Fenders

My Brompton has fenders. Getting the fenders was the easiest way to get the rack with wheels. (The wheeled rack with fenders is an option when you order the bike. And I'm all for easy.) The wheeled rack lets you move the bike easily when it's folded. It also becomes a stable bike stand for the partially folded bike. 

It turns out, fenders can be handy. This week I got caught in not one, not two, but three downpours on a single ride. The neighborhood roads I was on quickly turned into shallow lakes. I picked my way around the worst spots, but I had to ride through a lot of water. 

On my other (fenderless) bikes, my kit would have been splattered with road filth. But all the water that got to me was rain coming from above. I was soaking wet when I got home. But that was it. Wet. No filthy stuff all over my legs or back. 

Fenders do look quaint. But maybe, just maybe, I'm going to learn to love them.

Time is the longest distance between two places. (Tennessee Williams)

It's been 5 months since I traveled anywhere. I'm still trying to get used to the idea of being in the same place day after day, week after week.

My original plans for this summer and fall had included some trips with my new Brompton folding bicycle. I had planned to spend a few nights with friends in states up north. Like these friends, I'm in my 70s. The travel plans and the visits have all been moved to next year. The short and simple story is the Brompton and I won't be traveling together for almost a year. 

Even getting the new bike felt different this year. New bike! What's not to love? But I got anxious, irritable, and depressed every time I tinkered with it. The problem wasn't the differences between the Brompton folding bike and my other bikes. After all this isn't my first folding bike. (It's my third.) 

The Brompton is going to be my utility bike for errands and such in Miami and a travel bike. I just needed a little adjustment time to tamp down my excitement about the travel part and ramp up the fun of the Miami utility bike part.

I made a list of little jobs the Brompton needed. Seemed like a good place to start. The jobs were easy. I cobbled together a seatpost light mount that I liked better than the original. I needed a way to mount my Garmin. I located a spare quarter-turn Garmin mount, and, with a lot of effort and a good deal of colorful language, fitted it on the M handlebar. I made some minor adjustments to the position of the handlebar. Working on the bike got me excited about riding it. So that's what I did.

So, a month after its arrival, I'm giving myself a do-over: I've got a new bike! It folds. I can take it into stores and offices. (No more searching for a safe place to lock my bike. No more worrying whether it will still be there when I come out.) And it's cute. It's been a while since I've had a decidedly cute bike.

What's not to love?

The new Brompton. My third folder. So far, I love everything about it!

Our first folding travel bikes, Bike Fridays.

Our second folding bikes, inexpensive folders, were easy to carry inside the car on trips to the city back when we lived in the boonies.

Satan called. He wants his weather back. (Anonymous)

It's 7:30 AM. Al and I are pedaling down the road. And it's freaking hot.

How hot? To use my favorite Southernism, it's so hot chickens are laying hard-boiled eggs. The ride has barely begun, and I am soaked with sweat.

Half the fun of biking during a heat advisory in South Florida is cataloging the comments from friends. There's the usual squad that expresses fears that you've lost your mind. There's another crew that itemizes the exercise opportunities that can be done indoors or in a pool. Then there's my favorite bunch. They just think it's hysterically funny.

Why are we out there? Well, Al and I keep our lives moving along by trusting in rituals and routines. Rituals are little actions performed almost automatically before an activity. Like checking the tires on your bike before heading out on your ride. Or going through a little gear list (phone, wallet, keys, water, snack). Rituals calm you. Routines are the bigger picture. Like how we ride 4 days a week. Always the same 4 days of the week.

Routines are powerful things, the things that drive both your good and your bad habits. Because of Covid-19, Al and I have lost our group rides with friends and our travel. Those are on hold. There's a very real heartache for that loss. Still, we follow our routines to whatever extent we can because it gets us out on our bikes riding the miles we want to ride.

After our hot, sweaty ride, I'm chatting online with a friend. She's telling me about taking her dog bikepacking with her. I tell her about our ride and how hot it was. "Idiot," she says. "So you had fun, huh?"

"Couldn't be happier if I had good sense," I replied.

You can’t have everything. Where would you put it? (Steven Wright)

Al and I live in a studio condo. And into it, we've fit four bicycles. I wanted to add a folding bicycle for me. 

My two bicycles were stacked behind the sofa in our main living area. A Brompton bicycle would fit, folded, neatly between the back wheel of my rebuilt titanium mountain bike (now a travel bike) and our IKEA desk. The accessories would all fit in our big bike cabinet and my little travel gear cabinet. 

So with great excitement on my part, I ordered the Brompton in January. Delivery was scheduled for March. Then came Covid19 and chaos to businesses around the world. I'd ordered a customized bike and accessories. They were coming from London via New York City, both hard hit early in the pandemic. Six months after ordering the bike, it was delivered to Miami. Two minor accessories were not in, but was I willing to accept delivery and get them later? I most certainly was!

So now I have my new bike. And, more importantly, I have a place to put it in our very tiny home.

A Tale of Two Saddles

I'd had the same saddle on my road bike for years. It was a sleek carbon fiber featherweight that fit my sit bones perfectly. I used to joke that I wanted to be buried with that saddle.

But when I started clipping in again this summer, I had a bit of a problem with it. I needed to make this little weight shift with regularity as I pedaled. A little adaptation that made my surgically remodeled feet work with the clips. When I did it, I kept slipping a tiny bit on the slick saddle and hitting a hard edge. Ouch! I practiced the move for almost 150 miles of riding. I just could not make that little weight shift without getting bit by that hard edge.

The covid19 pandemic makes this a particularly bad time to try out a bunch of saddles at a bike shop. As luck would have it though, I just put a new saddle on the bike I use for my Running Away From Home on a Bicycle trips. It's a great saddle, but it sure doesn't have the style of the elegant little carbon fiber saddle. It took me a week to decide to screw style and just put a Selle Anatomica R2 on my road bike. 

The Selle Anatomica is a clone of the Brooks saddle which is famously comfortable. The Brooks is an adjustable leather saddle made in the UK. The Selle Anatomica is made in San Diego. A friend of mine in California loves hers and wanted me to get one. I'm not a fan of high maintenance leather saddles. But then the company came out with the R2, the same saddle but made with vulcanized rubber instead of leather. Just what you need in Miami where rainy rides are pretty common June-November.

It didn't take much time to order and get the saddle. I popped it on the road bike as soon as it was delivered. It is amazingly comfortable on the road bike. And I could do that little weight shift without an ouch! 

There was another surprise, too. The saddle acts a bit like a suspension saddle, providing protection from bumps and road chatter. 

Function and comfort beat out style. (Cheers to that!)

It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. (Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark)

One of our favorite weekend bike rides is from home north to Hollywood along the barrier islands that make up Miami Beach and a couple other beach communities. Sometimes we stop at the Broadwalk in Hollywood. Sometimes we head to the state park north of Hollywood. It's true we're slowing down. What used to be a "recovery" ride is now a perfectly pleasant weekend pace.

 

This week we decided we wanted to head up to Hollywood for our Saturday ride. The Broadwalk wouldn't be open until next week, but Al and I aren't ready to visit any restaurants or coffee spots anyway. (It's going to be a while.) We just wanted to ride a bit on the frontage along the beach in Hollywood. The whole area is opening up for business again, and traffic is pretty much back to a light normal. It was a beautiful ride.

When we got home, I checked our mileage for the year. Al's mileage is decent, but mine is a bit under 3200 miles. I wasn't expecting a high mileage year, but that still surprised me. No travel, covid19 closings of parks, and bad weather have taken more of a toll than I guessed. It makes me wonder what I've been doing with my time. But the year is only half over. Lots of rides still ahead.

Pedal, pedal, pedal.

Luck's always to blame. (Jean de La Fontaine)

I'm clipping in again on my road bike. If I want to keep up with Al, I need to ride without flat pedals.

The bike shop put on my Shimano Click'R pedals. These are by far the easiest pedals on the planet to clip in and out of. Then I put multi-directional SPD cleats on my bike shoes. Easy peasy. You unscrew two little screws on the soles of the shoes. A piece of sole pops off. You attach the cleats with the two screws.

Years ago I had this done as part of a bike fitting. Unfortunately, I can't see a fit guy right now because of this virus thing. So I basically trusted in luck.

There are a row of joints, the MTP (metatarsophalangeal) joints, that form the ball of the foot. I needed to know the line these joints make on my foot. Everybody's foot is different, but for most people, the MTP line won't go straight across the foot. It will angle a bit or a lot. Once I knew the points on each side of my foot, I put my foot in my bike shoe and marked those two points on the sides of the soles. 

The point nearest the crank should be slightly in front of the pedal's axle. The outside point should be slightly behind the pedal's axle. 

I was going to do the first short ride with Al. I thought I'd just trust luck. I was a bit short of time, so put the cleats in the middle position on my shoes. (You know, the Goldilocks setting, not all the way forward, not all the way back.) I knew they would need adjustment, but the thing can only move a part of an inch. How big a deal can it be? I was just going to practice clipping in and out and stuff like that on my first ride. I hadn't done this stuff in a couple years, and I was a bit anxious.

It turns out, it can be a big deal. In 35 short miles, my left knee hurt, my right ankle hurt (a lot), and my right hip hurt. I limped when I finally got off the bike.

I adjusted the cleat positions to make the MTP joint lines align properly with the pedal axles. The next day Al and I took another short 35-mile ride. Success! No pain in the knee, hip, or ankle. 

Lucky me.