Tag: test ride

A Better Ride

Today’s weather was good enough for another test ride of the Streetmachine. To be honest, after Saturday’s 31-mile ride, I had very low expectations. In fact, I had all but decided to take the bike back to Bikes at Vienna, tip my helmet to Tim Fricker for letting me try it out for a week, and moving on.

The ride started with yet another precarious bike mounting. I then rode the 3/4 of a mile circuit around my neighborhood. I made it a point to consciously keep my shoulders against the seat back, something I didn’t do on Saturday. Within a couple hundred yards I could tell the bike was handling much better. I suppose the change in position had put more weight on the big, fixed rear wheel and less on the underseat handlebars and the small front wheel underneath the seat.

After one lap, I stopped. Instead of planting my left foot, I slid off the front of the seat and popped up to a standing position, just as I had seen in a YouTube video and just as I do on my Tour Easy recumbent. Bingo. I dismounted surprisingly smoothly. After an awkward re-mounting, I slid back on the seat, pushed my shoulders into the seat back, and pedaled. I wobbled a bit but I was underway more or less in a straight line.

As I did another lap I tried to focus on technique. Shoulders back, arms relaxed. Find a comfortable gear. Head up. Success. This time the pop stop worked better. As I slowed to about three miles per hour I slid forward and let the momentum of the bike push me into a standing position.

Now it was time to leave the cozy home loop and try some other skills. I rode to a nearby neighborhood and went down about eight different cul de sacs. Initially, I tried to consciously steer the bike with the handlebars. Nope. After a few 180s I learned the secret. Pedal, lean, relax. Let the bike do the work instead of my arms. Success. After a few left handed 180s, I did a few right handed ones. No problem.

I rode over to Fort Hunt Park and took the bike on less-than-perfect road conditions: asphalt with some gravel, slick spots, and tight squeezes through orange traffic barrels. After a couple of 1.75 mile laps I had things down. I also learned that after the pop stop I could easily reach my water bottles. While I’d prefer to drink while riding, I don’t think that’s a skill I am ready for just yet.

I left the park headed into two more neighborhoods, each with a circuit and a small hill. As I rode and gained confidence, each passing mile was a bit faster. I did notice that if I was distracted I tended to drift a bit. A few times I seemed to be headed for a curb. Relax. Lean. Recover.

Next up was a bigger downhill and uphill. The downhill was a little sketchy (I tensed up) but the uphill was straightforward using the granny gear.

The last challenge of the day was crossing the George Washington Parkway. I was in a too-high gear and my bike was pointed up about one degree making the initial push of the pedal difficult. After a couple of false starts, I made it across easily.

The last mile or so my form deteriorated. I can’t say I was tired physically but my mental focus was pretty much gone. I turned onto my street, rode past my house and did a low-speed u-ey. I didn’t quite have the room to complete the turn and ended up pivoting on my left foot. Bad idea. My knee did not like it one bit and is barking a few hours later but I am sure it’s fine.

So lessons learned: (1) the pop stop means that my left hip doesn’t bear nearly as much stress as on my first rides. (2) The bigger stress to my left hip comes from my awkward mounting of the bike, not the dismounts. (3) The more I ride, the better my technique becomes. After Sunday’s ride, I was exhausted from mental stress and my upper body was spent from trying to physically control the bike. After today’s ride, I finished feeling very good both mentally and physically. My upper body was not the least bit tense.

Another thing that is working well is my choice of pedals. I took the Catalyst pedals off The Mule and put them on the Streetmachine. These pedals are extra long and have grippy studs. My feet are pretty happy.

So, tomorrow afternoon, I do another test ride. This one likely will feature bigger hills and more starts at road crossings.

Stay tuned.

Hip Don’t Lie

This week I was planning on test riding the HP Velotechnik Streetmachine I have on loan from Bikes at Vienna. Since I do not own the bike, I am being careful not to ride it in rainy weather. I did manage to ride it in gusty conditions during my 31-mile test ride the other day. The bike handled just fine. The weather forecast for the last two days has called for intermittent rain so I haven’t ridden it since.

Yesterday I decided to ride the Tank, my Surly CrossCheck instead. The reason was twofold. First, I don’t much care if the Tank gets messed up with rain. Second, I needed to test out a problem I had after my Streetmachine test ride. It involved sharp pain in my left hip.

Back in 2019, I rode The Mule 3,000 miles from Indiana to San Francisco. My left knee and hip were screaming at me the entire way. When I returned home I had a series of cortisone shots that put things right. An MRI revealed that my left knee has very little cartilage in it. I suspect that several crashes on my bikes which nearly always involve a fall to the left have damaged my hip as well. As long as I am careful and refrain from mashing big gears, both the hip and the knee behave themselves.

After riding the Streetmachine, the sharp pain in my left hip returned. Aside from my decrepit anatomy, the cause could come from a number of factors.

First, when I stop the bike, I have to put my left foot down. I need my right foot ready for the first pedal stroke at start up because my left knee won’t tolerate the initial mashing. Also, the seat is rather high so when I stop, the bike leans hard to the left. The bike (and the engine) are quite heavy. I suspect this weight is part of the problem. When I stop the Tank, also a heavy bike, I only put my left toe down because much of the weight is borne by the wheels. My body weight is mostly on my arms and my right foot which is pushing on the right pedal. On tour, there’s an additional 30 or 40 pounds of gear to add to the equation. Thus, the pain during my 2019 ride.

Another issue with the Streetmachine is the process of getting started. Getting rolling is ungainly to say the least. It usually takes me two or three tries to get rolling. Each time I have to start, I have to re-weight my left hip.

A third possible issue is the shape of the seat. The sides of the seat curve up. When I stop my left hip bumps awkwardly into this curve.

Finally, when I get off the bike, I swing my right foot over the front of the bike, supporting the bike and all my weight on my left foot. I then pivot on my left foot toward the rear of the bike. This spinning motion probably adds stress to the left hip.

My wife took a short video of me riding away from the house the other day. I rode down my front lawn, over some root heaves, and into the street. The bike was quite stable but I noticed in the video that my shoulders and head were leaning forward. All the videos I have seen online show the riders’ shoulders pressed against the seat back. So I might just not be riding the bike properly. Given my lower back issues, this may not be correctible.

The forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday looks pretty good. My plan is to take the Streetmachine to a local park and practice starting and stopping, mounting and dismounting. I will also try to concentrate on committing to the seat with my shoulders more.

I have until Friday to make a final decision. Fingers crossed.

Use the Force, Luke

Yesterday I brought the Streetmachine home on a garage sale, trunk bike rack. I had concerns that it might end up falling off the car on the Beltway but all went splendidly. At home, I made a few adjustments to the mirror, bell, and bike computer and rode around the block a few times. With each lap, I mounted and dismounted the bike. I am proud to say that I didn’t fall once.

I used the YouTuber’s mounting technique which worked well. Take hold of the seatback and stand up tall. Tilt the bike a wee bit toward you then lift your foot over the boom and plop it on the opposite side. Done. For dismounts both the YouTuber and Melissa use a spin move that takes the right foot over the cranks and ends up with you facing backward. It’s actually easier than getting on.

I had heard that stopping would be a problem because the seat is somewhat higher than most recumbents. That extra inch or so before the left foot hits the ground will take some getting used to but it’s not a big deal.

Starting the bike is another matter. You push forward with the right foot then quickly lift your left foot off the ground so that it can complete the pedal stroke and send you merrily on your way. If you don’t succeed, gravity may send you not so merrily onto your left side. This sort of thing happens with all bikes but the twicthy underseat steering adds a bit of excitement to the process. If you fail and put you foot back down you can start again, of course, unless the procedure leaves you in the middle of an intersection with an Amazon van bearing down on you.

To start the ride today, I rolled down the front lawn and over a half dozen tree roots. The suspension made easy work of the bumps. I rode what I call the perimeter ride, a circuit around the Mount Vernon neighborhood. It features plenty of curves and a few very gentle inclines.

In Fort Hunt Park I encountered a couple of short stretches where the asphalt was torn up. The Streetmachine handled the gravel and bumps without trouble.

During the entire ride, I had flashbacks to when I first rode a bike without training wheels. I kept feeling like I was going to fall over. I could feel my shoulders rising up whenever some normally innocuous situation arose. Sit back, relax, and trust the physics!

One cool feature of this bike’s design is that you can pedal through turns because the pedals are high up and half a leg length in front of the front wheel. Once I realized this, turns became much less scary. And more fun.

The ride did highlight some other interesting aspects of the bike. Most bikes have the front wheel in front of the rider. The Streetmachine’s front wheel is beneath the seat. This means that the wheel encounters bumps a split second after it normally would. Tim Fricker, the Bikes at Vienna owner who is letting me do a week-long test ride, mentioned that one odd thing about underseat steering is that people are used to steering cars and bikes with their hands in front of them.

It’s ironic that today’s entire ride was stressful. I don’t have the muscle memory for this kind of bike so I have to think about every little thing. I have to keep reminding myself, sometimes out loud, to relax. Use the force, Luke.

You can carry pretty much anything you need on this bike. Unlike all my other bikes, everything you need is behind the seat. There’s nowhere to put stuff in front of you. In a way this is a good thing since you will be fully immersed in the riding experience. This came in handy when the driver of a humongous SUV back up into the road in front of me without looking.

About 20 miles into the ride, I tried out the Mount Vernon Trail. It is substantially narrower than the road so this was not a trivial exercise for the wobbly newbie. Along the way I stopped to help Jonathan and Shareen (sp?) fix a flat on Jonathan’s bike. It turns out the pump that I bought and don’t like is pretty useful on skinny tires.

Fixed it!