Urban Adventures & More

I rode down a non-motorized park avenue today. Some thoughts:

• While as popular as last year, I felt that this year people were better behaved. There was still plenty of aggressive biking, but most people seemed to be more relaxed than in the past.
• There need to be more repair stations and more people showing bike basics, such as “how to wear your helmet”, “inflate your tires”, “adjust your seat height”, and, my favorite, “oil your chain”. I saw so many people with underinflated tires (and I told them so), but at least as many with horrible fit who just didn’t seem comfortable, and probably had a lot of knee pain as a result.
• The pool looked both fun and moderately used. I would go in it if I had a buddy. Also, there were a lot of pretty ladies.
• Why does it end at 1 pm? More importantly, why does it begin at 7am? If Germany can close an entire freeway for 30 miles for pedestrians for a day, New York can close an unnecessary avenue for more than 6 hours.

Some other thoughts that came to me.

• New York is kicking butt with its new infrastructure. Downtown, a lot of the route had bike lanes. I rode over to Brooklyn and discovered all the work that has gone into the Brooklyn Bridge park, which extends for miles along the waterfront. You can ride on paths from the Brooklyn Bridge almost unbroken to Red Hook; there are many more on-street lanes (unintimidating ones) that go in other directions.
• The Brooklyn Bridge crams too many people into too little space. While cars fly by in six lanes, thousands of people are stuck bursting out of the path. I say, close a lane on the bridge, make it a bike lane, and dedicate the entire path to pedestrians. (If you want to bike up to the observation points, you’ll have to walk, sorry.)
• Boston has nothing on New York for bike infrastructure. And there’s no reason but politics.

It’s been quite a while since I posted here. That’s not for lack of desire, but rather lack of time. Somewhere between the evening activities, the new apartment, and the lovely (and not so lovely)  summer weather, I log about 1 hour per month on the computer outside of work.

A few of my activities in the last eight months:

• Full time bike commuting. I can’t say it’s 100% figured out, but I’m pretty far along. While I have a gym membership to change/shower, I have rarely used it the last few months; I now wear my office pants, and just throw on the shirt when I get there. Sweat isn’t a problem (a big one anyway, even in the high humidity and warmth of the heat waves), as I just ride slowly. I put my gear in a bag and the bag on a rack, so there’s no gross sweaty patch on my back. Leave the heavy lock on a rack at the destination. This also includes doing everything by bike, challenges be damned: just strap the thing to the bike rack. Just today, I moved a bike (!) on my rack, which was surprisingly not so challenging (definitely use a front rack only; probably best to use zip ties, not bungees next time…). I wish someone had taken a picture so I could send it to CETMA.
• Volunteering. I have been putting in regular hours with Bikes Not Bombs on Wednesdays for their volunteer night: stripping parts off donated bikes or flattening bikes for shipping. I have a mental block against sorting small parts, so I now avoid it at all costs. Also, yesterday I went to do mechanic work for Boston Cyclists Union, mostly fixing brakes and shifting issues on a street corner. Finally, I am getting involved in bike advocacy: I have been attending Livable Streets advocacy meetings to get more infrastructure, the Somerville Bike Committee (what they do, I’m still working on figuring out… no offense guys), and also looking forward to doing some Boston Cyclists Union stuff as well. I especially like the approach of the latter, because it is organizing the public to push for the infrastructure, versus working political channels to sneak it in (bureaucrats don’t like doing the right thing when it’s more work).
• Bike work. I’ve got a reputation among my friends as a mechanic, so I’ve been helping people get set up with bikes and the associated gear. Rachel got me a stand, so now I can do this stuff in a relaxed way; my mom got me a truing stand and a wheel to build. Now I’m considering whether to get the rest of the bike toolkit (crank puller, lockring tool, chain while, headset tools. There’s not much else I don’t have now.)
• Expeditions. Yes, of course. There’s been a ton of plain ole riding. We biked to Ipswitch; a few trips to Walden Pond, Bedford, etc.; JP; Roslindale; Newton. I’ve been less inclined to bike destinations lately because I get so much riding in just by getting around, and Boston doesn’t have a great trail system. A few attempts to go to Central MA and camp fell through (rain and illness). Hopefully I’ll do either the NYC Century, the Hub on Wheels, or both, this year. I also discovered that cold weather is OK for shorter rides (getting around), but zero-percent fun in blustery wind and frigid cold.

The future hopefully holds much more biking in store: stay tuned.

There is an entire site devoted to imagined extensions of the Boston T. Although I don’t (yet!) have a complete grasp of Boston neighborhoods and outlying towns, I could still tell that the highly ambitious routes imagined were really just intellectual fancy. This contributor sums up the issues nicely.

The last few months have been uneventful in personal biking news. I did learn some of the finer points in chain maintenance and the non-transmission components of the bike. I now have riser bars and a mountain bike brake. I learned about the “fourth hand” tool for tightening brake cables. Critical to this process was Open Bicycle, easily the best bike shop I’ve ever been to. Go out of your way to visit (although not in the next week or two; they’re moving).

The most eventful thing for me took place Monday evening. I was rapidly pedaling over the Longfellow Bridge on a very bumpy ride home, and all of a sudden my rear wheel completely locked up and I skidded to a stop. On closer inspection, the chain had jumped off: it was locked between the rear cog and hub. After some struggling, I managed to dislodge it; two links (and inch’s worth) were crushed and twisted. I rode home irrespectively; it was very bumpy every time  the broken links went over the cog.

I tried throwing on a spare, narrow-width chain I had lying around. No dice- the cog was for wide chains only. I didn’t have enough slack in the old chain to just remove the bad links. Furthermore, you shouldn’t break a chain any old place; my chain had a three-piece master link, which is composed of two plates and a clip which locks them together. This is the only place one should break a chain (when I practiced, I alternately used a flathead screwdriver or a needlenose pliers to widen apart the two arms of the clip), and the clip is reusable.

Since my favorite Open bike is closed for a few weeks, I went to my second favorite: Broadway Bicycle School. (I give little to no business to other, unnamed Cambridge-area bike shops, as they are obnoxious and terrible for many reasons.) They sold me a new chain, which was laterally stiffer, and therefore better suited for a fixed gear.

I went home and used my super-cheap chain tool to cut the chain to length (once you reduce the chain to the proper length, you can use the master link to close it). The tool failed miserably. It got jammed at the start of the job, and the pin that drives out the link simply mushroomed to the point of utter uselessness. I threw away the tool, and over the last two days, found myself in Broadway bikes asking them to take off successively more lengths (using a quality chain tool) until it was done correctly. They were very helpful in the initial explanation, and also didn’t mind the few seconds it took to break the chain for me.

This evening I got the chain on, and discovered a number of things. First, the back tire, which I hadn’t examined, was more than bald in one place; this heavy-duty tire had worn through its many layers in the skid (from 20 mph to zero in about 6 seconds). That’ll have to go. Second, the wheel was very wobbly, and always landed in the same spot when I let it run freely.

This inspired me to use all my drive-chain knowledge. I oiled the (brand new chain). I adjusted the chain tension. I made sure the bolts and washers were tightened down on the rear axle (they weren’t! A few weeks ago, I had them split in half because they were loose and had too much force placed on them). I adjusted the chainring bolts to get an even chain tension (that helped – my chainring actually has gotten straighter over time; perhaps I’m just getting better at this!). The result: everything runs pretty smoothly, although I’m still concerned the rear  hub or bottom bracket are damaged; at low rpms, there is still a wobble, although the chain runs quieter and there is less wobble at high speeds.

So, tension your chain sufficiently and save yourself at least $60 in new parts, possibly a lot more.

I wish I had a camera so I could show the various damage. Then again, I’d just as soon forget.

Back to the cycle.

This is stupidly obvious: if you want to do a dual monitor setup with the NVidia GeForce 8500GT, all you have to do is use a VGA input for one screen and a DVI input for the other. I tried using a DVI splitter to put both on DVI, but that’s not how it works! It’s analog + digital. Simple.

As an aside, why can’t the Nvidia linux driver do Twinview for my two graphics card (Nvidia 6500 and 8500GT)? Windows can!

On Sunday I did the century bike ride. The basic route was as follows:

• Start at Central Park north. Bike west to Riverside, then south along 11th Avenue, 9th Avenue, and on over the Brooklyn Bridge.
• Bike West, South and East to Prospect Park. This was the first rest stop (15 miles).
• Next, we went west through Sunset Park, and then east and south through Bay Ridge (along the Belt Parkway), Sheepshead Bay and on to Marine Park, which was the second rest stop (30 miles).
• We went south over the Gil Hodges Bridge into Far Rockaway, and then north again over the Cross Bay Bridge. We continued in a pretty straight shot all the way up to Kissena Park and the Velodrome in Queens. This had the 3rd rest stop (60 miles).
• We hooked east into Queens through Cunningham park (a little path through the woods!) and then west again along Jamaica Bay and the Grand Central Parkway (we were passing all the cars stuck in traffic), and then past La Guardia airport and on to Astoria Park. The fourth rest stop was there (80 miles).
• Finally, we went over the Triborough bridge. This was a huge bottleneck because every route, all 5000 people, went over the bridge, and it has a half-dozen stairs on the bridge itself. We got off the bridge and I got a flat. It took 45 minutes and 3 tubes to fix it.
• Back on the road, we did the last loop through the South Bronx, east to Soundview Park, then a quick north and west shot adjacent to the Bronx Park (past the Bronx Zoo and Botanical Gardens), and then into Van Cortlandt Park. The last rest stop was here (mile 96).
• Finally, we went south through Manhattan over the Broadway Bridge and then through the Harlem River path and along streets back to the starting point. We were welcomed back by cheering women holding signs (mile 104).

I had been really anxious about the ride, since, as faithful readers will know, I had only done 65 miles prior. Furthermore, I had anxiety about my bike, since my choices were between the much lighter fixed gear I have been riding exclusively for months, or the much heavier 10-speed. My decision was clinched when I said, “the fixed gear hurts when I start and stop a lot and on hills.” Chris said, “You’re going to feel a heavy bike on hills and when you have to start a lot.” So, I did it fixed. I had to draft Chris a bunch, particularly along the water when we were going up hills with a headwind. However, my biggest problems from the training, fatigue and knee pain, did not come to pass; I could rest during while drafting, took more breaks, ate a ton at each stop, and drank much more water (actually sports drink) than usual.

Quite fun: two days hence, the only memories I have of it are good ones. Next year in Jerusalem!

I went up to Boston last weekend and did another training ride, this one on Labor Day (see my previous post on my New York ride). My perspective on geography there, at least in the southern part of the city, is that you can get a pretty good ride in without thinking too hard about the route just by picking a direction and turning around when you get to one of the circumferential interstates. Last time, I used I-95 as my boundary; this time, it was I-495. The route was very simple, which is good, because I didn’t make a cue sheet nor bring a map.

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Last Thursday I took a ride to help me prepare for the upcoming NYC Century ride. My route was as follows.

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In reply to my previous post, Park Avenue South and then Park Avenue proper is the least unpleasant option. It’s only two lanes below 42nd, which is probably the biggest determinant of comfort. I go left at 42nd and up Vanderbilt Avenue, then right at 46th and back onto Park. This section is wider, but there’s so many cars pulling up to the curve and turning that nobody really has an opportunity to pick up a lot of speed like on a wider, staggered-light street. They should put a bike line along the median and get rid of one lane of traffic. I also rode all the way cross town to the Hudson path on a different trip; this was slow and unpleasant and added 5-10 minutes to my ride, which is a big percentage increase.

I have an excellent downtown route. Yesterday I made it to 25th & Lex from my house on the Upper West Side in 19 minutes, stopping only a handful of times. I go down Columbus Avenue to 77th Street, where I make a left and get into the park. I then take 7th Avenue south through Times Square (shitty, but I want to stay near Broadway. It’s really not so bad: it takes maybe 3 minutes to get through) — it would be awesome to go from 59th to Times Square on Broadway instead, but note that you’ll have to avoid the pedestrian plaza by getting on 7th at 46th or 45th.  At 42nd, I go left and get back on Broadway. Then at Herald’s Square, I go down the extended sidewalk on 6th, cross 34th on the east side of the street and then ride in the gutter against 6th avenue traffic to get back on Broadway.  Then it’s smooth sailing again down to 26th, where I make a left, go to Lex, make a right, and done!

The beautiful part of this route is that at no point are you really being overtaken by cars. The Columbus Avenue section is downhill, so I can keep a pretty good pace. The 7th Avenue section has proven quite empty (since 7th starts below the park!), so most of the time I have the road all to myself. Broadway is shunned like the plague these days and has a separated bike line – you have to be more wary of pedestrians walking wherever they damn well please.

I’m back in New York again, and I’m trying to take my bike everywhere. It’s a little different from Cambridge, to say the least.

I’m at school in Midtown on the east side, and live on the Upper West Side, so my natural route to school is to go through Central Park, down 7th Avenue through Times Square, down Broadway, and then cut east a few blocks at Madison Square. This is a pretty nice route, as the street portion of the ride is through low-volume areas, some even with good bike lanes. (However, the separated path in the 30’s is unusable, since it is basically an extension of the sidewalk.)

The trip back home is not so easy. The 40’s and 50s on almost every single uptown avenue are terrifying. I have ridden on 3rd, 6th, Madison, and 8th, and every ride has near misses. I will give Park a try today, I think, although the lack of staggered lights makes me nervous. Also, 2-way traffic means lots of people zooming across my lane without looking for bikes.

My question is, is there are a way not to risk death on the way home without diverting to the Hudson River Bikeway (an exhausting diversion)?