Cat 6 and other cranky observations

I was riding home today and a guy on a bike was riding down the wrong way of the street towards me. This happens sometimes. I just hold my line and they always move.

But in this case, it turns out the guy was running down a guy in a car that must've blown the stop sign at the Centennial Trail crossing. The biker guy was yelling at the car dude while riding toward me.

Thankfully, I had Greg Graffin yelling at me in my ear buds so I couldn't hear the biker guy or what his particular beef was.

Then the biker guy swung off behind the car, did a u-turn, and then rode on the wrong side of the road in the opposite direction, just in time to cut me off as he turned onto the Hamilton St overpass. As I climbed the overpass to pass him, he drifted left. Ugh. I paused. He drifted back to the right, then I passed on top of the over pass.

That was it for that deal. I took off and was on my way.

I had forgotten about him until I approached nun statue where I had to pass some walkers. I was shocked to see this dude right on my wheel when I looked over my shoulder before passing the walkers.

Whoa. Freaky. Like one of those horror movies where the victim is looking out a dark window, the lightening flashes, and a big scary face is just right there. He was in my bike bubble for sure.

I immediately figured out that I had unwittingly just participated in my first Cat 6 stage and I wanted out. I slowed down and just focused on not paying attention to the guy, who thankfully peeled off under the Opera House.

One thing I've learned after lots of riding is to let stuff roll off. People (regardless of their mode of transportation) do unpredictable stuff all the time that has the potential to ruin my day/life when I ride. I watch for it. I expect it. Most of it is not done out of malice. And even if it is, what's the point of running them down?

This guy was pretty amped up. He was on a fancy double-boinger mountain bike and was all kitted up. I'm thinking he doesn't get out in traffic much because if you took the time to run down every cyclist or driver or pedestrian that does unpredictable silly stuff, then you'd never get anywhere. And you would be angry a lot. And the fun part of being on a bike would go away.

Speaking of which, I'm kind of fed up with the fact that fun is sort of a side-benefit of a lot of "why you should bike" stuff that I read. Newsflash: Fun is the point. All the other stuff (health, environment, easy parking, etc) is a side benefit. I've got enough to say on that to do a full rant and I just might do that.

Also while I'm cranking out the crankiness: I don't really say hi or wave to cyclists anymore. I used to. And I used to get sort of huffy when other cyclists didn't wave. But when I drive a car, I don't wave to all the other car drivers. Why would would I? I'm not unfriendly and I'll wave back if someone waves, but generally, I'm just spacing out and in my own world when I'm riding. And I like that.

Initial impressions - Chrome Kursk Pro spd sneakers

The folks at Chrome sent me these shoes to review. I've been wearing them for a couple weeks and so far so good.

The fit is nice -- I'm used to getting squeezed out of most bike shoes, but the sneaker shoes fit like I want any shoe to fit. Not too narrow in the toe and enough room for mid/light-weight wool socks. The DZR's fit ok in this department, but these Kursk's are even better on the snugness scale. That is, they're not too snug.

One thing to watch though - the Chromes run long. The Chrome person who helped me recommended sizing down a half size. I did and the fit is right. I wear a 45-46 in Shimano and a 11 in most other shoes. These are 10.5's.

Final note on fit is a gripe: my heels slip up a bit when I walk in these shoes. And when I'm pushing my bike up a steep trail, my feet nearly pop out. Staring at the shoes, I can't quite figure out why this happens. Maybe the heel-pop is the trade off for the slightly roomier fit that I prefer? If so, I'll take that trade, but the shoes become a tad less useful as daily drivers and trail riding.

I like the rubber toe. When I was a kid, my mom forced me to buy shoes with rubber toes, which were uncool in junior high (thing Stan Smiths... a shoe I never owned), but now that I pay for my own shoes, (uh... well most of them anyway)... I get the rubber toe thing. PLUS -- it's a nice wind block. I've been wearing these shoes in our unseasonably warm winter, but I'm still happy as I tool around in sub-40 weather. How's that for rubber toe protection?

If I were king, I'd place the lace-keepers one more set of laces toward the ankle -- to hold the laces better.

Installing the cleats was easy. There's plenty of room for pushing the cleats way back, which is where I like them. In fact, the Kursk cleat bed is unique among my many SPD shoes in that they actually have more backwards room than I use. The cleat cut-away leaves lots of room for pedal. All-in-all, the cleat implementation is well-done on these shoes. Which is surprisingly rare for most non-race shoes that are SPD'ized.

Like all non-race SPD shoes I've tried, the shoes are stiff, but not crazy stiff. They suit me just fine in that department. Aside from the heel slip thing, the Chromes are comfy enough for walking around and daily life, which for me is a lot of sitting punctuated by a few rides. I wouldn't want to walk more than a couple miles in these shoes. But, I'd rather not walk more than a couple miles in any shoe, so that's not saying much about the walkability of this shoe.

I'll follow up with report on durability. And warm-weather breathability and the resulting funkidelicality or lack thereof.

SOS classic

Classic SOS ride today. To have a classic, Joe must be there. It must follow a classic route. It must be socially paced. And the capper: it must end at Indaba.

Done. Done. Done. and Done.

Glen. Clipping out.

Joe

A bit a of snow. Likely a "trace" in the parlance of the pros.

Indaba

Snow, finally

Hopefully it piles up enough for Pat.

Moose da (麋鹿)

I've been quietly grumbling about all the increased traffic on the HD trails for a while. It's inevitable. Most runner/walkers get it -- they appreciate the efficiency of stepping off the trail to let bikes pass. When it makes sense, I'll roll up the side of a trail to let a group pass. It's all about efficiency.

Whatever. I try to avoid the trail on weekend mornings and the top trail on weeknight afternoons, but sometimes you only get a small window to ride, so you gotta take what you can get.

See the moose up there?
Right on the stinkin' trail.
No getting around that dude.

Today, the trail hog was a moose. I'd put moose in the camp that doesn't "get it." But like big red-neck trucks on a rural road, moose get the "I'm bigger" pass for not getting it. So I work around them. Especially when they're traveling with a mom. I didn't see the mom, but the guy high-tailing it down the trail with his dog towards me said that the mom lowered her head at him like she was going to charge. Yow.

I've run into this pair before. A couple years ago, they were hanging out on the other side of Hatch Road, below the Pines development.

I make a point of giving them lots of room.

The context-less track.

To see exactly where the mooses were this morning, you can study the track to see where I had to double back twice.

Dirtying my hands

A while back, I mentioned my relationship with Elephant Bikes. I do stuff for Glen. In trade, he does stuff. One of the stuffs he does is fix my bikes. Which is sweet.

Every now and then though, I have to do my own maintenance. Like tonight. Oh the horror.

I've pretty much been mostly on the Legolas for the last couple months. I've lubed the chain a couple times, but I've not done anything else.

So after riding through a bit of snow and ice and rain and then some mud a couple weeks later, I wasn't that surprised to find that shifting into the smaller cogs is rather sluggish.

Tonight, I blew out the housing at the rear derailleur, piped some T9 in there, and cleaned off the crusted mud along the length of the shift cable. There was a lot of mud caked on, in, and around the cable and surrounding crevices.

Given the warmish weather, I just might hose the bike down after tomorrow's ride.

Wow. Cleary, the well o' blog content is frighteningly low. I just posted about lubing a cable housing. Sorry about that. But all I want to blog about is heart rate stuff, and I find that sort of freakish. So I'm resisting that urge. For now.

Calories

A year or so ago, I counted calories on a Droid app and actually lost some weight. But generally, I don't count calories. I pretty much know what I need to eat and not eat (and drink) if I want to maintain or lose weight.

But this watch/GPS/HR monitor outputs total calories burned. And it's sort of interesting.

I only went on two "real" rides when I was visiting the Seattle area last week: a trail ride at Ebey and a short road ride on south Whidbey.


I think Dylan and I rode about 1/2 the trails at Ebey in the 2 1/2 hours we were out.
Click picture to open the map in Garmin-land.

It's interesting to me how many more calories I burned on the trail ride. It's not surprising -- because when I'm gasping through the (mostly) up parts of the trail ride, I'm feeling it. But when you see the numbers laid out on paper, it's weird.

The trail ride

Distance:	12.89 mi
Time:	2:40:36
Avg Pace:	12:27 min/mi
Avg Speed:	4.8 mph
Elevation Gain:	1,094 ft
Calories:	2,057 C

Avg HR:	146 bpm
Max HR:	197 bpm

The road ride

Distance:	17.32 mi
Time:	1:32:07
Avg Pace:	5:19 min/mi
Avg Speed:	11.3 mph
Elevation Gain:	1,434 ft
Calories:	813 C

Avg HR:	134 bpm
Max HR:	167 bpm

Trail ride is longer time-wise, but otherwise: less mileage and less elevation gain. The road ride had a couple hard climbs. But the trail ride is over twice the calories burned.

The Garmin software calculates calories burned as a function of heart rate and time. It also knows my weight an my "fitness level," which I put as a "3" -- which is just fit, not crazy fit and not slothy.

The net: pushing your heart rate burns more calories. Wow! I should write a book.

Btw: the 197 max HR bpm on the trail ride is wacky. I would've known if I hit that. I rarely hit 180. And my top has been 183.