The value of learning how

The eponymous Red Green would often offer a very sage piece of advice:

When I have said this to My Lovely Wife she has typically looked thoughtful for a moment and said “well, I find you handsome...”.

Funny how timing and delivery can take a comment that could be flattering and make it, well, not.

With my trikes, at least, I’ve been trying to rectify this. Our rural setting has many benefits, but proximity to bike shops is not one of them, so the more I can do myself, the better off I am.

Back over Independence Day weekend I’d undertaken a maintenance day in order to address a couple of different issues. The first was an ongoing issue with toe-in that I thought I had fixed before. The second was a derailleur adjustment.

Sorting out whether or not I’d been successful with the alignment was not something I could determine right away. It was clear from the tire wear that it was off, but it wasn’t far enough off that it was causing any other perceptible issues - for example, it didn’t seem to be slowing me down.

Now, two months and 720 miles later the tire looks like this:

You can be forgiven if you are looking at that picture and thinking “that’s not in great shape”. Because it’s not.

But the thing is, this is pretty much what it looked like two months ago. I did order another pair of tires just in case - I really wasn’t confident, particularly given that I’d “fixed” it once already. Fortunately, I haven’t needed them yet, and I’m now beyond the mileage I got out of the first set, with some life still left in them. I’m marking this one down as a win.

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I adjusted the derailleur with some help from this video by Utah Trikes. This one was a work in progress. The process turned out to be pretty simple - much simpler, in fact, than I’d anticipated. (I’ve always thought of derailleur adjustment as sort of a black art). But while it was better on my first try, it wasn’t perfect yet, and it took a couple of additional adjustments before I got it right. But once I got there it was spot on - each click of the shifter up or down snapping into the next gear.

This actually made me feel a little like a hero, and reminded me what a joy it is to interact with a properly operating machine. At its best, pedaling and shifting, reading the road, anticipating the need, and selecting the right gear becomes a wonderful relationship where rider and machine become like one.

It also really brought home how much it had been bothering me. I love riding, but every time the gears jumped would pull me out of that moment of integration; each time was a tiny bit of irritation. Multiply that across a 20-mile ride, for example, with many, many shifts, and it adds up.

In no way do I think that I’m even close to not needing a bike shop ever again. But learning more about how to do these things means that I can spend more time on the trike with it operating properly - that’s a bonus.

New Old Roads

Though I moved away for many years, I spent my formative years in the same part of northern Illinois that we now live in. As a teenager with an old car and a newly minted driver’s license I spent a considerable amount of my free time (and, for better or worse, “homework time” also fit in my definition of “free”) driving around the country backroads.

For this reason, it’s always a surprise to me when I find roads in the area that I’ve never seen.

I’ve been consulting with google maps over the past few days to lay out longer routes. Most of the past few years I’m building up my distance endurance around now in preparation for the Farmondo - a group ride put on by the Tempo Velo bike club in Sterling, IL - but like so many things, that event appears not to be happening this year. The Farmondo is the only group event that I typically participate in, but I like to do it because, besides being a fun event, it is timed, so it offers independent corroboration of one’s progress (or, potentially, lack of). I have to build up to it because the 43-mile middle-distance segment of the Farmondo also happens to be the furthest distance I’ve ridden in a single outing.

With that not available, I’ve set my sights on doing a birthday ride. I see other folks mention this from time to time - riding near the time of their date of birth at a distance that matches the number of years they have now been on the planet. This will work out nicely for myself, as doing a birthday ride this year will also get me my first half-century ride, so it kills two birds with one stone. And 50 miles seems like a reasonable goal above the 43 of the Farmondo.

To start that journey I laid out a course that came out to 36 miles covering some familiar roads, but also several miles of roadway that I’d either only been on in a car, or have never set rubber upon before. This always has the potential to be frustrating - for example, discovering that I’ve accidentally mapped out a section of new gravel to pick my way across - but it’s usually rewarding regardless.

The first 11.5 miles were in familiar territory, taking me through, and a few miles west of the tiny little town of West Brooklyn, before I hit unfamiliar territory:

Beyond the stop sign was where it would begin - a road that I’ve looked at many times, but I’ve literally never been down it.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but every new road I drive past draws me in just a little, tempting me with it’s new possibilities. What might just look like another stretch of asphalt to someone else brings me a little bit of joy, a little hit of dopamine every time I put rubber to it.

That happens every time, but I was especially lucky with my choices on this route. A portion of my ride took me along a portion of Green Wing Road which I’d never seen before, which turned out to be a winding and twisting affair cutting through the woods.

I discovered, as I rode by the signs (you see me trying - unsuccessfully - to catch them in the video) that to the left side of the road on the latter portion is the Gremel Wildlife Sanctuary.

According to the website, this is part of an ongoing attempt to preserve the remnants of the wetlands in the area - there used to be a large swamp system here which was largely drained off in favor of farmland. There is a trail system as well, and visitors (on foot) are welcome. This is a thing that I had no idea existed in the area tho, in my defense, it apparently didn’t until about three years ago.

The rest of the route was almost stereotypically northern Illinois, from the agriculture...

...To the derilects...

The last one above is an old school. And this one below appears to be getting some rehab:

There were tiny town treasures...

...A little cemetery...

And Yogi Bear:

(It’s a local campground)

And, for the record, it is still grasshopper season...

But probably my favorite discovery of the ride was this little self-serve vegetable stand:

It was about a mile down the road from the campground, sited almost certainly with hopes of capitalizing on that location. There was small SUV with bikes on the back shopping there when I arrived, so it may have been working. And it worked for me. I always bring along along a little cash when I’m riding in case there is an opportunity like this. We’ve had our sweet corn fill for the season, but a few fresh tomatoes and cucumbers were something we needed, so I paid up and bagged a few.

This route came out to just over 37 miles, which is farthest I’ve ridden this season. I am pleased to say that I was tired, but not exhuasted by the end of the ride, which hasn’t been true of my build-up rides in years past. Probably this is due, in part, to the fact that I’m riding longer distances on average this year overall, so this build-up isn’t the stretch that it would have been in years past. It makes me optimistic that the birthday ride will be within reach.

But I did take today off as a day of rest, just in case...

Space-Age Solutions

I’ve written here about my appreciation for the fenders I have on my Catrike Expedition. After two years of intermittently getting water, mud, and snow, flung up at me while riding my Pocket, they were a pleasant relief.

What I did not realize or anticipate was that I was also getting a little bit of bonus shelving with those fenders as well.

Because of where they mount at the base of the handlebars, the struts for the fenders actually offer a bit of rare semi-horizontal surface on the trike. I say "semi" horizontal, because they actually sit at a bit of an angle. And, if we are being honest, it’s really a semi surface too, since it’s an open triangle with two small flat bars about a quarter-inch wide. So seeing it as a semi-horizontal surface may take a bit of imagination.

Or - more accurately, it takes a bit of help.

Early on it occurred to me to use this area when I was looking for a means to mount a battery pack on the trike - here I’m referring to the small batteries for charging mobile devices. These are wonderful for extending phone life while on longer rides, and can be used to charge USB lights in a pinch as well. On the Pocket I had been carrying the battery in the Arkel bags, and had used a USB extension cable routed though the seat and strapped to the frame. This worked ok, but was prone to bouts of suddenly not charging, which necessitated trouble shooting through multiple connection points - a thing you don’t really want to stop in the middle of your ride (and it always happened in the middle of a ride) to do. But the Pocket, being on the smaller side by design, didn’t offer a lot of other options for location, so I struggled through with it.

When the Expedition arrived, it wasn’t long before I began eyeballing that space on the fender struts for the battery. It sits right beneath the phone mount (I use a Rokform motorcycle mount, which works with a Rokform case), so it would offer a much shorter - and much less complicated - connection to the phone. It would also be closer to the front light on the boom mount, which is the light I’m most likely to need to plug in on a longer ride, allowing me to get there with a single, longer cable, removing the need for an extension cord.

The question was how to get a battery pack - or anything really - attached to the fender strut. I puzzled over this for a bit and played with a couple of unsuccessful options. And then I realized what I needed was a space-age material - something that astronauts would use - to solve this problem.

Yup - I needed Velcro. Or, I suppose I should say "hook and loop fastener material"...

I’m making like this was a great revelation, but the reality is that I use Velcro for a lot of things. Adhesive Velcro can be purchased in big rolls, and you can cut pieces to size and purpose. It’s pretty handy stuff.

What I did, then, was to line the strut arms with the soft side of the Velcro, cut specifically to the shape of the arms. You can do this by simply tracing around the arms on the back of the velcro (easier to see if you use a white marker) and then cutting it with scissors. I think the end result looks pretty good - because the Velcro and the fenders are both black, it’s almost unnoticeable when there’s nothing on it, and I’ve had it there for about a year, and it’s still in good condition.

On the battery pack I just place a nice, large piece of the hard side across the back.

There may be a temptation to put small pieces on in order to line up with the struts, but this is additional effort without much benefit. While you will use less material, it’s much easier to get the battery seated if you don’t have to be super-precise in how it is situated. Once it’s on there you can just stick it on the fender:

The little shorty Lightening cable is a find from Amazon, and it’s perfect for this sort of application.

While I set up the battery pack this way early in the game, I have since adapted it to add some additional items. As I’ve increased my riding over the season, I’ve also been experiencing some increased engagement with citizens of the canine variety (more on that another time, most likely). Given this, I’ve found it helpful to have some deterrents close at hand. For these I mounted additional strips of Velcro across the top strut and the vertical portion of the fender beside the wheel:

And then just put strips across the deterrent items:

The air horn is wedged in pretty solidly, but I find that it doesn’t usually have to be pointed straight at the offender to be effective. I put smaller strips on the pepper spray because it’s lighter, and I wanted to be able to pull it off quickly and easily at times of deployment. It works pretty well.

And I still have an open "shelf" on the left fender if I need it. So far I haven’t had anything to put there, but I could imagine specifically setting up a second battery pack there - maybe a dedicated one to power the headlight for longer rides.

Ok - now that everything is set up, it’s time to ride!

What to Wear

I am on record as being personally opposed to buying and using cycling specific clothing. My greatest area of resistance is clipless shoes, but I also chafe at the idea of having other clothing items specifically for cycling.

Now - to be clear - I don’t have any problem with others wanting and using those items, this is very much just a personal thing. I prefer the flexibility of using clothing items that can be applied to other activities as well. For example, my basic winter riding gear is the same setup that I use for cross country skiing. It’s a getup designed for exercising, but flexible enough to apply across multiple winter activities.

My gear for riding has evolved over time, particularly with the transition from uprights to recumbent trikes. On the upright, for most of the year, I rode with a t-shirt and cargo shorts. Yes, I know cargo shorts are a fashion crime, but they are also very useful for carrying things when you are riding upright.

I learned very quickly that, on the trike, those things fall out of your cargo pockets. You’d think that I could have intuited that by looking at the angle of the pocket and all, but (apparently) I enjoy learning things the hard way.

Additionally, the shorts become something akin to a low-level parachute given the fact that your legs are pointing directly into the wind that you are generating. Granted, this can be somewhat refreshing on a hot day, but it’s somewhat unsightly. Plus, the buttons on the shorts tend to strike the handlebars as they come around. I can still hear it in my head:

snik-snik-snik-snik-snik...

I needed a different solution. I used a basic pair of nylon shorts for a while, and those worked ok, though the wind issue still presented. A few years ago MLW bought me a couple of rash guards for swimming on a family trip to Mexico, and the following summer I switched to those from the t-shirts. They aren’t significantly warmer than the t-shirts, and they offer UV protection, which allowed me to stop putting on sunscreen, at least up top.

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I was happy enough with the rash guards - and more importantly, the reduced amount of sunscreen use - that last summer I started to look for an alternative for my legs. I wanted something that would cover them, but not be too hot in the summer. And while I’m good with the rash guards on top, modesty prohibits the wearing of compression garments on my lower half.

What I arrived at for a solution was linen beach pants. Linen is lightweight and cool, and they met my flexibility requirement because they are also suitable for casual wear around the house and yard - and they were great for our trip to Florida in February, both for cycling and theme-parking. The only additional component needed were some Velcro straps to keep the cuffs out of the chain - and Amazon has them in orange, so...

I mean, no one is going to accuse me of being a fashion plate while I’m wearing these outfits, but then, no one did before, either.

I’ve got two rash guards and two pairs of the pants, and a third top - the orange (yes, I have a problem) San Pellegrino jersey MLW got me last year. I’ve been pretty happy with this solution, but as my riding has increased I’ve begun to fear that I may have painted myself into a corner.

It’s been a mild summer, but even so, things need to be washed after pretty much every ride - Recumbent trikes are much more comfortable than uprights as a general rule, and my seat is mesh, but it still functions as a back sweat production machine. So: I am now periodically finding myself waiting for things to dry so I can ride.

But as I am waiting to ride, I find myself wondering: if I’m wearing the same thing every time I ride, such that I am now waiting for the clothes so I can get on the trike, don’t I essentially have specialized riding gear? I mean, regardless of how I’ve put it together? Am I just a hypocrite?

It was with that in mind that I hopped on the trike to take something over to my aunt and uncle’s place. They live about a mile down the road, and my gear was still in the wash, so I said to myself "just go with what you are wearing - you used to ride like this all the time" (I was wearing a t-shirt and cargo shorts - it’s sort of a personal uniform. And yes, I _do_ trade the cargo shorts for cargo pants when it gets colder - how did you guess?)

And as I started to pedal down the road, I heard it:

snik-snik-snik-snik-snik...

I think maybe I’ll just order another rash guard and pair of pants and learn to live with the hypocrisy.

Putting an Old Soldier Back Into Service

Our little household is moving towards being a little smaller still, as one of the crew - our daughter, LB - is getting ready to head off to college. One of the things LB has asked for is the opportunity to take a bike to school so she can ride to class and otherwise use it for transportation.

When she was little, LB was frequently my cycling companion. The donor frame for my trailer project was originally a canvas child trailer, which LB had spent many hours inside, with books and snacks to entertain if watching the scenery became less interesting than desired. As she got older we moved on to her own machine, starting her out with a pink Giant with training wheels:

She cuts a pretty suave stance, does she not? This picture was taken at a trailhead, just as we were heading out for a ride together. It’s from 11 years ago, which is frankly a little hard for me to believe.

She came off the training wheels, of course, though that was a bit of a challenge - for the first little while every time we practiced, with me running alongside, she’d want to turn her head to look at me and talk. When she did this, her hands, and the handlebars within them, followed the direction of her head...

I am not a person who has the "N bikes + 1" gene, so LB’s subsequent bike history is brief - a Specialized mountain bike, purchased used, sits in-between the Giant and current day. We still have it, though it’s a little small, and we should probably find it another home. Most recently when she rides - which is not often, her interest declining with age and competing activities - she rides the Schwinn Suburban that originally belonged to her mother.

Her father (me) has offered to ride with her many times, but he is apparently "too competitive", wants to "go too far", and "doesn’t want to take breaks".

I mean, I’m probably guilty on all counts, but you think she’d give the old man some slack...

The old Schwinn - a big-box store purchase twenty some years ago or more - has gone largely unloved and unmaintained over recent years. I’ve ridden it a handful of times myself, typically in the winters, it’s knobby tires offering more purchase than those of my Cannondale road bike (though the Cannondale has also seen snow in its time):

The Schwinn, like the Cannondale, was almost entirely sidelined once I got my Catrike Pocket. A part of why I wanted the recumbent trike was for the additional stability on snow and ice - I enjoy riding in the winter, but I do not enjoy the sensation of a bicycle simply disappearing out from under me, which always happened at least once a winter. Probably my last time riding the Schwinn was the ride in which I compared it with the trike during it’s first winter.

All of this meant that the bike was going to need a little TLC to prepare it for regular use. I figured this ought to start out with a wash...

I considered taking it in to our LBS for a tune-up, but I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my Expedition, with increasing levels of success. I’ve even managed, on my last foray into maintenance, to successfully tame the dark mystery that is the derailleur with help from a video by Utah Trikes. I figured it was worth a try to do it myself. After all, I could still take it to the bike shop if there was anything I couldn't address.

It was surprisingly cooperative for a machine that has received so little attention over the past two decades. The chain and sprockets cleaned up fairly well, and with a few twists on both ends of the cables the derailleur is shifting smoothly and accurately with the grip shifters. The tires are holding air without complaint. I even put the original saddle back on it - It had been replaced with a custom saddle meant to reduce pressure on the female nether regions, but that saddle was also a soft fabric design, and the bike will sit outside most of the time while LB is at school, so the water resistant vinyl of the original seemed preferable.

It’s common for folks in the cycling community to denigrate these low end machines, and I certainly have a propensity for higher end devices myself. Still, I think these bikes absolutely have their place. Though I’m hoping she’ll catch (or re-catch) the bug someday, LB is not an avid rider and doesn’t need a carbon fiber or aluminum road bike to get her from dorm room to classroom. What she needs is something that will reliably allow her to sleep in an extra ten minutes and then successfully whisk her across campus, while not drawing undue attention from prospective bike thieves (I can only imagine how long a high-end Trek or Cannondale would last in the bike rack before being snatched up). This old girl is perfect for the task.

Tunnel Hill Trail… After Dark

Back in May of 2019 I ventured out to the Tunnel Hill Trail in Southern Illinois, riding from the town of Vienna (say "Vy-Enna") to the Egyptologivally named town of Karnak. This was a beautiful ride, including woodlands, wetlands, and a couple of tiny little settlements across a 21-mile round trip. There were also a couple of side-trips that I didn’t take - Heron Pond, a little Winery, and a Wetland Center - and are on my list for when the opportunity presents again.

Still, the thing the trip to Karnak and back lacks, as lovely as it was, is the tunnel that the trail is named for. I still wanted to see that, and I had another opportunity to be down that way towards the end of last October.

Both trips to the Tunnel Hill Trail were end of the day affairs, but their location on the calendar made for some differences in terms of available daylight. I knew I’d be riding against the sunset, but I reasoned that I had lights on the trike and, if could get _to_ the Tunnel in the daylight and get an opportunity to see some of the rock formations I’ve seen in pictures, I wouldn't mind riding back in the dark.

The Norns clearly detected my urgency on the way to Vienna, and decided to have a laugh at my expense by putting road construction along the way that had not been there in May. Sitting still in a line of traffic on a two-lane road knowing you are racing against the sun and are otherwise 10-15 minutes or less from your destination is its own exquisite type of torture. Still, I took deep breaths and waited semi-patiently. Eventually the road opened up and I was on my way.

...Until the next construction zone. I’m pretty sure this happened approximately 723 times on my way to the trailhead.

But once I got there, I got the trike unloaded, and everything started out fine...

I had not researched ahead of time exactly how far from the trailhead the Tunnel was - it didn’t really matter, because I was going to ride to it regardless - but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the 9.3 mile indicator on the sign didn’t concern me a bit - I routinely ride further distances, but the trail is soft material - ranging from crushed stone to, at times, frankly just dirt, which always tends to be slow going. Still, as I’ve told my child on multiple occasions, if you wait for the perfect day, the thing will never happen. Besides, either way, I wanted to ride, so I rode on.

The first half mile or so this way is reminiscent of the ride to Karnak, including the very cool retention of the old railroad bridges. This is a taste of how it all starts out:

But while the trail starts out similar in this direction, it did start to hint at the rocky nature promised at by the pictures I’d seen fairly early on:

And rolling on, I was pleasantly surprised to start to hit the rock wall sides I was hoping before while there were still some vestiges of daylight:

Riding with the rock walls on either side provides a very different feel from my usual experience of being on the open road. It’s very cool, but did have me beginning to imagine myself traveling through a medieval world, watching for ambushing archers above... but that’s probably just me.

What the rock walls also meant, however, was that the available daylight was rapidly occluded. For a brief period of time I needed my light to see even though I could see blue sky above:

It was an interesting effect - I’ve seen it before, traveling out west, when mountains interpose between you and the sun later in the day. I can’t say I’ve ever seen it in Illinois, but here we were.

It was also brief. Though I wasnt able to see the sun go down, it clearly departed. Now it was dark overhead as well as in front of me. But at this point I figured I had gone this far, and that I might as well keep going till I got to the Tunnel itself.

It emerged from the shadows in a fashion that was, well, surreal at least.

As it broke from the shadows it occurred to me - perhaps not for the first time - that we were just two days away from Halloween.

Of course, it would have been a little creepy anyway, and somehow riding into the dark of a tunnel is still a little unsettling even when the area outside of it is also pitch black.

But I went thru anyway. Honestly, the fact that it creeped me out made me feel like I needed to go thru it. Besides - I’d come this far, hadn’t I? So I went thru, and then turned around and came back thru the other way:

It really was just as dark coming out of it as it was inside. I live in a pretty rural area at home as well, but on the prairie you can see the open sky. Here, between the trees and the rock walls there was nothing. It was a different experience to be sure.

I can’t recommend waiting until the end of the day to tackle Tunnel Hill Trail. My time in southern Illinois was very limited - I was headed for home the following morning, and I wasn’t sure when the chance would present again - so I didn’t want to let the opportunity pass. But I definitely hope I get the chance to do it again in the daylight.

Mid-Year Check-In

At the end of last year I did a review of my year in cycling, and set some goals for this year. Since we rolled past the halfway point at the end of June, it seems like a good time to check on whether I’m making progress towards those goals.

The first goal I established was distance. I’d managed 1722.34 miles between January 1 and December 31, 2019 so, with some hemming and hawing, I set my goal at 2000 miles. The number scared me a bit when I wrote it back on the first day of 2020, but it also seemed to be the right number - the next rung on the ladder.

There are folks out there that will absolutely say that a rider shouldn't worry about the distance - don’t stress yourself out about how far you are going, just get out there and ride. I can appreciate that perspective and, what’s more, I suspect that’s the right way to look at things for the people saying it.

But I’m a numbers guy. Setting the goal and then tracking it doesn’t stress me out - I enjoy it. I like looking not only at distance, but also the other statistics that Cyclemeter gives me - average speed, average distance per trip, etc, etc, etc. I find that the information lets me know objectively whether I’m actually doing better or whether I need to step it up. The numbers won’t let me tell myself I’m doing better if that’s not actually true.

I’m certain I’m not the only one.

As of the end of June my 2020 mileage was: 1203.74

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That number put me more than halfway to my goal as of the mid-point of the year, so I’m on track - or actually a little bit ahead - for making the 2000 mile goal. As of today - July 12th - I’ve added another 114.99 miles, putting me at 1318.73 so far for the year. I’m less than 60 miles from exceeding my distance for 2018, which is my second longest year on record; and if I stay on track over the next couple of weeks I’ll roll past that marker by the end of July.

That all probably sounds like boasting, and I suppose it is. But I hope it also offers a bit of hope for others who wonder about taking up cycling, particularly since we’ve been in a period of accelerated bike sales during the lockdown. In 2016 - just four years ago - my total mileage was 260.49. You can change it if you want to.

My other goals for the year included:

• Riding from LaSalle to Ottawa along the I&M Canal Trail
• Riding further down the Hennepin Canal Trail
• Finishing my trailer project; and
• Stopping more regularly at restaurants or taverns along my routes

On this list I’m not doing quite as well. I did finally buckle down and finish the trailer. Mostly, anyway - I still haven’t put the sides on it, but having used it a few times now, I don’t think I’m going to. I can secure items pretty well using bungees, and I like the flexibility of the flatbed for carrying larger things. And I can always put a container like a Rubbermaid tote or similar onto it if I need that type of capability. So I’m counting it as complete.

The Pandemic has really hampered progress towards the other items on the list. This is an effect both of the shutdown of everything in the spring, and my personal reluctance to be around people, particularly with what appears to be pretty limited mask and distancing cooperation out in our rural areas.

I did make it out to the Hennepin Feeder Canal trail when Illinois first opened it back up, so I suppose I’ve technically met that goal, but not in the spirit I intended it. My intent is to get further along the main canal - the East-West trail that is the Illinois Gateway trail for Rails to Trails. The challenge is that the trailhead for that section is about 40 minutes away, and while it’s usually pretty lightly used, I’m a little concerned that it will be packed full of people, which was not my thing before the pandemic, much less now. I’m reluctant to invest the travel time to potentially find out I don’t want to be there.

The I&M Canal trail is closer, but I have similar concerns there. Besides, part of the idea there was to go to a particular brewpub which, although Illinois has moved into Phase 4 and now allows outdoor dining, is also something I’m reluctant to do.

So, in a way, the pandemic both giveth and taketh away. It was already my goal to ride more, but my opportunities have also expanded because of changes in work life, making that goal easier to achieve. And I’m very happy with the progress there - I’m riding both more frequently and further than I have in the past, and I like it. The impediments to the other goals are a bit of a bummer, to be sure, but the trails will still be there when we come out the other side of the current travails, and I prefer to do what I can to make sure I’ll be able to enjoy them when we get there.