• H&R Moderators: VerbalTruist | cdin | Lil'LinaptkSix

Biking Nerds Unite

What's stopping you?
aww sweet. well what isn't. too tired to even type, think. paws still isn't doing good with me and pain, i miss my relief when i am done. it's horrible. but i will get over it. this is what i am hoping for. Somehow.
 
on the way out the wind was against me and i was going so slow. on the way home i was flying. top speed was 29.6mph on a flat surface. strava segments that averaged 25mph. could have gone even faster but was on lakefront trail during air show weekend; trying not to pickup a manslaughter charge. was a sailboat out there.
 
on the way out the wind was against me and i was going so slow. on the way home i was flying. top speed was 29.6mph on a flat surface. strava segments that averaged 25mph. could have gone even faster but was on lakefront trail during air show weekend; trying not to pickup a manslaughter charge. was a sailboat out there.
lolol ol
i roll down the mt. so fast and w/o a helmet, but i figure if the bike explodes i will just roll into a ball and try to bank it into the ditch lolol. i have to get back out someday soon. i can even ride in the winter between storms. someday.
 
i’d think a helmet would be helpful in that tuck and roll approach. i wear a helmet like a seatbelt, always and even if i’m just going down the block real quick.
 
on the way out the wind was against me and i was going so slow. on the way home i was flying. top speed was 29.6mph on a flat surface. strava segments that averaged 25mph. could have gone even faster but was on lakefront trail during air show weekend; trying not to pickup a manslaughter charge. was a sailboat out there.

Seriously? That's like the average Tour de France speed.
 
Do you guys warm up? I think I'm gonna start riding on flat for about 10 mins before I do my hill climbing.
 
yes but google tells me the tour de france is over 2k miles. strava segments are about half a mile. a "strava segments" are pieces of commonly ridden routes on which this app collects and compares rider data. so you might do seven segments in 10 miles, and they will total less than 10 miles because not every part of your ride is a strava segment.

i don't warm up. i don't hill ride either. i do stretch before going for a long ride. before going for a short ride too, if i remember. getting a calf cramp during a ride is no fun. you instantly extend it because you're pedaling, which i suppose is good because that gets rid of it fast. hurts.
 
i leave my bike outside often now. feels good. i even keep my bikepump in the mailroom sometimes and pump my tires up on the street. i don't want it to get stolen, but it's not worth bringing it inside all the time. if it's on the street, i'll take it for shorter rides.

i tried it going to the grocery store recently, because i had a bunch of errands to run. will not again. holding something heavy in one hand has a huge influence on the ride. it was pulling me in that direction way too much for comfort. i've also tried biking with a big box under one arm. not safe. i don't know what i was thinking because i've had to swerve and/or slam on my breaks before.

any progress on your new bike, @leet? i saw a girl with an electric bike yesterday. she was flying.
 
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Why don't you stop at red lights eh? Too good to follow the highway code eh? You need to ride a motorbike, that might teach you some fuckin roadsense.. ;)
 
personally, i do stop at red lights! and stay stopped until it turns green. lots of cyclist here will either stop and then go even though it's still red or do a rolling stop. including more conservative cyclists. it's the norm. crazy.

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personally, i do stop at red lights! and stay stopped until it turns green. lots of cyclist here will either stop and then go even though it's still red or do a rolling stop. including more conservative cyclists. it's the norm. crazy.

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Well I salute you! But unfortunately you are in the minority. I drive all day long and I'm sick of seeing spandex clad wankers with absolutely no sense of self preservation doing all sorts of fucked up shit on the roads endangering themselves and other road users. Just because you've got dayglo shorts on, it doesn't mean the driver of that 18 wheeler is going to see you
But when you get flattened by that 18 wheeler because you were coming up the inside in his blindspot, you whinge like a little bitch and it's everybody else's fault.
 
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@hydroazuanacaine

ELECTRICS.
Changed everything for me. Ten miles out from home and I found a road I have never been on before. It even had cobbles on one stretch. I mean I knew where I was when got on it, but I had no idea where I was going to be when it finished. Hit 32mph going down hill in places and I wasn't even pedaling just hanging on haha.

The motor cuts out at 16.2 mph and up to that speed it's like the hand of god pushing you along. I quickly perfected the art of never exceeding 15.7 mph while still having a good rhythm. I hit 32mph going downhill and I wasn't even pedaling. Off road the picture shows the hardest I've been on my shiny new bike and it was no problem on the track or the grass.

I actually average faster speeds uphill as the harder you work the more the motor works, this actually causes me to push it to get full poke. And sometimes when you are freewheeling, it will give a little kick and cause a surge of power. I call her CRAZY HORSE. I love it when the road has grass down the middle. This road in the picture was full of butterflies, I don't think it gets much use at all.

14299
Halfords have taken their own model the Carrera hybrid and given it a new back wheel with a motor on it and fitted a battery onto where the water bottle holder would be and off you go. The battery costs £400 to replace and they say it has 500 charges with a minimum of 40 miles per charge. From the rides I have had so far I would estimate on getting a 45 mile ride on a full charge with maximum assist. It has four levels of assistance, so the potential distance is ??? 3x that? I would be dead haha.

I used to do 15 to 17 miles and feel like a hero. I could double that easily.
 
that's awesome, leet. i'm happy it's working so well for you. exploring on a bike is much fun. beautiful trail. haven't taken a bike off road since riding through construction lots as a child.

have a (kind of) new toy myself ...

jamis%2Bbike.jpg


got it over 10 years ago when my dad decided we were going to bike together. we did that a bit, but it's spent a good amount of time sitting in the garage since we were both more into running than biking. didn't bring it when i first moved because road bike posture is too scary for transportation. i've been riding lakefront for the sake of exercise, so i brought it home with me after visiting over labor day.

road with my dad while i was in town. was terrifying for the first five minutes, having gotten used to an upright bike. felt like i was about to summersault forward off the bike. 22.5 pounds of carbon and aluminum versus my 35+ pound 90s steel hybrid. road it on lakefront for the first time today. set a few strava personal bests. still pretty awkward. positioning of the brakes is completely different. was banking on no one walking in front of me.
 
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in 2005, cyclists were 3.4 to 11.5x times more likely than motorist to have a fatal accident, per mile (https://bicycleuniverse.com/bicycle-safety-almanac/#Cars_Kill). the wide margin is due to difficulty in determining number of cyclist miles traveled. a 2007 study using stats from 1999 to 2003 determined cyclists were 2.3 times more likely to have a fatal accident, per trip. same study determined motorcyclists are 58.3 times more likely to have a fatal accident. females are slightly more likely to die in a car or motorcycle crash than males, per trip. males are way more likely to die a cyclists and pedestrians than females, again per trip. bus is hands down the safest method of travel, of those included in the study. (https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/166/2/212/98784)
 
^yo that's fucking awesome! i hope you keep on biking and posting in this thread. if you're comfortable doing so, please show us your bike. also, who is the illustration of in your avatar?

i biked over 140 miles this week. a warm up. i'm gonna smash this sport.

someone passed me while i was maintaining 21mph on a flat without any recent hills providing us momentum. it injected with me with mass motivation to work hard and improve so anytime someone else tells me they bike i know my times are faster without even having to ask. that might come off as asshole-ish, but wanting to work to be top tier is not something i feel guilty about.

on another ride i passed a bike nut with the spandex and all that jazz. as i was working my way up a hill a bit later he pulled up beside me and said, "give me 50 more yards." at first i didn't know what he was talking about. then i got it. he was drafting me and when i started to lose steam for a second he was saying stay strong for 50 more yards so he could finish his ride at speed (the top of the hill was the end of his ride). i felt pride that i was going fast enough for a true bike nerd to be drafting me.

oh, commuting i tried to squeeze through a space too small and clipped a car's side mirror going fast. i'm not sure if she started moving or not before it happened, but either way it was my fault. i pulled over and walked up to her car to not hit-and-run. i pushed her mirror back in place and apologized. she asked me if i was ok and i said it was only my rubber handlebar grip and hand that made contact; i don't think any damage happened to her car. she replied, "no, i just wanna know if you are ok?" was so kind of her. i will pay it back by treating someone else with compassion when they inconvenience me by messing up.
 
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