Freezing My A** Off!

The temperature is below my usual minimum of 21 degrees, but crazy person that I am, I've decided to go biking. There's no snow on the roads, the roads are dry, and there's a weak winter sun trying to break through the clouds and warm things up a little bit. I want to go to the Squirrel Hill branch of the Carnegie Library to do some work (free wifi is you have a library card). Since we trying to be more green and use the car less, I decided to try biking.

I have a fleece jersey with a windbreaker, long cycling tights, and cold-weather cycling gloves. I borrowed my wife's hoodie/dickie thing to keep my ears and face warm, and figured I was all set...

One of the problems with cold weather riding is that it is hard to judge whether you are dressing warm enough. When you first go outside, you have to expect to be cold, because you haven't been pedaling and generating any heat. If you dress so that you are warm enough when you first go outside, then you are going to be too warm once you have been riding for a little bit. The other problem you have is wind chill. when you ride, your getting hit with the equivalent of a wind with the same spped as you're traveling on the bike.

The ride to the library actually wasn't too bad. Because most of it is uphill, I was going slower and pedaling harder, which generated more heat. The trip back was another story. After 3 hours at the library I got back on the bike. I wasn't heated up, and the rride back on Forbes Avenue was almost all downhill at a 20 to 25 mph pace. It was COLD! I found out my windbreaker didn't. And thin tights didn't do much to hold in the heat. I was shivering by the time I got to the end of Forbes, and actually grateful that I had to pedal through Wilkinsburg and Edgewood to get home.

Tracking Our Rides: My BikeLog Spreadsheet

The mileage graph that I posted at the end of last year came from a spreadsheet I have with all my cycling data. I know is probably sounds a bit OCD to log bike data in a spreadsheet, but you don't have to be Lance Armstrong to benefit from it.

A quick word about cyclometers: if you don't have one on your bike, you really need to get one. Even if it is the most basic $15 unit. Get one. Now. I find it extremely useful during the ride to know how we are doing. Things like how may miles to the next rest stop. or how fast are we going (versus how fast we usually go on that particular route) are useful information, particularly if you are riding with kids.

After the ride, you have all that data recorded by your cyclometer, so you may as well make use of it! Write it down. Somewhere. Anywhere. It is the beginning of the year, so start now so you will have a full-year's data in December.

My first year of cycling I started recording my data in a runner's log book that my wife wasn't using. The following year (1992), I started using the old DOS-based spreadsheet QuatroPro (Anybody else remember that?) to save my ride information. I'm not exactly why I started doing that, other that I probably didn't have another log book. It wasn't a very sophisticated use of a spreadsheet, since there weren't any calculations being done. The cyclometer kept track of total mileage, so I didn't even need to total my "Mileage" column. Each year I would make a new file/spreadsheet (this was before multi-sheet spreadsheets) and record the cyclometer information from each ride, along with the date of the ride and a brief comment about where the ride was.

Sometime prior to Y2K we upgraded our spreadsheet software to the Windows-based Lotus 123, which had the option of having multiple sheets in a single file. So rather than having a separate file for each year, I created a single file that had separate sheets for each year. I even went back and merged my old spreadsheet log files into this single multi-sheet bikelog. There wasn't a compelling reason to do it at the time, it just seemed logical to have the single big file, rather than a bunch of smaller ones.

Then one day, a funny thing happened. It occurred to me that since I had all this data in one place, I could compare my riding from year to year. This allowed me to compare my current riding against the same period in previous years, to see how I was doing. This led to the creation of a "Summary" sheet in my spreadsheet. This sheet has multiple tables on it. Each table has the year for the vertical axis and the specific month for the horizontal axis. At first there was a single table that showed my mileage for the month. Then I added a second table that showed my cumulative mileage for the year. Then came other tables: number of hours spent riding for the month, number of rides per month, and average ride length for the month. I even made graphs from some of the tables, to better spot trends and make comparisons.

Last year I changed to the standard Excel (.xls) spreadsheet format, and I am currently using OpenOffice to edit the file. I also use Documents to Go to keep a copy on my Palm Centro smartphone, so I can actually update the sheet immediately after the ride if I want (I should do this more often than I do). Every year I add a new sheet for the next year, and add a new row to each of the tables on my summary page. My bikelog has evolved, morphed, and improved over the years. I'm sure it will continue to do so in the years to come.

First Ride of 2010!

Hard to believe, but a week ago we were coming off of an entire week of school delays and cancellations. Up to that point, we literally had snow every day of 2010. Saturday we were in to our third day of 40+ degree weather. Most of the snow has melted from the streets, and the grass is even showing through on most lawns. So the opportunity presented itself to do our first ride of the year.

We did a simple ride, just over to Frick Park and back, a total distance of only 5.6 miles. That was OK, since this was our first time out in almost 2 months (I noticed afterwards that my legs felt rather heavy from the workout). The sun was out and it actually felt warm with my winter jersey and windbreaker. Although the roads were clear, there was still snow and slush in the park itself. And of course, this being Pittsburgh, there were plenty of potholes to dodge. Nonetheless, it felt great to get out and get our cycling season started.

Car for Sale!

Well, my wife and I have made what is probably a milestone decision for my cycling lifestyle: we are going to become a one-car family. We've decided to sell my 2003 Saturn Ion 3 (pictured above).

We've always had two cars in the family. We each had our own car when we met, and we've always had (and always needed) two cars. But now that we're both working from home (usually), it seems as though one car is always sitting idle in front of the house. The costs associated with maintaining a car (even an idle one) are a primary factor in our decision, along with the fact that I can (and do) walk or cycle to just about any service or business I need access to. It is hard to believe that when I was growing up, one-car families were the norm; now it seems like they are the exceptions. For those times that we do need a second car, we figure to make use of Zipcar, figuring that the rental cost will be less than the maintenance and insurance costs for a second car.

I'm going to try to document how this works out for us, and include periodic updates here. Any insights our suggestions you might have are welcome. In the mean time, if you are interested in a 2003 Electric Blue Saturn Ion Sedan with low mileage (56K miles) please let me know...

2009, The Year in Review

It is the end of the year, and it doesn't look like we are going to be doing any riding at all in December. Our local squirrels seemed to have unusually bushy tails, indicating a harsh winter ahead, and so far that forecast has been accurate. We haven't been out for a ride the entire month of December, and judging by the amount of snow on the ground, it might be quite a while before we're out again (yes, I know, there are studded bike tires available. The dynamics of our tandem bike preclude using them). So it seems like a good time to review our 2009 riding season.


Ever since our first year with the tandem (2003), our goal has been to reach 1000 miles per year. As you can see from the chart, at first that wasn't hard to do. But once I started my new job in 2006, which requires working 3 weekday afternoons and one day per weekend, it got to be a lot harder to reach that 1000 mile goal. Last year was the lowest mileage we've had since we first got the tandem. This year we finally broke that 1000 mile barrier that has alluded us. I think the big reason for this is that we made an effort to stretch out our riding opportunities, particularly on the our local (non-trail) rides.

One of the problems this year was the shutdown of some of our favorite local routes due to construction. The Rankin Bridge has been closed for two years now, which makes it impossible to get from our house to the Waterfront shopping complex. This put a serious crimp on the 8 to 9 mile errand rides we used to do on a regular basis. The other construction was a ramp in Turtle Creek that blocked our 19 mile route from our house to Trafford. It isn't clear at this point whether either of these routes will reopen any time in 2010 (but we keep hoping).

The biggest improvement this year was the introduction of bike lanes along Forbes Avenue between Braddock Avenue and Dallas Avenue. Given that construction forced us to use this route more often, this was a huge improvement. It made the whole process of getting up into the Squirrel Hill area a whole lot saner.

Our favorite route of the year was a new route for us, a 15 mile “Y” route that goes up Forbes Avenue to Beechwood Boulevard, and down Beechwood towards downtown. When Beechwood gets to Fifth Avenue, we turn around and go back up Beechwood, crossing over Forbes. We stay on Beechwood until we reach Brown's Hill Road. We then turn around, go on Beechwood back to Forbes for the trip home. Most of this route is on bike lanes, and the “Y” layout gives us the option of cutting the ride short if necessary. Very little of it is flat, so there is definitely a good workout in there.

Snappy Comebacks

Like most tandem riders, we've had to endure our share of the "He's not pedaling!" comments. KJ, of course, doesn't seem to care. Following the advice of other tandem riders, I try to not let it bother me, but every once in awhile it gets to me. This morning we rode up to KJ's religious school, and KJ actually was doing a very good job of pedaling, in spite of the cloudy 46 degree weather. When we were within a block of the school, we stopped at a minimart for a snack (KJ prefers Little Debbie Zebra Cakes) because we were a few minutes early. As we pulled in, a Ford Expedition (a big-a**ed SUV) pulled in. A large guy (I wouldn't say he was fat, but he definitely could use some exercise) got out and dropped the usual "Hey! I don't think that guy in the back is pedaling.” comment on his way in to get his Sunday paper. I mumbled something about KJ pedaling on the way back, and let it go at that. As the guy got back in his SUV and drove off (no doubt headed 3 blocks or so back to his house), it occurred to me what a moron this guy was. If another cyclist wants to say something like that, OK, fine, you're trying to be funny. At least In my mind I formulated a few snappy responses, which I was smart enough to keep to myself:

1)“Neither are you...”
2)“At least he's on a bike...”
3)“And you're Lance Armstrong?”
4)"Better than driving an SUV..."

If you have a snappy comeback you would like to add, just let me know!

USA Today Article of the GAP Trail

Here's an nice article on the Yough Trail (Officially the Great Allegheny Passage Trail) that was in Friday's USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/affordableamerica/2009-10-08-great-allegheny-passage_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

If you need any more incentive to get out on the trail, this is it!