Fruddled Gruntbugglies

Author: lpaulriddle

  • Repair Stand

    On the ride home today, I cut through the middle of the UMBC campus and stayed off the roads as much as possible, sticking to sidewalks and watching for pedestrians.  Never my first choice, but it kept most of the salt off my bike.  The rest of the trip home was uneventful.  It’s much lighter out during the ride home now..  if I leave at 5, it’s still twilight when I get home around 40 minutes later.  The darkness is a cool novelty in November, but it starts to get a little old after a while.  So, no complaints.

    I received a Park PCS-9 repair stand as a birthday gift last month, and already can’t figure out how I got along without it.  It’s great to be able to just toss the bike up on the stand after a ride, clean off all the road grime and oil the chain.  It seems to take half the time it used to, the stand puts the bike at a convenient height, and there’s no need to flip the bike upside down on its handlebars.

  • Happy February

    We got around 5 inches of snow on Saturday, so I kicked February off with a ride very typical of February.. snowy and salty.  The roads were actually in really good shape until I got to UMBC.  Mostly clear of snow and ice, and not too much salt.  In the park, the access road was unplowed as expected.  Before the ride, I switched to toe clips and regular shoes (same high-top suede shoes I used last time I rode with clips) so I could hike this stretch.  The roads inside the park had a bit of snow and ice on them, but were rideable.  All in all, not too bad, except for UMBC.

    I made the mistake of riding into UMBC via Shelbourne Rd and Poplar Ave, which requires me to ride about half of the campus loop to get to my building.  UMBC’s roads were so oversalted that they were almost completely white.  It was the worst I had ever seen them.  I eventually moved over to the sidewalk, which was in considerably better shape (at least the stretch I rode on), but not before my rear fender got completely caked up with salt and crud.  I cleaned the bike up the best I could when I got to the office, but it’s going to need a hose-down when I get home.  Is it summer yet?

    I think I’m going to be avoiding UMBC’s roads, and cutting through campus dodging pedestrians, until we get some rain or something to wash all the salty crap into the Patapsco River.  I’ll know it’s happened when all the fish die.  Only half kidding here..

  • Road Bike

    Took the road bike this morning.  Since I took the fenders off this bike, I’ve been trying to only take it out on dry, sunny days, which are hard to come by around here this time of year.  With cloudy skies and a “chance of sprinkles,” today’s weather isn’t what I’d call ideal for taking the road bike out.  But after several consecutive days on the fixie, mashing up hills and spinning at 160rpm downhill, my legs needed a breather.

    I used to ride this bike with a rack trunk and a single side pannier, but lately I’ve taken a liking to riding with 2 side panniers and no trunk.  That way I can mount two blinkers on the back, one on the seat post and another on the left pannier.  The trunk made it impossible to use a seat post blinker, and my rack doesn’t have a reflector mount that I can use.  Getting rid of the trunk was the easiest solution short of buying a new rack.

    Still got the annoying rear derailleur squeak.  I am really hoping that new pulleys will get rid of this.  Stay tuned.

  • Back to normal

    After Monday’s wild weather, I’ve had a couple days of uneventful, almost boring rides to and from work.  The weather has been in the 30s and 40s for the most part during my rides, although today it was a bit chillier at 27.  I’ve stuck with the fixed-gear all week because the roads are still a little wet in spots, but if things stay dry today and overnight, I may switch to the road bike for tomorrow and Friday.  Friday’s ride depends on the timing of an approaching nor’easter.  Right now it looks like the storm is going to hold off until Friday night, which means I’ll be riding Friday.  But as is always the case with these coastal storms, anything could change between now and then.

  • Weird weather

    OK, so I wimped out Friday and took the car to work on a day when the weather ended up pretty good.  History has shown that when I wimp out on a ride, 9 times out of 10 I end up regretting it, and that knowledge helped get me on the bike this morning, on a day when I came perilously close to wimping out again.  The weather this morning was weird.  No better word for it.  Almost 60°, with winds from the south gusting to 40mph.  Lots of rain, especially to our north and south.  Baltimore area got plenty too, but it wasn’t raining during my ride, just overcast and damp.  Lawyers Hill was blocked by a downed tree which had also taken out some power lines.  This would have been a problem had I been driving, but I was able to lift the bike over it.  I took a loop through the park, which was debris-strewn, but otherwise passable.  The drainage area on Glen Artney Rd (near the Grist Mill trailhead) was a raging torrent.  No way I could cross on the bike.  Fortunately, there’s a foot bridge nearby that provides a detour over it, so I didn’t have to double back.  Beyond the park, the ride was uneventful.  I wore full rain gear, but probably could have gotten by without the rain jacket (of course, the rain picked up shortly after I arrived at work).

    This was my messiest ride yet on the fixed-gear.  I’m still not completely happy with how the rear fender is attached.  There’s nowhere to attach it at the bottom bracket, so I have it attached higher up on the seat tube, and it doesn’t extend down quite far enough in the front.  As a result, the bottom bracket area gets a lot of spray.  On the bright side, at least the bike is easier to clean than the road bike.  Single chainring, single cog, no derailleurs to worry about.

  • River bank repair

    With bad weather threatening for tomorrow, I decided to do a longer ride this morning.  I rode out to New Cut Rd, then River Rd, then through the park.  Today, part of River Rd was down to one lane for construction work.  It looks like they’re doing some sort of restoration/shoring up of the river bank along the road, to try to alleviate future flooding.  Hopefully it’ll help.

    Assuming the weather forecast holds up, I’ll either be not riding tomorrow, or taking the shortest ride in possible.  I packed rain gear along today, just in case the weather sours earlier than forecasted (not that that ever happens around here in winter).

  • Never a dull day..

    You never know what kind of weather you’re going to get in winter, and this morning was a perfect example.  We got a “surprise” light frosting of snow/sleet/rain overnight.  No mention of it whatsoever in yesterday’s forecast.  By the time I had to leave, the system had moved out, but the roads were still wet, so I switched to the fixed-gear bike (with fenders) for today’s ride.

    I rode through the park today, and River Rd was almost completely coated with a light, slightly crunchy glaze.  No traction problems though.  There were bike tire tracks on the Grist Mill Trail, but none on River Rd until I came through.

    The second half of my ride was through Oella and Catonsville.  I exited the park at Ilchester Rd and took River Rd to Frederick Rd.  This was the first time I had ridden River Rd for a while, and there were obvious signs of past flooding (lots of mud on the sides), but no problems getting through on the bike.  In Catonsville, instead of taking Edmondson to Melvin Ave as I’ve always done in the past, I turned right on Smithwood, then left on Summit, then right on Beaumont.  This brought me to Frederick Rd at a stop sign instead of a light, and I didn’t have to wait as long to make my left onto Frederick.  The pavement on Summit and Beaumont is in bad shape in spots, but all in all I think this is a better route.

  • Squeak

    I dusted off the road bike for the start of the work week.  I hadn’t ridden it in two weeks.  Yesterday I tightened up my rear derailleur cable.  It took a full turn and a half of the barrel adjuster to get it to shift onto larger cogs without hesitating.  Anyhow, it paid off – no “surprise” shifts this morning.

    I still get an annoying squeak when I shift sometimes.  It’s kind of like a bird chirping.  It typically doesn’t happen until about 15-20 minutes into a ride, then it pretty much squeaks the rest of the way every time I shift.  No amount of lubing the derailleur, cable, or chain seems to make it go away.  Research on the ‘net has revealed that it might be coming from the derailleur pulley(s).  Oiling them doesn’t seem to help, so I’m wondering if after 6000+ miles, they might just be wearing out.  A new set is under $10, so I may try replacing them and see if that helps.

    Biked through Catonsville again this morning.  Typically, when I have to make a left onto Frederick Rd heading east, I’ve turned at the Melvin Ave light.  But lately that light has not been turning green for me.  It’s kind of hard to follow the rules of the road when the traffic lights will only turn green for cars.  There’s a ped signal there, but to use it I have to cross over to the wrong side of the road to get to the crosswalk.  Catonsville purports to be bike friendly, but it’s unclear to me whether I’m supposed to act like a vehicle or a pedestrian in these cases.  To avoid the issue, I think I’m just going to avoid the light and make the left turn at a street with a stop sign.  When I initially planned this route, I expected Frederick Rd to be bumper-to-bumper at this time of morning, but it’s really not that bad that I can’t make a left onto it at a stop sign (providing I can see OK in both directions, of course).

  • Ick

    Stomach bug kept me off the bike (and home from work) on Friday.  I started coming down with it on Thursday afternoon, but was able to ride home, although it was a bit of a struggle coming up Lawyers Hill.  It was an unseasonably warm 50 degrees out, so I dressed down quite a bit compared to the morning ride.

    Due to a very well-timed MLK holiday tomorrow, I have an extra day to recuperate and fully expect to be back on the bike Tuesday.  Based on the 5-day, looks like I might need the rain gear next week.

  • Morning Ride Notes

    Took a 15 mile ride in today, and the roads/trails have improved enough that I was able to stay clipped in for the entire ride.  That doesn’t happen very often in January.  Weather conditions were almost identical to yesterday morning, except with a bit more of a breeze.  I switched back to clipless pedals with two layers of socks, and my feet still got a little cold, but I think the extra layer of socks kept them warm a little longer.  On the top I wore a long sleeve “Under Armour” shirt, PolarTec top and windbreaker.  This was still just a touch on the warm side.  I think I need something slightly lighter than the PolarTec to wear when it’s in the 20s, I’m just not sure what yet.  It might be as simple as just taking off the windbreaker.  The combination of windbreaker and PolarTec top seems better suited for temperatures in the ‘teens and lower.