Tag: Bike Friday

No Pain, Big Gain

My last post I described how I swapped handlebars on Little Nellie in an attempt to make the bike useable again. When I bought the bike in 2007, I ordered tit with drop bars. because that’s what I had on my other bike, The Mule. Despite having ridden Little Nellie well over 22,000 miles with drop bars, the bike never felt right, even after buying a shorter stem and changing brake levers. Worse, in recent years the impact shock from the bike’s little wheels and single beam frame made it increasingly painful to ride. I figured that maybe the problem with the drop bars was that they were causing me to reach too far, extending my lower back, and leaving it vulnerable to road and trail imperfections.

I had H-bars installed. H-bars are essentially straight, horizontal handlebars with a short vertical bar welded to either end. They allow me to have two hand positions – either on the horizontal bar or on the risers on the vertical part of the bar – and keep me from overextending my lower back while riding.

Little Nellie's New Look
Little Nellie with H-bars

I really thought this new handlebar idea was a long shot. If it didn’t work, I’d sell or donate the bike. I felt pretty foolish spending over $400 on the conversion (plus some while-were-at-it other work including a new front wheel). I expected the H-bar to be a minor improvement at best, allowing me, if successful, to use the bike for running short errands.

When I picked the bike up on Saturday, I did a 15-mile test ride. It went well, but the real proof of the pudding would come in longer, repeated riding. I woke up Sunday with no lower back problems. In fact, to my surprise my lower back actually felt better than the day before.

This week I rode the bike three days in a row, for 30, 31, and 32 miles. The last time I rode this bike more than 100 miles in a week’s time was in November 2019. In fact, I rode it less in all of 2022 than I did the last five days.

The only time I’ve felt discomfort while riding was when I hit a bump awkwardly during today’s ride. Otherwise, the riding has been fun and pain free. When I got off the bike, Monday and yesterday, my back was a bit stiff. This may have more to do with lifting a heavy box on Monday and doing maintenance on my ungainly gas-powered lawn mower yesterday. The stiffness went away once I sat down for a few minutes, which suggests that it was just my spinal stenosis acting up.

As before, I found that riding my Bike Friday is a bit more tiring than a conventional bike like The Mule. That said, I feel like I could peel off a 40- or 50-mile ride in reasonable comfort. That’s easily enough to do errands.

I think part of the difference in comfort is the width of the H-bar. Having my hands out a bit more to the side allows the bar to flex a tiny bit when I hit bumps. My butt is also a little further back on my saddle where it can benefit from the saddle’s suspension springs.

I plan to experiment a bit with fine tuning my saddle position, moving the saddle up and/or back a couple of millimeters (it makes a surprising difference.)

I am declaring the transformation a success.

While out tooling around today, Little Nellie decided to celebrate by turning 23.

Little Nellie turns 23 #bikefriday #newworldtourist #odometer

If you are considering buying a Bike Friday, I highly recommend getting H-bars.

Old Bike, New Look

Little Nellie is my Bike Friday New World Tourist folding travel bike. I bought it in 2007 and have ridden it over 20,000 miles. It was custom made to mimic the dimensions of The Mule, my full-sized Specialized Sequoia touring bike.

Little Nellie’s wee wheels make it a blast to ride. It darts about on the road and accelerates fast. Those wee wheels have a downside: they transmit road shock like nobody’s business. My aging and decrepit lower back had become increasingly unhappy with this feature.

I knew I had to make changes from the very start. I ordered a fit stem from Green Gear, Bike Friday’s company. This was an ugly stem that could be adjusted in various ways. Once I was satisfied with a particular configuration, I sent it back to Green Gear and they made me a proper stem to mimic the fit stem’s settings.

The new stem helped some with my back problems. As time passed, my back complained anew. I tried new brake levers, hoping to compensate for the long curved horns of the drop handlebars. Again this helped a bit, but the back pain came back yet again.

As I do day rides around my neck of the woods, I frequently see a man with gray hair riding a green Bike Friday. He seems quite comfy. I noticed that, unlike Little Nellie, his bike has straight bars. Bike Friday sells handlebars that have an interesting feature; they are split in the middle. This allows easy packing when travelling.

This got me to cogitating. It seems I had three choices. (1) Keep riding Little Nellie as is and incur increasing levels of back pain. (2) Sell it. (3) Swap out my handlebars for flat bars and use the bike more as a utility bike.

So I decided that, at the risk of throwing good money after bad, I’d go for what was behind door number (3). I also decided that I would pay a bit more for split handlebars.

I drove to Mount Airy, Cycles in Maryland some 50 miles from home and looked at an array about eight different flat bars with the split feature. I decided on a pair of Bike Friday H-bars. These handlebars have a flat section but also have risers on each end. this provides more places to put your hands, thereby avoiding fatigue in the hands, arms, and shoulders. the bottom of the risers extend beyond the flat part of the handlebar. This would allow me to use my bar end shifters, saving some money on the conversion.

The Mule came with narrow handlebars. After many years, I realized that wider handlebars would give me more control, add to my comfort level, and open up my chest for easier breathing. When selecting the new bars for Little Nellie, I chose the widest ones with the H-bar design.

On the way home I dropped Little Nellie off at Bikes at Vienna, a bike shop that specializes in bikes of unusual design, such as folding bikes, recumbents bikes and trikes, and such. Over the course of the last few weeks they worked on the bike. It turned out that my front rim was toast so a new one had to be ordered, which delayed things a bit.

Today, I went to pick up the new Little Nellie. I must say the mechanics did a darned nice job. I immediately took off for a test ride on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail. The wider bars combined with the small wheels made the bike even twitchier than before. Also, I found my hands gravitating to the riser portion of the bars. As I came upon some people on the trail, I reflexively reached for the brakes. Uh Oh! The new handlebars had brake levers on the flat portion, not the brake hoods as I was used to.

No worries. I managed not to take out any trail users. This ain’t my first rodeo, you know.

There are other subtle features that will take getting used to. The shifters can sometimes make rather unpleasant contact with my knees. My handlebar back doesn’t fit anymore so I’ll have to switch to a fanny pack. And my bell was on the right side instead of the left. I whiffed on the bell a few times. (I switched it over to the left side when I got home.) I will have to be careful loading the bike into the trunk of my car because the wider bars can make contact with the underside of the trunk lid. Finally, I have to find a good place to put my mirror. (It was left loose probably knowing I’d be fiddling with it.) These are all quibbles though.

The good news is that the new configuration is definitely more comfortable. The bar tape is fake (I think) cork which feels soft. The brakes – once I found them – gave me plenty of stopping power. And I rode up and down hills like I was on a big boy’s bike. The new front wheel rode like butter.

In the weeks ahead I’ll take Little Nellie out for longer rides to see how my back better tolerates repeated use.

New Bag Rear
Little Nellie’s original cockpit. Note the mirror is missing. I was mounted on the left side just above the shifter.
Little Nellie's New Look
Little Nellie with H-bars.

January 2023 – Dang

Just typing the title of this post makes me feel old. I can’t believe it’s 2023. As usual January was a bit gloomy around here but the temperatures have been relatively mild and there hasn’t been a flake of snow to be seen. Alas. a cold burst is expected in the days ahead.

Riding

Because of the good weather I managed to ride 832 miles, an all time record for me for January. And most of it, 716 miles, was outdoors. My longest ride was 57 miles from Purcellville to home. It was a bit much for this time of year.

I rode all four bikes this month. I gave the drop bars on Little Nellie one more 30-mile try before finally giving up and buying some straight handlebars. I should have the bike back soon.

After many years of procrastinating, I became a life member of the Adventure Cycling Association. (I have been doing tours on and off for over 20 years.) I have used ACA resources numerous times in my planning and during my trips. I honestly don’t know how I’d have done my last four tours without their help.

I rode my CrossCheck until it hit 26,000 miles, then switched to The Mule on dry days. It feels weird riding a bike without fenders. Fenders or not, The Mule rides like a dream You’d never know it has over 69,000 miles on it.

Watching

I watched two movies this month. Both on Netflix.

All Quiet on the Western Front is a new German version of the classic book. It’s very well done and is justifiably in line for beaucoup awards. Felix Kammerer is the lead actor. He didn’t get nominated for a Best Actor Oscar but he should have. The movie is one of three recent films about The Great War – the others are 1917 and They Shall Not Grow Old – and I recommend all three.

The Wonder is the tale of a British nurse who is dispatched to rural Ireland in the time after the Hunger (the mid-1800s). She is sent to observe a Catholic girl who has gone without food for four months. The movie is a contemplation of the madness of religious zealotry. Florence Pugh is quite good as the nurse.

Reading

I plowed through the last three of my Christmas books, having read The Bullet that Missed in late December.

American Lion by Jon Meacham is a biography of Andrew Jackson. Meacham is surprisingly empathetic. He wrote the book before Trump became president but it’s hard not to make comparisons. Narcissism is a strange substitute for policy. Previous presidents acted more as administrators carrying out Congress’s policies. Jackson viewed himself as president of the people, treating Congress more as a body to be manipulated than obeyed. Meacham also explains how Jackson was instrumental in keeping South Carolina from seceding twice, delaying the Civil War for over 20 years.

The Winners by Fredrik Backman is his third novel about two hockey mad towns in the remote north woods of Sweden. It’s a 660-page soap opera involving a cast of characters that would make a Russian novelist proud. It was an entertaining read but I much prefer his non-hockey books such as A Man Called Ove and Anxious People.

Riverman, An American Odyssey by Ben McGrath is the true story of an old man named Dick Conant who traveled the rivers of the United States in an overloaded canoe. Conant chronicled his travels in three massive volumes that McGrath discovered after Conant went missing in North Carolina. McGrath contacted the characters that Conant interacted with along the banks of the waterways he rowed. The book very much brought to mind so many characters that I’ve encountered on my bike tours such as the man with the perfect beer belly in Indiana, the sister wife on the run from abuse in Washington state, and the scuba diving anti-vaxxer who ran a bowling alley cum diner in a small town in Kansas.

Once the Christmas books were finished I made a quick trip to the bookstore.

Dickens and Prince by Nick Hornby is a series of essays comparing Charles Dickens and the musician Prince. Hornby flashes his infectious wit making comparison between the two. Both were creative and prolific geniuses who seemed to never stop producing their art. And they both had an eye for the ladies in abundance. Dickens sometimes wrote two novels at the same time releasing them in serial fashion as he wrote. Prince wrote and recorded thousands of songs in all kinds of musical styles often playing all the instruments and singing all the vocals himself. It’s a strange comparison but Horny makes it work.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is a novel about survivors of a swine flu pandemic that wipes out 90 percent of the world’s people. It was published in 2014. Her descriptions of the spread of the virus gave me flashbacks to those horrid days in 2020 when New York City’s hospitals overflowed with untreatable Covid-19 patients. It is eerily reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles, two other books set in aftertimes. I bought this one on a whim and found it well worth the time.

Winter (?) Work

It’s been a snowless winter so far here in the DC area. Temperatures have been warm-ish, with only a couple of days below freezing. I’ve been riding nearly every day which means that my legs think it’s April. My bikes are another story.

I have four bikes and every year I use the winter to get them fixed up. Bike shops are generally not as busy this time of year. Of course, if I had a shred of mechanical skill, I’d do the work myself but as Dirty Harry once said: a man’s got to know his limitations. Or, in other words, my best repair tool is my credit card.

I am fixing my bikes in the following order: Little Nellie, The Mule, the Crosscheck, and, maybe, Big Nellie.

Little Nellie is getting a makeover. The bike is in pretty good shape but I have never liked its drop handlebars. As I get older, I find that riding Little Nellie is really hard on my lower back. A contributing factor might be the long reach to the brake hoods. In any case, it has never felt comfortable, even after getting a shorter stem. Nearly every day I see a man of a certain age buzzing about on his Bike Friday. He has flat handlebars and seems to be quite comfortable. So, I decided to swap my drop bars for handlebars. I could have bought some run of the mill flat bars from a local bike shop but, unlike Bike Friday bars, they are not split in the middle for easy packing. I frequently stuff the bike in the trunk of my car and a single-piece straight bar might not work. Moreover, the bike is designed to be disassembled and put into a suitcase so having split bars would make this much easier.

I contacted Bike Friday to buy a set of handlebars from them but amazingly they blew me off. Their web site no longer has a shopping page. Since they are still selling bikes, they obviously must have bike parts but they wouldn’t sell me a handlebar. I got online and found a bike shop in the DC area that sells Bike Friday tandems so I called them. They had several split bars that I could check out. I drove about 50 miles and compared about six or seven bars. I originally had planned to use straight bars but the shop had set of H-bars, straight bars with vertical end bars. I bought them then brought the bike to Bikes at Vienna for the work.

After a few days, Daniel the mechanic at B@V called me to tell me that I need a new front wheel. The rim is original and has almost 23,000 miles on it so I am not surprised. Between the cost of the bar, the new wheel, new brake levers, cables, housings, and such the total cost of the conversion is about triple what I had planned on. I hope it works. It should be ready sometime this week.

When I pick up Little Nellie, I’ll drop off The Mule. The Mule needs a whole lot of work. The bar tape is shot. The front brake has a skipping action which I suspect means the wheel needs to be trued. I had some problems adjusting the tension on the rear break and may need to replace it. A few months ago I destroyed both fenders and will need new ones. I’ll probably replace the chain and cassette too. They still have some life left in them but changing them now means I won’t have to change them again until after the summer. Finally, the front derailer gave me trouble last summer. It may just be the nature of using aftermarket chainrings that have no ramps (which guide the chain during shifting) combined with shifting under stress. Anyway, it’s worth checking.

Once that is done, the CrossCheck goes in for service. Because I don’t tour on it, it gets a lot less stress than The Mule. Still it needs new wear items: bar tape, chain, and cassette. Maybe brake pads. It has a weird front rim that has a notch between the braking surface and the part that the spokes connect to. That notch eats brake pads. I’ll probably live with the rim since brake pads are cheaper than rims.

Big Nellie is down in the basement on the resistance trainer. It’s in pretty good shape. The shifting is a little sloppy but I can live with it as is. I’ll evaluate it once the weather gets warmer and I can take it for a long ride outdoors.

While all this work is being done my thoughts are turning to a summer tour. Stay tuned.

Spring Cleaning

Colors

It’s been an odd couple of days around here. Every day a new plant seems to burst into color. Crocuses, forsythia, daffodils. Cherry trees. Redbud trees. These have mostly come and gone but now we are in tulipalooza. I grew up in Ak=lbany NY, a former Dutch settlement. Every year there was a tulip festival. It was a big deal. Or so I am told. I never once attended. Around DC you can’t help but attend. Tulips are everywhere. The Pentagon Reservation (they actually call it that) and the Arlington Memorial Bridge are two places with tulips on display. The front of our house, and countless other houses in suburbia, are another.

In time the tulips will shrivel and die back of course. Don’t despair; azaleas are about to go nuts! We have three azalea bushes that are ready to burst into color any day. Two other azalea bushes planted last year did not survive the winter. My theory of the case is that they were planted too far under the eave of the house and didn’t get enough moisture. If you want to get your azaleas on, there are two pretty cool places in the DC area. One is Bluemont Park in Arlington. It’s right off the W&OD and Custis Trails. The other place is the National Arboretum in Northeast DC. It’s a bit tricky to get to by bike but once inside the biking is grand.

My ungodly looking lilac bushes (they are more like skeletons) are starting to leaf out. Soon their aromatic blue blossoms will emerge, as long as my attempts to cut the bushes back last fall didn’t do them in. I love the smell of lilacs. They remind me of my grade school. I remember going out the door and getting hit with a wave of that glorious scent. Alas, the DC are a is too far south for serious lilac bloomage.

Taxes

Somehow, someway I did several things today that worked out right. The other day I e-paid my estimated taxes. I screwed up the Virginia filing and called the tax office in Richmond this morning to clear things up. After waiting less than five minutes, I talked to an honest-to-god human who told me that I would be fined $500 for my error.

Just kidding.

She was very helpful. She told me my error didn’t stop affect the payment and everything should be okay.

Changing

The other day I brought Big Nellie out of the basement – as sure a sign of spring as you’ll ever see. What you can’t see from this photo is the bald rear tire. It turns out that riding hundreds of miles with the rear tire contacting a resistance unit is not the best thing in the world for tread life.

I found an old Schwable Marathon Plus tire and decided to use it as a replacement. This tire probably has over 5,000 miles on it but you’d never know it. Marathon Plus tires are practically indestructible. And, better yet, they rarely get flats. This is especially good news because installing a Marathon Plus tire is a total pain. I have lost quite a lot of skin on my fingers getting one of these beasts mounted. To make matters worse changing the rear tire on a long wheel base recumbent is like wrestling a dolphin. The bike has a very unbalanced weight distribution. Trying to keep it in one place while working on it can be next to impossible.

So I decided to use my repair stand.

It took me three attempts to get the bike on the stand. The first try worked but I placed it on the stand with the chain facing the lever that clamps the bike to the stand. Not gonna work. So, I took the bike off the stand and turned it around. Picking the bike up was significantly harder because I am right handed. With the bike oriented in this direction my weaker left hand had to pick up the heavier rear end of the bike. I managed to get it into the stand but somehow in the process of applying the clamp the dolphin came loose. Eek. I fed the bike a fish (just kidding again) and tried again. This time the bike stayed on the stand and I closed the clamp. Now I could tilt the bike so the front tire was on the ground and the rear tire up in the air right at the ideal height for swapping out the tire.

The old tire came off with only minor assistance of a set of tire irons. Now came the hard part. I started working the Marathon Plus onto the wheel. I worked my way around the wheel, pushing the tire bead over the rim wall. After only one attempt, the bead popped over the top of the rim. Then I turned the tire around to work on the other side. Somehow, some way I had managed to install that side too. Do you believe in miracles? I flipped the tire around to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. In another few minutes the wheel was back on the bike and I was good to go.

Practice

I have participated in the Chasing Mailboxes Errandonnee every year except last year when it was cancelled because of the pandemic. (I suppose it could have been held but it would have had to be renamed the Infectionnee, or something like that.) The Errandonnee is a friendly challenge to do errands on your bike (or by foot or scooter or some means other than an gasmobile). Errandonneuring is not for the faint of heart. It takes determination and focus.

This year’s Errandonnee starts April 15. I suppose you could just jump right in to the event. With all the good weather we’ve been having, well intentioned errandonneurs often end up with errands undone. You just ride right past the store and end up doing a tour of tulips. There is only one way to avoid a failed Errandonnee.

Practice.

Yes, I know Paul Hornung and Allen Iverson made fun of practice. Let the record be clear: neither Horning nor Iverson ever completed an Errandonnee.

Little Nellie and I would not make the same mistake. Today, I rode my trusty Bike Friday to Walmart to pick up my glasses at the Vision Center. We made use of the fabulous bike parking at the shopping cart return. Walmart ain’t exactly woke when it comes to Errandonneuring. We were not to be deterred and finished the errand in fine fashion.

Then I went for a ride to look at the tulips.

The Errandonnee is open to the public. That means you. You can achieve errandonneuring greatness.

2020 – One Last Recap

It was such a fun year!

Okay, let’s start again. 2020 sucked but at least I salvaged some decent bicycling. I managed to go 10,240.5 miles this year. My Cross Check edged out The Mule for most miles: 4,179.5 to 4002.5. The other 20 percent of riding was split between Big Nellie (my Tour Easy recumbent) at 1,458.5 miles and Little Nellie (my New World Tourist) at 600 miles.

My bikes now have a total of 145,082 miles on them. Either one of them break or I do.

End of YearOdometer MilesMiles Ridden
Specialized Sequoia60,0204,003
Tour Easy44,2431,459
New World Tourist22,598600
Cross Check18,2214,180
Total145,08210,241

The monthly distribution was kind of Bell curvy. (I took stats, can’t you tell?)

As a prize for finishing in first place, the Cross Check got a new look. People used to pick me out during events by my humongous Carradice saddle bag. No longer. I switched to an Arkel Tailrider. It kind of wrecks the all black look, but it weights a bit less than the Carradice. The bike still weighs a ton but that will be addressed when I replace the tires with something lighter.

Riding nowhere – October

Another month, another 913 miles of riding around in circles. Except for a single one-way 57-mile ride on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail that is. It’s inane to be doing this but it’s that kind of year, isn’t it.

After putting 676 miles on my Cross Check (which passed the 18,000-mile mark) and another 51 miles on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, I switched rather cautiously to Little Nellie, my folding travel bike with little wheels. Little Nellie has been known to beat my lower back to a pulp so I have been avoiding riding it. I was considering selling it until, on a whim, I tweaked the saddle height and found a sweet spot. I can now ride it pain free. So it’s been my ride of choice for final 186 miles of the month.

So far this year I’ve ridden 8,655 miles. Getting to 10,000 is going to require some determination and a whole lot of help from the weatherman.

I also bought some new bike junk. I have a set of rechargeable blinky lights that are reasonably useful. They are be-seen lights, meaning they improve my visibility to others. The headlight will keep me from rear ending a parked car but I will use one of my more powerful Light and Motion headlights for nighttime navigation.

I also picked up a wind vest. It is bright yellow and has a big dorky reflective arrow on the back. The arrow points to the left. (The manufacturer makes a version for left side driving countries too.)

I also bought an Arkel Tailrider bag. This probably will replace my Carradice LongFlap , a huge saddlebag. The LongFlap uses leather straps that are a pain to open and close and it weighs a ton. The Tailrider is lighter and has zippers. I will give up some carrying capacity but I rarely maxed out the LongFlap. The rack on my CrossCheck has two levels which means I can use the Tailrider on the top of the rack and still attach panniers if I need to.

On to November. Brrr.

Away and home

60 miles a day for days on end while carrying 40 pounds of gear. This is a normal day on tour. At home this would be torture.

I’ve ridden carrying no more than 5 pounds for 17 days in a row. Mostly on flat terrain. I am beat up and tired. I cannot figure it out. Partly, the fatigue has to do with riding Little Nellie. The small wheels on my Bike Friday beat my body up. It’s fun to ride because it’s twitchy and nimble but after a couple of weeks my back starts going into spasm.

I had intended to exploit today’s perfect weather here in DC by going on a monster bike ride. Last night I had a couple of minor back spasms. Then I went to sleep only to wake up with stomach cramps. This turned out to somehow be connected to my ingestion of sour dough bread last evening. I know this  because I had sour dough toast for breakfast and my stomach went nuts.

After lazing about for the entire morning, I set out on The Mule to see if my body would respond favorably. It did. I was riding about 10 percent faster. I could barely feel the tree root bumps in the trail. The weather was perfect. The only negative thought I had was whatever will I do when The Mule dies? It fits me so perfectly.

When I got home, I sat on my deck with a glass a merlot. I did the crossword puzzle while listening to a baseball game (Nats won 7-2 over the Cubs) on the radio I  received for my birthday. Bliss.

Tomorrow is another perfect weather day. Mrs. Rootchopper and I are joining a couple of friends for a morning hike on Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland. I get to try out one of my birthday presents, a new Osprey backpack. (I tossed my WalMart fall-apart backpack. I hated that thing.) Afterward, I shall retire to the deck for more radio baseball. (Our TV is out of commission as a result of the renovation to the man cave.)

Next week I have nothing planned and some awesome weather. I think I shall take The Mule out to the country for a long stroll.

Ten on a Sunday

  1. I hate pathletes. These are bike riders who ride trails as if they are in the Tour de France. They have no regard for anyone else on the trail. With nice weather, they were out in force today. May they die from infected saddle sores.
  2. I am no big fan of parents who take their kids on the trails either. Yes, I realize it’s a park but little kids have zero situational awareness and run in front of bikes and scooters. I saw several near misses today.  (That said, there were so many cute little kids out there today riding their teeny bikes and running on wobbly legs.)
  3. Weathermen are not floating my boat lately. They’ve over forecasted the temperature two days in a row. I go out thinking it’s going to warm up and end up freezing my butt off. You don’t need a weatherman to know that how fast your noonoos are freezing. Didn’t Bob Dylan say that?
  4. It took me most of the afternoon to ride 45 1/2 miles from my house in Fort Hunt to Bethesda and back. From DC to Old Town I had nothing in the tank. I rallied for the last six miles though which gives me cause for optimism. It was my longest ride in over four months.
  5. Before my ride, I spent 45 minutes doing my yoga routine. Some people believe yoga is self love; for me, it is self torture. Whoever invented the side plank deserves a special place in hell.
  6. I haven’t ridden Little Nellie in over a week. My body is nearly pain free. It may be time to find my Bike Friday a new home.
  7. I do my best thinking on my bike. Today, for instance, I figured out when I hurt my left rotator cuff. On my 2017 bike tour of Wisconsin and Michigan, I took a ton of pictures with a point and shoot camera while I was riding. Being right handed this meant that I had to control my loaded touring bike with only my left hand. When I was done, I noticed how sore my left triceps was.
  8. I destroyed the map case on my old Ortlieb handlebar bag during last summer’s tour. My bag lid closes with metal snaps. The more recent design of the bag closes with magnets. It also uses a redesigned map case. Last night, I stumbled on a website that carries the old map cases. So I guess I won’t have to buy a new bag.
  9. My friend Charmaine found $52 on the street while riding her bike. She’s buying.
  10. I follow someone on Twitter who likes bicycling and Neil Finn, and named her dog Lily (which is my daughter’s name). This has all the makings of a horror movie. Cue the Bernard Hermann strings….

A Year by the Numbers

It was a whopper of a year for me on my bikes. I pretty much shattered every personal record.

I rode a total of 11,837 miles, 1,926 miles more than last year.

I averaged 32.4 miles per day.

I rode 309 days, taking 56 days off. I never took more than 3 days off in a row.

On my riding days, I averaged 38.3 miles.

I rode 4,300 of miles on my Any Road Tour from Mount Vernon, Virginia to Portland Oregon.

June, all of which was tour riding, was my highest mileage month: 2,260.5 miles.

My longest day was 136 miles from Morehead, Minnesota to Gackle, North Dakota on June 18.

The Mule, my 1991 Specialized Sequoia, accounted for 46.5 percent of my riding, 5,502.5 miles. 281 miles of my riding were done indoors on Big Nellie, my Tour Easy recumbent, mounted on a trainer. Most of this riding was in recovery from medical problems in late December 2017. I only rode the Tour Easy 1,099.5 miles in all. I’d sell it except for its usefulness indoors.

My Bike Friday New World Tourist took me 2,001 miles. It’s fun to ride but it beats me up because it’s little wheels don’t absorb road shock particularly well.

My Surly Cross Check soaked up another 3,234 miles, just riding around the DC area.

chart (2)

Year end Odometer Readings

The Mule: 51,024

Big Nellie (outdoors miles only): 42,010

Little Nellie: 21,002

Cross Check: 10,668

Total: 124,704