Tue 20 Oct 2009
I’m celebrating the several times I have had a chance to ride to work this fall. Now that my office has moved I don’t have to cross the Sellwood Bridge to get to work. (for those of you who aren’t familiar with Portland’s bridges, I know people who won’t drive over the Sellwood Bridge because it is so old & narrow, let alone ride a bike while staring death in the face.) But I digress… I’m hoping for a few more nice days to ride in to the office.
Sat 16 Dec 2006
I got my bike up to 35 during the commute last Wednesday, and you can too! Let me tell you how.
First of all, you need to somehow accidentally erase everything on your bike computer, so that it asks you to enter the circumference (this trick works best when riding in the dark so that you don’t realize you’ve reset your computer or have begun to type in a random circumference).
Next, you press a few buttons on your computer trying to see if you can set it to scan or some other setting that you want to monitor (also in the dark).
The final step is the most important: you need to set your computer to kph (kilometers per hour).
The only problem with this is once you figure it out, the novelty of riding 35 – 40 wears off after a day or two. Then, unfortunately, once you restore your computer to mph with the circumference correct, your next ride will be like a severe hangover (so I’ve heard — that is about the hangover).
Thu 23 Nov 2006
Well,
I just rolled over to the computer to end my blogging hiatus. I rolled because think I pulled a stomach muscle from our Thanksgiving feast. To make up for the binge, I thought I’d at least exercise my fingers and write about cycling. I haven’t had much to say since we started getting inundated with rain. I took a week off of cycling commuting from being sick, and as soon as I was about to get back on the bike, we got hit with 30 mph winds and several inches of rain from the “Pineapple Express.” I finally sucked it up and began riding to work again.
What got me back into riding was a cool article I read in Bicycling about spicing up training rides. The writer mentioned riding the entire route in 1 gear setup, or deciding ahead of the ride a random sign to sprint (like a dog barking or a street sign, etc.). I thought I would add my own ideas to the list, so here they are:
Only reset the bike computer on the first day of the work week. Then, each day, make sure you end your ride with a higher average mph than the day before.
A spin-off (no pun intended…okay a little pun) of the previous idea is to hit a higher maximum speed each day.
Okay, this is a little crazy; I thought this one up during a century. When you’re really bored, keep your computer on the clock/timer, and count how many times your knee comes up for one minute. Do this every day at least one time on the way to work and one time on the way back (that will give you 10 readings in all). Now, divide the total number by 10 or simply move the decimal point over 1 to the left, and voila, you have your cadence (rpm).
That’s enough for now. I’ll add more over the days. In the meantime, get out of your house and on your bike. Remember, if you bicycle commute all year round, you’ll never have to worry about pre-season saddle-soreness.
Fri 26 May 2006
I cycle commute at least 3 days a week, and I began thinking that from time to time, I could pass on valuable advice. Most of these will be no-brainers; that is, of course, no brainers to anyone who already cycle commutes. Your job is to learn from my mistakes and imagine goofy stories to go along with how I possibly learned that lesson. So, without further ado: lesson #1.
Tip #1: No matter how waterproof your pants and jacket are, if you don’t have anything covering your shoes, it wouldn’t hurt to have an extra pair of clean, dry socks waiting by your dry shoes at the office.