Cycling Update

The month long spell of rainy days finally gave way a couple weeks ago and allowed me to spend some quality time with my bicycles.  Some would contest that the brutal heat wave that followed quick after the rains was reason enough to stay hidden inside in air conditioned comfort.  Not me I like the heat and while the first ride in ninety degree high humidity conditions left me feeling a bit sluggish I quickly acclimated.  Also those that ride bikes know that even in the hottest weather as long as you keep moving and create a breeze it's not that bad.

Urban Cruise
Bike:  HP Velotechnik Street Machine
Distance:  10.55 miles
Ride Time:  53:14
Average Speed:  11.8 mph

A few weeks ago my Canon PowerShot finally broke down after one too many crashes to the ground.  In the interim before I got a new camera I was making due with my cell phone camera.  The pictures are grainy but better than no pictures I guess.  Look for the quality of the photography to be back to its normal quality soon.

  I took the opening shot of my recumbent just outside of town.  I live in a small community that is only three miles across so my idea of an "urban ride" may be completely different from bikers living in areas of larger population density.  For me pretty much any ride over five miles is going to involve some country scenery.

Northwest end of the Clear Fork Reservoir. Richland County, Ohio

On July 14th I rode the Clear Fork Loop on my Motobecane road bike for the first time this summer.  The CFL is one of my favorite local rides and I've written about it many times and took some great pictures along the way through the years. I decided to assign a label link to bring all my posts about this loop together.  The label is at the bottom of this post.

Clear Fork Loop
Bike:  Motobecane Le Champion
Distance:  30.0 miles
Ride Time:  1:49:59
Average Speed:  16.3 mph

Last week I took off one night after work for a ride on the road bike and did an extended version of a route I call the Candlewood Lake Loop.  This 34 mile loop covers roads in various states of disrepair in 3 different counties.  It had been a while since I rode the extended section which passes along a road long since closed to through traffic.  An old iron bridge spanning a small creek was deemed unsafe at some point before I ever discovered it.  Because of the lack of residences along the rural road the county just closed it rather than spend the money to maintain the little travelled passage.  In previous years the roadway was clear and I could simply lift my bike over the barricades and go on my way.
  

This time I found downed trees making the way almost impassible.  The temperature was about 96 degrees F and very humid.  As soon as I stopped to snap a picture the sweat instantly began to flow and was stinging my eyes.  To make matters worse hordes of mosquitoes were soon closing on my position from the woods along each side of the abandoned road.

In a hurry I threaded myself and my bike through the tangle of branches and trunks and got back underway as quickly as possible.

Here is a shot of Candlewood Lake from the west end.  Built in the early 1970's Candlewood Lake is a 1500-acre gated community north of Mt. Gilead, Ohio.  A-250 acre stream fed lake is the centerpiece providing scenic views and recreation for the property owners.

Candlewood Lake Loop
Bike:  Motobecane Le Champion
Distance:  34.5 miles
Ride Time:  2:08:23
Average Speed:  16.0 mph

During the weekend I got together with the RoadQueen and we did some riding.  Friday we went for a short out and back spin to visit a nearby one-room schoolhouse.  For this ride I used my recumbent bike.  When I'm getting in lots of riding one of the things I like about the bent is how the riding position is different from my upright bikes.  I like to alternate between the two styles of bikes and the slightly different muscle groups utilized for each bike varies the workout and makes me a better cyclist overall. Besides sometimes it's just nice to get away from the wedgie seat.

Friday Ride
Bike:  HP Velotechnik Street Machine
Distance:  20.0 miles
Ride Time:  1:26:40
Average Speed:  13.8 mph

After the back to back rides Thursday and Friday I had 54 miles in and was feeling a little fatigued so we took a rest day on Saturday and just relaxed around the house.  The RoadQueen just started pedaling bikes earlier in the spring and she is developing well.  She said she has been itching to break over the 14 mph average on her Giant hybrid.  We decided to ride on the B & O rail trail and I figured that would be an ideal place to see if we could nudge her overall speed up a bit.  Not only did she cover the entire trail end to end and back but she posted her highest average speed well above 14 mph. Way to go RoadQueen!

B & O Trail Complete
Bike:  Motobecane Le Champion
Distance:  36.8 miles
Ride Time:  2:23:07
Average Speed:  15.4 mph

Last night I used the map on my smart phone to discover a new loop that took me to the northwest into the countryside of Crawford County.  This route travels some smooth and picturesque rural roads with a few rolling hills along the northern leg where the road parallels the Sandusky River.  I found some unique stuff along the way on a couple roads I have not ridden before.  Another old one-room schoolhouse and an Ohio historical site marker makes a great excuse to do the ride again and this time with my camera.  I forgot my memory card at work so unfortunately I didn't have a camera and I'm done messing with the cell phone camera.

Parcher Road-Stetzer Road Loop
Bike:  HP Velotechnik Street Machine
Distance:  26.55 miles
Ride Time:  1:50:38
Average Speed:  14.4 mph

Quite a bit of riding lately and I've been feeling great because of it.  The recumbent is comfortable and functioning flawlessly as always and I'm digging the Rubino Pro slicks on the roadbike for sure.  Those new tires have really made me excited to get out and hammer away on the Motobecane.

The incessant rain fall earlier in the season has my overall mileage for the year down but I'm quickly making up for it.  Last night's ride was really nice and I look forward to heading out on that route again soon.  At 26 miles it's the perfect distance for an after work ride.

Clear Fork Loop 4

This morning at breakfast I looked out the window and noticed the patio was dry so decided to go for a recumbent ride.  The sky was gray and a chilly wind was blowing from the north and the temperature registered about 47 degrees on my computer. That's ideal riding conditions really and as long as it's not raining being on the bike beats sitting on the couch any day.

I've had a busy week. I'm about three weeks into my winter workout regime.  The shock of hitting the weights has abated and I'm not feeling too sore from that.  Tuesday I worked chest and 30 minutes on the elliptical machine. Wednesday I took a down day and then was back at it Thursday with an arm workout and 30 minutes again on the elliptical.  Last night was shoulders followed up with another half hour on the cardio machine.  I've done a couple leg workouts but I don't worry too much about legs now that it's still warm enough to ride my bike.  In a few months when everything is frozen I'll add leg exercises to the resistance training and increase the duration on the elliptical.

Increasing my activity level has left me feeling great so I decided to ride the Clear Fork Loop for the extra workout the hills provide in the middle third of the route.  I didn't take a lot of pictures on this ride because of the overcast sky and the dreary look of the landscape. Besides I've already documented this route several times here and most recently here.

The majority of this loop is the east-west directions which minimizes the the strong north breeze to a manageable crosswind.  To mix things up I decided to run the loop counter-clockwise opposite of the last time I rode and I was surprised to notice this old brick schoolhouse.  It's funny I've been riding this road for 15 years and I never noticed the school house. Granted I've not been actively seeking them out until recently.
    

As with many of the old school buildings I found this one is in a similar sad state of disrepair.  I don't know what happened to the back corner but the bricks are completely gone.



The school house lies in North Bloomfield Township in the north-east corner of Morrow County.  The architecture is more spartan than most of the buildings I've documented.  Notice there is no round window above the door or decorative plaque with the district number and date of establishment.  It could be that this school is older than the others in the area built before the engraved date plaques became a standard feature.  Hard to tell and I'm just speculating.  In any case I would feel confident dating the structure to the late 1800's.



Another notable feature of this one is the original doorway.  Many schoolhouses were turned into storage buildings once retired and the subsequent owners knocked out a bigger hole and installed sliding shed doors.



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Readers have commented how picturesque and peaceful the places I ride look and for the most part they are.  Even so from time to time I have to deal with that scourge of the road going cyclist: Asshole drivers. They're everywhere and if you spend enough time on two wheels eventually you will run into them. 

The eastern leg of the loop descends into the Clear Fork Valley then climbs up the other side. This climb nearly two miles long is unfortunately part a well used route between two cities.  The route is a simple county road with one lane for each direction. There is no shoulder and not enough room for a car and bike to occupy the same lane.  For me on the bike it's the most stressful part of an otherwise great ride. 

Today I was irritated twice in less than half a mile.  I had begun the climb and was only 500 feet or so up the road already dropped to the granny gears and was chugging up the hill at around 6 or 7 mph.  the road twists and turns so I keep a constant watch behind me in the helmet mirror.  Soon filling up my mirror is the grill of an older red full size Chevy truck.  Oncoming traffic held him back for a few seconds until it was clear to pass then the asshat floored the accelerator; half burnt hydrocarbons and oily blue smoke spewing out and hanging heavy in the air for my enjoyment.  What an idiot! Gasoline nearly four dollars a gallon this yahoo guns his V8 up the road probably burning a quart in the process. I'm sure the guy would argue that the acceleration was warranted to get safely around me and back over into the lane as quickly as possible but I say bollocks! A full on 300 horsepower hole shot is not required to overtake a bicycle traveling at a blistering 5 mph.

Sixty seconds later still cranking up the hill I'm watching a sedan's steady approach from the rear in my mirror.  Up ahead is a small SUV closing and I can tell we are all going to intersect at about the same time.  Sure enough the sedan barely slows and edges out about a foot over the center line.  This action in turn forces the SUV driver to edge his vehicle as far to the right of his lane as possible.  In the distance behind me I hear the long blast of the SUV's horn conveying the driver's irritation over the situation.  This is one of my biggest pet peeves. 

It took me two minutes to look up the violation in the Ohio Revised Code:

4511.29 Driving to left of center of roadway in overtaking and passing traffic proceeding in same direction.

(A) No vehicle or trackless trolley shall be driven to the left of the center of the roadway in overtaking and passing traffic proceeding in the same direction, unless such left side is clearly visible and is free of oncoming traffic for a sufficient distance ahead to permit such overtaking and passing to be completely made, without interfering with the safe operation of any traffic approaching from the opposite direction or any traffic overtaken. In every event the overtaking vehicle or trackless trolley must return to an authorized lane of travel as soon as practicable and in the event the passing movement involves the use of a lane authorized for traffic approaching from the opposite direction, before coming within two hundred feet of any approaching vehicle.

Of course if your a cyclist all of this is old hat but if you're a car driver exclusively and for some strange reason you're reading this blog go up and read the excerpt from the law book again and remember to slow down for us bike riders.

Later in the ride I have to make a short jog of about an eighth mile on a busy state route to connect back up with rural county road.  This stretch of highway doesn't twist and turn but it is very hilly.  As usual I'm grinding uphill in my lower gears and watching behind in the mirror.  At least the state route has a shoulder a couple feet wide and a white stripe but I always stay right around the stripe regardless of what is going on.  A small black SUV closes on me but slows down matching my speed. Traveling uphill as we were it was impossible to see oncoming traffic ahead.  In just a few seconds we crested the rise and like clockwork there was a car coming at us in the opposite lane.  After the other car passed the SUV pulled out and began his pass.  As the driver came around I gave him a wave with my left hand as a sign of thanks for holding on a second. Once safely back in the lane I heard a quick and happy toot-toot of the SUV's horn.  This little episode made me feel better and proves that cars and bikes can get along.

In any event I made it home safe with another great ride in the log book and I even dropped 6 minutes off the loop time from earlier in the year.

Clear Fork Loop

Bike: HP Velotechnik Street Machine

Ride Time:  2:14:07

Distance:  28.84 miles

Average Speed:  12.8 mph

Max Speed:  44 mph

  



Ride to the LBS

I needed to pick up a few things from my local bike shop.  Some 700c tubes, a patchkit, a couple air cartridges, some chain lube, a new pair of gloves and two Camelbak insulated water bottles.  Let me tell you if you spend any money on bike gear this year pick up a couple of these insulated bottles.  They keep your liquid cool and the nozzle is one of the best I've ever sipped from. 

Now a ride to the bike shop seems simple enough but my local shop which really isn't all that local is exactly 15.1 miles from my driveway so traveling there by bicycle makes for a good workout.  With a new set of slicks on the recumbent I was looking forward to the trip.  The shop is located in Lexington, Ohio so riding round trip there is basically completing the Clear Fork Loop, one of my favorite routes.

LBS Ride

Bike:  HP Velotechnik Steet Machine

Ride Time:  2:23:07

Distance:  32.42 miles

Average Speed:  13.5 mph

Max Speed:  46.7 mph

    

When I'm on a road ride in the area this is a cool place I like to stop for a break.  The west trail head of the Stoller Road Trail.

Clear Fork Loop 3

Recumbent Seat's View

With a couple days recovery from the Flat Fourth Fiasco I found myself back in the saddle or should I say recumbent seat.  I woke up early with the hopes of beating the heat and getting a nice road ride in the log but it was already 90 degrees when I left the driveway.  Even though it was sweltering I felt like hills so I pointed my cranks to the east and started off on one of my favorite local circuits -The Clear Fork Loop.

Since I've made this ride sort of an annual feature on the blog I chose today for this years installment. That's the reason for the "3" in the title.  After leaving the outskirts of  town I must cross a few miles of flat lands before the hills come into view.  This leg of the journey was uneventful until these two characters came out to the road to greet me.  I saw right away I couldn't outrun them so I stopped and made friends.  The big guy was laid back and friendly but little blackie had an attitude.  The little ones always do.     

Here's a rare self portrait of me at the base of Orweiler Hill.  Soon I would be cranking up that hill in first gear moving at a whopping 3 mph.  To climb on a recumbent requires a triple crank with a granny gear.  Contrary to what you might have heard climbing on a recumbent is very possible.  Smart gearing choices and in my opinion a hard shell seat to push against are the recipe for success.  I love climbing and have never had a problem on the bent.

il Tricolore

As I travelled along the route I watched the temperature indicator on my cycle-computer climb from 90 to 00.  It only has two digits in the readout so it was not able to read the full 100.  I saw it fluctuate as high as 07 and it sure felt like it.  One of the bicycle's great attributes is it's ability to keep it's rider cool as a side effect of locomotion.  No matter what the air temperature is if I keep moving I generally feel pretty good.  Stopping or slow climbs are another story altogether.

I noticed a little colorful symbol painted on the road as I climbed up out of the valley to the south.  It looked like an Italian flag and probably was as I was just around the corner from the famous Mid Ohio Sports Car Course.

   

  

A few revolutions further up the road I spotted this rusty horse shoe.  I'm not a superstitious guy but with my recent run of bad luck you can be sure I picked up this talisman.

As soon as I got home I tacked up the horseshoe above my workbench.  The open end goes at the top -to catch the good luck.  The shoe still had a few square nails so I straightened them out and reused them.

Clear Fork Loop

Distance:  28.16 miles

Ride Time:  2:20:00

Average Speed:  12.0 mph

Max Speed:  32.7 mph

More great photos from previous rides on this loop:

http://kd8jhj.blogspot.com/2011/05/clear-fork-loop.html

http://kd8jhj.blogspot.com/2010/07/clear-fork-loop.html

Clear Fork Loop

One of my favorite road rides is the Clear Fork Loop.  Last year I documented this interesting route on the recumbent bike here.

This year to start the summer out proper I decided to sleep in and didn't hit the road until around noon.  While I ate a late breakfast and readied my kit the clouds broke up and it looked like it would be a great day.  Sunny skies and summer like conditions have finally arrived in Ohio.  Up until this point all of my rides on the Motobecane have been on relatively flat roads and rail trail.  I like to ride a hundred miles or so on a new frame at slower speeds to allow myself some time to become accustomed to the handling characteristics of a new bike.  Another important consideration to keep in mind during the break in period is structural integrity.  Regardless of frame material it is much better to learn of a hidden defect at 15 MPH than 35.

Resting assured that my new titanium frame was sound the day I have been waiting for had arrived.  The urge to see how the Motobecane plays in the hills was too great to resist any longer.  The familiar grades of the Clear Fork Loop would be the ideal testing ground for my new road bike.  

Orweiler Hill.  

Coming down this hill from the east I have clocked 53 MPH on a bicycle.  But today riding from the west I climbed this short but steep hillside.  As a long time mountain biker I love having a triple crank on my road bike.  The 30 tooth granny gear allows me to easily spin my way up hills without running my heart rate up to the maximum.
 

The Motobecane's light weight and my smart gearing choices make climbing a breeze.  On the downhills the bike feels very stable and sure.  Certainly the best handling road bike at speed that I have ever ridden.  At the bottom of this hill past the farm in the distance is a downhill S turn and a recently constructed sweeping banked left hand curve.  The bottom of the hill used to terminate in a much tighter curve that I never had the guts to negotiate without judicious feathering of the brakes.  The new road bed follows a much larger radius that I confidently carved at 27 mph without the slightest inclination to touch the brake levers.

  To top off the last third of the ride I was treated with a steady tailwind that allowed me to cruise at up to 24 mph on the flat run westward back to my home.

 Nice.

Clear Fork Loop

Ride Time:  2:00

Distance:  29.7 Miles

Avg Speed:  14.7 MPH

Max Speed:  32.5 MPH

Motobecane Odometer:  146 Miles