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Gator Rips Arm Off 18-Year-Old at L.O.S.T.

Gator in Lake Okeechobee

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.Gators at Nubbin\'s Slough

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. Continue reading “Gator Rips Arm Off 18-Year-Old at L.O.S.T.”

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Calories Burned While Pulling a Bike Trailer

Matt Pulling Malcolm in His Bike TrailerAs 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. Continue reading “Calories Burned While Pulling a Bike Trailer”

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Don’t Let Anything Come Between You and Your Bike Shorts

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.”2008 Performance Elite Bib Short

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.Mary & Wally\'s first century

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. Continue reading “Don’t Let Anything Come Between You and Your Bike Shorts”

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West Palm Beach Tour de Bar

(June 25, 2009: Update — Read about the Tour de Bar Palm Beach 2009 Bike Ride.)

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.

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Steel Bike Frames Go Soft and Stretch

Seat Post Clamp with No Room to TightenDuring 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.)

Broken Seat Post Bolt

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.)

Bike Seat Post Clamp from the SideSure 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