Biking Error

On Thursday, we went for a longish bike ride (for us, 21 or so miles).  Last year, I bicycled home from Swedish Glee Club practice. The trip if done correctly is around 15 miles.

Unfortunately I missed a turnoff in the bike path and ended up on a semi-major road in the middle of the night (2230 or so).  So Thursday, I wanted to ride the bike path from the other direction and see if I could find my error.  Since my LW is a wonderful person, she fortunately went with me.

At the start of the bike path, they had put down a fresh layer of the fine ground rock (or whatever it is).  So since it was not very well packed, this increased our effort biking immensely.

We got to a point ( after 8 or 9 miles) where the path switched sides of the street.  Unfortunately, to me, the sign did not make any sense ( it was one of those signs which could point in any direction).  So we crossed the road and my LW corrected me and we found the right path.

Shortly thereafter, we got to the place where I screwed up on my other ride.  Turns out that you have to cross the street ( I just keep going before) and go up a bank and under a overpass.  Hopefully I will be able to go the right way the next time I bike from practice!

But since I needed my LW to get me in the right direction this time, what hope is there for me?

Cadence

When I bicycle my cadence is usually around 60 rpm, when I was in the navy a1st. Class ET told me that you should have between 80-100 rpm.


Cadence - If you're relatively new to cycling, you are probably riding at a cadence that is below your optimum. Most new riders think they are getting a better workout if every pedal stoke is a strain and the quads are burning. Although there's a place for low-cadence workouts, during a normal ride, aim for a smooth spin at between 85-100 rpm (pedal revolutions per minute) which is much more efficient -- and easier on the legs, especially the knees.


Lance Armstrong has popularized high-cadence pedaling. He spins at about 90 rpm on even the steepest climbs, and he's regularly over 100 rpm in time trials. Does this mean you should be pedaling at a high cadence as well? Although your cadence can be increased through training, it may not fit with your personal physiology and biomechanics.


The make-up of your leg muscles (the ratio of fast-twitch to slow-twitch fibers), combined with your fitness, will self-select your cadence. For most experienced riders, ideal cadence is in the range of 80-100 rpm - and most tend to automatically pedal at around 90 rpm in normal condition . Non-cyclists tend to spin a bit lower at around 60-70 rpm.


Try this to see what cadence may be the best target for you.


Locate a protected 2-mile stretch of road (without significant cross streets or traffic). Ideally slightly rolling.
After you warm up for 15 minutes, ride the route hard in your biggest gear. Note your finish time and your heart rate if you have a monitor.
Recover for 15 to 20 minutes with easy spinning.
Ride the course again at the same heart rate (or perceived exertion if you don't have a monitor). But this time choose a rear cog that's one or two steps larger and allows you to keep your cadence about 100 rpm. Note your time for the same course.
After a day or two of rest, do the test in reverse - larger rear cog (lower gear ratio) first.
Compare your times. For most riders, the lower gear and higher cadence will produce faster times for less perceived effort.


Here are two drills that may be helpful in increasing your cadence and maintaining the smooth spin of a veteran.
Use a down hill to practice. Spin in a small gear on a slight descent, then gradually increase your cadence until your pelvis begins bouncing on the saddle. Back off about 5 rpm so (the bouncing stops). Hold that cadence and concentrate on a smooth pedal stroke for one minute. Cruise back up the hill and do it again. Relaxation is the key to pedaling at a high cadence without bouncing. Keep your elbows, shoulders and hips loose.
Use a that tailwind that you have stumbled across. Shift into a moderate gear and gradually increase your cadence until you're at 100-110 rpm. Hold it there for 30 seconds, then gradually ease back to 80 rpm. Repeat several times.
How do you estimate your cadence if you don't have a cadence fundtion on your computer? Set your computer display oto show seconds show. Using your right foot, count how many times it is at the bottom of the stroke during a 15 (or 30) second interval. Then then multiply by 4 (or 2). That will help you develop a sense of what 90-100 rpm feels like.<http://www.cptips.com/tech.htm >

I guess he was right, I guess I have to increase my cadence, but I am not a new cyclist!

Bike hazards

Intersting (to me) things that happened while bicycling to and from the Y.

Early in the morning, the other day, a skunk ran across the road just ahead of me. I moved to the right off of the road to avoid it. You can not win in a confrontation with a skunk, he can spray faster and smellier than a biker!

While bicycling on the bike trail with my light on early in the dark morning, another biker with no light on pasted very close to me!

Today, while biking back home, two women were walking on the path next to each other covering the entire path, as I approached them ( they were coming towards me not me oner taking them) the women on my side of the path did not move causing me to have move off the path into the rough.

Not only are cars dangerous to bicyclists, but people and animals can also cause accidents.

They moved the Store

We decided to go to the IL Kohls yesterday. The wind was from the south so I thought going against it there was better than against us on the way home.

But when we got there the store was not where it had been the last time that we went to that shopping center. So we went all the way around it and even to the next more west shopping center, but no Kohls! So we started back, but my LW noticed as we were entering yet another shopping center that there was a sign pointing to the Kohls that had moved there when we were not looking. After yet another detour ( as we like to call it, a chance to get more exercise, after all men don't like to admit that we have no sense of direstion) we got to the Kohls.

When we got there, we used a $10 gift card that they had graciously had provided us and a 20% off coupon that I got in a email ( both of which expired on Saturday and we didn't want to go on Saturday with the high temperatures that were expected and we had something else on Friday). We bought another black long skirt for my LW. As near as I could see everything there was on sale. You would have to look far and wide to find anything that was not on sale.

The road that we have to bicycle on was even worst than the last time we used it. The shoulder had about 6 inches of broken up concrete to bicycle on, so we had to use the gravel shoulder which was horrible. But we made it both ways!

Bicycling Maps

I love https://maps.google.com/  (actually I like it a lot).  They give options for using car, walking, public transportation, and BICYCLING.

We use this feature when we are going various places on our bikes.  Today, we are planning a trip to a Kohl's in WI.

Another good reference is http://www.traillink.com/home.aspx, which is a Rail to Trails Conservancy site, which partnered with Google for mapping various trails.

Another feature I like is the ability to add to the bike maps via the Google Map Maker.  Also at Trailink you can input trails and remarks.

Firing torpedoes

When you fire a torpedo at a target from a sub, you have to shoot where it is going to be when the torpedeo get there (since the torpedoe moves at a speed less than the speed of light) not where where the target is when you fire.

When you bicycle, you use the same process! You need to figure out where the cars are going to intersect your path. So you arrange your speed to NOT intersect the car's location. This is a good reason to have sub training, though being in the military is not as easy as one might like.

I went skeet shooting once. I hit the first 3 clay pigeons, but after that I missed all the rest. I started to aim at them instead of where they were going to be. So if you aim at the car, you will miss it unless the car changes speed or direction. Or as more prudent just wait for the car to leave!

Advantage of Forgetfulness

Today, I paid my real estate taxes at a local bank(I tried yesterday at my bank, but they no longer accept payments for the taxes).

 As I got close to home, I noticed that it was very sunny near my eyes! I had forgotten my sun glasses on the counter of the bank. Since we were bicycling back from the YMCA, my bike was laden down with my LW's Y bag and my Y stuff, so I decided to go home first and then go back to the bank.

 For some reason, I am always losing or dropping the sunglasses from my bike(I have basically 3 sets, one in the car, one at home and one on the bike, usually in my helmet or in the panniers), I think I have lost two pairs so far(of course they are el cheapo Walmart glasses so we loss is not as bad as it could be).

 So I bicycled back to the bank and the nice teller when she saw me asked if I was there for my sunglasses and of course I said yes.

But the advantage of my stupidity, is that I got another five or so miles bicycling in!

 I am writing this on my tablet and it capitalizes the first letter of each paragraph, but of course I am use to doing my own capitalizing so I often have to go back and correct it! Oh the advantages of technology! Plus it puts a corrected spelling of my mistakes or guesses what I want as a choice, but to accept it you press the space key NOT pressing the guess to accept it (another chance for error!).

First Bike Ride

For our first new bike ride, we went to the Warren- Newport Library.  The picture is of my LW at the library checking for the name of an author to look up some books by him (the library did not have them).

The video is from our trip home.

There was some confusion on the gear shifting, but I think we finally have it figured out.  The metal part of the shifter moves the  chain to a larger sprocket and vice versa for the plastic part.  So the right lever metal, decreases speed (rear sprocket) and the metal left increases speed (if you pedal at the same number of revolutions per minute) or easier pedaling (right).

I took the video on an iPad when I was a little ahead of her.  I took another video but it is hard to see her, so I didn't include it here.

The trip is about 15-18 miles round trip with long steep hills (for IL, of course in general going uphill is much harder than the amount of a break we get from the downhills) on local highways and fairly level bike trail at the end (going).  Our next planned excursion will be bicycling to Church.

 

Biking Past Tense

When my kids were growing up, we use to bicycle everywhere.  In WA State, the roads were very hilly.  We had a tandem that was modified to fit my daughter.

We bicycled to Church the day Mount St. Helens blew.  We were basically the only ones to show up.  I guess others had more sense.

We use to bicycle to my son's and daughter's soccer games and then they played in them.  I was a little worried that they might get to hate bicycling, but as my son's blog showed and the above video (ripped off from the blog) he is carrying on the tradition with his kids.  When my daughter visits, she brings the kids' bikes and they appear to enjoy biking.

The other day, I saw a young child in an electric car (toy sized).  He did not have to pedal and was going very fast.  Part of the childhood obesity problem is toys like that that do all the work for you.  Bicycling is much better for keeping kids at the proper weight.

Wind and Hills

When we lived in WA,  I bicycled to work every day.  At the end it was 10-15 miles one way and there were very hilly roads.  I didn't notice as much as now.

The wind is very important to bikers.  If the wind is with you; you don't notice it very much, but if it is against you it is very noticeable.  Yesterday, the wind was 20-30 mph from the North.  This meant I would have to bike against it on the way home from the Y.  Since I thought that I would do my regular swim (52 - 50 yd. laps) I thought I would take the car and get some gas for the lawnmower (the grass wasn't quite to the roof of the house but getting close).  When I got to the Y, they told me the pool was closed until further notice (some pipe problem).  I then wished I would have biked since I only did the weight machines (I hadn't done them in over 8 months & lost some of  the weight levels I had built up) and some treadmill (4 mph at 15% incline) and wouldn't have been as tired (but I did cut the grass for a lot of extra exercise [I keep wishing the lawnmower would run out of gas towards the end, but it kept going and going and going]).

I prefer the wind to be from the East and South in the Spring/Summer/Fall since the places we go tend to be South & East (and of course North & West on the return trip).  Also the longest hill is the last one going West.  Plus I am less tired or more fresh at the beginning of our trips.

Our house area is higher then most of the places we go, so we usually get the longest/steepest hill on the way back.  This means we get the potential energy at the beginning of our trips and vice versa we build up the P.E. on the return trip.  (Note to self: if possible when you move look for the reverse, but not in a flood plain.)

St Patrick's Day

We went to a St Patrick's Day party with the Waukegan Swedish Glee Club.  I guess everyone is Irish on SPD.  They served Corn Beef & Cabbage, I am part Irish but don't like either Corn Beef or Cabbage but do like Soda Bread so I had extra Soda Bread.  My Lovely Wife tells me that it is called that because it uses Baking Soda not yeast for leavening.   I had found some Soda Bread recipes for the breadmaker but basically the dough is taken out and baked on a sheet; what is the use of a breadmaker if you have to take the dough out to bake it?

Of the various cycles on the Breadmaker, there is a dough cycle plus Whole Wheat, White (basic), Sweet Bread, Gluten Free, French, Super Rapid, Pasta, Jam and Bake.

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A sign that I saw during the biking in to Church this morning:  SLOW Children - I think it is not very politically incorrect to refer to children as slow (and emphasizing the slow shame, shame) perhaps Educationally Challenged Children would be more appropriate.

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I didn't watch the MSU / St.Louis game, but did listen to it on the radio.  So I guess the control is only if I watch it on TV.  MSU WON!

We Made It

We bicycled to Church this morning and we made it back home safely!  It was a little cool in the morning (around 40F) but it warmed up to around 60F for the ride home.  The trip is on the order of 15 miles and it feels good to get back to biking.

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I feel a loss of control: I bought gas on Thursday night (the 10 block gas gauge on our new car had just gone to the lowest block) and today the gas has gone up 16¢ per gallon to $4.059.  I was going to tell all of you to fill up, but I don't know what happened (my LW says since it was late when we filled up maybe the gas goblin got confused or didn't see us!).  Fortunately, we in IL have a very high gas tax and since we are close to Chicago get the Summer Blend gas, so we get to pay more than most people.

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An interesting article from Reuter's saying that:

(Reuters) - Banks are foreclosing on America's churches in record numbers as lenders increasingly lose patience with religious facilities that have defaulted on their mortgages, according to new data.
The surge in church foreclosures represents a new wave of distressed property seizures triggered by the 2008 financial crash, analysts say, with many banks no longer willing to grant struggling religious organizations forbearance.
Since 2010, 270 churches have been sold after defaulting on their loans, with 90 percent of those sales coming after a lender-triggered foreclosure, according to the real estate information company CoStar Group.
In 2011, 138 churches were sold by banks, an annual record, with no sign that these religious foreclosures are abating, according to CoStar. That compares to just 24 sales in 2008 and only a handful in the decade before.


"Churches are among the final institutions to get foreclosed upon because banks have not wanted to look like they are being heavy handed with the churches," said Scott Rolfs, managing director of Religious and Education finance at the investment bank Ziegler.
Church defaults differ from residential foreclosures. Most of the loans in question are not 30-year mortgages but rather commercial loans that typically mature after just five years when the full balance becomes due immediately.
Its common practice for banks to refinance such loans when they come due. But banks have become increasingly reluctant to do that because of pressure from regulators to clean up their balance sheets, said Rolfs.
"A lot of these loans were given when the properties were evaluated at a certain level in 2005 or 2006," Rolfs said. "Banks have had to reappraise the value of these properties, whether it's a church or a commercial office building. Values have gone down, so the loans cannot continue in the same form."

Facebook, Soccer Coaches 2, Chain

My lovely wife has signed up for Facebook.  She has invited various people to be her "friends" and I think everyone so far has accepted.  But she received an email that 7 women and 10 men were searching for her. There were some with pictures but others had the shadowy outlines.  I think that it is creepy that people are searching for "her", of course, for only a "small" monthly fee (with super premium to el cheapo levels) she could see who these people were!

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For those of you who forget *** means a new subject.

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I have been watching the World Cup and watching the coaches,  they wouldn't survive in youth soccer; they just sit there glancing into the ether.  Numerous times I have wanted to help the players on the field with my useful commentary but I refrained since they wouldn't listen anyhow!

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After bicycling to the YMCA to bring my lovely wife her Y bag or actually as I was on the Y driveway, I heard a bad noise and my pedaling had no effect.  My chain broke!  It was at the furthest distance I was going to be from my house.  5 or 5.5 miles away, and I very dark cloud appeared.  So I got to walk home pushing my bike, plus sometime during the trip I lost my chain!

Take charge & Biking

I was complaining to my Lovely Wife (I do that a lot, the poor woman!) about the Bible Study that the pastor is now leading. It has us go into little groups (usually 2 people) to discuss things & I was saying that I liked the way I led the morning study better. She remarked that that was because I am a "Take charge" kind of guy. I never thought of myself as a "Take charge" type person. I do like to do things the way I like to do them though.

While I was biking home from the above mentioned Bible Study, I noticed that young people do not respond to my cheery "Good Morning" but either snarl at me or just look away. Whereas, older people tend to respond back.

Also I was approaching from behind a couple on the bike path today, I noticed that they were on the left side of the path so I said "Passing on the right," As soon as I was close to the woman (she was behind) she started to move over to the right & was startled to see me there. So I went into the grass on the right of the path to avoid her & in front the man was moving over to the right & remarked something like "I guess I mean the left" and passed him to the left.

It is interesting how people just do things the way it is normally done without listening.

“When placed in command take charge.” Norman Schwarzkopf

“We can let circumstances rule us, or we can take charge and rule our lives from within.” Earl Nightingale

“When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over your life.” Abert F. Geoffrey

take charge assume control or responsibility : the candidate must take charge of an actual flight.

ORIGIN Middle English (in the general senses [to load] and [a load] ): from Old French charger (verb), charge (noun), from late Latin carricare, carcare ‘to load,’ from Latin carrus ‘wheeled vehicle.’