Productive/Creative – Analog Man in a Digital World
Anything health or cycling related
As of yesterday, I weighed 165 pounds, which means I’ve lost approximately 10 pounds in the last 6 weeks. I think I’m going to focus on nutrition and building muscle mass at this point. Even though I could probably lose a bit more weight, I think I would be better served by increasing my strength and endurance, now that I’m within a few pounds of my ideal weight.
Here’s some music to get you moving on this Monday morning.
[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbVZJEeq2Ms”]
I’m stuck here. I’m debating on what to upgrade on the Beast of Burden. It has to be sturdy, reliable, inexpensive, and functional.
My Surly LHT is currently using Tektro V-brakes and Tektro R520 levers (which work well). It has 7-sp downtube shifters which are problematic for shifting while sprinting through intersections. It has a custom built (by me) dynohub front wheel and a 7-sp cassette rear wheel (still rolling well). Cheap Shimano Deore/Tourney derailleurs (which work well).
I guess my real dilemma is that I want to get the bike lighter, and modernize it somewhat, but without having to buy a whole new drivetrain. I don’t really need more gears. I want to be able to commute on it, and use it for group rides. This will require me to get a separate wheelset… keep the dynohub for commuting, and a lightweight set for charity group weekend rides. I can just strip off the rack and lights, and ride it with light wheels.
Do I just upgrade shifters and keep it 3×7? Future wheels can use a cassette spacer. I’m okay with that. But that requires going to mini-V brakes, which rules out fenders and fat tires in the future. (I won’t do cantis or Travel Agents… they just suck. Too complicated.) Continue reading “Upgrading The Trucker”
After a month of riding my bike to work, my blood pressure has dropped from 140/90 to 110/80, and I think it will keep going lower.
While riding mountain bikes with my Scout troop this past weekend, I did manage to drop my bike’s chain, causing me to smash my left knee into the handlebar. I’ve got a nice fat knot the size of a golf ball just above my kneecap!
I’ve been commuting to work by bike for the last 4 weeks, and during that time, I learned something interesting.
In my goal to get closer to my ideal weight/fat ratio, I’ve been putting in some miles on the bike, and increasing the intensity of my riding, in an effort to help burn calories. But after almost 2 weeks of riding and watching my diet, I hadn’t lost anything!
I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about my bike commuting. Check it out!
http://www.wsj.com/articles/your-commute-could-help-you-lose-weight-1439315593
I’ve decided, after making decisions loosely based around Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, to focus on developing my “Important But Not Urgent” activities in my life.
You’ve probably heard it said, “the Urgent is the enemy of the Important.” That’s because urgent things demand our attention NOW, and we never get around to doing the important things. Continue reading “Back In The Saddle”
As part of my Constant Struggle To Simplify, I wanted to track my cycling miles without having to jump through hoops or do anything crazy. Up until recently, I was using Endomondo to track miles (and before that I used MapMyRide). These programs promise all sorts of features; social commentary, audio coaching, ANT+ and Bluetooth connectivity, route planning, etc. etc. But really, I found I didn’t use any of these extra features. I just wanted a simple, automated way to track my mileage that I could keep in digital form. And with Endomondo’s recent feature creep I was having to tap 3-4 menu items just to get to where I could record a ride! Nothing wrong with my Cyclecomputer, either, but I like analyzing numbers and stats.
Keeping with my wanting to use Tasker to automate stuff, I found a Tasker Plugin that allows it to start and stop Google MyTracks recording. MyTracks doesn’t have all the fru-fru social stuff, but it supports ANT+ and Bluetooth if I decide to go that route later (and Tasker can automatically connect to them). Plus it automatically syncs with Google Drive, so the potential for 100% complete automation is there. Let’s get busy!
There’s a couple of plugins I use to do this: AutoActivity, and the MyTracks Tasker Plugin.
AutoActivity is a service that runs in the background that guesses what you’re doing (walking, cycling, driving, still) based on GPS and inertia input, and assigns it a “confidence” score percentage of how sure it is you’re doing that. You can use it both as a trigger (i.e. “when you detect me driving, do this”) or an active variable (i.e. “Do this only IF activity=xxx”)
Tasker is so ridiculously flexible, it takes some playing around to figure out the best way to accomplish something. Sometimes the “best” solution isn’t immediately obvious. This is definitely the case with this problem. So, let’s look at what we want to accomplish, and how we can go about it. Continue reading “Tasker And MyTracks”
Note: since this was published, Google has announced the end of MyTracks, and as a result Google Fit now tracks bike mileage, though without any other kind of stats.
We can’t escape it, we’re in the digital age. Companies are all about Data, and we as consumers have followed along. With the rise of GPS-enabled devices in phones and bike computers, almost anyone can now track their cycling and running statistics, complete with geolocation and tons of other stats. This of course allows us to not only track our ride history, it allows us to compare information and apply it different ways.
I’ve long been a fan of GPS technology, and so naturally I migrated to using GPS to track my bike rides and commuting miles. But there are so many choices out there! How’s a person to decide what’s best for them, except try them all? I even made a poll in the G+ Bike Commuter Cabal community!
Fear not, for I’ve already used them all*, and my findings are here to help you make a decision on which App is best for you and your riding style.
We’re going to look at the top ones, and also include Google’s newcomer “Google Fit” to the mix, just to see how it stacks up against apps that have been on the market for years. I started off using a 7″ Samsung Galaxy Tab, and recently got a Motorola Moto G, which is what I’m recording rides with now. All app data and screenshots are from the Moto G. The apps will be reviewed in the order I tried them, nothing special about that.
Criteria:
As a result of Rural Bike Commuting: It’s Not The City, I’ve had a few people ask me to clarify some of the equipment choices I’ve made to accommodate the longer distances. My choices certainly don’t reflect everybody’s, and there will always be bike commuters who do things a bit differently, even if their routes look very similar to mine. But with that in mind, here’s a few things I’ve learned.
Bike:
If you’re commuting long distances, you’re going to want a bike that’s efficient, sturdy, flexible, and comfortable. It doesn’t have to be a race bike (in fact, there’s plenty of reasons why race bikes make terrible commuting rigs) but as long as it’s strong and comfortable, it’ll work. The more braze-ons it has, the more things you can do with it, and the more versatile your bike will be.
For commutes of 10+ miles each way, on rural (rough) roads, you will want to consider a bike made for long-distance riding, like a touring or randonneur bike. (*NOTE: in some cases, bikes labeled as “cyclocross” or “gravel” bikes will work, but sometimes they won’t. More on this later.) Most touring/rando bikes have drop bars for more comfortable hand positions, but you also want to balance that with a somewhat upright riding position to be able to function in traffic without losing visibility. Drop bars give you the best of both worlds; you can ride low in the drops for long windy stretches, or ride on the tops/hoods for in town.
Some great bikes are out there that are trouble-free, solid, and relatively efficient. The Surly CrossCheck is a universal favorite, for obvious reasons… it’s adaptable, comfortable, durable, and reasonably fast. Despite being labeled as a “cyclocross bike” it’s more suited to light touring and commuting, which is exactly what we’re looking for. The Straggler is basically a disk-brake version of the same bike, if you’re more comfortable with disks. There are plenty of others, also, but be warned!! Some bikes marketed “go-anywhere, do-anything” are really racing bikes, not true utility road bikes. They are made for recreational weekend warriors, not commuters who ride to work with racks and fenders. If it doesn’t have eyelets or bosses for a rear rack, it’s probably not meant to be used as a commuter. Caveat Emptor. Some good examples of bikes for long-distance commuting: Continue reading “Rural Commuting: Gear Talk”
Life changes, and sometimes you find out you’re just along for the ride. Three years ago, just as I was turning my life around, I ended up in the hospital with a shattered femur. I had been the victim of a red light runner, and let’s just say mid-size cars aren’t very forgiving when they plow into you at 35MPH. My hip required reconstruction. (My Surly LHT, however, came out okay. Can’t say enough about the durability of Surly bikes.) I never imagined how much it would change my life. As I get ready for bed tonight, taking Aleve because my titanium femur aches when I spend all day walking at my job, I can’t help but be thankful that I’m physically as well as I am, and mentally adjusted to deal with what my new “normal” is.
But I’m not telling you this to scare you away from riding your bike. There’s a lot of lessons I learned, and I still 100% believe that cycling is the key to a happy life for a lot of people. If nothing else, I want people to understand what I learned from my accident, and how I can still ride.
What did I learn from this radical change in my life? I’ve boiled it down to a few nuggets of wisdom… consider them learned the hard way.
With all that being said, #4 is what got me. Even though I had a green light, I didn’t double-check the intersection to make sure nothing was coming. I was focused on getting to work on time, not watching for cars. I wasn’t rested enough, and I made a bad judgement call to go through without checking.
As cyclists, we condemn drivers for being inattentive (and rightfully so!) but we are just as capable of making the same mistakes. Take your time, spread some goodwill, use your brain, and keep on cycling!