ride on a windy day

 I posted a C+ ride for today; I plan to get back to the practice of slower rides on the last Sunday of the month. I think it's a good idea; I get to see some folks that haven't been coming out, and some of my Usual Suspects came out even though it was a slower-paced ride.

We did a 30-ish mile route that included a stop at the Blawenburg Bistro, a coffee spot that's become a favorite for me and The Excellent Wife (TEW). We two don't have a great record with coffee spots; both of our last two favorites have closed... one transmogrified into a PJ's Pancakes location, and the other one disappeared, to be reborn as a fitness place. So I'm grateful to all the riders who spent money at the Bistro.

On the way there, though, we had a spot of wind. We fought a headwind all the way out, and I found it especially noticeable on the bit of Skillman Road before we took the turn onto Hollow (one of the riders said that it wasn't as bad as he had expected, but I think he was being either polite or disingenuous). Another rider complimented me for setting a route that had us going into the wind on the first part of the ride, to enjoy a tailwind on the way back. I'm not always too bright, but I knew enough to keep my mouth shut when I figured out he was complimenting me and giving me credit for what was actually a dumb-luck decision.

At the Bistro:

We met with two other cyclists on the way back, who rode with us for a while; they called out traffic clearance ahead at one point, and we got to chatting a bit. When I called, "Jim's ride: left turn!", one of them asked one of my riders if I was Plain Jim, and on finding that I was, he rolled up to let me know he read this blog and follows me on Facebook.

What? I have a follower? I am SO flattered!

Ride page.

In other news, a number of riders were most encouraging about Ramblin' Wrench, my "bicycle maintenance comes to you" business. I hope so... although none of 'em has gone so far as to make an appointment yet! (Not like I have time right now; I'm finishing up work on about a dozen bikes from leads I got from my first announcement!)

better ramblin wrench logo

 The Excellent Wife (TEW) had the idea of putting him on a bicycle. I love what the artist did:

Go see him on my business page.

doing penance

So after dropping some people yesterday (I was far more broken up about it than anybody else was*), I went out on the Team Social Security C+ ride today, and rode with the group.

Mostly.

(*Two of the people I'd lost track of yesterday were on the ride today, and they assured me we were still pals, and I didn't need to be as apologetic as I was. But several other folks said they weren't coming on my Sunday ride because it's gotten too fast. I think it's time to address that.)

On the road:

We stopped at Stonebridge in Allentown. They don't hate us there.

Above, Anthony G has a lovely yellow Nobilette. He apparently likes metal bikes.

It got windy on the way back. We'd split up into a faster, medium, and slower group. Andy A, the leader, was in that group, and, on the principle that ya dance with them what brung ya (and he had convened the ride), I rode with the slower group, too.

It was a great day.

dropped 'em. damn.

 Despite complaints that the speed of this Sunday ride has been creeping up, I've tried to keep it to a low B, and it was my intention to do so today. But it didn't work out that way. 

I didn't post the listing until late Thursday, and didn't have many takers even early yesterday, but I wound up with twelve at the start.

It LOOKED like the weather would be awful, but it wasn't. While the sky was cloudy, there was no rain. There was almost enough wind, much of it in our face for the first part of the ride.

We did one of my usual routes, and stopped at Thomas Sweet. 

On the way back, we headed up 206, and then to Bridgepointe Road. Somewhere between there and Wood Violet, where I like to use the path that connects to Magill, Lynne W, Bill B, and Dave H (who was sweeping) lost sight of us. I waited for them to catch up, but they turned at Harlingen and headed back across the canal. By the time I got Dave on the phone, they were already on Canal Road, headed back.

Perhaps technically, it wasn't a drop: I stuck to the route and waited. But I'm sure it felt like they were dropped. I hate it; I wanted this Sunday ride to be a no-drop ride. I've sent an apology to Bill & Dr Lynne.

I'll run this as a C+ ride the next time.

---

In other news, though, I DID get a chance to tell a few people about my Ramblin' Wrench project. Maybe I can drum up some business. Do you need some bicycle maintenance done?

ramblin wrench art

 Remember I decided to start bringing bicycle maintenance to the customer, and called it "Ramblin' Wrench"?

I'm still in discussion with the artist, but I mostly like it. The cost was less than what I get for two basic services!

I also started a blog, just to have a web presence, and to have a dated use of the name in case of a trademark dispute.

on brakes

 

One of my students sent me this image to remind me to do a more in-depth explanation of rim brakes... so here we go:

On road bikes, with narrow wheel rims, road bike caliper brakes are most common, even with the advent of disk brakes. Despite bike industry hype, caliper rim brakes are effective for road bikes. They are also lighter, and simpler to maintain (and you don't need to be a pro mechanic to do it... which may be part of the reason so many pro mechanics push disk brakes). Disk brakes are also prone to heat problems, for example when "riding" the brakes on long descents; I have heard few complaints aboout heat problems for rim brakes among road bikers. (Edit 3/18/22: I have just gotten word of one more of these complaints.)

The older form of these rim brakes have a single pivot with two elements:

(Yummy detailing on that lug, right?) These brakes are a little more difficult to adjust than the newer dual-pivot, three-element brakes:

The extra element means these can be centered more easily than the single-pivot relatives.

For wider rims, cantilever brakes were developed. 

The stopping power on these, however, is not ideal; as you pull harder on the lever, more energy goes into lifting the cable, and less into pulling the brake pad into the rim, because of changes in the "up vector" and "in vector". They were largely replaced by "U brakes":

These reduced, but did not eliminate, the problem of the direction of pull being at right angles to the direction you want the pads to go. That problem is almost eliminated by "V brakes".

The picture shows the noodle (of course it's too small; click on the picture to see a bigger version). The noodle changes the direction of cable pull from straight up to the lever, to straight across the calipers, so that almost all of your effort (except for that lost to friction) goes into pushing the brake pad against the rim.

Now, for off-road bikes, especially mountain bikes, rims can get wet and muddy, reducing the effectiveness of rim brakes; for these, the newfangled disk brakes make sense, since the disk is higher up on the wheel, and so is farther away from the mud and muck than the braking surface of the rim.

But I'm a retrogrouch who still uses friction shifting. What do I know?

metric with eric, and riding my age

 Eric H took the week off, and invited me to do a metric with him today. We asked if a few others could come along, but most folks are working, and some had other commitments, or simple bad luck.

Eric's route was a modification of the 100km route from the Tour de Franklin; he set it so the start more convenient, and cut out a few of the more confusing instructions.

It's early in the season for me to do a ride that long, although our average was pretty good (we got slower - like, a lot - as the ride progressed). But both of us were still upright, and able to form coherent sentences, by the time we split to ride to our respective homes.

And it was a gorgeous day.

I was rolling back from a potty stop, and heard someone hail me by name - it was John W, apparently knocking off early for the day and going for a ride himself!

There's a "thing" in the club about riding your age in miles close to your birthday, and those of us with birthdays in the spring suffer a bit for it. Nonetheless, between the ride to the ride, the ride itself, and the ride home, I've made it for my 67th birthday - and almost two months early.

I intend to be insufferable about it.

ramblin' wrench

I was on a ride last week, and got to taking with one of the other riders. He uses a mechanic that used to work in a shop, but now works on his own. He'll go to your house and pick up your bike, do the work, and bring it back to you.

This is a model I can steal.

I've done work for a few people. I've had them buy parts, and either have them delivered to me, or bring the parts when they drop off the bike. I do the work, and then have them come to pick up the bike.

Today I did something different: I went to the rider's home and did the work there. 

She seemed to be grateful for the convenience, and satisfied with the service, and we discussed how the model might work for me. We discussed branding for a bit, and when I later came up with what I thought was a good idea, she did, too.

So I'm sort-of announcing the opening of Plain Jim's Ramblin' Wrench - Bike Maintenance comes to you! With the bike rack on the car and a stand in the hatch, a tool box, and a crate of sundry supplies, I can do several services right in your yard... and for things that need more time and attention, I'll pop the bike on the rack and bring it back for the work.

If you need parts, I can send you a link to buy online (and if you can find the right part, but less expensive, so much the better!). When the part comes in, if I have the bike I'll just put it on; if I have to pick up, we'll make arrangements to do so.

As for how to charge: a number of the local shops have their service menus online. I can match those prices, since, although I'll be using my own gas, I don't have to pay for real estate. (And I'm doing this partly to stay out of trouble anyway.)

I've set up an email address at ramblinwrench@gmail.com. Maybe I'll put an ad on Craigslist...

look, it's time to change pedals

This is an unnecessarily long rant that will be of little interest to most folks, although there are a few mild jokes along the way. Feel free to skip this; it won't be on the final.

While I hear that off-road and gravel riders are at least as likely these days to go with flat pedals (possibly with pins to hold their shoes on the pedals) as to get so-called "clipless" pedals, with a cleat that holds the shoe to the pedal, most road riders of my acquaintance seem to prefer riding clipped-in. 

These systems are called "clipless" because they replace the toe clips that were affixed to flat pedals.

The theory is that, with one foot still on the ground, you slide the toe into the clip, and pull the strap tight with your hand, then repeat with the other foot... but at that point, you haven't got a foot to put on the ground to steady yourself. Also, it can be treacherous to get out of these if you've been less than perfect with the strap adjustment. This system was followed by the "clipless" pedal system, for which the shoe is attached to the pedal by some means other than the toe clip (usually be a cleat attached to the bottom of the shoe that snaps into a mechanism on the pedal). Release is usually by turning the heel out or in.

While Cinelli claims to have invented the clipless pedal in the 70's, the common wisdom is that the system was developed by Look, at the time a manufacturer of ski bindings (and so with experience in releasable-shoe-to-object attachment systems), in the mid-80's. Other manufacturers, like Time, Shimano, Campagnolo, and others, developed competing systems. They were (and are) used by racers and by road riders. The cleat is attached to the sole of the shoe, and forces the toe upward when walking.

Shimano states they developed a system for off-road riders, their SPD system, in 1990. This system was more robust than most of the road systems, and designed so that mud would not interfere with the clipping-in and -out process. The associated shoes usually have insets for the cleats, and walking is easier in these shoes.

Others' experience may be different, but my memory indicates that road riders tend to start with a clipless system and stick with it, partly because pedals are expensive (cleats less so, although they can add up), and partly because, aside from the annoyance of learning to clip in and out of a new system, the pedal style doesn't matter much to the ride or your speed (although I understand triathlon competitors have favorites, and leave the shoes clipped into the bike to save seconds when switching to the cycling part of the event). I started with a Look Delta system, and changed to Look Keo when it came out (from worry that the Delta cleats would be discontinued [the plastic road cleats wear out and need to be replaced, as the metal SPD cleats do not], a fear which has not been realized [unlike my fear that my favorite saddle would be discontinued... it was, and I have yet to forgive Specialized Bicycles. I'm sure they are sleepless with regret]). I continued with the Keo's for years.

Until now. 

A few years ago, Look started to make alternative cleats, with rubber inserts to allow more traction when walking (the plastic cleats can be tricky when walking on linoleum-like floors). Off-brand manufacturers have largely followed suit, probably because the price of the cleats with the new feature is higher than the price of the cleats without the inserts.

But the rubber wears quickly. This changes the shape of the cleat, and, I find, makes it harder to "clip in". One can replace the cleat, but this has reduced the effective life of the plastic cleat.

OK, so just buy the older, rubber-less cleats, right? Easier said than done. Cleats were one of the few things I used to buy at local bike shops*, and, in dropping in at a few, I found that the only Keo cleats available had the rubber inserts. (This makes retail sense: shelf space is a cost, and a higher-priced option offers a better return on the use of the space.)

*Cyclists are often reminded by our associates to buy at local bike shops, to ensure that they stay in business and are available when we need service and repair. There is now a shop in Highland Park, NJ, yclept "Local Bicycle Shop". I see what you did there. (Check out the web address.)

One can get the original cleats online, but enough, already. I have a pair of shoes with SPD cleats attached, and I can get a pair of SPD pedals for only a little more than the cost of the replacement cleats. (On some bike-related items, I am incredibly cheap. I buy good tools, but for most other bike items, if there's a less expensive way to do it, I probably know it.)

Many club members already use the SPD system, initially intended for off-road, on their road bikes. They like the durability of the system, and the fact that one can walk (and even drive safely) in the shoes with the SPD cleats attached. I used to use my SPD system on winter rides (because those shoes are a bit more weather-resistant), but I installed the pedals on The Excellent Wife (TEW)'s bike some time ago and so gave up the practice of changing systems for winter. But I used the SPD system on yesterday's ride, and I think I'm persuaded. I've still got the Keo stuff in the drawer, but I expect it will stay there.

unusual for the usual

 

Tom H, who knows something about riding bikes in New Jersey, scheduled a club ride for today out of Bordentown.

Above, that's Kyle, whose last name I didn't get. He's not a member; this was his trial ride. I was relentless about plugging the club. I hope I didn't drive him off!

It was gonna be warm enough (and flat enough) that a few of us thought it was gonna be a good idea. 40-45ish miles, not a lotta climbing (Burlington County has the topography of typing paper), some prettiness in Roebling, Bordentown, Burlington City.

Now: One (or maybe more) of the things on which you can usually depend on a ride that Tom leads is a road under construction, or a closed bridge, or both. And while he did lead us along a park path between Old York Road and Roebling, that didn't seem to be enough; nor did the short stint in the park at which the pictures above were taken. We were about 60% through the route, and I was wondering where the weird stuff was, when we pulled in for a planned stop at the Jacksonville Deli.

It was dark. And closed.

We quickly adjusted plans to stop at a deli in Columbus... but more important to me is that my faith in Tom was restored, because a closed rest stop definitely trumps a closed road or closed bridge on a ride like this.

In Columbus:

Ride page.