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.
Last Thursday I took a ride to help me prepare for the upcoming NYC Century ride. My route was as follows.
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)?
I thought I’d fill in a few rides I have done just for completeness.
1. The Ashuwillticook Rail Trail was beautiful. It runs along the water, not very close to the road, not many road crossings. My only wish was that it had a swimming hole, too.
2. When I got my fixed gear back last month, I just went out around Boston in any old direction. At the time, I couldn’t even find all the roads on the map. However, when I went to Jamaica Plain a few weeks ago, I was able to place everything much better. I still am not sure of the second half of the ride (starting with Stony Brook and going until Boston College), but here’s the route anyway (with notes to jog my memory). It was hot. It was on big roads. There isn’t much to recommend it; I probably should have stuck with my original plan to go on Jamaica Way.
3. This isn’t a single route, I just wanted to reflect on how lovely it is to ride around Cambridge and Boston, especially late at night. At least half a dozen times I have taken the bike out after midnight and ridden the nearly empty streets of Cambridge and of Boston. As much as I don’t like nighttime activities in general, these have a special charm; after a certain hour, you get to see such interesting characters with their guard down. Some favorite roads and places are Broadway and Cambridge Street, Cambridgeport (which always confuses me) and Downtown and the Financial District. For a while, Beacon Street just out of Inman Square was cursed; before my bike got its spiffy upgrades, I consistently lost my chain at the top of the hill there. During the daytime, I am a fan of the Somerville Community Path east of Davis Square, which is the extension of the Minuteman Route.
As I indicated in my previous post, I’ve been learning how to get my chainring straightened out. The internet, as far as I can tell, basically only has Sheldon Brown’s useful (but slightly cryptic) explanation of how to do this. However, now that I have dealt with it, I understand the issue better.
Recall that the role of the chainring is transfer energy from your feet (by way of the pedals and crank) to the chain and eventually to the back tire. Because every ounce of energy your feet put into the pedals is meant to be transferred into the chain, getting very low resistance makes a huge difference in the feel and performance of the bike. When there is too much slack in the chain (low tension) or the chain binds at any point (high tension), that is energy that should be going from your feet to the wheels, but is instead being dissipated by inefficiency in the system.
