s key) for every ride and at the end of my recent 70km ride I had zero chafing complaints.  I’ve made a point of paying attention to how things feel on my back-and-forth commuting and can say with confidence they were worth the ultra-cheap $29.  It’s much easier to find the pleasure in the suffering now.  Oh – they don’t hide the sweat so much as they wick it into my cargo shorts.  Oh well.

If you’re new to cycling and you’re wondering about padded shorts – get them.  Whether it’s these inexpensive stealth models or expensive high-end bib shorts used with chamois cream (no I’m not kidding), you’ll be glad you made the leap.

-quick side note: most web sources strongly advocate high-quality chamois shorts over low cost ones.  I’m not in a position to argue having never tried anything other than these however these alone have made a world of difference and opened the door to longer distance rides over the nothing I had before.  Speaking of nothing…I tried commando once under the Levis.  Not good.  Not good at all.  Highly not recommended.

Spend your money with your local bike seller – the one that treats you with respect, answers your questions without rolling their eyes and gives free back rubs.  I bought mine at a pawn shop.  Really.

Don’t buy a brand, buy a bike.  Test ride them and buy the one you like.  If it’s well beyond your price range, sell a kidney.  You have two after all.

Clipless pedals – they have clips (cleats actually) that lock your foot to the pedals.  Good for falling down at traffic lights when you forget how to unclip.  You will of course still be clipped to your bike which you are now wrestling with like it’s a rabid cougar.  The light will turn green before you’re sorted.  If you’re really lucky, you’ll be waiting at the stop sign to cross a busy four lane road when some car driver will decide that even on your bike, in the middle of the lane, you are a pedestrian and will stop, driving the remaining 3 lanes of traffic to stop and wait which always makes them happy.  This is the best time to fall down while clipped in.  It will add some levity to the drive for passengers and infuriate the drivers.  Do I have them?   No though I am looking forward to the day I can humiliate myself further.  People who ride clipless swear by them and tout the benefit of being able to pull on the pedals on the upstroke.  That sounds like more work to me.

The butt-floss saddle – entirely too large a topic to cover in this post but the short answer is no – they’re pretty comfortable in so much as bike saddles go.   Unless they’re not.