HEY JAMES....HOW DID YOU PICK YOUR NEW BIKE?

So….I think we’ve had quick recaps of my how I came to decide to start riding again and to ride RAGBRAI this year, my history on a bike and some discussion about RAGBRAI itself so that leads us up to “How Did You Pick Your New Bike?”

You may remember (from an earlier posting) that I still own my original road bike that I had purchased in about 1979 and had ridden it off and on ever since. That was a double edged sword kind of situation… I still had a road bike BUT it was old. In biking terms ‘old’ means that it is heavy and it’s components are not as efficient and ‘nice’ as the new ones. I was enjoying riding it and I hated the thought of replacing it. But I knew that if I wanted to meet my goals I would have to purchase a new bike, so after I ‘rode the wheels off” of my old bike I began the search. I also used the fact that I had managed to keep my road bike healthy for all these years as justification for buying a new bike – “if I kept the last one this long, I’m sure I’ll keep the next one just as long” and spending ‘good money’ on a really nice bike. Before I began to shop I thought about what I wanted to do – what my goals were and tried to practice stating them as emphatically as possible:

1) I want to ride in multiple day rides like the “MS Bike to Somewhere” kind of rides. I’ve always thought these types of rides would be fun but I never could work my way up to being strong enough to commit to any. Plus they would help me build up to the ultimate goal of riding in RAGBRAI.

2) I want to be as comfortable as possible while doing so. I am an ‘old dude’ and as such I lack the ability (let’s also say ‘desire’) to withstand the harsher rides that really, really nice and fast road bikes have. The harsh ride that those kinds of bikes have is a matter of efficiency – in order to maximize the power you put to the road you have to minimize the flex in the bike and that leads to a harsh ride. I did not want to spend any money on a bike and then start thinking that another bike might have been more comfortable.

3) I do not want to ‘race’ or ride really fast. I’m not a competitive person and I realize that bike racing (even at the club level) is a young man’s game. I want to ride ‘long, not fast’.

4) I want to buy a bike that will last me for many years, one that isn’t just slightly better than my existing bike but several levels above it. I felt I was willing to spend a little more money in order to get a bike that is better than me right now and then grow into it. 

So, armed with those four goals I began to pester my friends that ride for their input (and you know who you are). I sent email after email asking for their input as to frame material, gearing, handlebars, etc. I tried to ride a few local bikes but the shops here mostly sell BMX, kids and racing bikes. As this process drug on I started to hear one term over and over: “Endurance bike” and began to narrow my focus towards bikes in the ‘Endurance’ groups. These are bikes that the bicycle manufacturers began to build several years ago and I’d like to think they saw the growing “old dude” market as the driver for them. Of course they’ll all argue over which company built the first one but the bottom line is that most of the major companies do now. The bike is designed so that the rider sits a little more upright than the normal racing bike and they’ve all got some design aspects built into them that will dampen out a good deal of the vibrations caused by rough road surfaces. Oh, they don’t ride like the proverbial ‘living room couch’ but they are smoother than the ultra light and super fast bikes. 

Most bicycles these days are built out of one or a combination of three different materials:

a)      Steel: the oldest still used and very reliable and durable. Good steel bikes last a long time and are quite smooth compared to the other materials.

b)      Aluminum: an attempt at making lighter bikes led to using aluminum tubes for the frames. Unfortunately the design characteristics of aluminum led to larger tubes that steel bikes have and stiffer frames. A stiff frame generally leads to a rough ride.

c)       Carbon Fiber: A super lightweight material that is somewhat similar to fiberglass in that it starts out as a fiber that is woven into a cloth. The cloth is cut into patterns that are used to create the major parts of a bike frame, coated with a resin and then dried so that the resulting material is a super light, super strong, very compliant bike frame. 

While there are very expensive steel and aluminum bikes on the market the carbon fiber ones are generally the most expensive of the three but there are some ‘entry level’ carbon bikes that are cost competitive with steel and aluminum bikes. Even the entry level carbon bikes are noticeably lighter than equally priced steel and aluminum and since lower mass leads towards easier pedaling so I decided that I wanted an entry level, carbon fiber endurance bike.

I believe that one of the original carbon fiber endurance bikes is the Specialized “Roubaix” that is named after a famous bike race in France – the “Paris – Roubaix” ride is noteworthy due to that fact that a good portion of the race is ridden over a cobblestone road. A rough ride indeed. The Specialized Roubaix won the Paris-Roubaix race several years in a row a few years ago.  Trek makes an endurance bike called the “Domane” (which is rumored to be just a mash up of the name of their famous racing bike the “Madone”), Giant makes their “Defy” and most of the other manufactures make carbon fiber endurance bikes also. So I set out to read as many websites and reviews about these bikes as possible all the while continuing to ride my old steel bike as much as I could for as far as I could. Then I started calling and visiting bike shops in order to see if they had any of these in stock. BUT…during my visits, just to confirm I was heading in the right direction, I would repeat my four goals from above as soon as I started talking to a salesperson. I would not say “I’m here to see a Trek Domane” or “I want an endurance bike” but I would lay out the goals and then give the salesperson an opportunity to make their case for whatever they thought was best. Of course the other constraint / goal that had to be discussed was that of the budget which I stuck to as closely as possible. 

I began to ride the ones available for short rides around the block and I also began to drive far distances to find a shop that had one in my size. I decided that I was going to purchase a particular bike from a particular shop one day and drove quite a distance to get there, test ride it and then get completely alienated by the sales guy who said that they couldn’t ‘fit’ me to the bike on a Saturday. (this was after I had spoken with him twice in the preceding weeks saying that I was coming in, from a far distance, to ride and probably purchase the bike.) I left his shop without that bike and went to another shop a few weeks later that had a Specialized Roubaix in my size and would be agreeable to ‘fit’ me on a Saturday. I rode the bike and liked it very much, paid them for it and then when through the process of having the bike fitted to my body size and riding profile. “Fitting” a bike is an important aspect that you should be sure you do when you buy your next bike – it makes sure you’re getting the most from your bike and that you are minimizing the possibility of an injury from extending your knees or back too much or too little. As an Endurance bike the Roubaix features little ‘dampers’ in the front fork and in the part of the frame that connects the seat to the rear wheel of the bike (seat stay) and these act to minimize road vibrations from reaching the hands and butt of the rider. This aspect sets the Roubaix apart from many of the other endurance bikes and the particular Roubaix that I purchased came with a Shimano model 105 drivetrain that I had learned would be the bare minimum that I should consider buying. 

My New Bike: "Lena", named after the Race Engineer for the AUDI Endurance Racing Team.

So that is the story of how I came to but my ‘new’ bike, hopefully you can learn a few pointers from my process and go out and get you one soon! ! ! All in all I have been extremely happy with this bike and rode it well over 1,000 miles before the Fall weather turned too cool to comfortably ride. I’m looking forward to riding more and more as the days lengthen and temperatures warm up.

NEXT WEEK

Next week I’m thinking that I’ll talk a little about trying to develop a spring riding schedule and how it will hopefully build up to RAGBRAI in July ! ! Be sure and leave comments and/or questions below… I’d really like to know what you’re thinking :)

Thanks and have a great week…. James

ROUTE ANNOUNCEMENT ! ! !

Route for 2015 RAGBRAI

I know I said that in this weeks edition I was going to go into a painfully detailed recap of how I came to choose my new bike but I'm going to set that topic aside so that we can talk about the RAGBRAI route that was just announced on Saturday.
From what I read this route will be 462 miles long and it's the first time they will start and finish in the original two cities that were the start and finish cities for the first RAGBRAI in 1973. They've also added a 15 mile optional gravel route that will be done as a memorial to one of the long time supporters of the ride. I'm not sure if I'm going to take that road, but I'll look at it and see once I get there.


Each of the cities shown above (except for Sioux City and Davenport) are considered 'Overnight Cities' and that is were the ride will stop for the day and start the next day. The committee is now in the process of picking the intermediate towns that will serve as the stopover cities for lunches and breaks. The 462 miles over seven segments mean that the daily average will be 66 miles. The total vertical climb will be about 16,000 feet with most of it coming in the last half of the ride. All that will be new to me since I have not ridden more than 62 miles in one day YET. You can read more about the route on RAGBRAI's website here: RAGBRAI Route Link

I am really excited about this route because it will take me either through or close to the childhood homes of a few friends. I'm really looking forward to having some of Madonna's pies when we go through Grundy Center and some good Norwegian food as we pass by Badger! Hopefully more people will be able to provide me with some good insights as the route is further developed. 

I really appreciate you all reading this and am looking forward to hearing any suggestions on how I can become a 'better blogger' :)

Next Week: "How James Chose His Bike"

GETTING UP TO SPEED :)

GETTING UP TO SPEED ON THE OLD BIKE....

So here is my old road bike. It is a Takara 'Touring Bike" that I bought as a birthday present for myself way back in the late 70's. To be honest with you I don't clearly recall what I was riding before this bike other than my childhood bike that had been through several paint jobs and 'modifications'. I figured that I needed a proper road bike and this one fit the bill: quality steel frame, rack, zefal frame pump (not shown), etc, etc. It's lived in SC, AZ, DE and now NC. Heaven only knows how many miles are on it but I do know that I backed into it with a car in 1982 and severely bent the rear wheel. A good friend re-trued it for me and it hasn't been touched since ( I suppose he's just that good?). It lived on my back porch in Lewes, Delaware and damn near rusted to death but a weekend with naval jelly and other harmful cleaners rescued it again. I would ride it off and on and it was eventually replaced as my 'go to' bike by a used Trek 720 Multitrak (gf's bike) and another rental bike that we bought during an end of season sale at the beach in Delaware.

After I attended the presentation about the coast to coast ride I decided I needed to get this bike out from underneath my house, clean it up (again!) and begin to ride it in earnest. During this time I had made a new friend who rode quite a bit with the local bike shop and she agreed to ride with me on some longer & longer rides. It was early summer and the Eastern NC heat was building fast...Needless to say I suffered quite a bit on many of those rides, but I knew that I had ridden that far in the past so I should be ok with it now - once I got into 'shape' :)
Once I managed to successfully finish a fairly long (for me) charity ride with a fairly large group of people I decided that I did like to ride in those events and I began to shop for bikes and was enjoying talking to the salespeople to learn about the new technologies available and became even more enthused about riding. I developed a short description of my goal (and I think that is a key idea for anyone thinking about starting to ride) that I used when I talked to people about new bikes..."I do not want to race or ride 'fast'. I want to ride 'long',  participate in 'charity rides' and some multi-day rides." This was descriptive enough for most objective people to help me focus on a certain 'class' of bike called the "Endurance" class. It turns out that bike manufacturers have seen a rise in the number of 50+ year old guys wanting to ride again but hesitant about the inherent uncomfortableness (if that's a word) of riding 'racing bikes' so they have created the endurance class of bike that is fairly lightweight, handles well and has design elements that help smooth out the vibrations found in super-stiff racing bikes. I also realized that these bikes are expensive, especially if I was going to buy one that was significantly better than my existing road bike. It was at that point that I developed my next goal: "I'm going to ride this bike until I wear out the tires and then I'll make my decision about riding again - if I'm truly committed to riding, then I'll buy a new bike. If not, I'll fix this one and put it back into the basement." A little while later I had a flat and I took the bike into the Local Bike Shop (known as an "LBS" in the bicycle world) and asked the mechanic to fix the flat...she came back out and told me that she didn't think she could without damaging the old tire that was on it. I told her to try and she managed to fix it. As she rolled it out I asked her if she remembered what I told her before about riding the wheels off of it...she looked at me and said "It's time for you to get a new bike". 

So there you go: two 'sub-goals' made and one met...it's time for a new bike.

What's Next ? ? ?

Next week I'll talk a little about the process I went through to buy my new bike and then we'll be well on the "Ride to RAGBRAI" .

Thanks for reading and commenting...hopefully I'll be able to share something with you that will help you get on your own "Ride" in the future !

GETTING STARTED

A long, long time ago I began riding my bike with my friend Robert - that's me on the left. Of course Robert got the fancy chrome fenders AND the nice cowboy outfit that Christmas but those are stories for another day/blog. On this blog I'm going to try and 'blog' about my quest to ride in the 2015 RAGBRAI bike ride: how I got to where I am, what I'm doing to prepare for the ride and hopefully during the ride in July. 

A Little Background

RAGBRAI is the "Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa" and is one of the largest multi-day bike rides in the United States. According to RAGBRAI's General Information Page it started in 1973 as a ride with a few friends and has grown to a massive ride of about 10,000 riders.
I seem to remember reading about it either in high school or college and have always wanted to ride in it one day but as adulthood and all that entails came along the ride got shuffled further and further down my list (even before there were 'bucket lists'). In my early youth I enjoyed riding my bike through town, to the nearby pool with fiends and out in the country where my grandmother lived and I would occasionally wonder about what it would be like to ride in one of the big rides there were often written about in Sports Illustrated or shown on "Wild World of Sports" (...are you guessing my age yet?...) I never rode really fast or really far, I just rode to ride. While I was in college I bought a 'nice' road bike and that led to much longer rides and even more fun.
After college I tried to ride more and more and would occasionally ride to work but a brief encounter with a girl that lived in my apartment complex showed me that I really wasn't a rider - I went to ride with her one Saturday morning and she jumped on her pedals and flew away from me...It took everything I had to catch up (I think she slowed up) and ask "Why are you going so fast?" to which she replied "Why are you going so slow?" Over the many years subsequent to that enlightening moment I rode less and less but I always kept me bike nearby and would occasionally get it out for a ride through the countryside or on one of the bike trails being developed near where I was living. 
A few years ago I relocated to a college town in the south and met a few people who rode their bikes to the local bars, parks, town, etc and started riding my old hybrid with them. There is a nice trail here and I rode that as much as possible just for the fun of it too. In March of last year I attended an engineering society meeting where the presentation was by a guy who had ridden from San Diego to Tybee Island, GA over a period of about 17 days on a fully supported ride. The stories he told about that ride and the preparation necessary to go on it were extremely interesting BUT the most interesting thing to me was how I thought he looked like he was in really good shape to be in his mid-40's....someone asked him how old he was and his reply kind of shocked me - he was 55. That was the impetus for me to start riding again, although he had a big head start on me thanks to being an ex-runner I figured riding more and more would be a big help to me in trying to keep healthy as I aged. So I got out my 30+ year old road bike that weekend, pumped up the gumwall tires and went for a ride.

What's Next? 

I plan to continue this blog on a weekly basis and talk a little about how I've been riding since March, my plan and training schedule to ride in RAGBRAI and then do daily entries during the ride. I hope to encourage many of you to contribute (positively) through your comments and provide information and tips on how to ride better and get in better shape. I also hope to share information about various rides and places to ride that I've been doing and will be doing from now through July.
I'm looking forward to this new experience (blogging) and hearing from you. Thanks for taking the time to read all this - I promise that the next few entries won't be nearly as long ;)

James