Blowout!

Last Sunday, my son and I went out for a bike ride. The results were not pretty. Perhaps inspired by the Tour de France, I'd decided that we should ride a "tough alpine stage." Near my home there is a large park which covers much of a local ridge. It was that ridge which we were going to tackle.
We started our ride, and i gave him some instruction on shifting gears while we were down on level ground near home. We then rode up to this park. there is about 250 feet of elevation rise which is delivered in about a half mile of riding, so by quick math, that's about 250 feet of rise spread over about a 2500 feet run, or about a 10% grade. The early part of this is steeper, and it was here that the real adventure began.
We were climbing up, and i found myself breathing quite hard. The weather was warm, and I felt that stopping was appropriate. I should know better than to stop activity abruptly, and shortly after stopping, I was feeling a bit light-headed. I sat and had M give me my water bottle. I sprayed myself and took a drink, trying to cool off. My breathing was coming under control, but I was still feeling off. Deciding that judgement was the better part of valor, I swallowed my pride and called my wife to come pick us up. She was unsure if she could fit both bikes in the car.
A few moments later, a guy in a pickup stopped and asked if we were OK. I responded, not really, but help was on the way, and sent him away. A few moments later, another cyclist passed, barreling down the hill. He stopped, turned, checked in on us, and departed when we told him we were OK. My wife arrived a couple of minutes later, and I loaded M's bicycle into the back. I was, by then, feeling well enough to ride home.
I began the downhill ride by shifting to a higher gear. It was then that I suffered the blowout. Unlike the more common versions where a tire fails, I had a catastophic failure of a shift cable. I had never learned to reliably install indexed shift cables, so I had to take my "antique" mountain bike into the shop.

Tour de France

Today marks the first really serious climbing stage in the Tour de France. It was announced at the start that Levi Leipheimer had broken his wrist in a crash near the end of yesterday's stage. He'll need surgery and has left the race. This means that a key lieutenant of Lance Armstrong's is gone. His Astana team still is likely the strongest in the race, but by a less wide margin. The interesting thing will be watching the intra-team battle between 2007 champion Alberto Contador and Armstrong. Conditions today are lousy - heavy rain, so serious crashes during descents are a real possibility. As I'm writing this, the racers are descending from the first big climb. Both Armstrong and Contador climbed well, and it's not clear if one is stronger than the other. Time will tell.

DIRTY! I Guess!

It appears that Alexandre Vinokourov has failed a doping test for homologous blood doping. (Another person's blood being transfused to increase red cell count.) See this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/6914301.stm

They May Beat Me, But...

They may beat me, but they'll have to spit blood to do it.
- Patti Catalano Dillon

Today, as I watch the first long time trial in the Tour de France, I am reminded of this quote. Alexandre Vinokourov is riding an amazing race. He had crashed earlier in the race and has been riding with a large number of stitches in his knees and elbows. The crash and the few days after it cost Vinokourov a lot of time. It looks like he's going to take a lot of the time back today. Conditions are less than ideal, with a wet roadway, and rain in the earlier part of today's time trial. Several riders have crashed, including a young Russian, Gusev. (I think he was Russian who was on fire in his race until his crash - how fast was he? - I think he wound up third fastest after getting back on his bike.) Vinokourov seems to be demanding that everyone else spit blood.

Note: When he finished, Vinokourov posted a new best time for the day of about 2:15 faster than the time Brad Wiggins had set early. Wiggins' time had held up for a looooong time, so it was very solid, and Vinokourov just destroyed it. Wiggins' time was about 1:08:48, "Vino" was about 1:06:34 - that would equate to winning a half-marathon by almost half a mile!

Can You Not Smile?

Check this link:
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/07/office_chair_bike.html
This has to be one of the funniest bicycles I've ever seen, and while I've seen some wild ones, this one looks tolerably usable.

Vive la Tour!

I'm sitting here watching the first alpine stage of this year's Tour de France. A fifteen man breakaway went off the front, and right now, it looks like some will stay away. At the moment, a German, Linus Gerdemans (sp?) has been tearing up the first really tough climb, the Col de Colombiere (sp?). He has broken everyone with him, and only a Spaniard has managed to stay close. From the top, there is a downhill and a flat circuit before the finish. If he has the skills and guts to hold off Inigo Landaluz (sp?), he'll be in yellow at the end of the day. (I'm watching the afternoon showing on Versus tv, so some of you know more than I do right now.)

Meantime, it is Bastille Day, which is the French version of July 4th. It recognizes the storming of the Bastille, a French political prison/armory back in 1789, and the key event of the French Revolution.

Earning a Sore Butt

Yesterday, I led a race on a bike. It was in Central Park, so the advance sweep was pretty active. Getting there was half the battle, since I live well into suburbia. I took the train.
Having missed the early train in my town, I rode to one of the nearby towns that has "one-seat" (no transfer) service to NY. One thing I discovered in the process of researching this trip is that NJ Transit eliminated their requirement for a pass to bring a bike onto a train. I'm sure it prevented many people from combining the two transportation modes. The cumbersome rule is gone, and I think it is a very good thing.
One of the people I was working with was a young guy. I jokingly asked is the tires on my bike were older than he was, the bike is a 22 year-old mountain buke set up as a hybrid. The tires are mere youths of about 20 years of age. The kid confessed that both the tires and the bike had him beat, though it was close on the tires.
By the time I got home, around noon, my butt was tender and my thighs were soft. It was a good day physically. Even the combined Father's Day/Birthdays meal did very little damage to my "getting into shape" efforts. OK, I did have a second piece of the ice cream cake for dessert, but neither slice was too big.

Teaching My Son To Bike

I'm going to relate here how I taught my son to ride a bike. I see the process of learning to bike in two parts: 1) development of sufficient leg strength to be able to pedal and 2) development of balance. In order to work on the first, a bicycle with training wheels is fine. Once your child can pedal around comfortably they are ready for phase two, a pedalless bike.

I posted a while back a picture of a German pedalless like called a Laufrad (in German, Lauf = run and Rad = wheel, so the term translates to "running wheel"), which is how German kids learn to ride. Rather than looking for a Laufrad, make a pedalless bike by removing the pedals.

The Laufrad, a German learning bicycle which has no pedals.

To remove the pedals, the right pedal comes off normally, but the left one if reverse threaded, in order to keep it from loosening while being ridden. (The old righty - tighty rule is reversed on this pedal.) Keep the pedals handy, you'll need them in 4 or 6 weeks. When you're ready to reinstall, make sure you check which pedal is which (one or both is usually marked to identify sides) before installing.

Have your child ride by pushing the bike and gliding. Then, once they've developed a sense of balance, generally just a few weeks, put the pedals on. They will be riding in an hour or less.

This post was written for JK Running, who has a child struggling with learning to bike.

How's This For A Helmet Endorsement?

Biker's head run over by truck. He's OK, helmet needs replacement. Link

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

New Jersey is a great state, and it cares about kids, but I have an issue, and it's with the police. Not that they don't generally do a great jobs, but there are laws they don't enforce. The one that bugs me most is our bicycle/skateboard helmet law.
My issue that that the law, which I think is a good one (though I don't think it goes far enough, requiring helmets only up to age 17), my issue is that the police make no effort to enforce the law. I understand that when a robbery needs investigating or a speeding ticket needs issuance, the cops will focus on those things, rather than kids not wearing helmets.
The flip side of this is that cops ignoring little violations like this results in these kids getting their driver's licenses and having less respect for the law than they should. I believe (and I'll readily acknowledge it's without studies to back it up) that some young drivers flout more serious laws because they have flouted minor laws like these as they were growing up.
Very simply, I am calling for the police to enforce these laws.

Takedown

This evening, I had the misfortune to see a car strike a bicyclist. There was a stopped car in the traffic lane. I had just come around a corner, and a bicycle had made a turn from the opposing direction. He was wearing a helmet, had a headlight and a flashing taillight. In short, he'd done everything right, except one thing. He passed this car, well actually a crossover SUV, on the right. As he passed, the driver decided to pull into a drive area, I'm assuming to park or stand. He was beside the vehicle when it suddenly moved forward and to the right, he was knocked sideways, and down to the pavement. He seemed to be alright, but shaken. The driver called 911. (He got them while my phone wasn't going through.) After the accident, he acted quite responsibly. I left to park after the police began arriving. The cyclist chose to be transported, and I returned and described what I'd seen to one of the police officers.