My Most Recent Ride 2010 (Part III of the series)

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Today is the first day in weeks that it is supposed to be above 40 AND sunny. I am taking the afternoon off to ride my new V Rex. Stay tuned....

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Wow. I don't think we've seen 40 since November. We did hit 35 yesterday.

I see they are forecasting another 3-6" of albino rain for us early next week. Here we go again. It is amazing how much the snow has settled around here the past few days. But most of the snow we've had this winter has been really light fluffy stuff with not much moisture. When it starts to melt it can melt fast. But, I went to one of the barns today where I haven't been for a while and it is knee deep snow to get to the door. Hurry Spring!

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

I am one happy guy. I went riding on my new V Rex today. I started around noon and it was 48 degrees. I am back and it is 56 degrees outside. HEAT WAVE!!!!

Anyway I LOVE the way my new V Rex steers. I like it much better than the praying hampster position. (Don and Dave are you paying attention here???) In fact, if I like it as much in a month, I am going to have my other V Rex set up the same way. The only changes will be putting on a different handlebar and adjusting the tilt angle. Everything else is exactly the same.

It is MUCH EASIER to steer and balance. Going around curves was smoother and I felt more stable (probably because I could make small steering adjustments very quickly).

My one fear was riding with my legs BETWEEN the handlebars. I was especially worried about turning. Well it turned out that I had NO PROBLEM at all. My legs didn't hit the handlebars once and I made some sudden steering changes just to see what would happen. What happened was the bike steered fine and my legs never got in the way of the handlebars.

So you can see I am one happy camper!!! There were two minor issues after this "maiden" run. First, I put on a TerraCycle idler. Their idlers come with very small washers so you can move it slightly left to right in the braze on bracket for fine tuning. Well in low gear it ground a bit so we swapped the washers around and that fixed the problem. The other issue was my arms were extended forward a bit out of the neutral position. So we brought the handlebars back an inch and my arms are perfectly resting in a neutral position.

I will take some picture of it and me riding it to post later. Just had to tell you about my maiden voyage on the new V Rex.

I hope others are taking advantage of this great day. GOOOOO RIIIIIDE!!!

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Cool Jon, glad you are enjoying your new steed. I was out for some hill repeats only 17 miles but I was worn slap out.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Yeah, glad you like you bent. I have to shut my office door just to keep your grin out. haha, Happy for you.

 

Virginia Creeper Trail

I spent Sunday at my Va. Creeper house. 69 degrees F! Sunny, beautiful! The trail is in excellent condition and there were only a handful of local riders out, all with big smiles. The upper section, White Top, which is near to where I live full-time, will still be snow covered and mushy in any places without snow. BUT, the lower section of the trail is in fine shape and I had the best ride of the year so far.

Since I was not sure how the trail would be I rode my CF, a 700X, but any 'bent could do it now.

Cheers, fila

 

Re: Virginia Creeper Trail

Glad to hear about the trail conditions. We considered going there Sunday, but was afraid it would be too mushy even Damascus to Abingdon.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Let me know when you're headed that way and we can meet up for a ride. As best possible I'll stay up on the trail conditions from this point. Usually it's late March before the top is in rideable condition and this winter has been tough so it may be later. My first rides up top are usually done by trike, I get muddy as **** but I don't tip over at least.

Cheers, fila

 

Re: Virginia Creeper Trail

Must you people keep printing this stuff??! Enough. 69 degrees! What? Come on up here and help us shovel snow for a while.

Man, that snow we got yesterday was super heavy. I'm glad I did not have to shovel any or I'd have been done after only 2 or 3 shovel fulls. As it was, you could shove it somewhat but not too much and to try to go fast and throw it with the blade was not to be. It was the worst snow this year....and it was only 4-5". I really felt for some poor folks in Ann Arbor as they got 11" of it.

I'm ready for Spring!!! But Spring isn't coming here for a while yet.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

B-Savage, In the mountains here in NW NC we have a heavy snow/ice cover on the ground. 3-4 inches fell last yesterday and last night, it's 15 degrees F and windy, and it is supposed to be snowy and cold for the next 7 days or so. When I "brag" about a good weather day in Damascus it's a cry for help. I have lived in NE Minn. so I know about northern winters but this has been a northern winter this year down here in my part of NC.

Retirement on the Creeper Trail in Damascus is sounding better and better.

fila

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Well, we're retired but still in MI. Some of the group has tried to talk us into coming down but I think we'll be staying and then just Roam around once in a while.

Our travelling got put on hold a few years ago when my wife could not take the travelling any more (problems sitting). But we're planning a trip to the west coast this summer so we'll see how that goes. Who knows? Maybe we'll end up buying another motor home and then we could really travel in style.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Had an interesting ride today. I decided to try something different. I built a new set of wheels for the V-Rex and instead of using skinny high pressure tires I put on a set of 2.00 Schwalbe Big Apples.

Whereas the Stelvios I usually ride take 120 psi, the Big Apples take 30-50 psi. For this first ride I used 40 psi.

I expected the ride to feel like mush but the Big Apples surprised me. The ride was very smooth, even on the bumpy back roads with broken pavement and pot holes around here. I even purposely rode through pot holes I would usualy avoid just to see what it was like.

While these tires didn't soak up the bumps to the point they disappeared, they definitely took the edge off of the biggest bumps and dips and rolled over the smaller ones.

There was none of the chattering and shaking that normally occurs when riding over broken pavement.

The one thing I don't care for is that I have to deflate the front tire to get it past the V-brake shoes. no problem getting the rear tire on or off, even fully inflated.

While I'll keep the skinny high pressure tires on the Ti-Rush, Big Apples are now the tire of choice for the V-Rex.

Check out the new tires

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Mike,

Wow!!! :yikes: First that bike looks awfully familiar! (I have one just like it!) Secondly, I can't believe you went 180 degrees in the choice of this tire.

How is the rolling resistance? How did your average riding speed do? Go up, go down, stayed the same??? Let me know. I just went from Stelvios to Durangos.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

Jon,

The rolling resistance on the 2.00 Big Apples does not feel any worse than the 1.50 100 psi tires I had been riding. I didn't have a computer on the bike so speed comparisons are relative but I didn't seem to be any slower. A 6 mile ride over rough pavement with 3 decent climbs took 30 minutes. That would be 12 mph which is about what I normally did on the V-Rex out here.

The Big Apples have a similar speed profile as the Duranos. Though intuitively it would seem that a 28 mm 120 psi tire (Durano) would have less rolling resistance and therefore higher speed than a 50 mm 50 psi tire (Big Apple).

Big Apple HS 338


Durano HS 399


If speed is not the main object the Big Apples sure give a smooth, comfortable ride.

Since I have 2 bikes I'm going to keep the Ti-Rush set up for speed (28mm 120 psi Stelvios) and the V-Rex set up for cush with the Big Apples.

 

Re: My Most Recent Ride - 2010

I rode the Bike Bleckley Metric today in south Georgia. It was posted as pretty flat, empty roads with soft rolling hills which pretty much summed it up. There were a few short sections of rough roads but not too much. The wind, well it was calm when we started but built up as the day progressed until it was really blowing as we were heading back in over the last 15 miles.

I met two B riders, AeroDon and Tom A. Marshall from Macon was riding over to join us but ran late and we didn't see him.

We let the field start in front of us and pretty quickly started reeling them in. Lots of riders, I would say close to 100 in total. Recumbents that I saw, My Carbent, an Aero, Corsa, giro, a Catrike 700 and a ti-Rex, and probably Marshall on his Corsa.

AeroDon is extremely strong and it was probably about the 11th mile that we saw the lead group being paced by a sheriffs car. By mile 15 we passed them, we picked it up to 25 for a short run so they couldn't grab out wheels but one guy managed to hitch on. We didn't stay out front but about 4 miles before they picked us back up. Don went off the front and would hook up with the lead three riders, Tom and I were spat out the back.

Turns out we spoiled the plans of the group. They had short of a civil agreement to hang together at around 20 mph until the last SAG, and then then all h*** would break loose. When we blew by them all bets were off and we split the lead group into multiple little packs. Even a deputy at the sag I stopped at said "Weird ride this year, they are spread out all over the course".

Oh well, so I rode the first 20 pulling a few times but mostly drafting Don. The next 45 were all me with a finishing speed of right at 19 mph, a ride time of 3:23 and total time 3:34. Pretty flat with 1882 feet of climbing.

Ward