Something odd

I saw something odd on the way home yesterday. It didn't really blow my mind like the first time I saw this, but having observed this odd behaviour for the second time, I felt compelled to comment.

So what is this totally odd behaviour? Are you ready? I saw someone reading a book while riding their bike. This one was a school girl on her way home on a bike path, but the first one I saw was someone riding on an on-road cycle lane during peak hour traffic. In both cases they were weaving all over the place, much, much worse than someone talking on the phone while driving.

For those of you wondering what the latest developments are since my last post, here they are:

I have done a total of 340 km so far across the last 4 weeks. Between public holidays and driving in once a week, I have only ridden in 2 or 3 times a week. This week coming up will be my first full week since I got the bike on the road. The only problem is that I don't think that the rear free wheel will handle it.

It has been making clicking and clunking noises that have been getting worse and worse. I finally got to talk to the guy at the bike shop about it and he basically said that all free wheels do it and the cheaper ones do it the most. The problem is that because it has to ride stationary while the wheel turns that it isn't always perfectly square with the wheel depending on its relative position when it starts turning. I guess the one that ships with the motor is super-cheap and therefore crap.

The next problem is that in mountain bikes the screw-on free wheels, of which mine is the type, are the cheap ones. The better, more expensive ones slide on, so I don't even have an option of going to a more expensive free wheel. I'm sure I could find one better than this one, but the hassle will be finding one the same width as the 5 speed one I have now. I do have an alternative though....

Have I mentioned how little I change gears? In fact in my last 3 or 4 trips I haven't changed gears once. It just isn't necessary. Even on the biggest hill I don't feel compelled to change. The main time I would need the gears would be during some sort of malfunction or flat battery. But we don't include pedals on our cars in case we run out of petrol, so I think I should opt for optimal conditions during commuting and risk hard work in the case of malfunctions. This means I can go for a single gear on the back. Doing this means I can get a high-end rear free wheel which screws on. Why? Because they are made for high end BMX bikes and have the same fitting. Even a cheap one of these is only $10, so if I spend $40 I still think this is cheap.

This has an added side benefit of reducing the amount of space taken up on that side of the drop-out, which will mean I will have to put some spacers on the other side and this means that the rear wheel will be more centred again.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Driving in

I was forced to drive in today by force beyond my control. It really made me appreciate riding in. The aggravation and frustration of being in queues of traffic really pissed me off today. The drive in was particularly bad. There must have been an accident somewhere and the arterial routes were clogged as were the off-shoots with people trying to bypass the jam. Tomorrow's ride will be blissful.

Stupid Mind

Well, despite the fact that I didn't feel up to in this morning I made it in record time.

Average Speed: 32.6
Time: 32:59
Distance: 18 km

The Crunch

Today is the first day my mind is playing tricks on me, coming up with excuses not to ride. We'll see what happens in 1 hour...

Car Problems

The idea today was to drop the car in for a wheel alignment and ride from there to work and back to pick up the car. No need to take the charger, or so I thought. I got a call from Peter at the Car Care Centre to say that the engine mounts needed replacement and that the parts wouldn't be available today. So a ride all the way home was in order.

The ride home panned out like this:
Distance: 18 km
Average speed: 29.1 kph
Time: 36:40

The battery cut out about 200 metres from home. So I guess I have worked out the assisted range now. The ride in from Fyshwick was 7.7 km so my assisted range is around 26 km.

First Commute

I rode into work for the first time today. All went well, but my stats are a bit skewed because I stopped for coffee with a mate about 2 km from work, but here are the stats from the first leg:

Distance: 14.885 km
Average Speed: 31.9 kph
Time: 28 minutes even

I was pretty happy with this since I am on target for a regular commute in the sub 35 minute range. On the way home I took it a bit easier and stopped to pump up my tyres to their maximum pressure on the way home, so it took 39 minutes. The ride left me with four observations:
1: I wont be going back to cycling without assistance in a hurry
2: I need a bigger front gear since I am maxing out my cadence on downhills and am unable to go much faster than 43 kph without really sprinting.
3: The brake levers that came with this kit are really crap. I REALLY like the fact that they cut the power as soon as you put them on, but the plastic body is quite cheaply made and there is way too much play in them and it makes them difficult to adjust right.
4: The charger is really heavy and lugging it to and from work is not sustainable.

Anyway, tomorrow's commute will be a short one since I have to drop my car in for a wheel alignment and ride in the 8 km from there. At least I wont have to take the charger in.

I Suck

Took the bike in to work today. Ostensibly to do a few more tests at lunch time, but in reality I just wanted to show it off to the guys at work. They were suitably impressed. As it turns out I managed to leave my bike helmet at home, so I decided not to go out at lunch time. Instead I left work early and did the test around the same track as the previous test. Bringing me to the reason why the subject of this post is called: "I Suck".

How much do you think a human is worth in terms of power? Well I guess a good way to measure this would be in terms of average speed over a given distance, which is exactly what I did. It was the same 3.8 km circuit, a little less windy than Saturday and starting with a little more charge. So how much is a human worth? Or should I be asking how much am I worth? Or should I be asking if I am human? Perhaps a question for another post. 15 kph? 10 kph? Try 5.1 kph. Here are the results:

Test 2: Motor vs. Human? + Motor
Distance: 3.8 km flat-ish loop
Motor only average speed: 28.2 kph (8 minutes 5 seconds)
Motor + Human in top gear pedalling flat-out average speed: 33.3 kph (6 minutes 50)

Hence why I suck, a measly 5.1 kph difference is all I am worth.