Cycling

The road

Posted on 2012-01-28 12:39 by rv

I hope the author doesn't mind that I quote here in full the bit he wrote in bicycle traveler of January 2012. Just reading it makes me want to hop on my bike right now.. You can also find it on his blog: http://revolutioncycle.ie/?p=400

Someday, all of this will come to an end; the sleeping rough, chiseled calves, calloused arse, taking 8 hours of exercise a day, wearing the same clothes for two weeks straight, having an interesting topic for conversation, worrying about incline, gradient and road surfaces, eating like a horse, being able to eat a horse, not knowing the name of the town I’m in, forgetting the name of the person spending the night with, cycling another twenty km till lunch to save 50cents, living out of a waterproof bag in a steel trailer, saying Irlanda 30 times a day, saying no/non/niet/nine/ not Hollanda… Irrrrrrlanda, assessing the quality of a book by its size and weight as well as its content, wondering why anyone would ever wear clothes that are not waterproof/breathable/quick drying/light/thermal.

Someday, I’ll be home; I’ll have a fridge, a cooker, a shower, a cupboard and a bed, I’ll be able to close a door and be by myself, talk to people in complex English with an Irish accent using colloquialisms, slang and very specific Alan Partridge references, I’ll be able to get out of my bed and not have to pack it away, and go to bed without waiting for darkness or asking some one’s permission, I’ll have to get up at a specific time and do tasks that someone else dictates, I’ll have a phone and a set of keys.

Someday, my life will be normal again, and uninteresting, and I’ll probably miss my stop on the train because I was daydreaming about when I lived on a special simple world called the road.

Posted in Cycling

Look at that!

Posted on 2011-12-25 19:39 by rv

Look at that! Santa gave me in-screwable bar ends for my bicycle! I find this absolutely brilliant.

Also, this was my end-of-year summary post. Ha!

Maintenance

Posted on 2011-11-20 13:17 by rv

I finally fixed my flat tire this weekend!

Messing up the living room

The slime inner tube I bought turned out to fit perfectly for my rear tire, which is slightly wider than my front. I doubt that it'd fit in as easily in the front tire too. Unfortunately the slime tubes with presta valves don't come any smaller than 1.75".

Sicily 2011

As you can see the brake blocks very urgently needed a replacement too. I drove around in London for weeks with these without running into issues simply because it's so flat around here. I finally got the tuning of the brake blocks right and they're better than ever.

Xi let me borrow a really nifty chain cleaning tool that you can see in use here on the top bit of the chain.

Chain cleaning thingie

It brushes each link in the chain while you rotate the pedals, and then the dirt gathers up at the bottom.

Dirty dirt

It's clean now. I sprayed the chain and it's running smooth again. It's going to be in this condition for a while as I probably won't be taking it out a lot this winter. London is just a shit place to cycle. Everything looks the same, the road quality is terrible and there's busses and other horrible traffic everywhere. Besides that, the areas in London are very regimented. Residential areas are really only residential. You can go in and explore for a bit but the only way out will be to go back to the main road that you came from. The main road that's full of buses that overtake you and then stop right in front of you at the bus stop, only to repeat the process again 1 minute later. London is not for cycling.

But I know some countries that are. :)

Posted in Cycling

Wheel

Posted on 2011-11-18 00:03 by rv

Posted in Cycling | Tagged wheel

Limits

Posted on 2011-10-31 20:58 by rv

I go the gym twice a week. It's become a fairly regular activity. When I first started going to the gym a couple of months ago, I did a bit of running and a lot of cycling, in about a 4 to 1 ratio. These days, I'm only cycling, and for a longer period of time. Twice 35 minutes is my current workout. I can keep it up nicely at a medium to high pace. But I've reached my limits, and I cannot surpass them. Not with the amount of time I've got, anyway.

Last year, cycling through Japan, being on the bicycle for 8 plus hours each day, I was improving. There is a certain point of change, under which you slump back into being what you are now, and above which you will start to improve yourself. Given my build, my current weight, and the amount of time I make myself available to train, I am unable to improve myself. Simply put: I'm quite fat and I have a weak heart. The counterpoint to that is that my muscles are strong. Whereas most cyclists seem to do very high rpms to decrease the burden on their muscles, I prefer to burden my muscles and decrease the load on my heart. Whether this is to blame on genetics giving me a crap heart or lifestyle and lack of self control making me fat, fact is: my muscles are the most reliable part of my body. Yet I can't improve them.

My lack of self improvement issue very evident my the modern machinery they have available in the gym. I know exactly how much calories I spent, what my average rpm was and what my heart rate was like during the exercise. Knowing that it's very easy to tell myself: "next time I'll just do a constant 10rpm more"' or "next time I'll increase the load on my muscles". But I've tried that, and I don't improve. My performance is as constant as the massive puddle of sweat under the fitness machine after I've finished exercising.

Time is the key factor. I know I'm slow at improving, especially when it comes to physical matters. But I simply don't have enough of it. To surpass that point of improvement, beyond which I will see tangible results, I can't reach my goal by just spending 1 more hour each week. It's not that easy. I need 8 hours or more. This is an absolute and unchangeable fact I have come to understand about myself over the years. I have a full-time job, a 1.5 hour long commute, a girlfriend, and many hobbies that I enjoy very much. Exercising more means neglecting other important parts of my life, not just because of the physical effort, also because of the mental effort (and tired mental after-state) that accompanies it. Therefore, I must remain mediocre at best.

Until my next cycling trip, that is.

Posted in Cycling , Daily Life , Thoughts

The Zone

Posted on 2011-09-26 21:16 by rv

I've been going to the gym for two weeks now, and I have to admit that I didn't do a lot of exercise at all before that. My good shape from last year's cycling trip completely lost, I have to start from scratch again. I think my body is slow to respond to anything. It takes me ages to get it to wake up and get into fitness mode, and after cycling and running it takes ages for it to realize that I've stopped running. It's 3 hours after running now and I'm still in hyperactive mode.

The first few times I went to the gym I really could not find my comfort spot. I just ran around, spent a lot of energy and never felt really comfortable. But today, for the first time in ages, I found the magic zone again: that same zone I used to cycle in back in Japan. Every time I'm in the zone my breathing changes to a more efficient pattern, and I suddenly feel as if I have more sensation in the tips of my fingers and toes. Better blood circulation, perhaps? In any case, once I'm in the zone, I can keep it up forever. I've noticed in the past, when going on cycling trips with friends, that others are much quicker to get in the zone than I am. It takes perhaps up to 5 minutes for them, whereas it takes me easily 10 or 15. But they are easy to snap out of the zone too, whereas my body just keeps going. I guess I'm just slow to react to change.

Posted in Cycling

Dirty

Posted on 2011-08-29 16:57 by rv

Posted in Cycling

Yup, it still works.

Posted on 2011-08-20 18:04 by rv

Cycled around London a bit. Tried the Endomondo app but it turned off on me halfway through. Oh well. Here's the result.

Posted in Cycling , Uncategorized

Downhill

Posted on 2011-08-18 23:31 by rv

Posted in Cycling , Photography , UK

Bicycle safety

Posted on 2011-08-03 21:53 by rv

I've had a flat tire twice in the past two weeks. Both times it was after leaving my bicycle in an area that I didn't think was very safe, and both those times it was most likely just my own fault. I parked my bike at the station again today, and I felt extremely relieved after coming back that it was still there and in one piece. My two flat tires and countless warnings from friends about how unsafe London is for bicycles have made me wary about leaving my bicycle anywhere. But is that justified? I'm still hoping it isn't, but I'm not keen to find out.

Posted in Cycling , Daily Life , UK

← Newer posts

Cycling

Older posts →