Biking: Catch-all

I took a look at the Trek 3.1 Madone and it looks like it is actually plenty of bike as well. I looked at the Felt's but the short head tubes and far more aggressive geometry were more the kind of bike I would have ridden when I was in my 20's.

It looks like the Domane series frames are more my speed, but they pretty much start at $2500, so they are out of reach.

Given I've invested a handsome sum in a new bike, and especially since I like riding in bad weather, I'm going to start saving toward and looking for some tires with more surface area. According to Soma's site, the frame is designed to take up to 28c-wide tires with fenders. Per my initial buying discussion with the LBS, based on the brakes they installed, I'm thinking I may need to accept a 28c-wide tire without fenders or take a narrower tire to put fenders on. I'll be confirming that in the near future.

Having read Sheldon Brown, and understanding his engineering perspective, I'm looking for a wider slick that'll ride okay slightly under-inflated on particularly slick days. Of course, that'll necessitate new wheels as well. I'll be reading reviews where I can, but I'm curious if anyone has experience with specific tires and wheel sets that won't cost as much as the bike, i.e., may fall into a $100-200 price range.

complexmath wrote:

I think the key to racks in general is to try and get one where the bike is secured by the wheels instead of hung by the top tube, since many bikes these days don't have a flat top tube. I have a Saris hitch rack and it's worked very well for me, but then I have an SUV and it came with a hitch.

This has been the biggest pain in the neck with our rack, especially when hauling a whole family's worth of bikes. Kids bikes need an adapter bar to fit on a hang rack. If a bike rack wasn't basically indestructible, we'd probably replace it. We also needed a hitch-mount swing rack to fit on the station wagon... and would need a different car to accomodate four bikes on a platform hitch in any case.

@WipEout, if you want more hope for riding with kids, my husband and son (11-1/2) just finished the Hudson Valley Pedal -- 200 miles from Albany, NY to NY, NY.
IMAGE(http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/9376/20120805theymadeit.png)

They also have ridden the length of the Erie canal, which they did in pieces over three years, starting when my son was 8-1/2. The start of their first big ride, when I dropped them off in Buffalo:
IMAGE(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7886/eriecanaltourpart1.jpg)

LiquidMantis wrote:
complexmath wrote:

I'm also hoping to start riding with my 4 year-old to school on one of those trailer bikes. They're surprisingly expensive though.

Man, I've got two of them I need to get rid of. Just check Craigslist though. They typically don't get a lot of use and the use they do get is light. So as long as you can find one that was garage kept you should be able to get a good deal.

Good call on checking Craigslist. I checked for the first time today and found someone nearby selling a nearly new Burley Kazoo for 120 bucks. I kept the happy dance carefully in check when I left his house, and had it ready to go in an hour with all three kids helping. My four year old has been too scared to try much balancing on the glider bike we got, but we were doing laps on the street with the Kazoo immediately and now she's begging for a post-dinner ride. The new helmet that looks like a horse head doesn't hurt either. Couldn't have gone better. Photo forthcoming.

Edit:

And here's the photo. We went on a family ride tonight. The oldest on the Kazoo and the twins in a trailer on my wife's bike with our Husky on the Walky Dog. She was yelling with excitement the whole way and is currently sleeping with her bike helmet next to her in bed. Mission as a parent accomplished for the day I think.

IMAGE(http://i693.photobucket.com/albums/vv294/complexmath/kazoo.jpg)

complexmath wrote:

And here's the photo. We went on a family ride tonight. The oldest on the Kazoo and the twins in a trailer on my wife's bike with our Husky on the Walky Dog. She was yelling with excitement the whole way and is currently sleeping with her bike helmet next to her in bed. Mission as a parent accomplished for the day I think.

Three plus a dog, wow, that is a family ride. Nice! We're almost at the stage where we'll all able to ride as a family. Our 10mo is not quite ready for the co-pilot, but will be soon. Our three year old rides everyday.

It's sometimes worse. My wife is set up to pull two in a trailer and one on a bike seat in back. Shell do rides with all three plus the dog. Our oldest was never terribly excited about being a passenger though, so this is a nice development, even though you can't pull both a trailer and a ride-behind. It's pretty funny to watch he go by hauling the whole family, but works out pretty well for now.

complexmath wrote:

even though you can't pull both a trailer and a ride-behind.

While it's not the safest, my wife had the trail-a-bike attached to her bike, then the trailer attached to that. She hasn't gone anywhere too far with that setup, a few miles here and there but it worked out well when she had to haul all 3 kids around.

Interesting. I know it's technically possible, but... good to hear someone has actually done it and it works.

IMAGE(http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q133/serengeti000/255271_10151973766370366_2003026030_n.jpg)

My buddy Jeff, shop manager at Sports Basement, my old bike shop in San Francisco:

IMAGE(http://ynottony.com/jeff.jpg)

This is a few years ago. His beard is longer now.

So he's now a wizard?

Jeff was always a wizard. Now he's a Super Wizard.

Correlation != causation, folks. Otherwise, smug hipster d-bags would be fixing circles around me, and I don't mean "astride their trackified accessories".

Nice little idea they came up with. Not sure if I could get used to it though. I'm so used to that feeling of a real bona fide helmet.

Huh. It's like an airbag, but in a helmet.

That's a cool idea and kudos to the inventors, but I'd hardly classify that bulky neck brace as "invisible", plus how hot would that be wrapped around your neck in the middle of the summer?

Serengeti wrote:

That's a cool idea and kudos to the inventors, but I'd hardly classify that bulky neck brace as "invisible", plus how hot would that be wrapped around your neck in the middle of the summer?

Cedar Rapids must be devoid of overly-fashionable people riding "Dutch" bikes and wearing scarves and furry boots at 85F+.

(Don't get me wrong, that's a good deficiency to have!)

ianunderhill wrote:
Serengeti wrote:

That's a cool idea and kudos to the inventors, but I'd hardly classify that bulky neck brace as "invisible", plus how hot would that be wrapped around your neck in the middle of the summer?

Cedar Rapids must be devoid of overly-fashionable people riding "Dutch" bikes and wearing scarves and furry boots at 85F+.

(Don't get me wrong, that's a good deficiency to have!)

Yup, we like our hard plastic helmets, and kilts of course!

IMAGE(http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q133/serengeti000/539203_10151150611153420_1729304156_n.jpg)

(Oh, and 85+ would have been nice; this year the first 4 days of the 'BRAI were over 100!)

Repost from the Videos thread:

If only this happened every time we've tried to get our stolen bikes back.

Our garage looks like a bike shop.

I think we got what we deserved when we bought the kid a bike from Bikes Direct. But he and my husband are having an awful lot of fun tearing it down and putting it back together again, and B. will probably be well qualified to hold a summer job as a bike mechanic someday.

Katy wrote:

and B. will probably be well qualified to hold a summer job as a bike mechanic someday.

If/when that happens, try to avoid having him work at a shop where the greenhorn mechanics get paid commission for piecemeal assembly. It's not only a raw deal in the way of pay (which is usually around $5-$8/bike), but it encourages fast work rather than careful and attentive work. That's not just a bad way to learn mechanical skills - that's a bad way to start to build a work ethic. There's also something to be said for not working in an environment where inefficient cost-cutting measures are rampant and other employees are constantly bristling against management.

Stoked to hear your husband and son are making a project of it, though. Those kinds of things are more priceless than Mastercard knows.

ianunderhill wrote:

Stoked to hear your husband and son are making a project of it, though. Those kinds of things are more priceless than Mastercard knows.

I am refusing to count the number of different wrenches in Park Tool packaging that have come into the house in the last week. And there's the truing stand, and the spoke tension meter, and the pedals that won't require a pedal wrench to take off for packing in a bike box at the train station, and...

The wheels were actually in good shape, but they did install the brakes and take a trip to the bike store to get the headset adjusted or lubricated or some such (there's another set of wrenches coming, I bet).

Park blue is sexy, even if Pedro makes nice tools too.

WipEout wrote:

Repost from the Videos thread:

If only this happened every time we've tried to get our stolen bikes back.

That was a whole lot of self restraint. I think I might have thrown that asshat and his skank girlfriend into traffic.

Katy wrote:

[Wonderful bike tool stuff, including having a truing stand in the garage.]

I can't draw out the vowel sounds in "so awesome" nearly enough to express how happy the thoughts of all that make me. Here's hoping your son gets the fix-it bug augmenting the bike bug. Partially because I get super-geeked when I hear about anyone excited about fixing bikes (my favorite thing in the world after riding bikes), but also because the really rewarding thing about learning how to do stuff is the way in which one becomes less afraid of learning and buffs problem-solving skills.

For example: when I was more involved in the local instance of FreeGeek, I used to spend a lot of time at staff meetings and retreats talking about how one of my reasons for involvement wasn't just to teach people about using computers and helping them understand computer hardware, but rather to help them "learn how to learn better". There's really a lot to be said for looking at Multi-layered Systems of Interoperating/Interdependent Stuff and having a vague strategy for how to isolate given sections. It's much the same in terms of, say, knowing search engine syntax but also knowing the content of the input, if that makes sense.

Anyway: thanks again for sharing. Many grins were had on this end.

I'm thinking I'll do one of the El Tour de Tucson distances in November, so 12ish weeks away. Generally, I'm fit-ish (a half marathon wouldn't worry me, though I'd be way off a PR), but have effectively no cycling experience/fitness. I'll probably use my mountain bike with road tires, so what's a reasonable distance to go for? Distances are 42/65/85/111.

Also, any suggestions for a good training plan?

Competed in the Chicago Urban Assault yesterday. Placed 14th in our class, 42nd overall (out of 266 completes)! Not bad for my first time, and my partner was sorta slow so I had to hold back and/or wait for her to catch up at checkpoints a lot. I did make a wrong turn that probably cost us a couple minutes too, though.

It sort of makes me want to race for reals, though-- as fun as the checkpoints/challenges were, I had more fun trying to pass all the other cyclists.

I'll link to race pics once they're up.

I laughed.

"Eh, without the loop, it is a-nothing."

Cod wrote:

I'm thinking I'll do one of the El Tour de Tucson distances in November, so 12ish weeks away. Generally, I'm fit-ish (a half marathon wouldn't worry me, though I'd be way off a PR), but have effectively no cycling experience/fitness. I'll probably use my mountain bike with road tires, so what's a reasonable distance to go for? Distances are 42/65/85/111.

Also, any suggestions for a good training plan?

I'm not an expert, but if you ride 30+ miles a couple of times a week with an occasional longer ride thrown in, you could do either the 65 or 85. 42 won't be enough to challenge you. I did 108 last year on a mountain bike with commuter tires and couldn't walk by the end, so I wouldn't recommend the 111. I think there's a big jump in difficulty between 75 and 100.

Be sure to carry what you need for flat repairs and a couple of Clif Bars with you.