Saving Weight

How many times have you heard someone say, "If I really wanted to save weight on this bike I'd lose some weight"?

I've said that to my riding friends many times. My weight has been steadily rising over the years, taking me from a sleek 166 when I got out of the Marine Corps all the way up to 282 this July. Things were getting to the point that there were several bikes I just couldn't ride because I was over the weight limit. I've tried many diets and found that i could lose the weight, but I just couldn't keep it off. Exercise wasn't the answer either. I consider myself an active person and I love being on the bike, but the more I exercised, the fatter I got.

So, on July 28 I had a sleeve gastrectomy here in Houston.

The surgery was laproscopic. I had it on a Tuesday, was home on Wednesday and back at work on Monday. I was riding again about 10 days after the surgery.

80% of my stomach has been permanently removed. What remains is the size and shape of a banana. I feel stuffed after eating only 4 ounces of food. So far I've lost 27 pounds in the last 4 weeks. I look forward to dropping another 70 pounds or so. I feel great and only wish I had done it sooner.

My stoker and I will be heading up to Wichita Falls on Friday for the Hotter N' hell 100. I can't wait.

Gearing Up

I had a little minor surgery in July so I've been away from this blog for a while. I'm recovering nicely and was able to get in a short ride on the Oregon over the weekend. It felt good, but i don't have all my strength back yet. During my hiatus, it occurred to me that this would be a good time to make a change on the back-to-back that I've been thinking about for the last few weeks.

The bike has 3 speed Sachs hubs on both ends. My stoker and I have noticed that we typically spend all our riding time in 3rd gear unless we're climbing. Then we drop down to 2. Neither of us have ever used 1. When the bike is going downhill, we can't keep up with it and are unable to apply power, even in top gear. On flats our speed is limited not by leg power, but by our ability to spin fast enough to keep up with the bike. In short, the bike is geared too low for us. The other problem we've noticed is that in top gear, my stoker is always spinning a little faster than I am. No, I can't see her back there, but at times, I can see her shadow on the side of the road and observe her cadence.

So I decided to run the bike over to Danny, the Cycle Genius, to see if he could up gear the bike for us.

As usual, Danny came up with a solution. He removed the old drive chain rings above the derailleurs and replaced them with larger ones. This isn't as simple as it sounds. The old chain rings were 48 teeth in the front and 46 teeth in the rear. This explains why the stoker spins faster. Both chain rings are now 54 teeth. As a practical matter it may be necessary to fit a floating idler on the front (ala my Oregon)to be sure the chain aligns properly in all gears.

In back it was necessary to raise the rear idler so that the chain would clear the new, larger chain ring. This meant taking the idler off of it's frame mount and moving it up to the rear handlebar stem. The height has to be adjusted carefully since these are flip-it handlebars.

This new configuration should provide better utilization of the gearing rage of the bike. It should also allow for better speed. I can't wait to get the bike back out on the road, but that will be at least a couple of weeks.

Tour De Braz 2009

I wasn't planning on doing this ride this year, but David told me he was doing it few weeks ago and asked if Liz and I were riding it. David hasn't ridden much with us this year, so what could I say? That, plus Liz loves organized rides when she can sit on the back of a back to back tandem and talk to riders as we pass them.

I wasn't sure Liz would be okay with getting up at 5am and leaving the house by 5:30, but she didn't bat an eye. So we saddled up and headed to Alvin.

We planned to register at the ride, but I am usually able to print off a registration sheet the night before and fill it out ahead of time. I couldn't do that with this ride since I was unable to access the forms once online and mail in registration closed. That ought to be changed.

The crowd at the start looked to me to be about the same as last year: 400-500 riders. We parked in a satellite lot and set the bike up for the start a little ahead of the start line. I did notice that there were no ride photographers on the route as there were last year.

I sold the Flevo a month ago so we were on the Barcroft this year. Weather conditions were about the same as last year...windy. The Flevo was an excellent bike in wind and the Barcroft is as well. The routine is pretty much the same. In downwind or crosswind legs of the ride we can hold our own and pass many DF's. On the upwind legs, however, we are able to pass most DF's without really trying. The ride was upwind for the first half and basically crosswind and tailwind for the last half. That's a perfect setup!

There were a couple of glitches with the route, but for the most part, it was well marked. There was certainly plenty of sag support and I don't think we went more than 15 minutes without being passed by a sag wagon or a ride official on a motorcycle. Just as last year, ride registration bought you lunch of Sloppy Joe's, chips, drinks, and Popsicles.

We completed 47.4 miles and crossed the finish line around 10:30 before it got really hot. We enjoyed this ride and will probably make it a regular part of our season.

Nocom

It's been a few weeks since my last post. The Flevo is gone and I'm down to just two tandems now. I had been looking at the Longbikes Jetstream to replace the Flevo, but decided that the high price tag of the bike, though perhaps justified by the quality of the bike, was not worth it to me since it would not result in a significant improvement in performance over the Seavo. The fact is that I love speed. That's the real reason I sold the Screamer, the V2, and the V2 Formula 26. Each bike I've purchased has been faster than the last. That's not an uncommon evolution for cyclists. So, I'm not going to buy a Jetstream.

That brings me to the Nocom.

I didn't know much about this bike until I saw a "for sale" posting for one on BentRiderOnline. I was taken by it's beauty and the feeling the bike was in motion when it was standing still. The price was excellent, but I was about an inch too short to fit the bike. Having done a little research, however, I was hooked. Now I just have to find the cash to get one.

Sold

My beloved Flevo is going to a new home this month. I'd been edging towards selling it ever since I got the Barcroft back to back and I guess Liz breaking her hip and feeling nervous about getting on the Flevo was the last straw. It's going to a good home, but I'll miss it.

With this infusion of cash it's time to do what comes naturally: buy a new bike. I'm looking at a Longbikes Jetstream. It's a stylish looking thing, but I know going in it's not going to be as fast as my back to back or my Seavo. I've had some trouble finding out how much the bike weighs. The manfacturers website does not list the weight in the specifications. I need to do more research.

Flevo for Sale?

Since I got my Barcroft back to back tandem, Liz and I haven't ridden the Flevo back to back as much as we used to. It's not that we don't enjoy it immensely when we ride it. We do. It's not that it isn't a great bike. It is. It's just that since we got the Barcroft Liz decided to start clipping in. She felt more comfortable doing this on the Barcroft since it's so low to the ground. She's closer to the pavement and I can hold her up easily on the Barcroft when we stop. Eventually she gained the confidence to clip in on the Flevo too, but for some reason, she always felt more comfortable on the Barcroft.

Liz had a hip replacement last month from a non-biking fall. She's talked to the doctor about getting back on the bike and he gave her the okay. She worries, though, about breaking the other hip in a bike fall. Given her additional comfort level on the Barcroft it seems unlikely that she'll ever get back on the Flevo, at least not any time soon. A bike like this needs to be out on the road, not hanging in my garage. I'm thinking about selling it.

Tour de Houston March 2009

I missed this ride last year because of my broken femur so I was anxious to do it this year. My lovely stoker was still recuperating from here hip replacement and couldn't ride so I took my new Barcroft Oregon. I picked up friends Jim, Danny and David and we loaded all four bike on my Tahoe and headed downtown.

Three bikes went on the Draftmaster and my new Oregon fit neatly in the back of the truck. I work downtown so our first stop was to see if I could edge the Tahoe into my parking garage three blocks from the ride start. Unfortunately we were too tall by an inch or two. We opted for a pay lot right next to Discovery Green.

Packet pick up the day before the ride had been disappointing. I seldom sign up for organized rides in advance but I did so for this one because I wanted the T-shirt. Danny and I stopped at a Guaranty Bank branch (Guaranty sponsors this ride) on Saturday to get our packets. There were no T-shirts at this location. Oh well.

There were at least ten Porta-Potties on Discovery Green. Nevertheless, David and I stood in line for a good 15 minutes to get into one. Right after I reached the head of the very long line someone pointed out that there were public bathrooms just a few feet away with no lines. The story of my life.

Someone told me at the start line that 5000 had signed up to ride. Looking at the crowd I could believe it. The start was well planned. Start times were staggered by route distance. Riders were further staggered by starting in limited groups to reduce congestion. I had no trouble pedaling on my SWB single recumbent right from the start. There were so many riders, however, that I never really broke clear of the pack for the whole 40 miles ride.

I enjoyed the ride route since it took us through the heart of Houston. Leg One was up through the Heights with the first rest stop at Reagan High School. I realized after the first few miles that I was on the wrong bike for this ride. The Oregon rides on 451 wheels inflated to 100 lbs. The frame on the Oregon is, of necessity, pretty stiff. This bike on these wheels is fast, but the combination is not conducive to a smooth ride on city streets like these. This ride was a tooth rattler! If I do the ride again it will be on more forgiving tires.

This brings me to accidents. I personally saw two wrecks happen and passed several others that had already happened. I watched one young lady go down about 100 feet ahead of me for no apparent reason. She was riding in the open and fell as we passed over Memorial Drive. I could see no reason for the crash except that one of her wheels must have dropped into a crack. It seemed to me that more people were crashing on this ride than other rides I've been in. I'd be interested in the numbers. My theory is that it was due to the city streets and the fact that there were so many bikes that riders never really broke free of other bikes. There were bikes all around me for the whole ride. With the bike traffic and city streets, constant vigilance was required.

At Reagan High we bumped into Paul and Cyndy with their homebuilt Bilenky type tandem.

Leg Two took us down through Montrose, over the Southwest Freeway on the Mandel Street bridge and through Mid Town and Montrose down to North Braeswood and then up Weslayen to Rest Stop Two.

This leg of the trip took us along the north side of Rice University and then down Main Street to Braeswood. There were police blocking traffic at all busy interections and the route was well marked. Indeed, there were so many bikes on the road it would have been virtually impossible to get lost on this ride.

Rest Stop Two had a forest of Porta Potties. There was no wait!

The remainder of the ride was consisted of retracing our steps back over the 20 miles we had just traveled.

There were festivities at Discovery Green at the end of the ride. A free lunch from Antoines was included in the price of the ride along with free beer. Not bad. All this was followed by live music.

I will do this ride again next year, but on a different bike.