Palm Beach Bike Tours

There’s a thread in one of my favorite comic strips, Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery, about bicycle helmets. Check out the comments. I was hooked the first time I logged in.

I normally stay out of the helmet wars. I confess to being irked when the first question / statement folks make when they hear I’m a biker is, “You wear a helmet, right?”

I reply that the more appropriate questions would be, “Do you ride like a vehicle, obeying all of the appropriate traffic laws? Do you ride WITH traffic, not against it? Do you have plenty of lights and reflectors so you’re visible? Do you take the lane when necessary? Do you signal? Are you always aware of your surroundings?”

Helmets: parachutes for your head

That magic foam hat is just like a parachute: it’s only needed if things go horribly wrong. And, just wearing one doesn’t mean it’ll save your life.

Now, having said that, I’m going to tell you why I never get on my bike without a helmet these days. Here’s a message I wrote to the phreds on January 7, 2007, explaining why. It’s a long story and it doesn’t have a happy ending.

A place for my mirror

For the record, I wear a helmet on the road. I don’t think it has magical properties, but it’s a good place to mount my rearview mirror and it takes care of the scenario where some pond-scum lawyer says,
“Yes, my client DID squash your client like a possum with his Hummer, but YOUR client wasn’t wearing his helmet.”

My riding partner, Mary, and I took off for a jaunt on the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, one of our favorite riding spots. Holidays, rain, etc., had kept her off the bike since our impromptu century in November, so she was ready to hit it.

It was a perfect day

It was a perfect day, clear, about 82 degrees with a 4-6 mph cross headwind. She was in the groove, but for some reason, I couldn’t get the right rhythm going and she left me in the dust. At our normal seven-mile rest stop, she was a quarter-mile ahead of me.

Figuring I might just need to top off the tank, I popped an energy gel and split an energy bar with Mary. We called my brother in Missouri to rub in our great day, then hit the road.

The gel helped, but Mary still took the lead by a good tenth of a mile. The bill of my cap was pulled down and I was looking down slightly, so I didn’t see her until I was about 100 feet from her. Oh, great, I thought, she’s rubbing in that I’m so slow. She’s stretched across the trail pretending to take a nap until I can catch up.

Nobody gets road rash for a joke

That’s when I noticed that her bike wasn’t on its kickstand and that the rear wheel was still spinning. When I got even closer, I saw that this wasn’t a joke. Nobody goes to all the trouble of getting road rash for a joke.

I was still expecting her to sit up, embarrassed at taking a header on a clear, straight path.

She didn’t move.

[Read more →]

Several years ago I discovered that Florida’s Department of Transportation was making highway and traffic studies available on DVD for free. I gave them a call and talked with a guy who seemed really pleased that anyone was interested in their work, particularly to find good places to cycle.

Every June since then, like clockwork, a new and improved set of DVDs arrives. I usually spend a couple of hours poking around and still never discover all the cool things that are on them.

Green means low traffic

This screen shot is an example. The green roads in the map at right have an annual average traffic count of less than 15,000 vehicles per day.

Now, low traffic counts don’t always mean that the road is suitable for safe cycling, but it’s not a bad indicator.

You can turn on more or less detail, depending on how closely you’ve zoomed into an area and how cluttered it gets.

The map at left is showing the Tallahassee area where the 2008 TOSRV was held. I turned on place names, road markers and river and lake names.

Ever pass those black hoses stretched across the road and wonder what they were? [Read more →]

Deeds asked Ken:

Ken,
I wondered when you started riding your bike? How did you get interested in bicycling?
Deeds

Despite the fact that my kids think my original bicycle wheels were carved from stone ala Fred Flintstone, my first bike was a Schwinn when I was about 13. I’m digging around trying to find some pictures of it.

My parents bought it for me to make it easier to deliver The Southeast Missourian.

Reflectors must have kept me alive

It had a massive front basket to hold the papers, a big headlight that put out minimal light, fenders (with mudflaps) and a battery-powered horn. Interestingly enough, even though my route kept me out after dark, I don’t recall having a taillight. It DID have reflectorized tape all over it, so maybe that’s what kept me from getting run over.

In the early days, a lot of the streets I delivered to were gravel, which didn’t make it any fun going UP or DOWN the steep hills on a single-speed bike.

I can remember a couple of times when the streets were covered with snow and slush that ice built up on the fenders between the fender and tires. The more you rode, the more water that was thrown up and the more the ice built up. That wasn’t so bad as long as you were moving, because the friction of the moving tire would melt the ice. When I stopped once, though, I found out that the tire was solidly frozen into the mess. I had to leave my bike at a customer’s house and continue the route on foot. [Read more →]

One of my staffers is headed to Tallahassee to move a phone system, so I wanted to make sure he had the address of a pizza joint that was recommended by local cyclist Ed Picolo when Brother Mark, Wife Lila, Kid Adam and Kid’s Wife Carly did the TOSRV in April.

Riding builds up strong cravings. When I climb down, I usually want Dead Cow, pizza or nachos. That night, it was pizza, and I don’t mean run-of-the-mill chain pizza.

Ed told us that Paulina’s Pizzeria, 6615 Mahan Dr Ste 308-B, Tallahassee, FL 32308 was a favorite stop for local riders.

It quickly became evident why.

The menu offered so many selections that it was hard to make a choice. The waitress was friendly and put up with our (to us) good-natured bantering.

Salads fresh and attractive

It’s been a couple of months, so I don’t remember specifically what we ordered, but I do remember that it was all excellent. The salads were fresh and attractive looking and the dipping sauce for the garlic knots was good enough that I was afraid Brother Mark would start licking the plates. (We’ve pretty much broken him of that in public, but he’s been known to relapse.)

When I expressed a preference for a thin, crispier crust, the waitress said she’d talk to the boss because they’re pretty particular about how they make their pizzas. She came back and said the cook would do his best, but that he couldn’t guarantee that the dough wouldn’t tear. His good enough was good enough, because it was perfect.

Adam and Carly ordered the Crème Brulee desert. They didn’t proclaim it the best they had ever eaten, but they also didn’t leave any on the plate. They have a large selection of imported beer if you are dry as well as hungry.

If you’re on the LOST

Closer to home is Gizmo’s Pizzas & Subs, 3235 US Highway 441 SE, Okeechobee, Okeechobee, FL 34974. They’re located in Taylor Creek, on the north side of Lake Okeechobee, convenient to where you must come off the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail (LOST) to cross Taylor Creek. [Read more →]

An Okeechobee, FL, teen lost his arm after he decided to go for a 2 A.M. swim at Nubbin’s Slough, which empties into Lake Okeechobee, reported The Palm Beach Post on June 23.

Not surprisingly, alcohol was reportedly involved.

Arm not saved

The Post quoted a sheriff’s deputy as saying that an 11-foot alligator rose from the water and bit the teen, trying to drag him down.

He fended off the attack by grabbing an orange buoy in the water, the deputy said, but the alligator bit off the boy’s left arm below the shoulder.

Rescuers captured the alligator and found the arm in its stomach but the arm was too damaged to reattach.

I’m not surprised to hear about the attack. I’ve counted as many as 25 gators in the 8-foot and longer category at Nubbin’s Slough.

Spring Breakers get lucky

The day I shot these at the Slough, a bystander said that college spring breakers had been running down and touching them.

They, obviously, had never seen a good-sized gator wheel around and grab something. Urban legend is that they can outrun a horse in a short sprint. I don’t know if that’s true, but shortly after I shot the gator at the top, he stood up on his tail in the shallow water and the top half of his body got about four feet of air.

I was very happy that I was shooting with a medium telephoto and not a wideangle lens. [Read more →]

As I pull my kid around in his bike trailer, other cyclists pass me as though I am stopped on the side of the road changing a flat. I console myself by counting trailer miles twice.

Ten miles pulling the trailer should go in the log book as 20 miles, right? That’s my rule of thumb. Calories burned per mile? Double that, too!

The truth ain’t that far off, the math is fairly simple, the variables, however, make this a matter best left for scientists and philosophers.

Calories Burned While Cycling

Speed and weight determine calories burned:

• 15 mph = 0.049 calories per pound per minute
• 25 mph = 0.139 calories per pound per minute

Calories burned per pound per mile ridden is not a linear function — going from 15 miles an hour to 30 miles an hour doesn’t double your calories burned. Drag is proportional to the square of speed. Thus overcoming drag at higher speeds results in far more calories being burned. Just trust me when I say Aerodynamic drag is complicated and let’s do some examples

Cyclist at 130 Pounds

• 15 mph = 0.049 calories * 130 pounds = 6.37 calories per minute
• 15 mph = 25 calories per mile
• 25 mph = 0.139 calories * 130 pounds = 18.07 calories per minute
• 25 mph = 43 calories per mile

Cyclist at 180 Pounds

• 15 mph = 0.049 calories * 180 pounds = 8.82 calories per minute
• 15 mph = 35 calories per mile
• 25 mph = 0.139 calories * 180 pounds = 25.02 calories per minute
• 25 mph = 60 calories per mile

Cyclist at 220 Pounds (ie: me)

• 15 mph = 0.049 calories * 220 pounds = 10.78 calories per minute
• 15 mph = 43 calories per mile
• 25 mph = 0.139 calories * 220 pounds = 30.58 calories per minute
• 25 mph = 73 calories per mile

Calories Burned While Pulling a Trailer

My nearly four-year-old son clocks in at 45 pounds. His trailer weighs about 30 pounds. He has another ten pounds of toys, snacks and drinks. That means I’m hauling around 85 more pounds.

Since I’m positive I’m not going 25 miles an hour while pulling the bike trailer, let’s isolate just that 85 pound load at 15 miles an hour…

• 15 mph = 0.049 calories * 85 pounds = 4.165 more calories per minute
• 15 mph = 17 more calories per mile

That means it takes 40% more energy to pull the trailer than to just drive myself around, all else being equal.

As a 220-pound cyclist, it costs me 43 calories per mile to ride. Toss the trailer on there and I’m burning roughly (very roughly) 60 calories per mile.

For a lighter biker, the trailer is a larger percentage of the total weight involved in the trip. As such, the lighter the rider, the more meaningful the increase in calories burned while pulling the trailer. [Read more →]

When I started riding before the Turn of the Century (that sounds neater than “in the 90s”), I wore a pair of cut-off army surplus fatigue pants. I wore them until my wife pointed out that they had become so threadbare that my privates were about to become publics.

About that same time, I was in Dallas on business and rented a bike from Richardson Bike Mart, one of the biggest bike shops I’ve ever been in and where Lance Armstrong worked as a kid. While tooling around White Rock Lake, I was passed by a guy who had a caboose at least twice the size of mine. I thought, “If he ain’t ashamed to stuff a sausage in that sack, then I won’t be either.”

Shorts aren’t cheap

When I got back home, I bought my first pair of Pearl Izumi bike shorts, paying almost three times what my last suit cost before I got married. I can safely say that I got more value out of the shorts than I did the suit.

After my shape became more aerodynamic (think keg, not six-pack), I transitioned to bib shorts and have found them much more comfortable. My first pair was the Performance Elite Bib Short. The editors at Bicycling Magazine gave them a 2008 Editor’s Choice rating.

For some reason, I decided to switch to the Performance Ultra Bib Short and I passed my Elites on to my son, Matt. He called last night to say that his shorts were finally approaching the private / public stage after several years of hard riding.

Facing a full moon

Matt’s first pair of bike shorts clearly demonstrated the difference between good shorts and cheap shorts. My brother Mark, his buddy Wally, Matt and I took off to Illinois for what turned out to be a century ride.

We were cranking along when I turned to the other guys and asked, “Do Matt’s shorts have some kind of weird shine on them or are we looking at what appears to be a full moon?”

That question was answered when a pickup truck passed us with the woman driver holding her hand over a small child’s eyes. Yep, you truly do get what you pay for. We increased our pace to keep Matt and his cheap shorts BEHIND us for the rest of the ride. [Read more →]

Saturday June 21st 2008 is the West Palm Beach Tour de Bar (aka ‘Tour de Beer’). Previous years have had as many as 300 participants and ten pub stops.

If you would like to join the festivities, be at the Brass Ring Pub at 12:00pm. The address is:

200 US Highway 1, Lake Park, FL 33408

If you arrive late, head South on US 1 to connect with the group. If you are really late, head East on Blue Heron and cross the bridge towards the ocean.

Please be safe, wear your helmet and follow proper biking etiquette by signaling and obeying all traffic laws.

We will have reports throughout the day and will follow up with pictures as they are submitted. If you attended the event and have pictures or comments, please leave them in the comments section of this post.

During my normal Saturday morning ride, I started getting less and less comfortable. Ten or so miles in, my knees felt as though they were going to hit my chin when I was in the drops. What was happening?

Simple answer: my seat was slipping down.

By the time I got off the bike to see what was going on a few miles later, I had lost nearly two inches of the seat post down the tube. Not good but fairly typical of an old, steel bike.

Steel Bikes Go Soft and Stretch with Age

My bike and I both are going soft with age. As you can see from the picture, the top of the frame where the seat post sits is touching. There should be an air gap there when the post is tight. As the frame ages and stretches, you loose the ability to really clamp down on the seat post.

(Also note that the rubbing of the bike bag has worn away at least two layers of paint.)

Might Makes Right — Or, Not

Being a well-prepared cyclist, I had the right size hex wrench in my bag. Until I had a chance to shim out the seat post with a cut-up aluminum soda can, I could just really crank down on the clamp and it would hold this one last time.

My bike had other ideas. It was tired and it wasn’t going to take it anymore. When I give the bolt a half-twist, it shattered and shot nearly eight feet away.

Crap.

I’m fifteen miles from the starting point and my seat is now flush with the frame. This is a six-inch difference from where I would normally ride. Not fun. The nearest bike shop is seven miles. I couldn’t think of anywhere nearby that would have a bolt at eight in the morning.

J-Town Bikes and Ace Hardware to the Rescue

Fortunately, I ran into Richard who works at J-Town Bikes. He biked up into the same Circle-K parking lot as I was sitting. He suggested I try the Ace Hardware store not two blocks away. I never would have known it was there. (Richard also was the one that gave me the soda can idea for the permanent fix.)

Sure enough, the Ace Hardware had a bolt that would work until I could fix the bike for good. The bolt and a hex wrench in the new size cost $2.09 and that included tax.

So, you’d think I’d fix the bike as soon as possible to avoid any additional problems, right? That would be he most responsible thing to do.

Three weeks later, I’m still riding with the temporary bolt and without the seat post shimmed out. It still slides a little over the course of a 30-mile ride.

I’m writing today in the hopes that with this public admission that I’ll guilt myself into doing the right thing and getting the bike fixed before this weekend.

Check in with me Monday.

—Matt

You can tell it’s springtime back home in MO. The Speak Out column (a repository of ramblings for people who can’t be bothered to write a letter to the editor) in The Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian contained one of the annual rants: “I AM frustrated by bicyclists who use the middle of a road lane. It blocks traffic. Do us a favor. At least ride closer to the edge or bike somewhere else.”

When I sat down for my coffee and cereal, my eye was drawn to a Washington Post story picked up by The Palm Beach Post. Follow the link to see the whole story. It’s worth reading. I’ll steal key parts of it below to place the Speak Out comment in a kind of perspective.

The gist of it was that “drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other “territorial markers” not only get mad when someone cuts in their lane or is slow to respond to a changed traffic light, but they are far more likely than those who do not personalize their cars to use their vehicles to express rage — by honking, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.”

More Markers, More Aggression

“The more markers a car has, the more aggressively the person tends to drive when provoked,” Szlemko said. “Just the presence of territory markers predicts the tendency to be an aggressive driver.”

The key to the phenomenon apparently lies in the idea of territoriality. Drivers with road rage tend to think of public streets and highways as “my street” and “my lane” — in other words, they think they “own the road.”

Why would bumper stickers predict which people are likely to view public roadways as private property?

Social scientists such as Szlemko say that people carry around three kinds of territorial spaces in their heads. One is personal territory — like a home, or a bedroom. The second kind involves space that is temporarily yours — an office cubicle or a gym locker. The third kind is public territory: park benches, walking trails — and roads.

Drivers are in public AND private territory

Unlike any environment our evolutionary ancestors might have confronted, driving a car simultaneously places people in both private territory — their cars — and public territory — the road. Drivers who personalize their cars with bumper stickers and other markers of private territory, the researchers argue, forget when they are on the road that they are in public territory because the immediate cues surrounding them tell them that they are in a deeply private space.

“If you are in a vehicle that you identify as a primary territory, you would defend that against other people whom you perceive as being disrespectful of your space,” Bell added. “What you ignore is that you are on a public roadway — you lose sight of the fact you are in a public area and you don’t own the road.”

It doesn’t matter what the sign says

Oh, and, by the way, it doesn’t matter whether the bumper sticker is a warm and fuzzy “Have a Nice Day” or in-your-face like the one above I shot in the 70s in central Florida. They both feed your sense of territory.

Hmm, now that I think of it, I have a Florida Share the Road license tag on my car.