Are you saying that internet explorer is better than firefox? I have to ask as I don't actually use firefox.Quote:
Originally Posted by dday9
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Are you saying that internet explorer is better than firefox? I have to ask as I don't actually use firefox.Quote:
Originally Posted by dday9
Does that means his spidey sense is tingling?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
When I first read about your caliper brakes melting the tubes and having to switch to disc brakes with oversized rotors I wondered how much you weigh before realising that you must be carrying all of your camping equipment and food too (some long distance riders have support vehicles to carry their luggage from campsite to campsite each night). What mods are you going to make to your bike for it to handle the extra weight and go the distance, and how many days does it take to ride 1000 miles?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
I'm not a small guy to begin with, but the bike was pretty doggone heavy. Generally, my backpack is pretty much ultralight, with a base weight of around 17 pounds (minus food and water). I wasn't carrying all that much food either, though some of it was heavier than I would carry hiking. However, I was carrying a Surface Pro, a battery, and a solar charging system, along with a couple pounds of chargers for different electronics. It all added up. The bike panniers are heavier than my pack, anyways, so even that was heavier. The total weight, including about two quarts of water, was certainly over 300 lbs, though probably not far over.
A supported ride would be sweet, but it would also be cheating. Fortunately, being on roads the whole way (or so I thought, but Google took me down a road that has been closed for at least a decade, based on the vegetation growth...it was an awesome part of the ride), I ended up encountering stores, motels, or some other establishment every other day. That was about to end, though I'd still hit a town of some sort every third or fourth day.
I was planning on about 45 miles per day, which was sometimes simple, sometimes not. There were a few mountains in the way. I felt pretty good going over them, though those dirt/sand/rock jeep trails could be terribly steep, and I had to rest a fair amount. Unfortunately, due to the heat issue, downhill was possibly slower than the uphill in the steep stretches. As for modding the bike, there may not be all that much to do. The frame seemed to handle the weight without issue. The brakes couldn't hold back the weight, so moving to discs with oversized rotors will help a lot. the other system that took a lot of strain was the chain and gears. I'll take the bike in next week to see if I stretched the chain. If I did, then I'll have to plan on replacing the chain somewhere along the ride. There's a whole lot of force on that chain when hauling that load up a steep hill.
One fun thing that happened was that, on the second morning, my bike computer changed over to Dutch and I couldn't change it back. It said it was showing KM, but the distance was clearly miles. It appeared accurate, despite being a bit confused.
Don't ask that. It's like saying that .NET is better than VB6: It just opens up a new religious war.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witis
UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) regulations limit a racing bike to about 15 pounds, so it's no wonder that at 300 pounds your bike was starting to suffer and I can envision that it would have been quite a strain climbing any sort of serious ascent. I have been on a supported ride over a similar distance and I don't imagine I would have liked it as much if you told me I had to ride a 300 pound bike the whole way. I wouldn't call supported rides cheating, we still had to ride the whole distance, and even the La Tour de France is a supported ride, although it probably doesn't have the same degree of difficulty or sense of accomplishment at the end. However, unless you have done lots of training riding a bike that heavy can be extremely income taxing and could even put a lot of folks off cycling ever again. I would likely recommend starting with a supported ride and then progressing to unsupported rides for experts although you still have to watch out for tractors every now and again.
Google took you down a road that had been closed for a decade. That's classic. It also happened to a guy I knew who used google maps to get directions for a flat he was going to rent. It seems they don't always keep the maps perfectly up to date. I remember from my ride that when I was anywhere near civilization it was always enjoyable to stop for some food and soft drink after about 3 or 4 hours riding, and because you are riding for so many hours every day it means that you can eat just about anything you want, except cows and chickens of course.
45 miles (72 km) a day is a decent distance per day, I remember cycling about an average of 62 miles (100 km) per day as it was quite a mountainous and spectacular route. I used to ride my racer about 18 miles/h (30 km/h) over typical terrain so 45 miles would take me about 2-3 hours of riding per day - that speed does not include long uphill sections sometimes lasting several days, although I have no idea how long it would take to cover that distance carrying an extra 285 pounds of kit. I would never ride my racer on a dirt track, are you using a mountain bike? Going up steep hills can literally create a constant stream of sweat dripping off my nose, going downhill is usually fun and refreshing rather than scary unless you need to upgrade to disc brakes to stop your rims from overheating and your tubes from blowing out.
When you add 280 pounds to a racer or a mountain bike as far as I am aware you are moving into uncharted territory, some folks attach panniers to ride to work, but they are just not designed to carry that sort of weight plus a rider or about 500 pounds (226 kg) in total. Anything could break. The frame, the wheels, the cranks, the bottom bracket, the headset, the brakes, the chain, and the gears could all potentially fail or wear out at a massively accelerated rate. Even so bicycles are usually over engineered to cope with heavy riders, unlike the bike that guy who tried to set the world gravel speed record was riding down a volcano in Nicaragua:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTfu0hjVtzE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Éric_Barone.
Perhaps there are specialised touring bikes that you can buy?
And your cycle computer went all International Court of Justice on you, how weird.
I just looked it up, turns out it is made by a company called Mozilla, the -zilla suffix ensured that the logo/mascot had to be godzilla:Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Mascot.svg.png
Going into it, I would have said the same thing. I was amazed to find that I really couldn't tell the difference between the loaded bike and the unloaded bike. The heavier bike certainly pushed me on downhills. I could tell that because I occasionally would walk down parts of steep hills to let the rims cool, and the weight of the bike was pushing me during those walks, so it was clearly there, but the impact on riding was otherwise FAR less than I would have expected. I didn't noticeably labor more going up climbs, though it makes sense that I must have been working harder.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witis
Of course, keep in mind that when you talk about a racing bike weighing 15 lbs, and comparing it to my 300 lb bike, you have to remember that the 15 lbs doesn't include the rider, whereas 240 of the 300 lbs was me. My backpacking base load is 17 lbs, add in about 4 lbs of water, another 4-10 lbs of food (depending on the day), some 7 lbs of electronics, and the weight of the bike, which was a mountain bike, not an ultralight racing bike, and the total was probably over 300 lbs.
I wouldn't call supported rides cheating, we still had to ride the whole distance, and even the La Tour de France is a supported ride, although it probably doesn't have the same degree of difficulty or sense of accomplishment at the end. However, unless you have done lots of training riding a bike that heavy can be extremely income taxing and could even put a lot of folks off cycling ever again. I would likely recommend starting with a supported ride and then progressing to unsupported rides for experts although you still have to watch out for tractors every now and again.
Yeah, I totally love that about those trips. I did run into lots of cows, too. Generally, they were freaked out by me...but then I encountered one that wasn't, and realized it was a bull standing on the side of the road staring me down. It was a bit of a standoff, until all the cows and calves had departed, at which point he began to amble away a little. No fences out there, either.Quote:
I remember from my ride that when I was anywhere near civilization it was always enjoyable to stop for some food and soft drink after about 3 or 4 hours riding, and because you are riding for so many hours every day it means that you can eat just about anything you want, except cows and chickens of course.
Pavement riding is vastly faster than mountain jeep tracks. My commute to the office is about 54 miles/day (27 each way), and I average about 15 mph on that, which includes plenty of lights and other stops. I was hoping to average 10 mph on the mountain roads, but found that it was closer to 6 mph due to various things. It's all gravel, and on those roads, making steep climbs is no big deal. There were plenty of grades you won't find on most paved routes. Some of it was so rough that it was pretty much ATV and motorcycle only. Some terrible soft sand stretches, too.Quote:
45 miles (72 km) a day is a decent distance per day, I remember cycling about an average of 62 miles (100 km) per day as it was quite a mountainous and spectacular route. I used to ride my racer about 18 miles/h (30 km/h) over typical terrain so 45 miles would take me about 2-3 hours of riding per day
Shaggy, I want to hear more about your ride. Can you post in a new thread?
Ah that's different, so your kit only weighs 40 pound (18kg), that's not that much extra to carry, I mean it would cause some extra stress getting up the steep hills but it wouldn't completely kill the enjoyment of the ride. As that is only a small amount relative to you body weight I can sort of see where your cheating comment is coming from. Although my idea of cheating goes a bit more like that:Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgRBxsW26vY
You have to be careful around bulls, sometimes they can sense your intentions regarding their species, and I bet it wouldn't tickle if he charged at you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Riding in deep gravel and up steep inclines with a heavy bike sounds about as much fun as trying to run in the sand with a heavy backpack on, but with the right tires and pressure, and gear choice it probably isn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
The wildcard in the weight is the bike itself. Being a mountain bike, it will be heavier than a touring bike. I just don't know how MUCH heavier. I probably ought to weight the WHOLE kit (bike included). I think that around 40 lbs of weight on the bike is probably about right, but there are factors that could mean that it would be quite a bit heavier. Not more than 60 at the top end, and possibly even lower than 40. The bike itself can't be less than 20, and is probably a fair amount heavier than that. I really didn't want to know.
What mattered was how the handling was, and the handling was remarkably easy. Of course, when you look at the physics of the thing, the weight is not carried by me at all. When the bike is not moving, I am carrying 0 extra pounds due to the weight of the bike. When I am pedaling, I am moving the bike forwards, and that will be impacted by the weight in the amount of energy needed to move the bike, and in any wind resistance issues (those panniers act as a significant sail). Stopping was slower, since the energy dissipated is partially based on the weight, and hill climbing must have been slower, too, but it wasn't noticeable.
What's to say? I was only out for six days. I crossed two significant mountains and did at least one other significant climb. I guess the big ride will have to be put off until next year. August and early September is too busy and too much on fire for me to seriously want to attempt the ride in those times. It will take me a couple weeks to swap bikes for one with beefier brakes, which is pretty important unless I want to go REALLY slowly down hills.Quote:
Originally Posted by dclamp
Theoretically, I might have been able to keep my brakes cool had I kept my speed down around 3-5 mph with lots of stab braking. I didn't try that. The energy dissipated is the weight times the square of the speed, so I might have been able to keep the rims tolerably cool if I never let the speed get up. I'm not sure if that would even be possible, though, as I would reach 10mph in seconds on those hills. To keep the speed down, I'd have to be braking nearly constantly, which might heat the rims pretty badly anyways.
I've been riding a bike too. Unfortunately mine is stationary and without any pretty views.
But what sort of mountain bike is it, if you are riding that far to the office everyday it is probably a named brand bike and made out of aluminium and designed to take some serious impacts especially if it is designed for mountain bike racing, those guys really are crazy. Although I would have thought that your bike would have light weight disc brakes if it was a racing model.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
Yeah I guess that if you are carrying more weight you want the load spread evenly over the whole bike so that you don't lose control and get death wobbles if you have picked up a lot of speed, and so that you don't fall off when cornering due to centre of gravity effects.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
I would have thought you'd be riding an interactive virtual tour model, currently a Louisiana State University favourite: http://www.bupipedream.com/news/26296/bike-story/Quote:
Originally Posted by dday9
Oops, I was a bit misleading. The bike I use for commuting is not the mountain bike I used on the ride. The commuter bike is actually a good touring bike from the late 70s/early 80s, which means nothing modern about it. It's a steel-frame bike that had drop bars, suicide shift levers on the drop tube, and U brakes (if I remember right). I replaced the handle bars with horizontal bars with a slight rise to them for a more upright posture (the drop bar wrap was decayed pretty badly, and I didn't like the brakes being down there), moved the shift levers to thumb levers at the grips, and switched out the brakes as I moved the wheels over from 27" to 700 (because finding 27" rims is getting pretty difficult).Quote:
Originally Posted by Witis
Lots of tail weight seemed to work really well. I had essentially NO extra weight on the front forks (only rear bags). Aside from that, the basic rule is to keep the weight as low as possible to improve cornering. The handling was all I could ask for on trail or road, even under full load.Quote:
Yeah I guess that if you are carrying more weight you want the load spread evenly over the whole bike so that you don't lose control and get death wobbles if you have picked up a lot of speed, and so that you don't fall off when cornering due to centre of gravity effects.
I have a treadmill that can be programmed to different gradients. I can make up a 20 minute (or maybe 40 minute) program. I thought it would be pretty cool to make a video to play on the computer monitor I have rigged on the treadmill such that I would be watching a route as I hiked it. Unfortunately, the treadmill doesn't allow for continuously variable gradients. Every gradient has to be held for a minimum of one minute before changing grades. That would mean that I'd have to choose a route that had no short climbs (and I can't go to negative gradients).
Is that what you started with:Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lynzEMcLTr.../69+derosa.jpg
The new handle bars likely make it look like a tourer/mountain bike hybrid. Did you change the pedals to clipless pedals and have you added those handle bars that sit like an inverted U on top of your normal bars to allow you to make a more streamlined position for the speedier sections of your ride?
Ah yes so you added a rack and touring panniers to your mountain bike to carry your kit - a tried and tested way to get the job done - and it reads like really heavy panniers don't adversely effect the handling too much either. Did you buy a racing mountain bike or a standard mountain bike, a modern racing mountain bike should be plenty tough enough for your touring needs, I am not so sure about standard or older models.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
I am almost finished with my Basic4Html project. I'm on the last two sections of this element list. I did NOT realize how many attributes the <input> tag has.
I've never used clips of any sort. They make me nervous, though everybody says that I shouldn't worry about it.
That bike does fit the description pretty well as far as the handlebars and shift lever location. Those look like the same brakes and brake levers, too, so that's a pretty good match. I didn't go for the bars you mention. I've seen them, but there isn't any real point in them on my commute. They might offer my an extra mph, or so, but that's not so much in the long run.
The mountain bike is pretty much a standard bike. The frame is aluminum, rather than anything more exotic, and pretty rugged. The seat post was inadequate, and I'll have to replace it, but otherwise it was pretty standard. Adding the rack was a bit difficult, though the attachment points were present for the most part. The attachment at the front of the rack was at an awkward angle. I didn't have any trouble with the rack once I had attached it.