Experts vs. "Experts"

It's funny/sad to read reviews of bike products on Amazon. It illustrates why we are able to believe the darndest things in an election year.

The country is full of "experts" writing reviews of their recently bought products, very confidently telling all about their virtues and flaws. They all have the air of truth, of someone who knows what he's talking about. (Are they mostly men in this category? I fear we men are the ones most likely to pose as experts.)

Problem is, they typically have no idea what they're talking about. None. For example, the first review of a bicycle tire stated that the specification 26x2.125" refers, respectively, to the tire diameter and the height of the treads above the rim, which is, obviously, wrong. Not wrongish, not a difference of opinion, not an alternate way of looking at it. The second number refers to tire WIDTH, only. The tire height will obviously change, but that's not what the number refers to.

When someone left the comment to this effect, the original reviewer belligerently said, basically, "Well, that's YOUR opinion."

And that, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with us. Facts don't exist. If it feels right, it IS right. I say the sun rises in the west.

(A reviewer of another tire said that the tire didn't work right for the first few rides, but then it got broken in and worked great. Sigh.)

Women's Road Race

I enjoyed watching the women's road race at the olympics. Every bit as exciting as the men's race. Too bad the women can't have their own Tour de France that would be sponsored and televised. I'd watch.

Les Studs

Watching Chris Froome's crash on the second to last mountain stage, in which his front wheel squirted out from under him when it went over a slick white stripe on the pavement, I concluded that he should have been using studded tires. Duh. What could be the downside?

Summer Biking

I am back in biking paradise here in Leelanau County. I have been pretty consistently doing my 30-mile loop around the Glen Lakes, first up the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail, then on roads.

Here's the mystery: When you Google "How many calories does biking burn?", you get the answer 1800 or so for a 57-year-old man riding 30 miles. If that were the case, I would weigh approximately 0 lbs by now. In order to gain weight, which I have, slightly, I would need to eat, let's see, 4500 calories a day, or something. I hope I don't do that. Maybe I do . . . More likely is that the 1800 calorie figure is wrong. Really wrong.

The secret to losing--or not gaining--weight? Eat less. Bummer.

Winter Biking

One of our few snowstorms of the winter is underway today. No snow when I biked in at 6:00 AM, quite a lot of wet heavy snow when I biked home. Mostly more fun than not.

Winter Bike

USBR 35

There was an article in this month's Adventure Cycling in which the author rides US Bicycle Route 35 from Traverse City to Indiana or so. Most of the article was fairly mundane bike-travelogue (with not nearly enough nice things said about Empire), but what got my attention was his comment that he couldn't believe the stretch of M-22 south of Leland was part of the route. Amen. As I have commented before, that stretch is downright dangerous. To put unsuspecting bike tourists on a road that is that narrow, windy, rough, and busy is almost criminal, and it makes me suspect that the rest of the US bicycle routes can't be trusted. USBR 35 on US-31 north of Elk Rapids is another dangerous stretch.

I understand that the creators of the route had no choice of roads in those dangerous spots (even though there are beautiful quiet alternate routes they could have chosen). But in such a case, they simply should have left those stretches of road off the route. One of the hardest things about bike touring is picking safe routes. When we're not from somewhere, we have no way of knowing about road conditions or traffic. Some state highways are beautiful and safe, and some small county roads are congested and dangerous. It's impossible to know. We rely on route guides to choose the right roads. It's a pity when those route guides let us down.

Update, Feb 2017:
At last! MDOT has announced that they are finally fixing the bicyclist death trap on M-22 south of Leland! The road repairs, which will include a rideable shoulder, will happen next summer. About time.

Whoa, Trigger!

I put the Shimano Acera trigger shifter/brake lever on the RH side (back derailer, obviously) of the 620. I had been using a cheapy Falcon friction shifter, which was proving hard to shift with mittens on. And I was tired of it.

So, although the Rivendell aesthetic is all about friction shifting, I said to hell with it! and put on indexed trigger shifters.

I like them. A lot. Click! Change gears. Click! Do it again. Up. Down. All around the town. I'm perfectly happy with the double-trigger setup, which some people find confusing. Not I. Maybe I'll put it on the slush mobile, too.

So I'm getting a trigger shifter to put on the LH (front) side, too, despite the less than ideal indexed shifting in the front. I think I'll be able to live with it. Click! Shift. Click! Etc.

More Winter Musings

For that matter, I need to change handlebars on the slush mobile. One of the reasons it's not fun is because of the Riv moustache bars. I know I know, I'm supposed to love them. I don't. Perhaps with a shorter stem (so the bars are closer to me) I'd like it better. But I don't like the straight-back nature of them. I like a "shoulder" to rest my hands on.

Maybe I can dig around in the parts bin for a better alternative.

Winter 2016 Musings

I have only ridden the slushmobile once this winter, and I didn't really like it. Slow and sloggy. So I put the studded 700x32s (more like 35s) on the Trek 620 and decided to ride it as much as I could, even in the snow. It's just more fun to ride. The studs aren't as aggressive as those on the slushmobile, but I figure they'll help on surprise ice or mixed snow/pavement. So far, so good.

The next project is to put trigger shifters on the 620. The current friction shifters on the underside of the trekking bars are just too hard to use with mittens. Maybe the trigger shifters will be easier.

Mostly, I've been wearing light wool, light polar fleece, windbreaker on top, even down into the teens. Works pretty well.