Who here bikes?

[Lucia]

I'm on a three wheeler right now but want to upgrade to either a two wheeler with a stabilizer unit attached or go for an electric three wheeler. I'm looking at a Curie for the three wheeler but they are so expensive.

Nevertheless, I want to reduce my dependency on my relatives to drive me around , on local errands, as much as possible.

[Lucia]

Okay update time - It looks like a two wheeler is not for me. The moment I straddled one, I felt the weight and akwardness of it. I also felt that even putting on those stablizer tires would not contribute significantly toward maintaining my balance.

So I'm back to the trike which I will upgrade and make into a three speed. I think it's a modest investment.

At another site, a recumbent user mentioned some high performance tires (the type that's meant for all terrain and resist punctures more.

Considering that I'm traveling through stretches (side/industrial streets) where pedestrian traffic is minimal, I'm wondering if I should explore that as a safety tool?

What do you think?

[KristaH]

Lucia, I too ride a trike. It is a steel framed beast, and I also ride on side streets and there is a lot of glass and thorns, I just put slime in the tires and haven't had any problems. I'm trying to find new cranks for mine to get clipless pedals, my cranks are metric and not compatible and I'm tired of strapping my feet to the pedals, the cranks I have found are expensive so I guess I'll be strapping my feet awhile longer.

[Lucia]

Slime on the tires? Cranks? Sorry Krista but I'm a newbie to cycling so the things you're mentioning are new to me.

However, it does sound like I should be looking into them but I'm not sure what I'm looking or doing.

[KristaH]

Haha sorry I forgot you were very new to cycling. Usually your tires will be sold with slime in them, but its good to add more. Walmart sells it next to the innertubes and directions are on the bottle. It helps seal the inner tube in case of a small puncture. Cranks are what hold the pedals, and since mine are an odd diameter I can't replace the pedals to clip less which allow me to buy special biking shoes to clip my feet to the pedals so I don't have to tie them to the pedals. Its safer, if I have another accident I'm not tied to the trike waiting for my boyfriend to untie me Hope this clears it up a little, any other questions I'm sure any of us on here will be happy to answer. Glad you are staying active!
Krista

[Lucia]

Thanks Krista for coming back to answer and explain.

Hhhhmmmmm, for some reason I imagine slime in a tube. Makes sense too.
I'll definitely pick up some sline (sounds so funny) and put it in my tires.

Now I know what cranks are too. Thanks alot for the explanation.

[AMFADVENTURES]

El Tour de Tucson

DD invited me back for another shot at the El Tour de Tucson this year. “And this time”, she says, “we’re going to finish in less than 7 hours.” So, after a several weeks off, I’m back on the bike. Got 3 months to get a little faster for a little longer.

El Tour de Tucson is a 109-mile race against the clock. It’s also one of the best-organized events I’ve ever had the pleasure of attending. Should be fun no matter what happens.

If any body might be interested you can check it out at:
http://www.perimeterbicycling.com/!ETT/ETThome.html

AMF

[AMFADVENTURES]

Riding against the wind

Some of you may have seen the wind fanned fire around Boulder CO on the national news. I can verify the 45 mph winds that were blamed for that fire getting out of control because a couple of friends and I tried to do a 70 mile one way ride in those winds on Labor Day. I can ride in 30 mph wind with 45 mph gusts but it’s no fun. Our plan was to meet our wives for lunch at the end of the ride and pile in a car for the trip home. It was fortunate the wives were already close because we called for rescue when the route came to some fairly long but only moderately steep hills and the wind was still howling.

I’ll say one thing for doing that though, it made riding in the 20 mph winds a day later seem almost easy.

One could probably draw some parallels to living with MS vs riding against the wind, hmmm.

AMF

[AMFADVENTURES]

Tour de Tucson

I completed the Tour de Tucson that DD invited me to a while back and I have to say, it was a real rush to start in the middle of the 5,000 or so riders in the 109 mile race this time. It took a few miles for that to all sort itself out and at the end of it, I found myself separated from the rest of our party.

By the half way point, I was running about 20 minutes behind where I wanted to be and according to my wife, about 30 minutes behind everyone else. I couldn’t understand why I was running late but since everything else felt about right I didn’t change anything except try to pay more attention to keeping my food and water stops short. About 30 miles later DD called and I managed to figure out that she was only about 15 minutes ahead, then I did try to pick up my pace a little.

There was a bit of a head wind and some pretty nasty gusts over the last 20 miles but I still managed to finish within 15 minutes of DD. In the end, I finished in under the 9 hour minimum I had set for myself but didn’t make the 7.5 hour mark I would have liked to. Although I couldn’t beat the 3 people in our party who were at least 20 years younger than me, I did beat the 3 who weren’t. That’s not too bad for an old MSer is it?

Time for a little therapeutic overindulgence for the next month or so. Happy Holidays everyone,

AMF

[jackjackson]

Cycle

I love to get out and cycle. We had a small team for the MS150 last year here in Colorado. We plan to do it again this year. Right now I am training for the Ironhorse over in Durango.

[AMFADVENTURES]

Iron Horse

I love to get out and cycle. We had a small team for the MS150 last year here in Colorado. We plan to do it again this year. Right now I am training for the Ironhorse over in Durango.

I did the MS 150 here last year too. Always a great ride!

The Iron Horse looks pretty challenging, sure a good climb there. What are you doing to train?

AMF

[ActiveMSers]

I get up to Durango often and was part of a personal SAG wagon for an Ironhorse a few years back. My buddy did it on a single speed (more of a challenge), but he is in a different league. He just got back from the single speed world championships in New Zealand!

BTW, with only one gear, I hear the decent of Molas Pass is super tricky. Those pedals want to spin mighty fast....

[AMFADVENTURES]

Those fixie guys really are something. I can’t even begin to imagine doing that ride from Durango up to Purgatory, over Coal Bank and Molas on a fixie. That’s just mind boggling.

While we’re on the subject of that area though, allow me to post an excerpt from my own Ride the Rockies saga, the Ouray to Durango segment. I had 30 speeds on a road bike with gearing modified to approach mountain bike ratios and I’d say I just barely made it.

Day 4 of Ride the Rockies, Ouray to Durango, will be remembered as the day the wind came out to play. We knew this would be a tough day so planned accordingly to get an early start. By 6:00 AM we were on our way up Red Mountain Pass. There was no run in, no warm up, the ascent began right in downtown Ouray. Red Mountain is a 3,000 ft. climb over 13 miles. The grade is 5% to 7%. What I remember most about this climb, was that I started counting breaths. On a steep climb, 500 breaths would take me a little over a mile in 7 - 10 minutes. After every 500 or so breaths, I would look for a place to pull over and stand over my bike for a minute or so to relieve the pressure from the seat and reestablish the blood flow to my butt. I crested the summit but I don’t really remember it, I think I decided to ride past the rest stop there and continue on down to Silverton.

I don’t remember a lot about the descent either except that when I reached the base at Silverton , I spent an inordinately long time at the rest stop. That turned out to be a huge mistake because, as I knew all too well, the wind in Colorado generally picks up in the mid to late morning. A half-hour can be the difference between completing a ride with or without a wind.

The climb out of Silverton up to Molas Divide was a little more than 1500 ft. of ascent over 7 miles, the first 4 of which were 6% to 7% grade. That climb was a slow go, it’s possible there was a slight head wind but I really didn’t notice because I was busy counting breaths. After that first 4 miles though, you couldn’t help but notice the wind. It wasn’t constant, it depended on what particular part of the mountain you were on but when conditions were right, it was at least 20 mph and frequently square on the nose. The grade over the top 3 miles lessened to 3% and 4% making it almost possible to pedal, but the feeling of hitting that first shot of 20 mph headwind after coming off the steeper climb sent my heart right though my stomach. It got pretty discouraging, fighting both the hill and the wind, until finally, with less than 3 miles to go to the top and a giant knot in my gut, I stopped to flag a SAG.

Many riders, who found themselves in similar circumstances and had MS free working brains, had decided to SAG much earlier on the climb so of course, by the time a SAG got to me, it was full up. After a couple of full SAG’s passed me by, I figured I might as well try to ride a few more feet up the hill. I kind of waited for SAG’s and rode a little for the next hour or so until finally the top came into view. I Wish I could say it was a relief to see the summit but it only reinforced the obvious, that I wouldn’t be getting a SAG, and so I gritted my teeth and crawled to the top of Molas Divide.

The next climb up Coal Bank Pass was only 3 miles long and a little more than 700 ft. of ascent. A short ride down Molas and a rest at the bottom gave me a chance to reflect on what I had just accomplished and little determination returned. Although not by choice, I hadn’t SAG’ed yet and I only had 3 miles and 700 vertical feet to go until I could coast into Durango. Maybe the wind wasn’t as bad here either, I don’t recall, but one more time, I bit the bullet and started counting breaths until I reached the top.

Most of the descent was on a nice 3 lane road and it was a good thing because the wind had picked up and although it was mostly on the nose, it could still buffet a bike several feet off its’ line. A rider had to keep as small a profile as possible to minimize the effect of the wind and make sure to know what was around him at all times in case a big gust did hit.

We pulled in and stayed at a friends house a few miles before Durango so our stats for the day ended up a little short at 66 miles and 5,978 vertical feet. It was a 10.5 hour day.
http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united...26556989650724

Should you be so fortunate as to get that same wind, it will ease your ride from Durango to Silverton greatly.

AMF