It is amazing how perceptions of distance can differ between modes of transportation. One of the reasons I mostly stopped mountain biking years ago was the unfavorable comparison of total time dedicated to a ride and the actual ride time spent riding. The closest off road spot is a frustrating 25 minute or so drive away, but on a road bike I can be out in the country and away from traffic in just a few minutes. The lost hour and wasted gas are good reasons to just go on a road ride instead. The local mountain bike ride isn’t too far away, but the quickest way to drive there includes some sections of road that I’d rather not bike. But about a month ago, I looked at a map, and realized that a longer and safer alternate route was shorter than I anticipated. So I gave it a try. It turns out that even though I’d chosen a longer route on a bike than in the car, it still took the same 25 minutes to get to Franke Park. But instead of a frustrating trip with bad drivers, traffic lights that are always against me, and thoughts of how much gas I’m wasting, taking the bike route is a relaxing warm-up before the real ride. So now I’ve been mountain biking twice a week. And because I’m not wasting an hour getting my bike to the park and back, I am able to ride for an hour longer than I could if I drove there.

Even though I’m heading most of the way across town, I can still make the trip in the same time on bike or in a car. This shows that if you are in a city, it is worth comparing travel times in a car and on bike. Once traffic is taken into account, cars don’t necessarily have an advantage.

Instead of the normal chain whip that relies on a bit of standard bicycle chain to connect to the cogs, the Vise Whip uses a Vise-Grip style locking mechanism to securely clamp four pins around a cog. Now, instead of being an awkward job, removing a cassette from my bike takes a few seconds. The Vise Whip is a reasonably elegant solution to a common bicycle maintenance task, but it is rather expensive. The Vise Whip is one of my tools that is expensive and not used too often, but is a real time saver when I do need it. I could have just bought a normal shop quality chain whip, but the Vise Whip sure is a nice upgrade if you can find a deal on one.

Only two of us rode with the club, though we did see ‘Coker Guy’ ride zip by on his 36 inch unicycle on the way to the ride. This year we were much better prepared. In the last year my brother and I both found deals on used unicycles, so instead of riding 26 inch wheels, I rode my 29 inch wheel and my brother rode his 36 inch wheel.

Cranks

Unlike on a bicycle where changing gears is just a matter of using different cogs, on a unicycle ‘gear’ is set only by the ratio of wheel radius to crank length. (Well, if you are rich, you could buy a Schlumpf hub.) I usually ride off-road on my 29 inch wheel with 165 mm cranks. A week before the Chilly Challenge, I swapped my 165 mm cranks for 125 mm cranks. This moved my gain ratio from 2.2 to 2.9. For comparison, I usually mountain bike at a gain ratio of 4, and the lowest gain ratio on my road bike is 3.3. The higher gain ratio theoretically makes it easier to ride faster on the road, but it also takes getting used to. To maintain the same riding posture, shortening the cranks by 40 mm means also raising the seat by 40 mm, which has a large effect on balance, particularly on cambers. The shorter cranks also mean you are moving your feet in smaller circles, slightly changing the muscles being used. With these changes, it took me two hours of riding to get mostly used to the shorter cranks.

The shorter cranks also make it even easier to out-spin my comfort level. Sitting so much higher also sligtly lowers my comfort level, especially on a day with strong winds. With 125 mm cranks on a 29 inch wheel, I fairly frequently think, ‘woah, I’m riding fast,’ then UPD. Since my brother was riding a 36 inch wheel with 150 mm cranks (giving him a gain ratio of 3.0) the limit on our speed was the point where I felt I was spinning to fast for a road ride. Fortunately, riding the Chilly Challenge helped me become much more comfortable with short cranks.

The ride

January 1 was a warm and dry day, but very windy. The winds were constant at around 25 mph, with much faster gusts. Because of the wind, this was by far the smallest group for the Chilly Challenge in the years I’ve ridden it; I’ve seen more riders on much colder years when it was wet out. Because the people who showed up this year were mostly serious club riders, we weren’t able to keep up on our unicycles as far as we did last year, so we took some shortcuts—and a long-cut—meeting the bike club at the site of the Polar Bear Plunge. The Polar Bears started a earlier than usual, so we arrived just as they were leaving the river. Since it was so warm out, I’d thought of joining the Polar Bears this year—it doesn’t seem so intimidating after the water on the HUFF course this year—but decided unicycling would be more fun. After the Polar Bear stop, we rode back to the starting point by a route slightly longer than the official short route. Even though we rode longer and farther than last year, the extra unicycling practice and better suited unicycles made it feel like a shorter ride.

After the ride is the traditional chili dinner at the park. There was a good variety if chilis to sample, but even the ones marked ‘Spicy’ were very mild. They tasted pretty good though.

Now that the Chilly Challenge and HUFF are over, I’m looking forward to the start of winter even more than I already was. Will winter ever come this year?

Yesterday was a good example of why it is important to always clean your car’s windshield completely before driving. I didn’t see the accident take place, but a car that was parked on the street was pushed about fifty feet down the road, onto the grass, and into a tree. This caused quite a bit of damage to both ends of the car. The driver that hit the parked car left the scene. A few minutes later another neighbor showed up with a smashed bumper. What I think happened was this:

(Using standard cryptography alphabetical stand-in names)

It was warm but snowing (‘slushing’) just enough that car windows needed to be cleaned before driving. Alice was in a hurry and didn’t clean her windshield. In the half block between Alice’s house and where Bob was parked, Alice accelerated too much. I can tell Alice was driving too fast for a neighborhood street by how far Bob’s car was pushed given the relative masses of the two cars. Alice must have not cleaned her windshield, preventing her from seeing Bob’s car, even though it is common for a car to be parked where Bob’s was. Alice then drove back up the block, cleaned the snow off the car, and came back.

Now, imagine that instead of a parked car, it was one of the many cyclists or joggers in the neighborhood. So, please, completely clean and defrost your car’s windows before driving.

Why is this important? The current law uses a subjective definition of safe passing separation. What a cyclist feels is a safe distance isn’t necessarily the same as what a driver or police officer feels is a safe distance. Drivers often believe the safe distance is much less than it is, and make dangerous passes. Since the safe distance is no less than three feet, and many people don’t realize this, we need the minimum separation to be explicit in the motor vehicle code.

You can help promote this important safety law by filling out this survey from Bicycle Indiana, and by writing your state representatives. And while you are at it and if you live in Allen County, fill out the City of Fort Wayne Trail Survey.

With or without an explicit legal definition, remember to only make safe passes:

Notice the steps of the safe pass:

1. Begin to move over well before reaching the cyclist.
2. Pass at a safe distance. Keep a minimum of three feet between the closest points of the car and the bicyclist. At high speeds and with large vehicles the minimum safe separation is larger. Don’t forget about your mirrors.
3. Move back into the lane well after passing the cyclist. Don’t forget to leave room for your trailer.

When I leave the lab early enough, I occasionally ride with the racing group from the local bike store. The usual route is to take the greenway out of town and do laps around the reservoir. This is a 60 kilometer ride plus 16 km per extra lap. I usually just try to stay with them as long as I can. The last ride I was able to go on, we took an alternate route that goes south 35 km to the nearest hill, then zigzags across it several times before heading back. The whole ride is 110 km or so. About 25 km from the end, my saddle started squeaking. Two kilometers from the end, one of the rails broke.

I’m glad it didn’t break until I was almost back. I upshifted and finished the ride standing. I’m not sure why it broke. The split is just behind the clamp on the seatpost. This is probably the point where a seat rail is most likely to break. The break caused a burr along the end of the saddle clamp. I filed it down, then polished it so that it won’t damage my next saddle. This was the first time I removed the stock seatpost from my Cannondale CAAD8 bicycle. I was surprised at how light the shaft is, but how heavy the clamp is. With the closest hill being 35 km away, a few extra grams doesn’t matter.

Fortunately, I have an identical saddle on my commuter bike that I can put on my road bike, and a different saddle for my commuter. It is odd that it broke, but I’m glad I wasn’t further from home or in traffic.

Links:

• News-Sentinel: Koehlinger Cycling a casualty of slow U.S. economy
• Journal Gazette: Cycling, fitness shop closes Economy ‘part of it’; ‘ambitious’ strategy, loss of deals factors