Humps

A few weeks ago, Westchester Ave., which runs between Ellicott City, MD, through the town of Oella, and ends in Catonsville, was re-paved.  As recently as a month or so ago, I remember riding my bike up it and being kind of surprised that they hadn’t added speed humps, as they seem to be ubiquitous pretty much everywhere else in the area.  Sure enough, not a week after, zillions of speed humps had magically appeared along Westchester Ave.

Speed humps are a band-aid fix for a larger systemic problem.  People speed on back roads because they’re built too wide.  Roads are built too wide because fire departments require it (Google it if you don’t believe me, or read the excellent book Suburban Nation, by Duany, Plater-Zyberk, and Speck).  Paradoxically, this increases speeds along the roads, which makes them less safe.  Traffic engineers “fix” this problem by building speed humps, which annoy everyone.  It’s suburban planning at its finest.

Catonsville provides an interesting case study for this.  Catonsville has older sections and newer sections.  The older sections have relatively narrow, tree-lined streets with on-street parking.  These are the kind of streets where when two cars approach each other from opposite directions, one has to give way to allow the other room to get by.  Motorists drive slowly and carefully without the need for “traffic calming.”  It’s not uncommon to see kids playing in and around the street.  Contrast that with the newer sections of Catonsville, which have wider streets and fewer trees and other obstacles.  Everyone drives too fast, kids aren’t allowed anywhere near the road, and planners try to fix it with speed humps.  Guess which type of street is statistically safer?  And, as a corollary, guess which is more enjoyable to ride a bike on?

Grout Removal

Nothing much exciting to write about on the biking front lately.  I was off work last week, and didn’t do much biking, but this week I’m back at it again.  August has brought some slightly more pleasant weather so far, but still not much in the way of rain, other than the occasional torrential downpour.  In other words, business as usual for mid-summer in Maryland, more or less.

Been doing a little bit of work in our master bathroom lately.  We decided to re-grout the bath tub and shower area, because a lot of the old grout was either in bad shape or gone altogether.  Also, the shower door, likely a 1950s original, was shot (the rollers at the top were corroded to the point where they wouldn’t turn any more).  The first step to re-grouting is to remove the original grout.  According to everything I read, there’s no getting around this step, if you want the new grout to last.  Problem is, grout removal is a slow, boring, dusty job.  Over the course of the last few months, I’ve spent countless hours with my Dremel and my cartridge respirator, grinding away at the stuff, and I’m still only around 75% done (granted, this is a larger than average job, with 3 full walls and ceiling fully tiled – probably around 100 sq. ft. of tile).  The good news is, I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This tile was initially challenging to work with.  Dremel sells a specialized grout removal bit and guide, but I couldn’t use their system because my tile was too close together.  I would end up grinding away the edges of the tile along with the grout.  I ended up using the Dremel with a right-angle adapter and a diamond wheel.  It was skinny enough to get into the gaps between the tile, and relatively easy to control, although there have been a few spots where I’ve nicked the tile glazing.  I’ve completely worn through one diamond wheel and am on my second now.  Looks like the entire job is going to cost me two diamond wheels.  Fortunately they’re not all that expensive — around $17.

Once we’ve re-grouted, we’ll replace the faucet handles and trim, the shower head, and the recessed light at the top of the shower, then install the new shower door, which we’ve had since last September.  I think the end result will look pretty nice, but this isn’t a job I would want to do again.  If we ever redo the other bathroom, I’m going to argue in favor of ripping out the (beautiful 1950s retro-pink) tile and re-tiling.

Disabled List

2011 has been a bad year for me in the injury department.  A couple of Saturdays ago, I messed up my ankle during a home improvement project (I should know better by now — it’s physically impossible for me to get through any home improvement project without some kind of injury.  Maybe that’s why I’m doing less and less of it these days).  It’s just a contusion (no sprain or anything), and 20 years or so ago it probably would have been back to 100% after a couple weeks.  But being that I’m 40ish now, everything takes longer to heal.  I hate getting old.  But anyhow, I’m icing it and trying to keep weight off it, which means curtailing my walking for now.  Walking isn’t too bad, but I’m definitely favoring the bad side.  At home, I hobble around on crutches.  Standing is uncomfortable, as is sitting, unless I keep the ankle elevated.  I’ve experimented with an ankle brace, but can’t decide if it’s helping it or irritating it.  Ice and Ibuprofen both provide some relief.

The good news is, I seem to be OK with non-weight-bearing exercise.  I have no discomfort either biking or swimming, so I’m keeping up with both of those activities (though I’ve dialed the biking back — 3 days this week instead of 5 — just to be on the safe side).  I’ve been a little slower than usual on the bike this week, but that’s as much due to this summer’s endless, relentless heat than anything else.

Here’s hoping for an injury-free 2012.  Maybe the daily highs will be out of the 90s by then…

Today’s temperature: 60°F

OK.. Wishful thinking.  This is summer in Maryland, so 60°C is probably more like it.  But I keep a log of all my bike commutes, and as part of that, I always record the ride-time temperature.  After this past Friday’s ride, my average ride-time temperature topped 60°F for the first time in 2011.  It seems surprising that it would take until mid-July for that to happen.  I’m curious to see what the average will be over an entire year.  Both 2009 and 2010 ended up averaging around 58°-59°, but in both cases, I neglected to record the temperature for a significant number of rides, primarily during summer.  That leads me to believe that a typical yearly average is probably somewhere north of 60°.  That’s higher than the climatological average for the area, which makes sense, because overall, I tend to ride more frequently in warmer months than in colder months.

Anyhow, this is going to be a short riding week, because I’m heading to Milwaukee on Wednesday for a well-timed business trip.  I say “well-timed” because we have yet another miserable heat wave headed this way.  It’s going to be hot in Milwaukee too, but not as hot as here.  And I likely won’t miss out on the tail end of the heat wave either, as I’ll be back Friday night.  But, it’ll spare me from a couple of days of biking in likely triple-digit heat indices, almost certainly accompanied by “code orange” air quality, or worse.  Yay summer.  Just 7 weeks ’til Labor Day!

Planet Bike FTW

Well, it happened.  I rode my fender-less road bike to work today, and now it’s raining.  So much for my theory that “30% chance of storms after 3:00” means it isn’t going to rain near Baltimore until evening.

I have a set of Planet Bike “SpeedEZ” fenders for this bike, because full fenders don’t really fit it.  But I don’t like riding around with the fenders all the time, because they rattle, tend to get knocked out of alignment easily, etc. and most of the time I don’t need them, because this is my fair-weather bike.  But, they’d be perfect in a situation like this, where it was bone dry during my morning ride, but figures to be wet for my ride home in a couple hours.  I could keep the fenders in my office, and put them on when I need them.  The problem is, the fenders are missing a couple of parts.  I’ve been meaning to seek out replacements, but didn’t feel like running around to various bike shops trying to track them down, and didn’t feel like paying exorbitant shipping rates to order a couple of small parts off the Internet.  Today’s weather finally inspired me to check out Planet Bike’s web site to look for parts.  To my surprise, replacement parts were available there for cheap, with free shipping to boot!  I ordered what I needed, plus some extras “just in case”, and I am an extremely happy customer now.

This experience inspired me to also contact Topeak customer support, to ask about getting a replacement bungee tie-down cord for my “beam rack” MTX, which I lost a couple months back and have missed ever since.  We’ll see how that endeavor goes.

In any case, it’ll be nice to have those fenders back in service, and available on days like today.

8000 Miles

I hit 8000 miles on my road bike at the beginning of yesterday afternoon’s ride.  I was coasting down through the UMBC campus in the 92-degree heat, on my way to Poplar Ave.  That’s part of my usual strategy for beating the heat on hot summer afternoons.  The two keys are:  take it easy, and drink lots of water.  Coasting down hills is one of the easiest things you can do to stay cool.  In general, it’s best to keep pedaling, but extreme heat is one of the exceptions to that rule.  Coasting gives you a breather, and the air movement helps cool you off.  In the heat, you also want to think holistically; in other words, take the entire ride into consideration when planning how hard to exert.  My ride home consists of rolling hills for most of the way, followed by a 1.5-mile uphill grind.  I have to be careful not to overexert at the beginning of the ride, or I will overheat and run out of gas on the final climb.

I ride like this when it’s 90° or more out, and also during Maryland’s trademark “code orange” bad air quality days, which lately seem to happen almost every day (though we seem to have gotten a reprieve today).  Paradoxically, on really hot days, I often arrive home less sweaty than I would on a slightly cooler day, because I tend to go faster and push harder when it’s below 90 out.

The road bike is still seeing the lion’s share of my riding this summer.  It’s my go-to bike when it’s hot and dry out.  This fall it’ll likely need new tires and maybe a new chain.  Also, I’m starting to see silver peeking through in a couple spots on the handlebars, so I may need to re-wrap them soon.  Tire-wise, I’ve been pretty happy with the Continental GatorSkins I’ve been running on this bike, so I’ll likely go with another pair, though I’ll probably up-size from a 700cx23 to 700cx25.

Maryland Summer

Well, it took 6 months, but I finally picked up a ride on 2010.  Today marks my 16th ride of June, compared with 15 last June.  Looks like I’ll finish up June with 17, as I plan to ride tomorrow, and I’m off on Wednesday the 30th.  July is relatively low-hanging fruit too; I rode 14 times in July 2010.  We shall see how it goes.

It’s so humid out these days that I feel like I’m losing 10 pounds per ride.  Pretty much par for the course for Maryland in summer, but I do find myself pining for just one pleasant day once in awhile.  The sad thing is, this week it’s been much nicer than last week, and I’m sure someone living in a saner climate would still find it horrible.  Another hallmark of Maryland summer is the constant prediction of storms that never seem to materialize.  My last 6 rides, I’ve taken my single speed bike, which has fenders, because storms have been in the forecast all 6 days, and fenders come in handy when it rains.  Of course, so far we haven’t gotten a single drop.  Tomorrow the rain chances have finally dropped out of the forecast, so I’ll switch to my road bike.  Which means we’ll get a monsoon tomorrow afternoon.

Nearing the halfway point

Getting close to the end of June, and the midpoint of 2011.  I’m on pace to finish June up with 75 or 76 rides, which is around 10 fewer than the same time last year.  Most of those rides were lost in February and March, for which my crash on Feb 8 is partially to blame.  But so far in 2011, I have yet to have a month where I rode as many times as the same month in 2010.  Unless something happens to keep me off the bike next week, though, June should break that streak.  I rode 15 times in June 2010, and I’m currently at 14 for June 2011.  Assuming I ride with around the same frequency the second half of 2011 as I did the second half of 2010, I’ll finish up 2011 with around 165 rides, compared to 174 in 2010 and 144 in 2009.

The past week has been classic swampy Maryland summer weather.  It hasn’t been extremely hot, but the humidity has been off the charts.  Probably for the best, because I’m getting acclimated to it now, and it’s only going to get worse in July and August.

My single speed bike is finally back in the rotation – I rode it 4 times this week – and knock on wood, all seems well now with the rear tire.  Unfortunately, the bike is still not 100% right..  something is amiss with the headset.  It’s got a slight knock, and if I try to tighten it up enough to keep it from knocking, it starts to bind.  So something is apparently wrong with either the bearings or the bearing surfaces.  Not sure if the crash damaged the headset, or if I hosed it up earlier when I adjusted my stem height and then forgot to tighten it back down.  But in any case, I’ll get the bike shop to take a look at it, but in the meantime it’s not keeping me from riding the bike.

Summer Showers

Finally got my single speed bike back in service this morning, just in time to ride it to work in the rain.  This is the time of year where you almost hope for showers to provide relief from the humidity.  Indeed, the ran stopped about halfway through my ride, and I started sweating almost immediately.  The bike rode pretty well.  It’s got a new rear tire, and over the past couple of weeks I remounted the fenders, lubed everything up, and also adjusted the headset, which had somehow gotten too tight, to the point where it was binding.

We’ll see how these tires do.  They are Bontrager “Hard Case” 700c x 28, and they replaced a previous model of the same tire, although the old tires were skinnier (700c x 23).  The old tires were great, and lasted me over 2000 miles.  They probably would have lasted longer, but the front had a large hole in it from a piece of glass I ran over (though I put a boot on the inside and it still held air), and the rear got trashed when I wrecked this past winter.  These are wire bead tires, and the new ones were very hard to get on the rim.  My “bead jack” tool got them on painlessly though, and I’m now carrying one around in my bag in case I get a flat on the road.

Still working on the best fender-mounting scheme for this bike.  The frame and brakes leave plenty of clearance for fenders.  The front is no problem, but the back lacks frame eyelets and a brake bridge.  I used p-clamps, bolts, and nylon lock nuts to attach the struts.  Lacking a brake bridge, I’ve tried a number of different strategies to attach the front of the fender.  The current scheme features a short piece of 12 gauge solid copper electrical wire, wrapped tightly a couple of times around each chainstay.  I then attached the fender with a zip tie, and it seems relatively secure.  We’ll see how it stands up to riding.  For the top of the fenders, on the front, I used a “Sheldon Fender Nut.”  I couldn’t do the same thing on the back, because it put the mounting bracket too close to the tire.  So instead, I just used zip ties to attach the bracket to the brake bridge.  Zip ties do break periodically, but hopefully this setup will work OK otherwise.  With any luck, I’ll be able to ride the bike regularly for awhile now, and will report back after I’ve put a few hundred miles on it.

Beautiful Morning

There are so few nice mornings this time of year in Baltimore, that I couldn’t let this one get by without writing about it.  This morning’s ride-time temperature was 62°, dewpoint 51°, sunny with a light breeze out of the northwest.  I wore a long-sleeve jersey for the second morning in a row, which is unbelievably rare in June.  You just can’t order up more perfect biking weather than this.  It felt more like late September.  Today was my 11th consecutive ride on the road bike, which has been seeing a lot of action lately due to the mostly dry conditions.  The weather is fixing to take a turn for the worse starting tomorrow though, so I’ll likely be breaking the streak soon in favor of a bike with fenders.  My single-speed bike has been out of commission for a couple of weeks now due to a faulty rear tire, but I’ve got the replacement tire mounted now and I just need to re-install the rear fender.  The plan is to do that tonight and hopefully ride the single-speed tomorrow.