Today was my first day back to work after the winter holidays. It was my first bicycle commute in many months, and the first one ever for my Cross Check.
Temperatures were in the mid 20′s both ways, and it was snowing. No fewer than three of my coworkers made comments about my mental health.
Huzzah!
So, this year is pretty much shot. Around this time last year, I made some New Year’s Resolutions. Let’s see how I did.
| Resolution | Outcome |
| Lose 52 pounds | Fail! Lost 20 pounds |
| Ride 1820 miles | Fail! Rode 742 miles |
| Ride the big hill without walking | Success! |
| Fit into my MUSA pants | Success! |
| Ride a metric century | Fail! Never even tried |
One other accomplishment – I didn’t list this as a resolution, but I did manage to finish my degree program at Penn State this year.
Being a grown-up with a job, mortgage, etc. and going to night school is a good way to loose your mind. It eats up all your free time, and leaves you with very little time to pursue other goals.
I’m going to blame part of my resolution failure on that damn degree. I was actually doing pretty well with my bike / fitness goals up until school started in August.
I was losing weight at a lovely clip until August, then everything went to shit, and I gained back half of the 40 pounds I lost.
My cycling mileage numbers were starting to get respectable (for me, at least) until August, as well.
At any rate, I won’t have school to use as an excuse this year, so here’s what I’m gonna try to do in 2012:
Lose another 70 pounds
The primal/paleo thing seemed to work for me, as long as I stuck to it. I lost 40 pounds in 7 months on it — an average of about 6 pounds a month. If I can maintain 6 pounds a month through the whole year, I should be down 72 pounds for the year. That would be huge. I know bicycling was a hell of a lot more fun when I was lighter.
Ride 1000 miles
There’s really no reason this shouldn’t be doable. I’ve done more than this in years past. I’d only have to ride my bike to work 100 times to meet this, and that’s not even counting recreational rides on the weekends, etc.
Metric Century
Leftover goal from last year. I’m even setting a date, so I don’t put it off and think I’ll “get to it sometime.” September 29th, 2012. This is happening, come hell or high water.
I think those are goals enough. I have more, but I’ll probably have enough trouble meeting these.
So, if anyone out there still reads this blog, happy new year! I hope you have good luck with whatever you want to accomplish in 2012.
Bars are wrapped. 700×42 Marathon Winter tires are mounted. MKS touring pedals for maximum shoe versatility.
I finally got a chance to ride on the brand-spankin’ new Buffalo Valley Rail trail.
We started at the Lewisburg end of the trail, and headed west toward Mifflinburg.
There’s a bathroom and a parking lot at the Lewisburg end.
The trail is really well done. It’s paved for about a mile or so on each end, and it’s crushed limestone in the middle.
The scenery is about what you’d expect. Lots of farms, old Mennonite ladies hanging laundry out to dry, cows, etc.
The railroad ties are still piled along the trail in a few places. The tracks were torn out only recently.
There are a few interpretive signs along the way.
The trail was really, really busy. I was starting to regret that my cross-check doesn’t have a bell, because the herds of pedestrians might have benefited from a bell. It doesn’t really feel right yelling “on your left” to old ladies.
We played leap frog with this contraption most of the way.
It was piloted by a couple towing their granddaughter in the trailer. The grandfather told me that the granddaughter has logged over 100 miles so far this year in the WeeHoo trailer.
When we made it back to the parking lot, Klinutus asked me to pose for some action shots for a photography class he’s taking. He was experimenting with motion blur or some such thing. Anyhow, the pictures came out pretty well. My Cross-Check and I are stunningly handsome, if I do say so myself.
Anyhow, it’s a really nice trail. You should go ride it before winter sets in.
Read all about it at BVRT.org
I’m planning to get back into bicycle commuting, after a rather long time of being a slacker and driving my car to and from work.
Winter is coming, so I’m reconfiguring my Cross-Check for frozen commuting duties. The build is inspired (more or less) by Doug’s “Belt-Check”.
It’s a 62cm Surly Cross-Check frame, with an all Sturmey-Archer drivetrain. The rear wheel is a Sturmey-Archer XL-RD5(W) laced to a Salsa Delgato Cross rim by Jim Thill of Hiawatha Cyclery.
This gives me 5 speeds and 90mm drum brakes. The whole works lives inside the hub shell, so it’s all kept out of the snow/ice/slush/salt/slop we tend to have around here in the winter time.
Power is transferred from the pedals to the hub by a Sturmey-Archer FCS73 crankset.
The chainring has 44 teeth, and drives a 23-tooth sprocket in the rear, which gives gears from 85″ to 33″ – not really as low as I’d prefer, but that’s pretty much as low as I can safely take this hub.
It shifts with a snazzy little Sturmey Archer barcon. The cable is routed along the top tube, through an old-school S/A pulley, and then down the seat stay. Hopefully this will keep the cable up and out of the winter road slop as much as possible.
I really tried to make this bike work with Albatross bars, but I never really liked it that way, so now, she’s sporting a pair of Nitto dirt drops, which I like a whole lot better.
Yes, I know my cables are a mess. Maybe I’ll get around to tidying them up after I wrap the bars.
Winter commuting means riding in the dark. So I got a Busch & Müller Lumotec IQ Cyo-R headlight powered by a Sturmey Archer XL-FDD dyno hub.
This headlight rocks. The Dark is scared of it and gets the hell out of the way. The XL-FDD hub also has the same 90mm drum brakes as the back hub, so no worries about wearing out my rims with cruddy brake pads.
Commuting (for me, at least) also means hauling a bit of cargo. Usually, cargo is limited to a change of clothes, and my lunch. I mounted a Nitto Campee rack in the rear, and a little Nitto M-12 up front. I’m not really sure I’ll ever put anything on the front, but the rack is really cute, and it makes a nice place to mount the headlight.
I still need to come up with a better set of pedals. Those rubber platform pedals really suck if they’re wet. I’ve got a pair of 40mm marathon winter studded tires in the garage that I’ll probably mount in the next week or two, or whenever we start getting overnight lows below freezing on a regular basis.
Tada! There she is in all her glory. Other than pedals, tail light, and some handlebar tape, I think I’m ready for winter.
