Saturday, November 27, 2010

Preparedness makes us powerful, butter merely makes us fat...

Winter's here then.  It's cold, crisp and now we have snow.  Snow's a bit like Marmite as far as I can tell - don't put it on your toast, that would be terrible - you either love it or hate it.  And I think there's a very fine line between that love and hate depending on your aspirations.  We had a thick covering last year (February time if I recall correctly) and I didn't mind it at all; with the lack of road grit and the steep hill 500yds from my house, driving to work wasn't really an option and so I could legitimately 'work from home'.  I loved it.

This morning, I hate it.  Snow and road cycling don't really mix all that well; think chalk and cheese or Ike and Tina and you'll see where I'm coming from.  I have all the warm weather gear to keep me comfortable down to -5C, but when the roads are covered in compacted snow and slowly thawing/freezing patches of water things become decidedly hazardous.  I've had the back wheel step out when turning into junctions, but managed to keep things upright.  With ice on the roads, there's a high chance of the front wheel doing the same and if that happens... well I'm going down and no amount of bike handling skill is changing the outcome.  Spillsville.  Population: me.

treacherous -adjective: characterized by faithlessness or readiness to betray trust; traitorous.

What I've just covered briefly there is a road condition which one might describe as 'hazardous' or 'dangerous' and that would be fair enough.  From that, I would argue 'treacherous' is not a suitable adjective for the current weather conditions.  But if the BBC insists on attributing human qualities to natural phenomena, who I am I to pass comment?

I was sidetracked for a minute there.

Back to winter cycling...  so as long as the roads aren't icy, then  I will ride.  Last winter I had to spend ~£100 repairing my Giant Cadex.  Despite my fastidious winter maintenance regime, I couldn't stop all the salt from killing my front and rear Campagnolo derailleurs.

Giant Cadex 980c

I built the Cadex specifically for winter use and fitted it with mudguards for dirty road conditions that ruin clothes, make the drivetrain filthy and eventually kill derailleurs if there's enough salt present.  Rear derailleurs cost ~£40 and front derailleurs cost ~£20 so after I'd replaced one of each I had to come up with a more cost effective option for this winter!

  


A lot of my winter cycling is on the flat, just maintaining endurance and strength for when spring comes back around.  I could get away without needing derailleurs.  Now I couldn't simply take them off the Cadex, because the teeth profiles on the chainring actually cause the chain to derail; the front derailleur also keeps the chain where it should be.  I didn't want to change over the front chainring to a single speed one either - the Cadex is a bloody good road bike which I want to use in inclement weather throughout the warmer months. 

So I went to see Gary Proud at Kendell Cycles to discuss single speed bike options and what he could get his hands on.  I had looked at the Bianchi and Specialized offerings already.  The Bianchi is expensive and the Specialized - as well as being what everyone seems to ride - is not geared tall enough... so what else?  Gary recommended the Giant Bowery '72.  An aluminium relaxed geometry frame with track dropouts and bars, which is geared quite high with a 48/17 combination giving ~75 gear inches.  Ideal!  So I went for it, placed the order and collected about a month later.

I kept the rat-trap pedals and have used it throughout summer for going to the shops.  The frame is nice and stiff, the gearing is just about right and the riding position is comfortable.  And it looks the business, which to be honest is very important for this part-time hipster running two-wheeled errands.

Tug nuts!
I finished preparing it for proper winter use yesterday by fitting new clipless pedals, a rear mudguard and making additions to the saddle bag contents.  On top of the usual tyre levers, spare tube, multitool and chain breaker there are now two wheel spanners (the axles aren't quick release) and a smaller spanner for releasing the rear wheel tug nuts.  Stop laughing at the back!  Tug nuts fasten over the rear axle and keep the wheel set in the correct position to achieve suitable chain tension.

So I took the bike for the maiden voyage on Thursday.  It's exactly as I expected - it's nice to just pedal and not worry about gear ratios.  If the road starts to point towards the sky or the wind's in your face, then you simply MTFU, pedal harder and make the quads burn!  And that's what I want from winter cycling; to build leg strength and endurance.  I'm looking forward to it.

Giant Bowery '72
Thanks for reading - I hope it wasn't too cycling heavy!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

You're not putting that in the garden...

So… here we are: the end of an era.  Tomorrow is my last day working for Atkins Consultants Limited.  Monday 2nd July 2001 – Friday 19th November 2010: eight months shy of a gold effect carriage clock for my non-existent mantelpiece.  I’ve had some good times working at Atkins and I’ll be forever grateful of the fantastic opportunities afforded to me over the past nine years or so.

Now I can look forward to lots of free time in which to cycle plenty of miles and walk many paths.  It will also be nice to leave behind The Worst Commute Ever: Tuesday was my last day of being on the bypass stuck behind Reg and Doris in their 15yr old Proton or Baz in his dangerously overladen P reg Mondeo with illegal tyres.  How on Earth could I have found the Monday morning drive-fly-taxi to Dublin LESS hassle than the drive to Barnsley?  By factoring in Reg, Doris, Baz and the Tickle Your Tastebuds van; that’s how.  But let us not dwell on the past or be concerned about the future; we only ever occupy the present.

Birmingham Airport is auctioning a Maglev carriage on ebay.  The carriage is an example of one of the world's first magnetic levitation transport systems.  Although the Birmingham Airport one was replaced by a cable operated system, there are still plenty of examples of Maglev transit systems around the world.  The theory behind it is relatively straight forward; I won’t go into detail (you can Wiki if you’re interested), but the technology basically exploits magnetic repulsion and attraction.

I couldn’t resist a sly laugh at the expense of ‘Airport spokesman John Morris’ who was quoted: “Although it will never move under its own power again, it could make an excellent summer house or greenhouse.”  I can just imagine John walking through the door one evening (or morning – he’s probably on a shift pattern) after work and proudly telling Mrs Morris that he’s “bought a summer house ready for next year; it’ll be great for barbecues”.  Her face would be a picture when reality dawned on seeing a Sixt Kenning flatback Transit van loaded with half a ton of mildewed fibreglass, perspex and steel.

Interesting concept, centripetal force…

Consider a body travelling in circular motion of radius, R, about a fixed origin with a linear velocity, V.  The body is constantly accelerating toward the origin with an acceleration, a.

a = Rw2, where w is the angular velocity of the body.
Linear velocity, V = Rw.
Newton’s 2nd Law tells us that Force = mass x acceleration

So the centripetal force, F = m x Rw2
(V = Rw, so w = V/R.  Also: Weight, W = mass x gravitational acceleration, so m=W/g)

So the centripetal force, F = WV2/gR

… circular motion and acceleration don't really have anything to do with magnetic levitation.  But it was on my mind.

Thanks for reading.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Three hours in the life of a roadie...

Saturday mornings generally mean only one thing (unless I'm not at home after a boozy Friday evening) and that's ride time.

It's 6am and I'm awoken by an unmistakable song intro and I gather my thoughts through the next few tracks.  By 7am, I've had two coffees; toast; Weetabix with Acacia honey and milk; and I'm kitted up.  Just need to prep the bike and then make a move.  I've given the bike a once over the previous evening - to save time - but I check the tyres; brakes; gear indexing; and fill the water bottles.

I roll out at ~7:30am and I'm the only person up and about in my street as far as I can tell.  The sun rises over my destination and birds provide the opening ceremony for a new day.  There's a chill in the air and a slight dew, but by the time I've covered 10 miles and am well into the open countryside, the sun is up and the dampness has burned off.

Some people will think roadies are mad getting out of bed at 6am on a Saturday morning after a week at work.  They're entitled to that opinion, but will sadly never appreciate the magic of rolling silently along country lanes at 25mph - separated from the world by only a few lbs of carbon fibre, aluminium and rubber - as nature awakes.

The first mile or so is a little stop start as I negotiate a couple of priority junctions and have to trackstand at an unforgivable red light - no traffic around and there are few things worse than a red light jumping cyclist - but then it's pretty much free rolling for the next 10 miles or so.  Beginning to warm up now and the early morning tightness is ebbing away.  I exchange 'hellos' with one or two oncoming fellow roadies, get ignored by the mountain biker (long story) and am careful not to startle another roadie as I overtake him just the other side of Womersley.  I don't know if he tried to stick to my wheel, but when I look back 5 minutes later I can just make him out in the distance.

As I head straight over the cross roads on the A19 and make my way towards Pollington, I'm overtaken by a tractor pulling a large trailer.  Opportunity.  I let the farmer pull a 20ft gap, before shifting up a gear and accelerating to within 10ft of the trailer and into the slipstream.  Thanks to the draft, I've hit ~35mph and need to come back off the pedals so as to remain at a constant distance from the trailer... time to sit up and have a drink and slight breather!  I could sit here until the farmer pulls off into the fields, but a typically ignorant driver with the preconception that "cyclist = slower than me" seems desperate to overtake me and then our friendly provider of potatoes.  I drop back and let the cockwomble do his thing and the tractor has gone - I would need to work hard to get back in the draft, but I still have miles to cover so leave it.  Oh well.

To either side, flat expanses of pastoral and arable land extend towards the horizon.  The southerly cross wind is as fierce as usual.  Soon though I pass a solitary house and a school on the right and then cross over the Aire and Calder Navigation into Pollington where I find temporary shelter from from the gusts.  Leaving Pollington to head north for half a mile over the M62 motorway, that southerly wind becomes my friend... grab the drops, get tucked and crank it up to 30mph without any draft assistance.  Awesome like a hot dog.

I turn to head back in the direction of home, making progress through Gowdall, Hensall, Kellington, Knottingley and finally Pontefract.  The wind funnells through the cooling towers at Eggborough power station and makes bike handling tricky for a few hundred metres so I ease off the pedals and concentrate on not taking a spill.  Cycling through Knottingley can be interesting thanks to the traffic lights at the sports centre and at Hill Top and this time it's no different... crawling along at 10mph bumper to skinny tyre to bumper and yet the bloke behind insists on driving alongside me.  So I let him come by and then assert a positive road position in front of the old dear in the Daewoo Matiz - she's happy to follow patiently as she struggles to ignite a Camel with a yellow "five for a quid" lighter.

We eventually pass through the traffic lights at Hill Top (well the chain smoking lady stalls it and misses the window of opportunity) and it's full speed ahead to Pontefract town centre and the Town End junction for which the Highways department of Wakefield Council have received nothing but complaints.  I can't think why.  Anyway... I cut through past the scrap metal yard and hospital before flying up Mayor's Walk to cut the corner and Town End junction out of the route.  Another half mile in shopping traffic and then I'm home.

35 miles@ave18mph and I'm set for the day before a lot of people have crawled out of bed!

I'm pleased with my current stable of bikes, but the accepted mathematical proof for the number of bikes a roadie requires is:

Number of bikes required = n+1 (where n is the number of bikes currently owned)

So I'm always on the look out for the next bike.  Among all the 'obvious' choices, the Colnago Master 55 and Pinarello Prince of Spain have really caught my attention!  Time to start saving.

Thanks for reading.