SIR 100K Populaire

I've posted a few pictures from the SIR 100K Populaire here.

Icy Commute

Here in the Puget Sound the winters are usually wet and the temps are above the freezing point. On the rarer times when it's below freezing, it's usually the result of a cool, dry, high pressure system. So mostly the roads are either warm and wet or cold and dry. But in the transistion points, when a cold high flows in to replace a warm low. the streets can become icy.

Last night it was 38 degrees and raining when I rode home. This morning it was 28 degrees and clear when I rode in to work.

Newport Way was icy. The hill down to Factoria was icy. The trail across the Bellevue Slough was icy. Mercer Island was pretty much one big sheet of ice. The I-90 floating bridge was, you guessed it, icy. The streets of Seattle were semi-icy.

I saw lots of cars, some sliding, some slid. I saw various bicyclists walking alongside their bikes. I saw various cautious pedestrians walking their remarkably sure-footed pets. I saw interesting tracks in the frost.

I never fell down. I spent an extra fifteen minutes being cautious. I was riding my fixed gear Kogwell model G. I knew exactly when the 28 mm Specialized Armadillos were and were not grabbing the road. With a fixed gear you feel what you have in terms of traction through your feet and legs. The second the rear tire slips, the pedals move a bit more than they should. It's instant feedback and it's a big advantage that a fixed gear bike has on the ice.

And the Kogswell is wonderfully well mannered. I liked the handling of this bike the first time I rode it and the past thousand miles have only increased my fondness for the geometry. When a bike works with your reflexes, you don't have to think about it. On a good day, you don't think about it at all. On a bad day, when the roads are slick, it's good to just think about the hazards and not about the bike.

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Gary's Arizona Trail Trip

My pal Gary Blakley recently spent about a week bikepacking on the Arizona Trail. You can read about it here and see pictures here.

Gary lives in the little town of Del Norte, Colorado and he's got awesome country right out his backdoor. He makes the following observation contrasting Arizona and Colorado:

"In Arizona you climb up into the trees, in Colorado you climb up out of the trees. One thing about living in Colorado is that I have learned to love climbing. It's not the climbing itself that's so rewarding but the dividend it pays; the views and the ability to go somewhere new and the feeling of accomplishment."

Thanks for the ride story, Gary.

Jim Langley's Bike Repair Site

The first sentence on Jim Langley's Bike Repair site Wrench reads: "One of the coolest things about bicycles is that they’re darn easy to fix; fun to fix, too." Jim's right and his site is a great place to go for practical, how-to advice on a range of various bike repair tasks. There are a variety of good sources of technical bike repair info on the web, but Jim's site is very clean, friendly and straightforward. If you are looking for step-by-step instructions on how to fix a flat, adjust a derailler, silence strange squeaks or do a wide range of other bike repairs, check out Jim's site at:

http://www.jimlangley.net/wrench/wrench.html

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

My Famous Friend Dustin

The Seattle PI wrote a good article about my pal Dustin and his Urban Cycling and Bicycle Commuting classes.

Battery-Free LED Pedals

OK, these are cheap plastic pedals that probably won't hold up to any serious use. But when I saw this $17 pair of pedals at my local Target store I just had to buy them. And in case you are wondering, no I usually don't buy bike stuff at Target but I just can't resist cruising the aisle devoted to what my friends at Dirt Rag refer to as "bike-shaped objects."

Here's the deal, these pedals have a little built-in generator that makes six red LEDs light up each time the pedal goes around. They look really cool in the dark, cooler than having $17 in my wallet. So far I can't figure out how to attach Power Grips to these pedals and I don't think they'll replace my MKS Touring Pedals. I'll probably wind up putting them on my son's bike or the loaner bike at the Bike Alliance.

Bike Buddy

A couple of weeks ago I met Koya Tsukiji, an intern working at the Port of Seattle. The Port was having a transit fair for their employees and I was there to answer questions and provide information about bicycle commuting. Koya asked me about commuting from Bellevue to the Seattle waterfront. "It's kind of tricky to figure out the first time," I told him. I started to sketch out the route, asking him questions about where he lived and if he knew the locations of various local landmarks. Koya is new to the area (I think he's fairly new to the country as well) so we didn't have much to work with but I assured him he could do this. "You should have a buddy show you the way. My pal Andy showed me the route when I first started riding from the Eastside to downtown." I then told Koya about the Bike Alliance Bike Buddy program, where we pair up new commuters with experienced riders. I gave Koya my card and told him to email me his home address and some more specific information. Back at the office I had more routing info and my buddy list so I could make a good match for him.

Over the next few days Koya and I worked out the details. It turned out that my daily commute passes fairly close to Koya's home and much of our routes would overlap. We figured out our schedules and set up a meeting place. I would be Koya's Bike Buddy.

We'd planned on meeting up on Wednesday for Koya's first commute but Wednesday was a wet morning and rather than subject him to a soaking on his first commute, we rescheduled for Friday morning. Interestingly, that Wednesday I did happen to meet a couple of other commuters at the very spot Koya and I had picked as our meeting place. That was the first commute day for one of the riders and his pal was showing him the route. This Bike Buddy idea has caught on!

Friday was clear and cool. I left my house at 6:15 AM so I'd be sure to be at our meeting spot by 7:00, as always budgeting my flat tire buffer into the time calculation. As usual, I didn't flat and Koya was a little more than punctual as well. I'd quizzed Koya about lights and knew that he didn't have any, so I'd brought along some of my spare lights for him to borrow. Even though it's getting light by 7:00 AM, I explained that it's best to be prepared. You never know when you will wind up working late and in the dim morning or evening LED lights can do a lot to increase your visibility.

Koya's bike was far less than fancy, he'd probably spent more on his messenger bag than his bike, but he had a willing spirit. The bike had an alarming bit of play in the rear hub and while I travel with a fair number of tools, cone wrenches aren't part of my regular kit. I told Koya that I couldn't do much about the wheel right there but that once we got to the Bikestation, I'd be able to adjust his rear hub.

With morning temps in the mid-thirties I was glad to have my gloves and fleece earband and even though Koya lacked these handy items, he didn't complain about the cold. Once we'd fastened the lights to Koya's bike, we set off down the hill to Factoria.

The route is hard to explain and much easier to show. I punctuated my various hand signals with comments as we went through intersections, cautioning Koya about the hazards of turning cars and a section of the Bellevue trail that tends to be icy even if the air temperatures are a few degrees above freezing.

The trail crosses under I-90 several times and we stopped at the small info kiosk on the Bellevue side of the bridge to Mercer Island. I grabbed a Bellevue Bicycle Map and handed it to Koya, showing him where we'd come and where we were going.

We followed the trail across Mercer Island and I showed him the the handy water fountain. Koya had a bottle rack on his bike but no bottle. I told him that the first time I did my commute I wound up stopping a lot to eat and drink. "The first time is the toughest," I assured him as he gulped water from the fountain.

Koya did fine crossing the big floating bridge. I rode a bit ahead and took his picture as he came off the bridge. He handed me his camera and I took another shot where he did his best to look very tired. I could tell he was having fun.

We rode through the bike tunnel and I guided Koya through the tricky forks in the trail and the bits of urban navigation along Hiawatha, Dearborn and the International District. While we were stopped at a light another cyclist blew right through the red light. "Can we do that?" Koya asked. I quickly and firmly informed him that we could not. I didn't get into the legal, the safety or the bad example parts of it, I just showed him where the sensors were in the road and how to trigger the light with the pedestrian toggle if needed.

We stopped at the Bikestation and Koya scarfed down an apple while I adjusted the rear hub on his bike. I also gave Koya a water bottle from my stash of Bike Alliance commuter swag. Another commuter was at the station with a flat tire, so rather than continue with Koya the next few blocks to his office I sent him off with a quick, "follow this road till you you hit the water, then take a right."

Koya was leaving work early, so I wouldn't be riding with him on his return trip, but I sent him links to the Gmaps Pedometer layout of my commute, which would give him the info he'd need for his return trip.

Some jobs are just jobs and all you get is a paycheck. Some jobs are a lot more than that. I'm lucky enough to have one of those great jobs. Here's the note I got from Koya later on Friday.

-----------------

Kent,

Thank you very much for showing me the route, loaning lights, giving me a water bottle, and fixing my rear wheel! I deeply appreciate it! I enjoyed riding a bike with you.

I found the gmap-pedmeter wonderful. It helped me a lot find the reversed route! Thank you very much.

I will continue to ride a bike for work periodically unless it rains! I will return the lights when I buy new ones.

Thank you again. Have a nice weekend!

Koya Tsukiji

--------------------

If you're interested in bicycle commuting and you live in Washington state, drop me a note at bikebuddy@bicyclealliance.org. If you either want to help new commuters or you want to be a commuter, we're working to link up those who ride with those who want to ride. If you live elsewhere, check around. With luck your state will have something like the Bicycle Alliance.

Here are a few handy links for King County commuters:

Seattle Bicycle Map

King County Bicycle Map

Washington State Bicycle Commute Guide

Keep 'em rolling,

Kent

Kogswell Model G

I finally borrowed Mark Vande Kamp's camera and took a not very good picture of my Kogswell Model G.

Noteable features:

Clipped & flipped bars.

The brake levers are Shimano 105.

Coroplast fenders.

Note how nicely the duct tape top tube protector blends with the bike.

The trunk is a Rubbermaid tote.

The headlight is a cheapo Bell with a really nice pricey EverLED and an external NiMH battery pack that sits in the Rubbermaid trunk. The speaker wire connecting the battery pack to the light runs under the duct tape top tube protector.

That's a silver bell on the top of the stem.

Those are Power Grips on the MKS touring pedals.

The crank is an old 170 mm DuraAce.

The gearing is 42/16.

Those are Phil Wood hubs laced to Campy rims.

The tires are 700*28 Specialized Nimbus. The front is a plain Nimbus, the rear is a Nimbus Armadillo.

The saddle is a WTB Rocket V, the cheap CroMo railed one. It looks reddish in this shot but that's just a reflection from the OPEN sign. It's really black and grey and silver.

I scavenged the ugly bar tape from the garbage at Sammamish Valley Cycle.

I've got the bike dialed in now and it's quick and comfy, even with the garden-hoseish tires. Mark expressed amazement that I can ride Armadillos and I told him that I do it just to show how tough I am!

Kent Peterson
Issaquah WA USA
http://kentsbike.blogspot.com/

This is my office

My pal Bob stopped by my office yesterday and we went out for coffee. He'd never been to the Bikestation before and in the email he sent me setting up our meeting he innocently asked "can I leave my bike in the office while I'm there?" I told him that we could probably find a place for him to park.

Riding Faster Brevets

On the SIR List on of the newer members of the Seattle International Randonneurs was concerned about her average riding speed on brevets and asked:

Does anybody have any tips on getting faster? Right now I kind of feel like I'm not really progressing much. Any tips or feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much!

Various folks posted a range of good advice. My contribution to the thread (slightly edited to allow for the lack of context here) was this:

You do have more options [on a brevet] if you can learn to go faster, so here are some thoughts about that.

My main approach is not to worry about going fast, I worry about not going slow. These are two different things. For example, there is no speed slower than stopped. Let's say you opt for a "fast" light, relatively fragile tire. That would make sense if you want to go "fast" but it makes very little sense if you want to avoid going slow. One flat tire and you are not going fast. But with a somewhat beefier tire, the odds improve that you will keep going.

One big difference between the experienced randos and the new folks can be seen at the controls, when they are off the bike. The more experienced folks tend to be quicker through the controls. Some times you do need to take a break but the more you are on the bike, the further you get down the road. Jan Heine, a fast and experienced fellow, advocates eating while riding and many, many randos do that. Again, moving is faster than not moving.

To really go faster, you need to turn the pedals faster. Years ago, back when I raced, my coach locked us into using our small chain rings for the spring training rides before the races. We learned to spin, training our bodies toward higher RPMs. As we got stronger, then we'd get to use the big ring and we found we'd still turn those higher RPMs. Net result: we actually were faster.

Another way to actually develop speed is to do intervals, short bursts of speed. They are a pain in the butt, but you will develop speed. Most people tend to use the multiple gears on their bikes to try to maintain a constant cadence or effort, in interval training you don't do that, you train to put out higher efforts for short bursts. That's important for racing and much less so for randonneuring but as a training technique it will help you build speed.

I do most of my riding on fixed gear bikes which tend to make any non-flat ride into a form of interval training. I have to apply a lot of power on the climbs and I have to spin fast on the descents. The bike can't coast or downshift, so my body must adapt to the terrain. Fixed riding certainly isn't for everyone but various people have found it to be an enjoyable and useful alternative to riding a geared, coasting bike.

I'd also advise you to work on climbing hills and night riding. Rando events certainly include hills and the longer rides almost always involve night riding (unless you are really, really fast!). I never worry about descending fast (I suck on descents) but I try to work on not letting climbs slow me down too much. And night riding, like any skill, is something you get better at the more you do.

Have a friend look at you riding at night with your lights and gear so you know what really shows up. Good lights and reflective gear do a lot to help increase your safety and confidence on the road.

Finally, yeah some folks are always going to be faster. Some folks are always going to make it look easy. Some day or some night you'll feel like crap. Everybody does at sometime. Don't worry about that. Don't even worry that much about the big goal. Focus on the next thing to get you the next kilometer down the road.

Nobody has lights that will reach 1200 kilometers down the road. At best, your light illuminates a little patch of the road in front of you. Ride into that patch of light and you'll see the patch of light is a little further down the road. Ride into that patch. Repeat as necessary.

Have fun and keep rolling,

Kent Peterson
Issaquah WA USA
http://kentsbike.blogspot.com/

Three Dumb Guys Riding in the Rain

Back in November I posted a lovely photo of my Peugeot PX-10 on a sunny day with blue sky. I titled that entry "It Doesn't Always Rain." Since that day, it's been raining damn near every day and night. We had some kind of record going for most days of continuous rain but then we had one freakish rain-free day to ruin the new record but it's pretty safe to say that it's been quite damp here for the past couple of months.

You can get used to rain and it can even be nice to ride in light rain. Much of the time we don't get really heavy rain in the Puget Sound area. If you're a bike commuter in this part of the country, you get pretty good at dealing with rain.

But when it's a day when you don't have to go anywhere and it's cold and windy and raining heavily, well that is the time when a sane person or a smart person would stay inside where it's warm and dry. And any individual sane, smart person would do that. But as my wife will tell you "the three of you together are way dumber than you are on your own." In this case the three were myself, Mark Vande Kamp and Ken Krichman. The day was yesterday, Sunday January 29th, 2006. And the rain was not fun.

The rain was heavy and wet and the wind was just enough to make things nasty. And this wasn't an epic trip, a trip to make folks think "man, those guys are tough." It wasn't even enough to make us think anything of the sort. It was just a trip to make us think "man, we're not that bright."

The mission wasn't even much of a mission. Ken wanted to ride my old PX-10 to see if it was right for him. I wanted to see Mark's prototype Kogswell Porteur. Mark and Ken wanted to see my new Kogswell Model G. We could have done all those things and not left Issaquah but instead we rode out in the rain, up and over the Issaquah Plateau, out to Carnation to have coffee at Sandy's Espresso. And then we rode back. Twenty-nine miles of stupidity.

Now I could say that the part of the ride where we were not riding, where we were sitting in Sandy's drinking lattes and mochas was pleasant, but honestly damply drinking coffee while wringing the water out of your gloves probably isn't as pleasant as just staying dry at home and drinking coffee.

And no, there are no pictures. My camera is still on vacation, Mark left his camera at home and I've never seen Ken with a camera in my life. Mark's super-secret prototype Kogswell Porteur is the ugliest shade of blue I've ever seen (I think the prototypes are purposely ugly so no-one will confuse them with the real thing.) The bike looks like it handles really well and Mark had lots of good off-the-record things to say about the bike. The Porteur is designed handle best with a load up front and even with a good-sized handlebar bag Mark could pretty much ride no-handed at will. My model G is similarly well-behaved but I carry the main load on a rear rack.

Ken didn't bond with the PX-10. He hasn't ridden fixed in quite some time so the hills were a bit more exciting than he'd prefer. Also the handling of the PX-10, which you could call responsive if you like it or twitchy if you don't, wasn't to his liking on this wet and windy day.

So I still have one too many bikes at my place and it's still raining.

There is no moral to this story. Just three dumb guys riding in the rain.

Kogswell Model G Impressions

Product reviews are always subjective. If you've bought something, you have an ego invested interest in somehow showing that you are not a fool who has recently parted with your money. If the item in question was given to you, the question must always be asked as to how much you are biased by the gift. You can try to fill your review with objective facts but at some point there will be some subjectivity. But, of course, we experience the world subjectively. We bring ourselves into the process and if we are fond of numbers or think in terms of metaphors, those things come out in our discussions. We are not just talking about the object of our review, we are talking about our relationship with the object.

I don't know enough to review the Kogswell Model G. I own one now. The frame and a few other key bits were a gift from Matthew Grimm. I was able to put it together with some other bike parts I'd accumulated and saved over the years. The only new part I added to the bike was a single speed chain. I've invested this machine with gratitude and time, a tiny bit of money and a sense of what my bike should be. I can't review it, but I can consider it. I've only got about 70 miles on the bike so far, so at best these are initial impressions.

The Kogswell is solid. I know that solid is not a very sexy adjective but when I pulled the frame out of the box and put the whole thing together my thought wasn't "wow, this is light" or "wow, this is pretty". It's not the lightest frame out there and yeah it's got some decent looking lugs and the powdercoat finish looks quite good but the overall impression is one of strength. And when the whole bike came together, it didn't build up as a super light bike. I don't know what the whole thing weighs but I'm pretty sure it's heavier than my old PX-10.

Speaking of my PX-10, that's the bike from which I took measurements to guide my in putting the Kogswell together. Then I tweaked a few things. On my first test ride the Kogswell's saddle felt a bit high and the stem felt a bit long. Going back and rechecking the numbers it turns out that my impressions were right and my measurements had been slightly off. I did have the saddle a bit high and the bars were just a bit too far forward. The bikes aren't identical but my bikes all tend toward very similar layouts in terms of the relationship between bars, pedals and saddle. When it's right I know it and when it's off I feel it.

In terms of gearing, the Kogswell and the PX-10 are the same: 170 mm cranks with a 42 tooth chainring and a 16 tooth rear fixed cog and both bikes have decent wheels shod with heavy, flat-resistant Specialized Armadillo tires. But the two bikes feel different.

The PX-10 feels quicker. It feels more lively. It seems like I can feel the frame flex more over bumps. The Kogswell, on the other hand, feels solid. Not at all uncomfortable, it actually feels very comfortable and if anything I think I'm less aware of road shock than I am on the PX-10. But the PX-10 feels faster.

Climbing, the PX-10 feels quick. Descending, it feels a little racier. The Kogswell just doesn't feel as fast.

But here's the thing: I like the ride of the Kogswell better. It's like when you have a good mattress you don't think about it, you just sleep. If you have a mattress with a lump, you learn to move around so you don't sleep on the lump. So I'm thinking that the Kogswell is my lump-free mattress. Once again, not a really sexy description. I've got a bike that's solid and comfortable.

And I like the ride. I mean I really like the ride. It's just right. I almost wrote predictable, but that's not right. You don't predict the way you like your morning coffee, you just know it. If it is off you know it and if it is right, it is just right. The Kogswell rides right.

Now I haven't weighed my Kogswell but I'm pretty sure it's heavier than some other bikes. I have not weighed it because there isn't much I'd be willing to do to change the weight. I know what wheels, tires, saddle, bars, and so on work for me. Knowing what all that plus the frame weighs isn't a number that is of any real use to me. But I'm pretty sure it is heavier than the PX-10. And the PX-10 feels faster.

So just when I figure that I'm OK with having this solid, comfortable, right bike and that Ghandi was correct when he said that "there is more to life than increasing it's speed," I found the most interesting thing.

The Kogswell seems to go up the hills just fine. That solid feeling seems to translate whatever I'm putting into the pedals into moving the bike up the hill. Downhills I don't feel that the bike is getting away from me but it's easy to spin the pedals as fast as I need to go.

I don't feel fast, but I sure don't feel slow. And the numbers on my cycle computer look perfectly fine. Oddly, they look better than fine.

I commuted to the Bike Alliance on Friday on the Kogswell and I got there a few minutes earlier than usual. Probably a fluke.

I rode home Friday night and again I'm a little quicker than I thought I would be.

Yesterday, I rode up to my weekend job at Sammamish Cycle. Again on the Kogswell, again quicker that I thought I would be. Going home, the same thing.

Once could be a fluke. I suspect that four fast times is not a fluke. It's a pattern.

The Kogswell doesn't feel as fast as the PX-10 and it's not.

It's faster.

-----

My friend Ken has a fondness for old French bikes and shares my belief that life is simpler with fewer gears and less stuff. Ken also has an old Compte bike that has various dire problems including a headset with a deathwish. Even Ken has finally admitted that his Compte is too hazardous for him to ride.

Ken needs a bike and I've got at least one bike too many right now.

He's picking up the PX-10 on Wednesday.

-----

Keep 'em rolling folks. Maybe I'll see you on the road someday. I'll be the guy on the Kogswell Model G with coroplast fenders and a powdercoat finish the color of duct tape. The guy on the solid, comfortable, right bike.

Kent

PS. For those of you waiting for pictures of my new machine, you will have to wait a while longer. I loaned my camera to a friend who was headed off to research and write a book on chocolate. I don't have a pressing need to photograph the world right now and it's always good to have a semi-pro chocolate dude owe you a favor.

If this isn't nice, I don't know what is

In his article Knowing What's Nice, Kurt Vonnegut urges us to follow his Uncle Alex's example and to notice when we are happy and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

There is always much we can rage against in this world, the stupid and the evil, but there is also much that is good. We can rage against corporate greed but also see that it is possible to be in business and still do good. Folks like Gary Erickson, Yvon Chouinard and Grant Petersen each have managed to create businesses that remain true to their visions of a better world.

Matthew Grimm is a similarly practical dreamer. While it's fashionable these days to rage against globalization, Matthew saw that the problem isn't one of geography, it's one of greed. Things like a global economy and the information age are not the sole province of the super rich or the mega greedy. Little guys can have a vision and a voice and make things and send them out in the world.

Matthew designs and builds bicycles. Actually that's not quite true. Matthew designed and built a company called Kogswell Cycles. Matthew's customers and Matthew design bicycles. Matthew and folks with factories in places like Taiwan build Kogswells. Matthew's vision is simple: lever the power of a global economy and the power of an interactive electronic forum to make good bicycles at affordable prices.

The results are amazing. Very nice frames at very nice prices. Really interesting products in the world now, really nice things coming down the pipe and a small but growing legion of happy customers.

I'd seen Kogswells around for a year or so but I didn't need a bike and I didn't think that much about them. But a while back I got an email from Matthew Grimm saying basically "great job on the Great Divide Race, I want to give you a bike for your next adventure." I wrote him back basically saying "thanks, but no thanks." I explained that I really had no idea what my next adventure would be. "It doesn't matter," Matthew insisted, "I know you'll be doing something interesting. Go to my website and see if there is something you can use."

So I went and I looked and I found a Model G. Fixed gear with relaxed angles for road riding. A tough, powdercoat finish. Big clearances to run fat tires.

Damn...

My kind of bike.

Tuesday night a 54 cm Model G was waiting for me when I got home: frame, fork, headset and big clearance brakes. Silver, the color of duct tape.

I already had pretty much all the other parts I needed to build up the G: wheels, crankset, pedals, seatpost, saddle, stem, bars, brake levers. So far the only new part on the bike that I had to pay for was a chain. I made a set of coroplast fenders from a campaign sign I'd harvested last November.

I got the bike together last night. It's not quite right yet and still needs a little dialing in. I'm going to swap the stem for one that's a little shorter and a little lower. I need to find a cycle computer so I can follow cues on brevet route sheets and there will be other tweaks I'll make as the miles tell me what I need to know.

But I know this now. As I was riding in the darkess, I had this thought, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."

Heart Rate Monitor

(Pulled from the archives of the Monocog log)

Date:	Mon, 11 Apr 2005 6:28 AM
From:	"Kent Peterson"
To:	"Michael Rasmussen"
Subject:	Re: Advice from other randos

On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 17:22:02 -0700, "Michael Rasmussen" said:

> This is something I think you'll appreciate.
>
> For the first time ever I"ve received unsolicited advice about riding
> with a heart rate monitor.
>
> Dave said "You should use one. You'll know when you're slacking and can
> ride faster. If you're riding along and your heart is only at 120 you
> know you can speed up."
>
> Susan said "Use one to control yourself. Set a max and don't exceed it.
> When I do this I finish the ride with plenty of energy left."
>
> Seemingly at odds. But I know there's a central truth. Both use the
> tool to meet their goals. Dave, though I've only met him this once,
> seems to be in it for the challenge of performance. Besides, he's pretty
> fast, in a native talent sense. Susan is a slow, extremely steady, ride
> on and on and on type.
>
> --
> Michael Rasmussen, Portland Oregon
> Be appropriate && Follow your curiosity
> http://www.patch.com/words/

Probably both valid points. I haven't used a heart monitor in years and I've often said that it either is telling me info I already know or telling me things I don't want to know. But then as near as I can tell I'm much more driven by internal cues than external devices. For example, alarm clocks always struck me as an awful assault on the body, so I trained myself to wake via internal cues. Thoreau wrote "We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep." That always made sense to me. And the late Marco Pantani once said, while speaking of heart monitors, "I can think of no device which has done more to remove the poetry from our sport."

Heart monitors can be valuable devices, but I've seen many, many people become slaves to the numbers. The heart monitor can tell you how fast your heart is beating, but it knows nothing of the desire that is in your heart. And that desire is what sends you out to train in the rain, to continue when you feel down, to ride the ride that ultimately is yours alone.

Kent Peterson
Issaquah WA USA

And now a word from our sponsor...

A week or so ago I wrote a blog entry about the Princeton Tec EOS light. In that entry I included a link to Amazon.com via their Associates program. It looks like a few people bought themselves an EOS by following that link. I don't want to clutter this blog with a lot of commercial stuff but I'm not adverse to making a little money either. My solution to this can be seen in a couple of links on the right panel of this blog:

Mountain Turtle Market will take you to a page I made of books and other mostly bike-related items. OK, there is a bit of general adventure and philosophy stuff there as well, but the underlying theme is stuff that I use and like. My Cafe Press store still sells T-shirts and other items with the "Any Distance Is Biking Distance", "Not A nutritional Role Model", "Shiftless Bum" and "Hasten Slowly" designs. Proceeds from both of these stores go to financing my various adventures.

My intent is to keep giving away the bulk of what I write. Stories and articles like "The Way of the Mountain Turtle" can reach much farther via the web than they can as books or magazine articles and on the web I can shape them exactly the way I like.

On this blog I'll continue to talk about things I use and like but I don't want the blog to become overwhelmed with product reviews and commercial stuff. This blog is about biking, having adventures and rolling through the world on two wheels

Keep 'em rolling folks

Kent

Best Lightbulb Ever

My wife will tell you that I have a real obsession with lighting. I just like tinkering around with various lights. For Christmas I got the most expensive little lightbulb I've ever seen, an EverLED. ($40 and no, I'm not getting any kickback from the EverLED people.)

Like the Princeton Tec EOS I blogged about last week, this is a 1 Watt Luxeon LED plus some circuitry but the EverLED crams all the smarts into a little package the size of a conventional PR flange bulb. So I get to mess around with putting the bulb in various housings, trying out various beam patterns and battery packs. The EverLED can run on anything from one to six batteries and it regulates the voltage and current to draw the most from your batteries while giving nice, white light of a constant brightness. When it's drained the batteries, it just winks out and you really don't get any warning, so you want to make sure you've got backup batteries and something handy like a helmet light but this really is a nifty device. Some pretty cheap flashlights and inexpensive halogen bike lights actually have pretty good reflectors and this very expensive bulb lets you tinker to your hearts content.

Memoirs of an Invisible Man

The other night as I was riding home in the dark rain, a woman's voice called out to me from within her SUV. "Those are very nice lights. Thank you," the voice said. I responded with a quick "thanks" of my own and we both proceeded on our respective journeys.

I do try to be visible and vigilant and with my bright yellow jacket, reflective tape, glow gloves, 4 rear lights, front bike and helmet lights. I like to think that I mostly succeed. But at best all these attempts at conspicuity only partially counteract the one amazing super power I possess. This super power isn’t super because it’s rare or because it’s a really cool like the ability to fly. Unfortunately my super power is far too common and it’s a curse.

 I am invisible.

 At some points every day we all are invisible. We are trees falling in the forest but no one is listening. We are clad in bright yellow and we have flashing lights and we signal and make eye contact and all the rest of the things we are supposed to do and yet somehow someone does not see us. And it’s easy to think that the people who don’t see us are idiots or evil. And while there certainly are idiots and evil people in this world, there are far more people who are simply harried human beings.

I know I am not one hundred percent focused one hundred percent of the time. I am human. I make mistakes. I try to hold myself in the moment to be here now, to pay attention to what is going on. I try to be the traveler I'd like to encounter, to be the calm and not the storm. But I know that I do not succeed one hundred percent of the time.

As a cyclist, I have many advantages. I am traffic. I am small and vulnerable and my bike has no illusion that it is a place. And I’m rolling through the world at a pace that is slower than most of my fellow travelers. I have more time to think and react. My brain and body know I am small and vulnerable. My ingrained instincts view cars and their ilk as big metal monsters. I try to keep track of those monsters. My life does depend on it.

I know that drivers are not monsters, they are humans like me, but the metaphor of cars as fast dangerous, dumb beasts is a handy one. I can feel empathy for the driver and still maintain a healthy fear of the vehicle. The car is not really a beast, but to its pilot it is a rolling illusion of place. It is a cocoon, a capsule insulating the driver from the outside world. And that outside world is encountered at in-human speeds. The human brain is a remarkable instrument, but it has limits. Add in a packed 24/7 schedule, a cell-phone or perhaps a screaming kid in the back and you have information overload. The brain can’t process all the signals fast enough, so some signals get lost. We don’t even know we are missing things but we are missing things. This happens to all of us. Even the best driver. Even the best cyclist. I’m not “here” 100% of the time and neither are you. But most of us are “here”, most of the time. Think about all the interactions you have with drivers every day. In general, things work. But sometimes they don’t. Whoever you are, wherever you travel, remember this. At some point you will be invisible to someone.

I don’t have a great recipe to cure this condition; I’m merely pointing it out. Never assume you are seen. Where bright yellow and deck yourself out in lights. But don’t think that will make everyone see you. It’s worth doing and it increases the odds but to someone you’ll still be invisible. But maybe that flash of yellow will break through and save you from a dicey situation. Or maybe remembering your own invisibility will help keep you alive.

Let me leave you with one more story. A few years ago I was retrieving my bike from a fire station. A van had turned in front of me in a sequence of events that led to my bike and I being taken away in an ambulance. I wound up at the hospital and my bike wound up at the fire station. While I was chatting with one of the fire fighters about my accident, I was brainstorming what else I could do to be more visible. The van driver, of course, had commented that he never saw me. While the fire fighter approved of my various schemes for brighter clothes, more lights and more reflective gear, he also cautioned me. “You’ll never make everybody see you. The other night we were out on a call in that,” he said pointing to a large, bright yellow hook and ladder truck. “It was parked in front of a burning house and a guy driving down the road slammed right into the back of it. When we pried him out of the car the first thing he said was ‘I never saw you.’”

Be careful out there. Keep ‘em rolling,


Kent "Mountain Turtle" Peterson 
Issaquah WA USA

Breezy on the Bridge

Every weekday morning and evening I ride across the I-90 floating bridge that connects Mercer Island to Seattle. I also ride across a smaller bridge that connects Mercer Island to south Bellevue, but the big bridge is the exciting one. On a day like today with 25 mile per hour gusts coming out of the south, it's quite exciting.

Kelly Kettle

I don't actually have one of these, but ever since Dan Goldenberg raved about this on his year-end "tried and liked in 2005" posting over on the iBOB mailing list, I've wanted one. The Kelly Kettle is a modern, yet very traditional, recreation of the Irish fisherman's kettle. Their website explains how the kettle works. Essentially it's a double-walled flask that holds water. You build a tiny fire in the base and in about five or six minutes you've got boiling water for tea, cocoa, instant coffee or whatever.

For most of my fast and light bike trips, I've been going without cooking gear. But there is something very nice about firing up a quick hot beverage first thing in the morning or at a quick back-country lunch stop. The little one-pint version of the kettle weighs a bit over a pound, and that weight might be worth carrying around. It's definitely lighter than packing a separate stove, fuel and cooking pot.

Slogans for Bike Shirts

Thanks to local screen printers and services like Cafe Press, it's pretty easy to get any slogan you want onto a T-shirt. I recently found a wiki at:

http://viki.gedris.org/index.php/Slogans_For_Bike_Shirts

that is a collection of various bike-related slogans. A wiki is a publicly editibable page on the internet, kind of an electronic chalk board that anyone can edit. My favorite slogan on the list is:

This Vehicle Runs On Alternative Fuel (With A Picture Of A Donut Next To It)

I've never seen a shirt like that but I may have to spend a little time with some imaging software and make one up.

If you've got a great idea for a T-shirt slogan, stop on by the wiki and add your own.