AustinBike

Too much front brake?

Waking through Beijing tonight on our way back to the apartment we came across a huge underground bike parking area. Would love it if Austin had this many riders. Then my wife pointed out the typo:

RidingAgain, here's a helpful tip: Take a position on something. When I look at your threads they are often "here's something" with no context. Is this good? is this bad? Do you agree with this? Do you think this is BS? That is why people might be reacting to you the way that they do. It comes across as either "do my work for me and tell me if this is worthwhile" or "here, let me stir the pot and then jump in on people." If you say "hey, here's something interesting and here are my thoughts" (pro or con), you'll foster a much better discussion. Just my 2 cents, you're free to disagree with me, just an observation that I have seen several times on your posts.

Used SPD for years. Then switched to Time when I had knee issues. Been on Time since then and never had an issue. SPDs are more universal, but they do bring some unanticipated challenges to your body. Times are more forgiving. As for flats, I use them periodically and I am so used to clips that flats scare the crap out of me. Clipped in = confidence, flats =no confidence for me. I like going into a sketchy section without any worry that my foot is going to come off the pedal. As a kid I had an incident with a foot slipping off a pedal, catching the pedal at speed with my achilles tendon, which stopped the bike cold and threw me over the bars. Not fun. I prefer the confidence of being hooked in. That also forces me to attempt more features, because I am basically committed to forward momentum.

I went straight up jester. The new 42T cassette gave me enough leverage. But man was I going slow.

Yeah, thanks to Albert and Shane for waitin g for me so much. We did 50 and even got dumped on with rain in the last 3 miles. What a day. I averaged ~9.5 against the 10 from Monday. The humidity is to blame. After Monday I thought I have this thing in the bag. After today I think I need more training.

We may see you out there. Based on the weather I am pretty sure there will be a lot of mountain bikes on the streets trying to break the cabin fever of all of this rain.

Is that still working? I gave up weeks ago because of all of the Chinese spam.

If you start at 10 and ride hard you might catch us 😉

Yeah, the trails will still be too wet so I am going to do another veggie buffet this Sunday. If anyone wants to join, I will start at Ramsey Park (https://goo.gl/maps/jCfcL7m8y7A2) at 9AM. At my pace it should take about 5 hours, so we should be back ~2 or 2:30. Route will follow the EB route to Zilker, MoPac frontage, up 360, Courtyard, City Park Road, lap around the outside of City Park, Jester, 360, Spicewood Springs to St. Ed's, Yaupon, Jollyville, Duval, S. Walnut Creek trail, then back down Shoal Creek to the start. This is not an official ride, just my training ride, but if you want to join, we'll see you there. This means I am not responsible for you, it is self paced and you are just there for the fun. If you fall behind or get lost I won't be responsible. My pace is ~10-11MPH and I will be on a mountain bike, not a road bike.

Depending on trail conditions I might be up for that but I would be on a MTB, averaging ~10MPH. I'll ping you once I know what this weekend holds. Starting from our neighborhood ~8-9 would be my schedule, it is a 5 hour round trip, no need for me to start before the sunrise 😉

We just stayed in Canyon on our way back from CO, that Best Western was a great deal, included a (mediocre) breakfast and allows dogs. Didn't get to ride PD this time around but we did drive through and it was spectacular, as always.

Palo Duro, definitely Palo Duro.

Bah, keeps raining and stopping here. Bagging the ride for this week 😞

OK, we're going to skip the 4:30 and only do a 5:30, from Ramsey Park. If there looks like rain we may just head for beer.

TLJ is a South Korean bakery. Ate a lot of that over the years. Good tasting stuff and (usually) decent coffee.

Pretty cool tool. I wonder about any chrome plugin and any data sharing T's&C's so after I play around with it, I'll clear it out and revoke access.

Yeah, I've been caught in the rain at CP and finished the lap. Now, I wouldn't even venture onto the trail without 2 days of sunshine. Also, I'm a little older now and less enthusiastic about crashing.

My point was not about damage to the trail. Over the years it has gotten too rutted and too sketchy. It used to dry out in a few hours but now it is taking a few days. The last time that I rode after rain (about 2 days post rain) the trails were all still wet and doubly sketchy. I almost crashed a few times based on conditions. The motos do tear up the trails after a rain, but technically they were there first, I can't complain. My issue is that for a bike, it is actually more dangerous after a rain because it no longer drains like it used to drain.

I am 160 now. The courtyard estimate came from my Fitbit. I checked it at 360/courtyard while waiting for the light (1425) and then at the top of courtyard (1505). The run down to CP Road was probably 2 minutes top (all downhill), so that was probably a rounding error on calories at that point.

It is no longer good after rain. Typically takes ~2 days to dry out, 3 if it is humid and overcast.

I use a Camelbak roll: https://www.amazon.com/CamelBak-Bike-Organizer-Lemon-Green/dp/B00OBVOGOK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1536665782&sr=8-2&keywords=camelbak+tool+roll This keeps all of my lesser used tools together in one place. I have a small Crank Brothers multitool that I leave in the outer pocket of my Camelbak for quick access. This pack is also small enough to fit easily in a jersey pocket for cool days when I am not wearing a pack.

Interesting. I just checked Strava and it had my weight as 150 (where it was a year ago). The thing I like about Fitbit is that it is tied to my scale so it has my actual weight.

Get your gears sorted out first 😉

I don't have any of my older stats. Last year, I did it at roughly 5 pounds under my current weight. I burned 6700 calories for the day and a typical non-workout day is ~100 calories per hour. With ~11 hours on the bike that means I probably burned 1300 calories (more or less) before and after the ride. Back that out and you get a 5400 calorie burn for the ride. But it is Fitbit so this is less than a science. Garmin, for instance, called my 2014 ride ~4370 calories. Today it said ~2400 where Fitbit said ~1800. I trust Fitbit because it has a heart rate monitor, I gave up on that strap with my Garmin so it is just guessing. Bottom line: a hell of a lot easier when you aren't carrying a second bike on your body. In 2014, my first one, I was probably 185-195, and today I was 159.