Bikes!

[Griff]

Nice bike weekend coming up in Binghamton. The Chris Thater races are going on at Rec Park. Pro racing Sunday.

[breakingnews]

I went on the <A HREF="http://www.times-up.org/cm.php">critical mass</A> protest ride here in NYC last night. My first time. I knew it would get ridiculously political re: the convention, but I felt compelled to go for the cause, which was a real take-back-the-streets rally-against-oil-companies-and-cars theme. It's true, there could be a lot more done for cyclists here and everywhere across the planet.

Police said there were about <A href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/28/politics/campaign/28protest.html">5,000 cyclists</A>. The ride went well, until the end when people just didn't seem to want to stop, which ended in 100 people being arrested. I left shortly before that because I wanted to go get wasted last night. :P

A few pics from the ride. First is from Union Square before it started - taken mostly because the reporter was cute.

Oh, apparently my pics are too big. I'll have to upload to web then, which I don't have time to do now, damnit.

[Skunks]

Originally Posted by Griff

Are Eugenes bike lanes legit or are they door zone lanes? A lot of towns put a bike lane along side parked cars, which is much much worse than no lane at all. If its there cars expect you to use it and if you use it you will eventually get creamed by a door. I try to stake out a place for myself in traffic but let people pass when safe.

It varies. The smaller residential roads often have no marked lanes and light enough traffic that you can just go where you want. The larger streets mostly don't have any parking on the side. In the few spots of 'door zone lanes', I mostly just hit the sidewalk. But yeah, it's pretty killer when they try that stuff on you.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by LabRat

Well, i rode 'em, and I pick up my new OCR2 on Sat, WOO HOO!!!! I feel like a little kid

Ok, LabRat. Share with us. Did you get out for a ride on your new wheels?

[breakingnews]

Couple neat shots from the critical mass. Kinda disappointing results with my Sony P-8. Apeture settings weren't good enough, and on-board flash certainly didn't cut it either.

First failed attempt at taking a pic while on my bike
<IMG SRC="http://www.supdogg.com/wfphotos/criticalmass/images/image_5.jpg">

Kind of a dark shot, but you can see how many heads there were in the crowd
<IMG SRC="http://www.supdogg.com/wfphotos/criticalmass/images/image_9.jpg">

Approaching Times Square
<IMG SRC="http://www.supdogg.com/wfphotos/criticalmass/images/image_13.jpg">

Neat Times Square shot
<IMG SRC="http://www.supdogg.com/wfphotos/criticalmass/images/image_14.jpg">

At most intersections, a few riders would sacrifice themselves to stop traffic. And on a Friday night in NYC, indeed they did.
<IMG SRC="http://www.supdogg.com/wfphotos/criticalmass/images/image_18.jpg">

[LabRat]

Originally Posted by dar512

Ok, LabRat. Share with us. Did you get out for a ride on your new wheels?

Yeppers, yesterday was bee-yoo-ti-ful here in eastern Iowa, so we dropped the offspring off at grandma and grandpas (i don't have a trailer yet), hubby went jetskiing with a buddy, and i went for a spin. We went to George Wyth State Park, in Black Hawk Co. a place where i did a lot of mountain biking when i was in college at UNI. There is an incredible network of paved paths that go thru the park and into both Cedar Falls and Waterloo, which is what I rode. My butt could only take 14 miles, but it was wonderful. Of course, before i even left the parking lot, i did the mandatory fall over while still attached to the damn pedals and mucked up my right wrist pretty good. took a nice chunk out of the left handlebar too, but at least no one saw it. (i didn't hear anyone laugh anyway) The shifters on the brake levers are new to me, and i thought they would be hard to get used to (my 93-94ish trek 820 has grip shifters) but it turns out i love them. after loosining the spring tension on my pedals, i practiced attaching and releasing my shoes while riding and that is a lot easier now too. hopefully won't be putting on any shows at busy intersections... the only thing i'm not familiar with is changing a flat, but at this point i won't be going anywhere remote so i'm not too worried about that. all in all it was a great day, and i figure by next weekend my butt will be ready to try another spin. till then i'll just stick to running, it's less technical on my christmas list is definately one of those seats with a cut out tho. never really needed one for my mtn bike, because you're out of the seat enough that even if you go for 2-3 hours, your butt isn't really all that sore.

thanks for asking!!

[LabRat]

Breaking, AWESOME pictures!!! looked like a whole lot of fun!

[dar512]

Originally Posted by LabRat

on my christmas list is definately one of those seats with a cut out tho. never really needed one for my mtn bike, because you're out of the seat enough that even if you go for 2-3 hours, your butt isn't really all that sore.

thanks for asking!!

You might be interested in this bicycle saddle page.

[Griff]

Very cool pics.

We saw the tailend of a nasty crash early in the Thater Memorial Cat 1/2 mens race. We heard a couple sick thuds. I turned in time to see a pile of bikes and a wheel bouncing away. A mess of riders went down and two stayed down. One guy hit the curb and the other other pancaked on the pavement. Apparently someone shot into a gap which wasn't there when he arrived. Last I heard there was a concussion a broken arm and a lot of road rash. That was rough.

[Griff]

Road with some out of shape folks Saturday. We did about 35 miles, nice day for a ride. I got a frozen yogurt at the half-way point, everyone else went the ice cream route. Pete had the ice cream and a hamburger, lives to ride/rides to eat that one.

Sunday the guys came over for a mountain bike ride before we went to our various clam / Rolling Rock oriented events. My trails are in pretty rough shape. Blood was let, tubes were blown, skin was flensed, and demons were exercised. I'm gonna have to work on my cassette and cog cuz I'm getting slippage when I crank in the granny. Good rough fun.

[zippyt]

ALERT !!!! I just found this page , it has a video of the lock being opened with a ball point pen !!!!!!!!
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...8&page=1&pp=25

Just thought i would pass this on .

[russotto]

Oh, that's bad. Either the manufacturing tolerances are very poor or the springs on the pins are very weak or both.

[Griff]

That is really weak. Folks spend a lot of dough on those Krypto locks.

We got up early and went up to Oakley Corners (near Owego NY) to mtn bike this morning. It was pretty rough and tumble, very slippery. I lost my mojo at one point, if anyone finds it drop me a line. I found a slightly used one, a few minutes later, that I put some dents in but it's still servicable. It was friggin cold out there this morning my lungs still feel pretty burnt. Great ride though we went hard and and broke stuff.

[glatt]

Here's a funny auction on Ebay of a bike lock.
bike lock w/ two keys

[breakingnews]

Griff or any of your northeast folks, you guys get slammed with those ridiculous winds on Saturday? I tried to go out for a 50 mile solo - I got to the NJ side of the GW Bridge and just couldn't do it. Way too exhausted pushing through the wind by myself. I turned around and headed for Central Park - where a sharp pebble tore through the top of my rear tire. SUcks.

Counting the days until a new bike arrives ...