Normally, I’m all about getting rid of “stuff.”  However, my one weakness is stuff for my bikes.  I get a strange thrill out of buying stuff that promises to make my year-round, all-weather bike rides safer and more enjoyable.  I’m sure it secretly drives my wife nuts.

Just over a week to go before “dark season” is upon us, and with it, cold and icy winter weather.  This year, I have a whole slew of new gear that will be put to the test in the coming months:

• Schwalbe Marathon Winter studded tires.  I bought these for commuting in icy conditions, in hopes that they’ll keep me upright and prevent things like, oh, falling down and getting concussions and multiple rib fractures.  Not that I have any experience with that.
• New headlights.  I bought 3 Planet Bike “Blaze” lights:  a 2-watt, a 1-watt, and a ½-watt.  The 2- and 1-watt lights will go on the bars, and the ½-watt will go on my helmet.  I had initially intended to mount the 1-watt on my helmet, but it’s a little too bulky and doesn’t fit well in the helmet mount.  So I went ahead and got the ½-watt, and I figure 3 headlights are better than 2.  The lights have seen plenty of use in flash mode during daylight, but have yet to be tested in the dark.
• Helmet mounted taillight.  After reading several articles about how a helmet flasher really helps with visibility, I picked up a Planet Bike Blinky 3H.  I was initially concerned that it wouldn’t fit properly on my Bell “Sweep” helmet, but happily, it fits perfectly.  I haven’t ridden with it yet, and may wait until it’s dark.
• Ergon GR2 grips for my mountain bike.  The mountain bike is going to see a lot of action this winter, and it desperately needed new grips.  The Ergons have been widely praised, and I’m hoping they’ll be more comfortable than what I had on there.  The GR2 also comes with a short bar end.  It was at a good price point relative to their other models.  The bar ends are a little shorter than the old bar ends I used to have on the bike, but I don’t think I’ll miss the extra length.  After much deliberating, I went with the small size grip.  There’s not too much perceptible difference between the small and large sizes, but I’m guessing the small will be more comfortable with gloves.  We’ll see.
• Kool Stop replacement brake shoes and pads for my single speed.  This bike came with Dia Compe BRS101 brakes, with cheap one-piece shoe/pads.  They squealed a lot on the rims, and now one of them is worn down, so I’m replacing all 4 shoes.  The Kool Stop pads are much better made, and the shoes and pads are separate, so the shoes can be reused when the pads wear out.  I’ve been really happy with the Kool Stop cantilever pads on my mountain bike, so I’m hoping they’ll perform well on my caliper brakes too.

Stay tuned for raving and/or whining about each of these products (whichever is warranted), as I start to use them!

First ride in full rain gear in awhile this morning.  It was nice and mild, so I took the opportunity to ride for 11.5 miles, including a loop through Patapsco State Park.  Most of my rain gear is the same as last year, including Novara rain pants (REI house brand), Patagonia TorrentShell rain jacket, and neoprene shoe covers from Performance.  New for this season is a pair of Seirus Hyperlite All Weather gloves.  I bought these because I wanted a pair of lightweight, reasonably weatherproof gloves.  I already have some cheap light gloves, but they aren’t waterproof, and I wanted something I could wear in the rain.  The Hyperlites did the job pretty well.  They breathe OK and do a decent job of repelling water.  They’re not as good as Gore-Tex, but they’re not as expensive as Gore-Tex either.

The Performance shoe covers are still as good as ever.  My shoes and feet stayed bone dry for the entire ride.  Out of all body parts, the feet are the most important to keep dry during a rainy ride.  If your feet get wet, a rainy ride can go from enjoyable to miserable in no time flat.  I keep telling myself I need to go to Performance and pick up another pair or two of these, in case they do something stupid like discontinue them or cut back on the quality.

Lately, my cyclometer, a Cateye Velo 5, has been getting really flaky.  It keeps losing connectivity between the unit and the base.  If I press down on it and fiddle with it a bit, it will pick back up.  However today, I couldn’t get it to work at all in the rain.  I’m not sure if this is the result of oxidation on the terminals, loose connection due to general degradation, or a combination of both.  Regardless, it’s getting annoying.  I may try coating the terminals with some anti-oxidation gel, and see if that helps at all.  Stay tuned.

I was in the bike section of my local REI the other day and noticed they were stocking a gadget called a Cage Rocket.  The Cage Rocket is a water bottle-sized pod with a hinged opening, meant for carrying gear and designed to fit in a bottle cage.  There’s a standard version and a slightly-more-expensive waterproof version, which includes a foam seal on the opening.  I had read about these before on a couple of different bike blogs, and was considering trying one out, so I bought one of the waterproof ones.

I’m still working on an ideal system for hauling gear around on the 3 different bikes I use for commuting.  Each bike has certain gear that is specific to that bike (for example, each bike uses a different size spare inner tube).  Then there’s the stuff that comes with me on all the bikes, like my wallet, patch kit, and multi-tool.  My goal is to make it as easy as possible to switch from one bike to another, without having to shuffle a lot of gear around.  I wanted to see if the Cage Rocket could help me out.

Initially, I’m trying the Cage Rocket out on my fixed-gear road bike.  This bike has an extra tool (a Pedro’s “Trixie”) which I originally had bolted to the bottle cage braze-ons on the seat tube.  However, that left it exposed to the elements, and I quickly learned that the Trixie is not weatherproof, as it’s getting some rust on it.  Also, I’m storing a frame pump, spare tube and a couple of tire bead jack tools in my rear panniers, where they take up a lot of space, because there’s currently nowhere else to put them.  I figured for starters, I’d see which of these I could fit into the Cage Rocket.

The Cage Rocket, while useful, his its shortcomings.  There’s only so much you can fit in a rigid pod that’s the size of a water bottle.  You’re limited to relatively narrow items that are 7-8 inches long or less.  My Topeak “Alien” multi-tool is too wide to fit, but the Trixie fits fine.  My Kool Stop “Bead Jack” tire tool is too long.  No chance of fitting a frame pump inside it, but it would probably accommodate a CO₂ inflater and a couple of cartridges.  It fits a spare tube, but you have to roll the tube up into an oblong shape or it’ll be too wide.

For starters, I’m using the Cage Rocket to hold the Trixie and a spare tube.  It keeps the Trixie out of the elements, and the spare tube out of my pannier.  The tube takes up most of the room inside, but there’s still a bit of room for something else.  So while it’s not the ultimate answer to all of my on-bike storage problems, the Cage Rocket is a step in the right direction.  We’ll see how my use of it evolves over time.

When I originally started bike commuting, I’m glad the weather was better than it has been for the past couple of weeks.  I might not have kept riding.  Not only has the weather been bad, but traffic also seems to be on the uptick on some of the back roads in Howard.  I’m hoping it’s just a statistical aberration.  I will say that things seemed a little better today than on Monday or Tuesday.  But suffice it to say that it’s been hard to stay motivated to ride recently.  The weather is finally supposed to improve by Friday, so I hope to get one nice-weather ride in before I leave on a 4-day business trip Monday.  Maybe when I get back, it’ll finally be Fall.

One great development has come out of my riding this week.  I found a way to avoid my least favorite part of my afternoon ride home, namely, the very end, where I have to cross Montgomery Rd. twice.  Normally, I come up Lawyers Hill Rd., make a left onto Montgomery at the light, and then another left into my driveway.  On most roads, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but Montgomery at rush hour is just a clusterf***, and it seems to be getting worse over time.  There’s also a bend just past where I need to turn into my driveway, leaving me with a short sight distance.  Put all that together, and you can see why I dread the last little bit of my ride home.  Some days it’s not bad, but on others I feel like I’m playing a real-life game of Frogger.

Anyhow, yesterday I found an alternate route.  I’ll prefix this by saying that this route is not going to be useful for 99% of riders.  Most people are going to want to take Lawyers Hill to Montgomery and then turn left or right at the light.  It’s not too bad making a left here.  My alternate is really only useful if you need to make another left off Montgomery (across traffic) before you get to the Elementary School.  That’s what I do every day, and that’s the part that sucks.  The route also requires you to cut through school property, which may be frowned upon in certain circles.  All that being said, here’s the route:

Coming up Lawyers Hill Rd., make a left onto Summer Home Terrace.  Ride up the hill and take the second right onto Latchlift Ct.  Follow this for a couple hundred feet, and look for a narrow paved trail on the right heading into the woods.  Turn right onto this trail.  Follow the trail through the woods and onto school property.  Proceed straight on the trail up a short, steep hill, towards the playground equipment.  Ride past the playground and bear left onto the access road behind the elementary school building.  Follow the access road around the building, and exit onto the parking lot.  Ride through the lot and out the school entrance road (Timberlee Rd.) to Montgomery Rd.  Turn right onto Montgomery.

This is an extremely nice shortcut for me, because it turns my two left turns on Montgomery into right turns.  I no longer have to cross traffic, and I have a better view of oncoming traffic while turning onto Montgomery.  I’m sure I’ll be coming this way whenever possible.

A bunch of random bike-related stuff today.

I rode through Catonsville again this morning, and tried out one of my route modifications I mentioned in my previous post, for avoiding the Mellor Ave. / Bloomsbury Ave. intersection.  Coming down Mellor, I detoured right onto Montemar Ave., and followed that around to Bloomsbury.  I then turned left onto Bloomsbury and rode out to Asylum La. to cut through Spring Grove.  Montemar is an infinitely better spot to make a left onto Bloomsbury.  I was able to see adequately in both directions, and make my turn without worrying about getting creamed by some unseen, speeding car.  Coincidentally, there was some kind of road work going on at the Mellor and Bloomsbury intersection.  Not sure what they’re doing or how long it’s going to take.  We’ll see.

A couple weeks ago, I picked up a couple of Planet Bike “Blaze” headlights, a 1-watt and a 2-watt.  I was looking for a replacement for my old NiteRider Sol, which has a cord that’s going bad.  From a convenience standpoint, the Blaze is fantastic.  I put mounting brackets on all 3 of my bikes, and moving the lights from bike to bike is a snap.  Both lights use the same bracket.  I’m going to look into getting a helmet mount, so I can ride with one light on the bars and another on my helmet.  I’ve used the flash mode on both lights several times on overcast days.  The true test for the lights will come in November, when I ride home in the dark.  Both lights put out a similar amount of light, and ironically, the beam on the 1-watt seems a little brighter than the 2-watt.  I compared them in a darkened room, and I may need to actually ride with them at night to see the true difference between the two.  We’ll see come November.  Compared to the NiteRider Sol, the Blaze is roughly the same brightness, but the beam is slightly narrower and more focused.  The big win: the Blaze takes two AA batteries, and is self contained, unlike the Sol, which uses a proprietary battery pack that attaches to a cord (and the cord seems to be a weak link).

The chain on my fixed-gear bike is already getting close to needing replacement.  It’s a SRAM PC-1, and it has probably 750 miles on it.  I’m hoping to get 1000 out of it.  I somewhat expected shorter chain life with fixed gear, as the chain takes much more abuse than it would on a bike with a freewheel.  I guess I should plan on replacing the chain every year or so.  Fortunately, the PC-1 is pretty cheap.  It’s certainly a lot cheaper than replacing tires.

Conditions in Patapsco State Park continue to improve after last week’s monsoon.  All of the mudslides have been cleared off the Grist Mill Trail, so I can now get through on my road bike without having to stop and walk through any mud.  It’s still quite muddy, particularly on the River Rd. entrance on the Howard County side, but it’s getting better.  Unless your bike has fenders, you’ll still get dirty.  My single speed bike has the dubious distinction of being my “mud bike” this month.  It’s getting quite dirty, but there’s not much point in cleaning it off, because it’ll just get dirty again on the next ride.  I’m happy they cleared the trail, because if they hadn’t, I probably would have switched to my mountain bike for the rest of the week.  That would have left me with two dirty bikes instead of one, and the mountain bike will have plenty of opportunities to get dirty this winter (road salt — uggh).

This time last week, we were just starting to see effects from Tropical Storm Lee.  Things have quieted down quite a bit since then.  We’re now finally starting to get some nice late-summer Maryland weather.  Of course, the ragweed and mosquitoes are out in force, but you gotta take the bad with the good.