Week of March 28: Four
April 1, 2010
Hunqa...we may shift the second top tube around. Lotsa thought going into this one. Just so you know, it may be more diagonal. Prolly this should be a "Peeking thru the knothole" post, but there it is. Keven and Jay got this started.....and I like it. So.....we'll see. It's a bad thing because no consensus.....
G
Here's a good story that...well, just read it.
Today's topic is Hearts, and here's something from yesterday's NTY.
Heart Rate Monitors and so on
I used to regard heart rate monitors as a tools for racers bent on exercising in the training zone as much as possible, but now I'm a fan. I wear one a few times a week to make sure I'm riding outside that zone. The 75 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate is the glucose-burning zone, which is evolutionary unnatural for any mammal. As an Unracer, you want to stay below it, in the fat-burning/easy riding zone about 98 percent of the time, and a heart rate monitor will help you do that.
You ride along thinking you're slacking off, thinking "I really should ride harder because that chunky guy on the Giant just passed me," and your monitor affirms that you're riding just where you should be. It's especially useful on hills. Hills jack up your heart rate really fast, and if your goal is to ride in the easier, healthier, fat-burning zone, you'll probably have to shift into your granny (small) ring to do that. If there are hills you used to ride in a 40x28 as a racer, you'll be riding them in a 24x32, and and maybe traversing, on top of that. The new 12 x 36 9sp Shimano cassette is a good way to go in hilly areas.
Racers don't allow themselves that luxury. They see every hill as an opportunity to get their heart up. They feel like cowards when they ride a familiar hill in too low of a gear, and they feel like slackers when they traverse.
Monitors are useful when you're riding intervals, too. In this case, it's the same for the racer and unracer. You figure our your target heart rate range, and shoot for 90+ percent of that. The monitor, not your discomfort, tells you how hard you're going.
Mr. Natural would never wear a monitor, but why not know how hard your heart is working? You don't have to wear one all the time. Once you've worn one enough, you can tell about where your heart is just by how hard you're breathing, or the effort in your legs. Wearing a monitor can help you learn about your body. Then, if your monitor bothers you or distracts you in any way, just don't wear it. I wear one about ten percent of the time, and always during intervals.
Of course you can take your pulse without a heart rate monitor. But not mid-sprint, and not without taking your hands off the bar and counting.
I have a cheap, one-button, two-function monitor that cost $50 (Polar brand) and it does all I need it to. There's nothing weird or obsessive about knowing what you're heart's doing.
----------------------
I think I'll write one on top of another (Sheldon called this "top posting," as I remember it, and do that a week at a time---three to six posts maybe. Then start again with a fresh one the next week, The title will be Week of March 28 ONE or TWO or THREE or however many posts there are.
It's a variation of how theonlinephotographer.com does it, and it makes it easy to see the other posts of that week. I can't believe I'll stick to this as stated. I'll change it somehow, but for now that's the plan.
Hunqanews: More stuff up soon, and we'll have two or three bikes built up and ridable, testable, by the end of the week. Not sure which sizes yet.
Here's a peek at the grey/orange combo we're working on:
---------
Riding on dirt roads and fire trails...a little thing about it
The Bike
You don't need a mountain bike with sophisticated, articulated, complicated suspension to be safe, comfortable, and efficient on dirt roads. You just need reasonable tires a good minimum is about 35mm wide; and good technique, and lower expectations.
The best bike for woodsy riding is a low-tech, suspensionless, dull-colored bike that doesn't encourage you to go full blast down every trail. It may have two-inch or even bigger tires, but it's not a bike that's forgiving of reckless riding and excess speed. On the contrary, it forces you to get off now and then, and ride at less than full-blast speed the rest of the time. Walking the bike is no sin or sign of defeat. Your bike in the woods is a convenience for when conditions allow riding, and a walking partner, a pair of wheels without the barrow, when they don't.
Handlebars
Any kind of handlebar works great for off-road riding as long as it's set up comfortably for you. Drop bars are associated with road riding, but high, wide drop bars work terrifically on trails. And so will any other bar that's high enough.
Height is rather key, especially on descents. As I've already mentioned, a key to good descents is keeping your weight back so you can brake effectively, and if the bars are higher, it's easier to do that. Most riders do best on descents when the top of the bar is level with or even several inches higher than the saddle.
Tires
Not racing in the woods quintuples your tire options. The big knobby 2.2-inch fatties cushion and grip more, both good things, but if you scale back your speed about ten percent, refine your technique about twenty percent, and pay about five percent more attention to the trail, you can ride 32mm to 35mm knobless road tires on most fire trails.
Those tires would handicap you in a race, but they're good for you in the woods when you aren't racing. You'll go slower, so you'll see more. More of the trail, for sure, because you'll have to pay attention to the best paths through the rough or mucky spots, but you'll also see more of the land, because even in the smooth sections you'll be riding slower.
Hikers respond much better to bikes that look more like wimpy underbikes than motorcyclish overbikes, too. They see you as more vulnerable, more outgunned by the trail, and they'll often wish you well.
How small you can or want to go with tires should depend on the roughness of the trail, your weight, and your skills. If you're used to riding huge tires and full suspension (and haven't quit reading this already) and you want to mess around with skinnier tires, first mess around with medium sized tires, in the 40mm/1.5-inch range. That's my favorite size for all-around riding, roads or trails. Going smaller isn't a sign of higher achievement, and isn't a worthy goal. The whole point is that once you agree to slow down in the woods and pay a little more attention to what you're doing, you don't require super macho tires.
Brakes
An unracing, or hiker's approach to woods riding doesn't put a premium on brakes. Any decent medium-to-high end brake works fine, and if you're riding small to medium tires, that includes sidepulls and centerpulls neither of which will fit a big fat knobby, which is why they're usually off-limits on trails.
Braking power is a widely misunderstood quality, especially on dirt. It's usually too easy to lock up the wheels when the traction is low, and so the last thing you need then is more brake power. Where pure brake power matters is in wet, slimy, even oily conditions, more often found on roads than trails.
Then, a disc brake beats all others, but even so, don't ignore your own strength as a component of braking power. Riding a bicycle on the road or trail sometimes requires unpurchasable hand-strength.
Most of the time, though, the braking goal is to not lock up the wheels, and for that you need brake control, or what, these days, is usually called "modulation."
A brake that's easily modulated is one that responds most predictably, linearly to your squeezing of the brake lever. If you have to squeeze hard to have any effect, and then just a little harder still locks up the wheels, that's not good modulability.
But guess what? Modern brakes aren't that wacky. Whether they're sidepulls, centerpulls, cantilvers, V-brakes, or disc brakes, they're all predictable, and therefore easily modulated. You squeeze harder, you stop more. Anytime you try a new kind of brake, or you introduce a new rim or tire or brake pad or lever or even cables into an existing brake system, you're supposed to get a feel for how it works now.
A change of cable probably won't make any difference, but a different kind of brake pad will. Cleaning your rims may. The point is, you try it out and adapt to it before risking your health with it.
Fenders
Whether or not fenders help or hurt depends on the mud and water on the trail. If the trail is muddy and the mud is sticky, they'll jam up and make life miserable. If the mud just flings off the tires without packing them, they're good. In dry conditions, they don't help or hurt. In really wet conditions, you should try to avoid trails, anyway, because riding a bike (or a horse, or hiking) on muddy trails damages them more.
Technique
Good technique means comfort and safety, and it's not so difficult.
Nothing teaches like experience, and although books have been written entirely about technique, this isn't one of them. Even so, when it comes to riding on trails, there are three things that will keep you safe and comfortable almost anywhere, all the time.
