Arizona Pictures
I took too many pics on the bike trip to upload to Flickr. And there’s not a good way to just dump them on the blog. I had to write a VB script to process the folders and generate the HTML to display them. Most of you probably just read, “blah script process and generate blah blah”. Anyway, that adds up to time.
The link to the list of photos is here. There are 295 totaling almost 600 meg. The timestamps are corrected for local Arizona time which was even more work. Note to self: Remember to change the clock in the camera when leaving the state.
Astrological Chart
Caron ran my chart for my birthday. I posted it here. It should show up most of the time, but there seems to be a bug (he he) with the sidebar.
Gearing
So, I turned out to be much stronger than I thought on the bike ride. Not so say I finished first. Just in the top half, but I really don’t have any hills to climb in training, or rollers, or really anything except wind. In particular, I can’t climb very well. Not awful, just not fast. I would get passed or hold position. What really surprised me was the downhill. I would often rocket by people on the way down. The same kind of thing happened during the Old Tascosa Classic last year. Give me a hill and I can crawl up it then fall down it faster than anybody. This is generally how I passed people. I gained so much distance on the downhill run that by two of these downhills I didn’t see anyone behind me. Too many people were near my weight to attribute it all to heavy bike and heavy rider. I say heavy bike, because I saw a lot of carbon fiber bikes without carrier or bags. I’m probably 15 lbs or more heavier.
My gears are pretty good, but I have begun looking for something to extend my upper range. This really ups your speed on a downhill or tailwind. I hit this limit in training due to wind and on the ride due to hills. This gear would really be too large on a flat to push and even a moderate downhill would be tough. On a good, long downhill I would hope to push from 40 mph to 45 mph. The converse of the granny gear for hill climbing.
I would also like a to find a lighter crank and possibly shorten the crank arm. Big Green has a triple crank, but I saw doubles on the ride and they are significantly lighter. Weight savings in rotating parts is multiplied from your effort instead of subtracted. That means tires, rims, cranks, and cluster. Tires and rims get weaker and less durable when lighter. Cranks and cluster less so.
Sheldon Brown seems to be a good website for gears, especially touring. They even have a cluster he designed. This page has a listing for Shimano gear ranges. That’s when I think I found my answer to my downhill speed.
I purposefully bought a touring bike. One that would have wide gears for the hills I grew up with and a long, comfortable frame to ride on for a long time. The crank is 28/38/48 and the cluster an 11-32. For comparison, the gears on nearly all the clusters for 9 spds in the table top out at 21, 23, 25, or 27 and a common double ring gearing is 39/53. What does this mean?
Gear Inches is not the best metric, but fairly understandable. It comes from the old Penny Farthing days when the only way to gear a bike was to make the wheel bigger. So, a gear inches of 41 would mean you are riding 41″ direct drive wheels. And a gear inches of 110 would mean you are riding on 110″ direct drive wheels. Low numbers are for mountain climbing and high numbers for racing.
According to the calculator on Sheldon Bown’s site a 39/53 crank with 12-21 cluster gives a range of 49-116 gear inches on 25mm wheels. A similar 12-25 cluster is 41-116 gear inches and a similar 11-34 cluster is 30-127 gear inches. My triple crank is 28/38/48 with a 9 speed SRAM cluster of 11-32 for a range of 24-119 gear inches on 35mm wheels.
You can see that the low gear is dramatically lower on my triple than a double and the high gear is slightly higher on my triple. Only the wide 11-34 cluster offers a higher gear. The low gear or granny gear, in my opinion is enough to offset any weight lost by moving to a double crank.
Now, I should say I don’t know the gearing on any other bikes. Besides noting a double or triple crank it’s difficult to see the difference in a 9 and 10 speed or even an 8 and 10 speed. I’m just conjecturing about reasons for why I fall like a greased stone down an icy hillside.
By the way, you might be wondering, “Why not have a triple crank with 10 speed cluster to get a 30 speed bike?” The problem, especially for triples, is overlapping gears. I have several gears that are only 1 or 2 gear inches difference. This isn’t really noticeable. And you’re spinning the extra weight of the sprockets.
I would like to expand the range a little. A 20 gear inch lower and a 130 gear inch upper would be nice. That’s a little lower and a good bit higher.
Post Snow Day Pics
There are lots here. I took about a dozen.
Roof Glacier melting due to local warming
Dora
Snow Day Pics
Tired
Man, I can’t seem to get enough sleep lately. During the day is fine, but at 8:30 I’m about passed out.
Notes on the March Southern AZ Tour
Well, I got in at 4:30 AM Friday night, or I guess that Saturday morning. That’s a tough drive. It got dark while I was in the mountains between Las Cruces and Albuquerque. Through the remainder of the trip I would perceive some steep drop off or bend even after I crossed into Texas and knew that any sort of incline over 50′ was hours behind me.
The trip was fantastic. I would recommend it to a number or people. Camping is the cheapest option, but many people cycle from motel to motel for twice the price. Our cook was fantastic. Two hot meals a day. Always eggs and oatmeal in the morning with a high carb food like hashbrowns, pancakes, mashed potatoes, rice, etc. on the side. You should forget about your normal calorie restrictions while reading. On the bike eat twice as much as normal and as fattening as you want. At night we has two entres, one meatless or lactose free and one meaty entre. It might contain tofu, curried rice, chicken, beef, steak, snap peas, asparagus, or green beans. Plus a roll with a big tub of slightly warm whipped butter. To drink was water or coke with beer or wine in RV parks.
The riding was nice, though I was disappointed. The scenario of southern Arizona is similar to New Mexico that I had to drive through and the climate is very similar to Amarillo. It’s very dry and sunny. They have far less wind. Arizona roads leave something to be desired, particularly the almost complete lack of a shoulder. Also, and this was just funny. They can’t paint a straight line. The while line on the side wobbles and even the center stripes aren’t straight or point off to the side. The climbs are tough, particularly into Bisbee. Hurt my knee on that one and it stayed hurt the rest of the ride. The last day was so bad I riding it all one legged and trying to limit the rotations in the left leg.
The staff was fantastic. Everything was well done. We had a route marker on bike from the UK whose normal job is flight attendant for Quantas. The leader is a long term substitute teacher out of Las Cruces, NM. The cook and companion will do this 12 or 13 more weeks this year. She also owns the company and teaches cooking. Then there was the mechanic and a few helpers I didn’t get to know much about.
The other participants were very interesting and extremely varied in many ways except age. I was the youngest by about 20 years. The oldest male was 72 and female 70. They tell me that this is very unusual. There are younger people and in fact we encountered about 7 hot chicks with PAC Tours also visiting the Elgin Winery when we were. To give you an idea I met an ex Dean of Engineering; Perdue event planner whose rather wacky husband flys a hot air balloon, wood works, and stone works; a couple very into sailing; a man and his wife into Japanese/American business deals; two astronomer or maybe one was an astronomer technician; a teacher, from a previously Outward Bound, charter school in denver; a political science professor; a dentist or two; a Presbertian(?) minister; and several retired persons and some I just don’t know. There was one other person from Texas. Houston is further away than Amarillo. Several people from pretty much all over; California, Florida, Oregon, Indiana, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and more. They had a lot to say about other rides. Some cross state rides that are really rolling parties of up to 20,000 riders and some smaller more challenging rides of 2,000 people in the mountains. Several had done Transamerican rides and with other tour companies.
Bisbee was an interesting town, then Patagonia, and Tombstone. I didn’t really go into Tucson. Bisbee was a massive mining town at the turn of the century for a long time. It’s not very artsy downtown and a bit hippyish. Patagonia is a tiny town that I can’t fathom what keeps it going. There’s a good downtown. So, maybe it’s tourism. Tombstone is a dramatically overblown tourist town. They have a section of town with mock old wood buildings and lots of businesses pretending to be from the old west version. Stage shows and tours run nearly everyday.
The cats seemed to have survived. Though they all ran outside in the middle of the night as soon as the door was opened and their bellies filled. Mitten’s responded by coming to the kitchen to check out the noise. Then walked over to the food bowls, which were empty. After carrying in the necessary bags and checking things around the house I went looking for her. Tiger and Dora were around me with Tiger attached to my calves. Mitten was sitting in the middle of the food bowls with head cocked to the side obviously questioning the location of dinner.
This is something I would definately like to do again. In several months I have the Seattle to Portland, then two weeks later the MS 150, which is more in the range of a training ride for STP. Those are both in July. I’m thinking a late August or September ride would be nice. Not in New Mexico or Oklahoma or Florida and preferabbly not in Texas (kind of seen most of this state). I’ve had enough treeless expanses to last the rest of the year. Fortunately, I live in Amarillo. There are enough trees on the training route to fill a quarter acre square.
Well, that’s most of the story without pictures. Those are uploading to the blog now. Flickr can’t handle them all without paying and then they are kind of tiny.
Stephen
Made it Home
I got in about 4:30 AM, about a 12 hr drive. Had to pull over and essentially pass out for an hour before Tucumcari. If I can return the car this morning, I’ll save a $100 or so. Hope my car is done.
Day 4
We are laid over in Bisbee today and I found an Internet hookup. Last night, St Patrick’s Day, about a dozen of us met in a bar and played pool and drank for a couple of hours. It was a lot of fun. Today, everyone’s kind of split off. Some riding to the bird conservatory, some riding for fun and others are about town.
Bisbee is an interesting town. A stair climber’s wet dream. Tiny, narrow building carved into any available space. The next block over is also at least a story up too. Lots of touristing, shops and antiques. You could explore here for a couple of days easy. It has a very hippyish feel. On the way in we passed a Gay/Lesbian RV/Camp site.
The weather is fantastic. Cool at night and warm during the day. Very dry. No wind or maybe a light cool breeze.
I thought I would catch up on a few things on the computer. Wonder around town some and kind of lay off. My knee is hurting a bit and could use the break. Tomorrow, we spin 50 miles back to Tombstone, through Hereford.
The group is like a bunch of sparrows in the winter bushes at meal times. Lots of talking and crosstalking. There are a couple of astronomers, architect, flight attendent, retired people, etc. From all over like Vermont, California, New Mexico, Denver, Houston, Florida, Minneapolis, and more. The average age is 61. If you remove me, the yougest at 33, it becomes 65. It’s an interesting mix. Very enjoyable.
Day 2 Pics
Outside Tucson
Further Outside Tucson
Down HW83 a ways
It is freaking unbelievably cold here in the mornings and very hot in the afternoons. I’m off to bed. Hope to leave out at 8:30 or so and get there by 2:00 or so.
Sorry, no time to upload a couple of Day 3 pics.
Day 1 Pics
Me
Tent City
Cat Pics
Dora
Tiger
Mitten
Rocky, The Karmic Black Hole
When you go on an endurance ride, you’ve got to choose your partners carefully. You’ve got to have similar endurance and strength, sure, but that’s not really what I mean. You’ve got to pick people you are not going to get sick of. If you don’t like knock-knock jokes, don’t go riding with a guy famous for his knock-knock joke-telling prowess. If you don’t like complainers, don’t go riding with a guy famous for finding fault with everything.
If you don’t like someone paying attention to every little thing and eventually writing a story where you’re the punchline, maybe don’t go riding with me.
Amazingly, my brother-in-law, Rocky, is one of those guys I can ride with all day. He’s interesting. He’s smart. He’s a good rider. He’s curiously devoid of annoying habits.
Above all, though, Rocky is a good guy to ride with because he has such remarkably bad luck that you know — know — something interesting is going to happen when you go riding with him. I’m not just talking about a tendency to have occasional mishaps. No, indeed. I am talking about a special gift for bad luck. The Bad Luck Continuum warps and shifts, just so it can find Rocky.
If you were fated to have bad luck today — your horoscope, fortune cookie, and priest all told you so — ride with Rocky. You’ll be just fine.
…
Bike Setup
Bike setup for the tour. There are other pics here.
Leaving in an HHR
The last computer is about to turn off. I guess that really means I’ll be leaving in about 10 minutes.
We had a pretty good snowfall here, but even at 3:30 AM it’s melting like crazy. Three prior weeks of 60+ weather will do that. The roads don’t look too good from here to Albuquerque. I’m taking the southwesterly highway 60/70 from here to Clovis, Roswell, and Alamagordo. It looks like by Roswell things are clear.
The iPod’s sync’ed. I think I’ll listen to Dvorack and Horowitch discuss financial snowfall then either that Anathem book or the Mr Rogers book.
Laters