Author: John

Anticipating a Ride

April and Ella know when it is time for a walk and in no small part due to putting on shoes. And that was me yesterday getting the new eBike, a RadRover5, ready for its one week celebration. I was in the garage and getting ready to put the bike on the car and test the Kuat Phat Bike Kit I had purchased a couple of years earlier when I purchased my Kuat NV 2.0 rack. I wanted to make sure that the rack worked and as I have only had the RadRover5 for a week, I wasn’t sure of the battery life as it actually related to a real ride. I enjoyed the manual which gave various levels of intensity and power settings and explained the hours difference. But nothing said “Hey, you might be on and off grass, cutting through trees, and riding up hills and buzzing back and forth on sidewalks. Clearly the manual on this eBike was written by someone who never really loved the bike…if they had, or had actually ridden the bike, they would have had a column on the battery life chart for “Willing to crank it to 5 to pass other cyclists in town”, “chasing someone else on a RadPower Bike who weighs less and is burning juice going up a hill in front of you”. The critical power losses come on this manner of segments, not simply the idea that you bought this bike and are going to maintain ECO mode for a long time.

So I am pumped. Ready to roll the bike out of the garage and onto the car and then I remember I was going to take my QuadLock Out Front Mount off my Zwift Bike and move it onto the eBike. I spent time pawing through the boxes of bike parts, supplies, tools, and errata to find the Quadlock boxes which housed the various size rubber rings so the mounts would work on various bar thicknesses. Locating the one I wanted to use I spun the screw and released the mount and turned to the Rad and put on the mount and the correct ring and realized I had dropped the screw.

Now, dropping a screw, and sometimes kicking it, sometimes having it bounce off a bike, or something on the garage floor and end up in any manner of locations from under something to hidden in plain site, is something that happens to all of us. I am proud to say that it doesn’t even raise my blood pressure at all anymore, it is just another thing to deal with and I rather enjoy getting down and looking at the floor sideways and wondering where the screw ended up. I was busy getting my super powerful magnet after looking “everywhere” and when I had the magnet in my hand I looked down and there was the screw all ready to be picked up and put in the mount. The mount secured the phone and I was set to roll.

I will admit, I am not sure why the phone goes dark at all the parts where one turns, and that still needs attention. But it worked great. And it is summer and I can switch the mount to the Zwift bike to run it when I need it again.

Oh, how did the ride go? Look for yourself

2021 Starting With The Bike

TWO months since the Wolverine was out and FOUR months since the Atlantis was out of the garage.

Today I left myself a note that I needed to dig through all the boxes and containers and find my winter kit.

I wanted to ride, but I am not riding, and I had nowhere in particular to go, and the bike needed air in the tires, and I couldn’t find my rear light. My mileage is limited to a Zwift trainer in the garage, even a short around the neighborhood wasn’t going to be easy after all this time not riding. And it might rain any minute, I know, I checked continuously.

I actually forgot it shifted with bar end shifters but immediately made the switch, every bike shifter is in a different spot and I soon switched to “fully aware I hadn’t been on a street in some time mode” where I don’t pedal hard or do anything but traffic and lanes.

I was on a trail when I realized my watch HR was not set to broadcast to the Wahoo and I really didn’t mind, it was so nice to be out riding.

I wiped the bike down and hung it back on the rack (pulled it off later as it was still dripping from inside the fenders) and I will need to figure out the logistics of where to hang or dry soaking wet things, where all the charger cables are for various lights are (solved as of this writing), none of which I used in August.

Nice start to 2021

PDX StravArt

Peter created this route and with the COVID-19 virus “Stay Home” in place the roads were clear enough to be save on a few places that are usually EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, today I just sprinted the heck out of them while lights were holding cars back so it was safe enough for an Urban Commuter experienced with traffic. Fun route to just ramble through Portland and lots of neighborhoods I haven’t been in some time. A couple of gravel roads, but nothing the Atlantis can’t run on.

Ramble to The Arrow Coffeehouse

Today’s Ride was a Ramble to The Arrow Coffeehouse where I was able to purchase a coffee and baked good off their site and have them set on the front porch while all of us stayed 10 feet away from the porch and each other. So nice they are trying to make it. Give them some love and drop by.

Setting Up Shop in the Spare Bedroom

I don’t have a GF at this moment AND I have setup my bike room in what was the spare bedroom. The situation is causal, not causality. BTW, it is hard to think of it as anything except a bike room now.

Of course I KNEW that I would eventually be maintaining my bikes here as opposed to the basement. First, the basement floor is hard to clean and the bike stand was always in the way. So I purchase a section of black roll vinyl flooring from Home Depot to prevent grease and what not from falling off my bike and damaging the floor. I purchased the 24″ wide roll and ran it down the center of the room.

This was WRONG!

I should have covered the entire floor and the walls, any similarity to a “padded room” is merely coincidental.

Those flat MTB pedals scrape everything. Last night, as I switched to clipless pedals, trying to rid myself of recurring knee pain. I dropped the pedal and it landed, as everything does, exactly 1″ over the edge of the mat and left a character mark (dent) in the soft wood floor.

It is a mark that perhaps will indicate something to someone someday, or perhaps I will sand it out, or perhaps the floor will get replaced. What I know is that it won’t be the last mark in the floor, and it isn’t the first I have caused.

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Categorized as Gear

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Rails to Trails MTB track along Klickitat river. @petebikes suggested that the Salsa Woodsmoke could be overbike; however, I wanted to test frame bag and a few extras. The quad lock slips, but is manageable…the second feedbag is finally useful although I really have to think “Not-for-Nalgene”…the Revelate Tank bag requires constant watching as comes open a lot and stuff always flying off…the custom frame bag from Rogue Panda is absolutely excellent. Important to keep it closed on car in the heavy rain.

In the end, it wasn’t overbike as a number of rocky sections existed…I pounded home with real joy and abandon on the way back to the trail head and ended up 8th on a hour long Strava segment. I should have eaten again part way down as my legs just gave out.

It seems there is a subtle push about what to use your bike for, more speed, faster trips, more technical, tracks and just like running…farther, faster, higher, longer…FOMO is a huge motivator. But really, there exists a solid argument for just getting out there and establishing the pattern of keeping rolling.

Woodsmoke @ $12.63/mile and Soma @ $4.23/mile so, still not up to whatever a car goes for but it is early days and I haven’t even complete one year with them.