Boomers on Bicycles

Clean-up time (ap/Margriet Faber)

Winter can take a toll on your bike. Unless you live somewhere where it never rains, snows, or gets windy, your bike picks up dirt and debris every time you ride. All of these foreign bits and pieces can cause your bike to wear in places that really don’t need it.

Here are some things you should do, most especially during the winter months:

1. Wash your bike on a regular basis. It’s tough to do it after every ride, which would be ideal, so get the garden hose out, and get the big chunks off.
2. Clean your chain. After hosing it down, use a good chain cleaner. No chain, no ride, so keep it in good shape.
3. Oil your chain after you clean it. Use a good chain oil only. Wipe the excess off.
4. Clean the derailleur, oil it, wipe it down.
5. Use a gear brush, and clean your gears and crank set.
6. Check your crank set, make sure the teeth are straight. If you can’t do it, or there are broken teeth, head into your local bike shop for a fix.
7. Tighten the cables if they are loose. Replace them if they are frayed.
8. Check your tires. If they are cracked plan for replacements.
9. Make sure your wheels have all the spokes. Lack of spokes will eventually cause your wheel to collapse, which is generally a negative experience for the rider.
10. Spin everything that is spinable. Oil or tighten anything that squeaks.

Spring isn’t that far away. A little maintenance now will get you  to spring tun-up time in good shape.

Riding in the snow

Perhaps you live in an area where winter is real. It’s snowy, cold, icy, from somewhere around November all the way to May or June. Now, it may be that the roads and forests aren’t always covered with ice and snow. Maybe it’s just a lot of the time.

Can you ride with snow and ice on the road or trails? If you have the right tires on your mountain bike, you can. Your road bike needs to live in the garage during the snow and ice times. If you can remember that you are riding on slippery stuff, it’s even better. Studded snow tires for mountain bikes come in several different types. Most likely you’ll have to order them. Your local shops may not normally stock these types of tires, but ask, and most will order them for you.

If you live where it snows and things get icy, your only option for riding most of the winter is studded snow tires for your bike. The studded tire for your bike requires some study before you buy. The depth of the lugs, and the placement of the studs, is important. Just riding in these conditions requires you to change your normal riding behavior. More caution and taking it easy on the curves all come to mind.

Peter White Cycles is located in New Hampshire, a place where winter tires for a bike are probably a necessity. His shop carries winter bike tires, and he has some very good information about them on his site. While our weather isn’t on par with the snow, ice, and cold in New Hampshire, Tahoe has snow covered trails, and icy roads during the winter. The differences in bicycle snow tires is significant.

If you are riding on snow covered trails, you’ll want a relatively deep tread, with medium studs. If you are going to be riding in frozen, rutted areas, you will want tires with studs that are on the side lugs as well as the middle ones. White makes the point that getting out of a rut requires the studs on the side. Perhaps you commute on your bike on paved paths or streets. The tire you need has shorter studs and lugs. Read Whites article on studded tires for more complete information about these tires.

Putting a set of studded tires on your wheels could extend your mountain bike season by quite a bit. You do have to keep in mind that riding on snow or ice is far different than normal conditions. While most of us won’t be riding in the snow, those of us who do know that the season is extended, and there is a special beauty in riding in the cold, with snow all around. Put simply, it’s beautiful out there.

Take a look at the link below to see some riders in the snow.

Mountain bikes in the snow

Valentines Day

Valentines Day provides us all with an opportunity to focus on many things that we truly care about, and the many people whom we care about. Combine your love of riding with the love of your life, and ride, ride, ride.

Valentines Day is this Sunday, February 14. Here are some ideas for your bike riding valentines:

• Head over to your local bike shop and get that jersey that you’ve been looking at for your partner. You may even run into a sale, so get one for yourself too.
• Pack a picnic lunch, put it in your backpack, and ride out to a nice spot for a picnic.
• Ride on a new trail, and go out to lunch, brunch, or dinner afterwords.
• Ride your favorite trail in your area, then look for a great lunch in town.
• Replace your partners derelict multi-tool with a new one, and put it in a box of chocolates.
• Go big: get him or her that new road or mountain bike that you’ve been drooling over for the last 6 months. Look for the sales this weekend.
• Simply go for a ride together, and enjoy the fact that you can.

Valentines Day provides us all with an opportunity to focus on many things that we truly care about, and the many people whom we care about. Combine your love of riding with the love of your life, and ride, ride, ride.

Would a training ride, or skills camp, for women only, be of benefit to girls and women? Does the mere presence of men in such a setting make women back off and lose confidence in their skills? Maybe so.

A recent article in Mountain Bike Magazine, written by Loren Mooney, highlights some women only training camps and clinics.  2010 Dirt Series MTB training camps, sponsored by Trek bikes, is open for registration. The camps are mostly women only, with a couple of co-ed camps included. It seems that in the absence of the boys, the girls are more likely to learn better. The theory is that at an all women venue, the girls stop watching what the boys are doing and become  active participants instead. Rather than judge themselves against what men can do, they see that women are perfectly capable of accomplishing the same degree of proficiency. There is more of an “I can do it” mindset that is important to being able to mountain bike competently, and plenty of support from the rest of the women present.

If you are interested in attending one of the camps, you’ll have to pony up $315. It may be money well spent. If you do, please leave a note here and let us all know how you liked, or didn’t like, the experience.

The list of the camps:

Dirt Series dates and locations:
April 25-25: Santa Cruz, CA
May 1-2: San Jose, CA
May 8-9: San Rafael, CA
May 15-16: North Vancouver, BC
May 29-30: Whistler, BC
June 5-6: Fruita, CO
June 12-13: Boulder, CO
June 19-20: Park City, UT
June 26-27: Whistler, BC
July 10-11: Calgary, AB
July 17-18: Whistler, BC (co-ed)
July 31-Aug. 1: Bend, OR
Aug. 7-8: Hood River, OR
Aug. 21-22: Canmore, AB
Aug. 28-29: Bellingham, WA
Sep. 11-12: Whistler, BC (co-ed)

handmade

The Shimano North American Handmade Bicycle Show takes place in Richmond, Virginia, February 26-28. Regardless of what kind of bike you ride, or the reason you ride, this show is rather nice. If you are anywhere around Richmond, go. Just seeing some of the bikes that are likely to be there makes me want to hop a train or plane and head east. These bicycles aren’t in the cheap column by any means. You don’t have to buy one. You may want to after you take a good look at all the handmade products though. Here is the link: NAHBS.

Enjoy a few dreams.

Bikes

Riding bicycles in winter generally means that you’ll be cruising through some mud and water. Mountain bikes are especially prone to this. Off road is messier than riding on a paved surface.

It’s a safe bet that most mountain bike riders have been through a puddle or two. It’s also a pretty safe bet that getting the dirt and grime off your ride hasn’t happened as regularly as it should. We’re deep into winter and the recent weather proves it. If you’ve been out riding, on or off trail, you’ve got some maintenance to do.

Here are some things to do, on a regular basis, during the winter, rains and mud:

• wash your bike after you ride: use your garden hose, get the big chunks off.
• stay away from the high pressure hoses: forcing water into your bottom bracket, or any other sealed portion of your bike will cause problems, either with rust or fine grained grit being forced in.
• after you hose your bike down, dry it off with a soft cloth.
• pay special attention to your chain, chain rings, and derailleur gears.
• oil your chain, after you hose it down, same with the gears.
• pull your seat post out, clean it, lightly oil it.
• check your brakes, adjust them if it takes too much pull to engage them.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it will keep your bike in pretty good shape during the wet and muck of winter rides. It may just prevent more expensive problems from popping up as well. Check with your local bike shop about the different types of chain lubes and cleaners that are on the market.

Have a great time riding this winter.

Read any bicycling magazine and you will find references to numbers: tire size, frame size, fork travel, bike gears. Except for bike gears, the numbers are easy to understand. Gears, for most riders, are what they hear about at the bike shop. But what do they mean? What difference does it make to you, the rider?

The numbers that you hear (52/39) refer to the number of teeth on the chain ring. The chain ring gears are a set of two or three numbers. A road bike generally has two chain rings, but can have three.  A mountain bike will most likely have three (52/42/30). Larger numbers have more teeth on the gear. Different sized chain rings and gears have different numbers of teeth. A compact double chain ring has two chain rings; a triple, three chain rings. The large chain ring is the outboard ring, the small one is inboard. If it is a triple, the mid-sized ring is in-between the large and small rings. Chain rings can have as few a 20 teeth and run up to 56 or more.

The gears on the rear of the bike (the cassette) can come in sets of 6, 9, 12, or 10, or whatever someone who is experimenting with gears can come up with. On the rear of your bike, the  big gear is in board, the small one, outboard. A compact double chain ring, with 10 gears on the back, is a 20 speed bike. Put a triple chain ring up front, and it turns into a 30 speed bike. More teeth on the chain ring gears means more revolutions of the derailleur gears, which accounts for the harder high gear–big chain ring, small cassette gear, and the easy granny low–small chain ring, big cassette gear.

As with so many things, the gearing on your bike depends upon some variable factors: where you are going to be riding (flat, hilly, mountains), your strength, your experience, mountain bike, road bike, or hybrid. When buying a bike, road, mountain, or hybrid, it’s a good idea to discuss with the shop tech what your main interest is and what the terrain is like where you will be riding the most. For the most part, new bikes, out of the box, have a good set of gears on them for most riders. If you are a racer, a ranked cat rider, or someone in the elite class, you’ll have different needs and will probably have a very specialized set of gears all around.

Your bike gears are an important part of enjoying your ride. The best place to take your questions about the gearing on your bike, or the new one you’d like to buy, is your local bike shop. Not only will you learn about the gears, you’ll get to look at all the great new bikes and gear on display. Just don’t drool too much on the new bikes.

Pay attention

A recent article in the Outbound section of the Sacramento Bee (Dec. 17) was devoted to the issue of mixed use trails and mountain bikes. Almost all of the trails in the Sacramento area are for mixed use. The biggest exception is motorized vehicles of any kind, which are heavily regulated on all the trails just about everywhere. The National Forest trails, except for those in designated wilderness areas are open to just about any kind of human powered travel. The exception in the wilderness areas are mountain bikes and anything that has a motor to propel it.

It seemed a good idea to wait a few days after reading the article to see what kind of response would be forthcoming in the Letters to the Editor section. It was, as it turns out, a good idea. In yesterdays Bee (Dec. 27) there were quite a few responses to the article and to one response in particular that appeared two days after the article.

The article in the Bee noted that the use of the trails has changed over time. It wasn’t that long ago that bicycles of any kind just weren’t seen anywhere except on the streets. The advent of mountain bikes changed that. Slowly but surely they began to show up in the forests and urban trails. The traditional users of these trails–hikers, runners, and equestrians–started to encounter more and more of the mountain bike crowd, and conflicts began to appear. Keep in mind that mountain bikes started to appear about 20 years ago.

The biggest complaint, according to the article, written by Sam McManis (mailto:smcmanis@sacbee.com), is that mountain bike riders do not pay attention to trail etiquette. The general rule is that everyone gives way to horses, bikes give way to hikers. There are signs, yellow triangles, with this rule in picture form on them, at the start of many trails, and along the trails. It’s simple logic and easy to follow. This rider always gives way to horses. They are big animals, and a startled or spooked horse is like a loose cannon on a rolling deck. It costs me nothing to slow down, or stop, to avoid what could be an unpleasant experience. This is true whether riding on a paved urban trail, or out in the forest.

It is easy to assume that out on the single tracks, far away from the city, that one may just ride full tilt without fear of bumping into anything except rocks and tree branches. This rider is also a hiker, and has been quite far into the forest, and come across mountain bikes. Now, the rule is that bikes give way to foot traffic. The reality is that it is easier for me to step off the trail and allow the bikes to pass. We are always polite when out in the forest, and have found that other hikers and bike riders are similarly polite. Some of the pictures you see in these articles are of mountain bike riders we have spoken to, out in the middle of nowhere. You never know when you might need some help out there. It’s best to act accordingly.

It is true that in any sport or recreational pursuit that there will be some who cause trouble for all. An attitude that “this is mine, all mine, so stay out of my way” is what generally results in behavior, regardless of being on a horse, bike, or hiking boots, that causes conflicts.

One hopes that the simple act of being polite, and understanding that sharing is a decent act, is the prevalent attitude out on the trails and urban bike paths wherever you live and ride. The whole thing starts with you.

Ride

Riding off the beaten path requires a different set of skills than one would use on paved paths or roads. That much should be obvious just by looking at a mountain bike. City bikes, commuter bikes, and road bikes are all different.

There are many ways to improve your off trail expertise and comfort. Riding with someone who is markedly better than you are is a very good way to gain experience and confidence. This rider has a mentor/riding buddy who has been into serious bike land for 50 years. He’s an expert, but won’t claim it. He is though. Riding with him, on or off trail, is always a learning experience, whether it’s on a road bike or a mountain bike. His suggestions and his “watch this” demonstrations aren’t possible to get any other way. As a result, this riders skills, comfort on and off trail, and expertise have increased greatly.

Another method to improve your skills is to take a class. As has been mentioned in this column before, REI and Total Body Fitness are good options for classes. Your local bike shop may have lessons or contacts for lessons. Ask them.

Watching videos, made by the experts, is another way to wet your appetite for learning. One of the more interesting aspects of these videos is the step-by-step explanation of how, and why, the rider is doing what he or she is doing. Of course, if it’s necessary for you to go through, in your head, all the steps of how you get over a log, you’ll crash while you’re thinking about it. It’s good to hear the how to, but then you must get out and ride enough so that doing it is automatic. After that, you become the teacher. Ride well.

How to Ride a Mountain Bike

Rider in the woods

Another fine weekend beckons in the your area. As of now, the weather wonks tell us sunny and nice are the words to describe this weekend, unless of course, your local weather wizards say differently. Around here, it’s a very nice looking weekend.

The trails are all open, the colors are in full burst, and the temperature is perfect for just about any length of ride. The off road trails in the forest and the urban wildlife interfaces are very good right now. The only caveat is that in some regions you might find some snow or ice, especially in the mountains,  and on the north facing slopes. In some mountain regions, you’ll need a sled to go out in the woods, not a bike.

The light is fading around 5:15pm, so keep that in mind as you set out on your ride. Light up if you are going to be out around or after dusk.

Visit your local bike shop for the best information on where to ride, and what the conditions are. Check with your riding buddies as well. Wherever you ride this weekend, have a great time. Leave a comment here so that other riders can enjoy the trails and paths in your area.