My Most Recent Ride 2011 (Part IV of the series)

You know Ward, you and I similiar.

You see a guy on a Ridley bike going 24 MPH and go chase him down and pass him. You call it "greyhound brain"

Well I see a guy on a Ridley bike going 24 MPH and I say, man I will never catch up to him. I have "greyhair brain" :rolf2:

Don't worry, my daughter doesn't think I am funny either, but I crack myself up!!! :rolf2:

 

I have a pretty sweet commuting situation. It's 12-14 miles each way (depending on the specific route I choose), and 10-12 miles on the bike path following the Great Miami River in Dayton. (translation=flat). Only the last 2 miles on a 4-lane state route are a little nervous.:

I've been pedaling to work 3-5 days a week for 3 weeks now, and I recognize a few faces as regulars. Yesterday, I backed off my regular 16mph cruising speed to talk to a fellow on a mountain bike rolling about 10 mph. We shared a relaxing 4 mile stretch, and I think I added only 10 minutes to my commute - well worth it!

Today, I crossed paths with my first serious recumbent rider - Conrad is in his late 50's (like me) and retired (not like me ). He has a Ti-Rush with a fairing that he insisted I try. His Xseam is about 4 inches longer than mine, so the experiment only lasted a quarter mile or so, but a great experience anyway.

I've had my share of "get off the road" encounters, but I'd say the "cool bike" and thumbs-up gestures outnumber those 3 to 1. That, combined with the endorphin rush, give my work days a good start.

I'm looking at some side trips on the ride home to add some hills, just to get a few hundred feet of elevation to tune-up for riding with you folks in the SE. Not sure when that will happen, but the high and low points on my regular ride are only spread about 150 feet, so I'm going to need to crank some steeper grades before I hit the Tennessee pavement.

The Dayton area is laced with a few hundred miles of linked bike paths that I expect to explore further. My V-Rex has made riding much more inviting than my DF.

I'm hooked.

Rich

 

Methinks there are no bland rides for Ward! That is good. One can most always enjoy themselves and also not get bored. Boredom is one concept I have trouble relating too. There is just too much to do and see.

 

21 fast, easy miles... lower humidity... no targets/rabbits to chase.

Hey, I modded my helmet, just before hopping on the bike for this mornings' ride.

There were precedents I've seen, over the years, online.
People posting pictures of coroplast 'hood' scoops fastened atop
their helmets, to facilitate cooling.

And, with the heat addling my brains... my inertia... (I'm so slow sometimes!) I only just today addressed the limited airflow through my helmet.

A few rides ago, I waved my flattened palm above my head,
mimicking the position of an airscoop.
What a difference!

So, this morning, I built a quick-and-dirty mockup airscoop out of a shard of 1/4"
thick foam insulation that was lying around, doing nothing of any importance, in the scrap pile.

A few strips of duck tape, a few more strips of blue painters' tape to camouflage the klugey duck-tape and the cute pink foam and...
off I went.


It works like a charm, that airscoop does.

At the end of my ride, ridden at my usual furious pace, I was much more comfortable:
-my speed downhill was not affected;
-less overheated.
And at the end of my ride:
-felt no need to jump into the swimming pool to cool off;
-was not blinded by the usual/expected river of sweat running off my forehead!

Conclusion?

I'm building a good-looking, permanent, waterproof air intake scoop to replace my successful kluge-scoop!

 

Do you have nay pics you could post? I am really curious because I have THICK curly hair and it gets really hot under my helmet and I've been trying to think of something I could do to make it cooler.

 

Air scoop

Might try a 21.8 oz Nestle Nesquik plastic oval canister, Remove the lid, face it forward on your helmet and cut out enough of the side (against the helmet) to allow air flow but leaving enough flat around that hole to allow Velcro hook'n-loop attachment. Sort of an F1 or thru-the-hood supercharger look. Paint the inside of this yellow container red for a mean look!

Get Bill to fab a venturi tube fixed to the underside of your ride and attach a hose from there to the base of the helmet to help pull the air around the head.

Might even be able to run that hose, a flat oval cross-section, down the seat back where small holes might give the back a shot of air flow?

Build the system into a molded seat? On this Bill? Check out NASCAR helmets.

 

Kluge-Scoop

My inspiration for my helmet scoop is the
WW2-era belly scoop (intercooler) as used on
both the P51 Mustang and the P47 Thunderbolt:
the design minimised drag losses and in fact,
in the case of the P51, there was a net gain of added thrust.

My goal is to make my helmet mod. resemble
a streamlined time-trial helmet....


----

Oh yeah, to make this post relevant to this thread:
I'll do some interval training indoors today, on the trainer.
In other words, I plan to pedal furiously to nowhere.




Showing how the front vents are closed and both the top and rear vents remain open.


Side view shows how the helmet sits on my head and the angle of the air scoop.


Fuzzy closeup includes detail of the funky 'Moosefly' steel sculptures' wings.


Fuzzy closeup shows the pink foam, grey duck tape and loop-patches of
Velcro fasteners.

You see how cheap my helmet is?
That's why it needs aerodynamic aid!

By the way, why bother with hoses/ducts to direct the slipstream?
It's already streaming right by the helmet:
NASCAR drivers' helms are inside the cabin.
That's why they need the ductwork, to direct the outside airstream
to the helmet!

 

Rode another century today with Liner. With two metrics under my belt in the last week we took it pretty easy with a moving speed of 14.9. Saw a pair of coyote's slinking over the new rail trail as we headed out int he semi-darkness at 6am not much else in the way of wildlife. Out on Ft. Benning the building is crazy, new roads everywhere. Huge areas of empty forest are gone as the dooziers are mobilized with new roads appearing everywhere and old roads being repaved. We had to make a few detours because of the construction.

Anyway 100.3 miles in 6:45 ride time 7:48 total time with 3737 feet of elevation gain.

 

I got out for a ride today. The first in AGES. Definitely the first since I got back from the northern most point in Europe. The hot weather finally broke last week and it was gray so Loke and I could both go out without having a heat stroke.

Just a little over 3 miles on the river loop, but hey! I went.

Terii

 

Well I got back and it looks like Ward is almost 500 miles ahead of me..I ddint do any bike riding in Alaska (Fished and Drank Beer). I gotta get back on the bike tomorrow and get some miles in.

 

73 more miles today. Work was real slow so I took off and hit the road at 6am. Just a down and out, had a headwind until I turned around.

18.5 moving average and 2100 or so feet of climbing, basically flat.
Spotted a few rednecks, no other wildlife.

 

Ahahaha, I fell out laughing at this... I thought of those "red necked" long tail pheasants when I read it. They are so small and hard to find. I just can't see "human rednecks" that rare. hahaha, I just couldnt' help myself...sorry...it simply struck my funny bone.

 

Brian,

Ward showed you no mercy AT ALL!!!!

 

I rode 15.2 miles between two business appointments yesterday. My Eagle Scout came through when I passed a guy working on his back flat tire. As I passed, I asked if he needed any help. He said "no", so I kept going.

On my way back, here comes that same guy, pushing his bike down the bike trail. I asked if he would like some help this time and he said "yes". He had a pump but no repair kit. (This is how you find out the importance of a repair kit.) I asked him if he wanted to use mine and he told me he was new to biking. I offered to repair his tube and he accepted.

What happened next I never saw before. I am chatting away (can you believe I would do that ) and started putting on my surgical gloves while telling him these are great for keeping you hands clean. Then I asked him to put the rear derailleur on the smallest sprocket. He told me he did but it was on the 7th of 9 gears. I said he needed to have his derailleur adjusted. (News to him.) I took off the back wheel, then I took out my tire spoons and showed him how to grip and pull out the tire from the rim. Then I took the other spoon and went around the tire so I could access the tube. So far so good.

But then the odd thing happened. I looked at the tube inside the tire and saw it was bent back over itself. To me the tube looked 3 inches to long and to solve the problem, the bike shop just bent the tube back over itself and inflated the tire.

Am I thinking right or would the walking along with a flat back tire somehow stretch the tube and overlap over itself?

The leak was the stem had rubbed through the rubber making it impossible to repair. My spare tubes were the wrong size so I explained to him to take the bike back to Harpers (where he bought the bike) and have them put a new tube in it for FREE and adjust the back derailleur so it worked properly. I put the defective tube back, put the tire back on and mounted the rear wheel back on the bike.

I'm not much of a bike mechanic, but I could do better than that!!! Any other opinions about the tube are welcomed. Like I said, this is the first time I have ever seen anything like that.

 

Old school?............... No.

Jon, this is a result of 'new school'. No experience necessary!

Nice job, by the way. Planting good fruit-bearing seeds yield a higher return when planted/nurtured........., one at a time!

Jon, he could have ridden on this if it was way under-inflated or even flat and either stopped or started abruptly, causing the tire to spin on the rim. The tube would have likely been held in place because the stem was 'locked' in position. The tube might have rolled up some (because the tire was rotating). but this sounds excessive.

Compare tube & tire size for compatibility. PS. Gloves............LIKE