February ride

I had plans for today. BIG plans. Get up early and head out for a ride. Ok, so not BIG plans, but I was looking forward to getting out. So what happens to my "BIG" plans? I woke up late. (I blame that squarely on being addicted to the Olympics, staying up late and watching sports that I wouldn't normally give a rats ass about.)  Due to a commitment at noon, my window for riding shrunk. On top of that, I looked outside and saw some fresh snow.

Not much incentive to ride.

It wasn't much snow, though. And I figured most of it would probably be melted by the time I hit the road. So I whipped my gear together and made it out the door around 9am.

Wake up!

My ride ended up being much shorter than I wanted, but it was my first February ride (not including commuting). I was faced with strong winds and at times, blowing snow. But that shit builds character, right??? Come summer time, when I'm complaining about riding in the rain on a 20 degree day, I'm supposed to think back about "those rides" I did in the winter.

My plan now is to get out for a ride every Saturday. Sundays aren't do-able since Lil' D has swim lessons in the late morning. But, if I start getting out for progressively longer rides on the weekends, I'll be ahead of where I was at this time last year.

From the archives

Another week, another post, and not much to talk about. This holiday weekend was still activity filled: a skate on Friday, a trainer session Saturday, and a run on Sunday. (Today was a lazy day.) However, since this is supposed to be a blog about biking, and everyone likes to look at pictures, I've dug up some old pics related to biking.
First though, a little history. For 2 years and 2 months, from February 2003 to April 2005, Sonia and I were out of the country teaching English in Osaka, Japan. We followed up this stint with 4 months of backpacking in China and South-East Asia, bringing our total time living out of the country to 2 and a half years.
So what follows, are some pics taken in Osaka in June 2003. Enjoy!

 

Bike parking garage in our neighbourhood of Juso, Osaka.

 

A blond Sonia demonstrating how to use the bike parking. Pull out the "tray", angle it downwards, load up your bike and lock it up.

 

Space is at a premium everywhere in Japan, so they try to cram everything together anyway that they can.

 

Small cars in small spaces.

 

One of my most favourite pics...ever. I came across this scene as is. Kobe, Japan.

 

Bike parking outside Kyobashi train station in Osaka. Click on the picture for a larger version, and you can see how far behind me the bikes go on.

As you can see, granny bikes are the bike of choice. In Japanese, they are affectionately called a "Mama Chari". Baskets, fenders, chain guard, bell and kickstand are all standard features for roughly 60 to 70 dollars. With bikes being so affordable, it's no wonder so many people own one.

"Meh" and "Cool"

Hmmmm, it's been a week since my last post, mainly because there hasn't been much bike-worthy stuff to talk about here in my neck of the woods.
I could talk about my trainer workouts doing x number of intervals for y number of minutes with z minutes of rest, but who wants to read about that.
I could talk about how I replaced the chain and chainring on my fixie, and include step by step pictures, but again, who wants to read about that.
I could talk about the run I went for today, and, well, you get the picture.
So instead, I'm gonna talk about a neat little doo-hickey I picked up last year.

Ritchey Torque Key

Enter the Ritchey Torque Key. A very simple tool, but extremely handy, and worth every little penny. It's a 4mm allen key/torque wrench, preset to 5 N/m. It saves you the trouble of guessing how tight a bolt needs to be, long before you hear the "crunch" of carbon fibre parts failing. The 4 mm wrench is pretty standard for most seatpost clamps, brake levers, shifters, stem face plates, stem top caps and all the other stem bolts (well, that actually just leaves the steere tube clamp bolts). Most bolts in in the stem/handlebar area have a manufacture's spec of 5 N/m, so this dandy little tool is right on the money. When tightening a bolt, the handle "clicks" and gives way once you hit 5 N/m,  and therefore doesn't let you tighten any more. Combined with a little carbon paste, there's no worry of slippage.
Not sure if any other companies make a similar tool, but it's one of those things that make you think "what a damn good idea!"

Garbage find

One night, a while back, I was taking out the garbage and stumbled upon this:

A Steve Bauer "Samiel" road bike frame, sans wheels. I brought it inside and stripped what I could off of it. As soon as I found it, I thought "right on! A winter project." The first (and only) thing that crossed my mind was a fixed gear conversion. A perfect fit, too. 56cm center to center top tube and seat tube. Well, two months have passed, and I haven't even touched the frame. It requires a bit of work...there are a lot of little rust patches...nothing serious, but just lots of them. The thought of sanding, more sanding, even more sanding, priming and painting doesn't really appeal to me right now.

"samiel" - a violent hot sand-laden wind on the deserts of Arabia and North Africa

 "some" rust spots

Then I got thinking; when would I actually use the bike? My current fixie is used only for commuting to work, and for running the odd errand. When I look at the riding that I currently do, another fixie probably wouldn't get much, if any use at all. So, what to do with the frame? Considering that I originally wanted to pimp out the bike with expensive, blingy, matching parts, it's not gonna be a cost-effective endeavour. On top of that, all the bike funds that I have right now need to go towards parts for my other bikes, as well as race entry fees, gas for getting to races etc. And because I haven't touched the bike yet, I obviously don't have the time to put into it. What to do, what to do? Well, for anyone out there reading this, who wants a project, I'm offering you this frame. First come, first serve.

 

If you want a bike project, here you go. If you wanna finish my basement for me, come on over!

Another January ride

I managed to get out for another road ride today. Not a particularly long one (1hr 40mins, approx 45 km or so), but it was good again to be out on the road...in January no less! Part of my motivation came from knowing that a small group rode out to Wakefield last Sunday for a 4 hour ride...I felt I had some catching up to do! Today's ride wasn't particularly noteworthy or exciting, other than the fact that it was my second road ride in January. I didn't bring along the camera, although I thought about it. But a) I didn't want to end up with a frozen camera and b) I don't think I would have been bothered to stop, take off my mitts, snap a pic, put my camera back, put my mitts back on and be on my way. Yeah yeah, lame excuse. But there was one moment on my ride where I wish I did have my camera...I was riding on a road that cut through some farmland....it was flat all around me, and I was surrounded by nothing but white. It felt kind of surreal. As I rode along, I noticed the snow on the side of the road was piled in evenly spaced drifts, sort of like waves of snow bordering the ditch. It was kind of purty.

I also got to "listen" to some new music today, too. Stuff from the Antlers, Bear in Heaven and The Dodos. Bands I probably never would have heard of if it wasn't for Strictly Bangers, a blog profiling all sorts of music, bands and artists (it was a "Blog of Note" some time ago). Now, I say I got to "listen" to some new music because I'm in serious need of some new earphones for riding. My current pair, made by JVC, are the inner ear type that you jam inside your ear. But even with the smallest size of silicone pads, they still fall out of my ears (this only happens in the summertime...in cooler weather my hat or headband keeps them in place). On top of that, they have great high end, so-so mid range, and non-existent bass. I NEEEEEED to have bass in my music. I've tried the earphones that come with IPods, but they also fall out. I've been checking out future shop and best buy every so often for some ideas, but I'd be welcome to any suggestions of what works for you.

A Dog in a Hat

I don't read much (except for magazines and the rantings of other bloggers), but once in a while I manage to pick up a book and a make a dedicated effort to finish it. Lucky for me, the last book I picked up was an easy, entertaining read. Of course, it was bike related, which also made things easier (easier as in motivation, and not as in easy because I'm illiterate). The book I'm talking about is "A dog in a hat", by Joe Parkin. I'm sure that by now most of you have heard of this book, and I'm sure that when you heard about the book, you asked yourself "Joe WHO?!?!?" Joe Parkin left the states to become a professional roadie in Belgium in the late 80's/early 90's.

Now, I'm not gonna try my hand at writing a proper book review (although I suppose that this constitutes a book review since I'm talking about a book I just read), but I will say that this was a really good read. You get an upront, honest and blunt insight into the world of bike racing. It's not glamourous at all....there are drugs, payoffs, low race winnings, being yelled at by team directors. It's filled with plenty of hilarious anecdotes...there's the time that he felt like he was FLYING through a time trial, rode the best he EVER has, and still finished last on his team. Turns out that when he was going 55km/hr, the others on his team were doing 95km/hr....they got  some "help" from from their directeur on sections of the course that weren't under the watchful eyes of officials.

Like I said before, this is a great book, and for more insight into the world of Joe Parkin, click the link on his name in the first paragraph, or click HERE.

A January ride and of course....

some beer!!!!!

First, I got out for a ride today...a pretty short ride, just an hour, but a ride nonetheless. With the exception of commuting, this is the first time ever that I've gotten in a road ride in January....and man did I feel out of shape! But that's besides the point. It was good to get out for a ride that wasn't a commute. Sometimes, commuting can seem like a bit of a chore, which is why getting out for just an hour was worth it.

On the beer front, I've finally gotten around to drinking my Samuel Smith beers. Actually, I should say that I've finally gotten around to writing about them. I had 3 styles to try out: an old brewery pale ale, a nut brown ale and an oatmeal stout. These beers are very distinct from one another, and very good!

 The pale ale has a nice aroma and flavour, balanced between sweet and bitter. It definitely has a finish that's more on the bitter side of things, it lingers, but it's not too intense.
  
The nut brown ale has a nice toffee and chocolate aroma and flavour that gets better as the beer warms up a bit. Like the pale ale, it has a bitter finish, but it's not overpowering at all.








Lastly, the oatmeal stout, like most stouts, has a chocolaty and coffee flavour and aroma, with a hint of smokiness. This beer also has a bitter finish that's not too intense.

You can see that there was a bit of a common theme...nice flavour and aroma with a bitter finish. Overall, very good beers, and the other bonus is that the bottles were a true pint, 550mL of beer goodness!