Pedalling Along

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to day trips lately, what sort of provisions would be needed, and how best to carry them.  Currently I use a Carradice Barley, which is a handy little bag of 7 litres, and good for tools, phone, camera, tube, and a jacket; if needed.  Beyond that, you’ll notice that I’ve moved the Trek rack from the Cannondale to the LHT. 

With the Ixon on the LHT, I now have no qualms about riding at night, so having the rack allows carrying things for running errands and going to meetings.  The rack also reinforces my mindset that the LHT is a touring/work bike, so it is subliminally forcing me to slow my pace a bit when riding, because nobody goes fast on a bike with a rack….right?  The Cannondale is kind of stripped down, so its become a very light run around/backup bike.

The rack gives me some additional options.  I can easily strap something down onto it if needed.  I also have a pair of grocery panniers that quickly snap on and are very roomy.  The downside is that while they are good for short trips to the store, they aren’t that great on a day tour.  The rack also will provide support for a larger saddle bag if I chose to buy one.

So what should I do if I want to take a day trip, and need room for everything I carry now, plus some food, a dry shirt and socks, a rain parka, and maybe even a pair of casual pants/jeans?   I could just go for a larger saddlebag - something in the 12 - 15 litre capacity.  Carradice, Frost River, and Smythe all make nice looking bags, but they are pricey.  The new ones are in the $140 - $180 range, and used ones $100 - $130.  If I did this, I found a way to hack the bags so they can be quick changed, or I could just mount the Barley on the C’dale and be done with it.

Another option is to purchase a pair of panniers.  I think this would be overkill, but I’d certainly have room for a day trip and then some.  Frost River has a beautiful looking set for $135, and they would come close to matching the Carradice, and I wouldn’t have to mess with two pricey saddle bags, one of which would always be seeing limited use.  I’m also not sure how the bike would ride with the panniers.

A final alternative is to get a handlebar bag.  Honestly, I don’t like the looks of them that much; and I’m not sure it would work with the interupter levers anyway.

So I think I’l going to sit tight and see if either option 1 or 2 comes available on EBay.  I’m not ready to pay full price, and I can probably improvise for now.  My only other requirement is that whatever bag I get, it has to be the olive canvas…because it’s cool.

I have this plan to build up to a century this year.  I also am looking at being able to ride from my house to the Heritage Rail Trail and back; and survive both the traffic and the hills.  My ride to the trail follows the route I’ve been riding to get to Manchester, but then just continuing south to York.  For the return route I’m looking at taking Route 74 north through Dover.

Saturday I wanted to test the first leg with a ride to Rt. 30 via Manchester.  The only change to my usual ride was a detour onto Wago Road instead of following York Haven Road to Manchester.  Wago follows the river, so I figured it would be a bit more scenic and flatter.  I lucked out, and it turns out that it is one of the state bike routes (J).  The road is a little bumpy in spots, but its a nice level ride with a gentle climb into Mount Wolf, and then Manchester. 

Here are some shots when passing the Brunner Island Power Plant.  I shot these while riding, keeping the camera low so as not to attract the guys with sunglasses driving the black Suburbans.

The second shot shows a coal train about a mile long sitting within six feet of the road.

The rest of the trip was uneventful… a few good hills but nothing too hard heading into Emigsville.  The traffic picks up at the intersection of Rt. 181 and Interstate 83, and the only tricky part is the section from that exit into Rt. 30 - about 1/2 mile, because there is no berm.  I turned back at Rt. 30 because everything beyond is basically city traffic.

I took the same route back because I wanted to check out a recreational area on Brunner Island.  It looks like they have reclaimed some landfill area and built sports fields, hiking trails, and nature areas.

I had to make a pit stop so I took a turn and found a soccer match in progress!  I didn’t know that they even had a club in this area.  I stopped and watched for a few minutes, and what I found unusual was that these kids appear to be U9/U10 or so, and are co-ed.  Usually at this age you have one or the other, with the occassional stellar girl playing on a boys team, but in this case, both teams were mixed.  I’ll need to do some investigating.  The fields were in really good shape (meaning: not a very busy club), and they had some storage containers set up for equipment and mowers, etc…

The trip from York Haven to Lewisberry is a steady slogging climb - not fun for tired legs….but still a good trip.

Misc. miles: 8

Distance: 36 miles, 2008: 313.5

First, I had a very busy weekend; but fortunately it included a ride, so no real time to post until now.  Someone from the Bike Forums linked to some pics of the Long Haul Trucker, so my hit count has spiked through the roof, along with a slew of e-mails with comments and questions about the bike and the blog.  Fame is fleeting, so I’ll try to get back to everyone pronto.

A lot of bloggers posted over the weekend with some good stuff.  I wish I could be as eloquent some times.

‘just a couple of quick things: This was prom weekend, and my daughter’s first one.  I’ve mentioned this before, that she is drop dead gorgeous - not daddy thinks her little girl is cute; but daddy thinks she should send a few pics to Ford Modelling and give us all a free ride type gorgeous.  Other than the incredibly impractical spiked heels she wore, she once again proved me right.  For a balding droopy eyed guy with a list of maladies, she somehow ended up with the good genes.  She and her posse had a lot of fun, as it should be for all kids at that age.

We had to hurry back from the Mom’s Day festivities for a soccer match last night.  I got enough grief over the scheduling, but halfway there I get a call that the other team was forfeiting.  We still had to show up to prove that we were ready to play, but we were able to call the girls coming the furthest and tell them they could turn around.

I have never forfeited.  I know this other team has had problems.  They are young and over matched, so they have given up for the season.  I’ve been there with some of my teams, but we never caved.  The girls always fought on.  We knew that we were going to win last night, and we had talked earlier this week about not embarrassing this team.  Our plan was to get ahead, and then switch players around for fun and just work on passing the ball.  Too bad.  They should have come.  The remaining matches for the season are going to be against really tough teams for us, but we’ll hang in there and probably finish in the middle third of the division.  We have a good group of girls and they’ll be fine with that.

After some minor assembly and allowing the light to get a full charge, I mounted it on the Long Haul Trucker and tried it out.  The casing is hinged and opens in the back to give access to the four batteries.  The charging connection is underneath in the front.  The light itself snaps into the mount, which allows for easily changing between bikes; however the mount itself is pretty easy to remove and change to new bars - so no issues there.

I took it on the ride last night just to see if there might be any problems with how it was mounted to the handlebars.  Although I had my tires inflated up to 80 psi, which is a little higher than normal and quite bouncy, there did not seem to be any issues.  There are also 4 lateral positions that settle in with a click to accomodate different mounting positions on the curvature of bars, etc…

The light is not on…that’s just sunlight reflection.  The LED bulb is actually at the top of the unit, facing down into the mirror.

When I got home and it got dark, I took it out for a short spin.  This unit puts out some serious light.  I didn’t even bother with the low power setting - I went straight to 40 lux.  Just like Peter White describes, it puts out a car lane wide square beam bright enough to light up potholes and cracks.  I need to work on how high to focus it… far enough to give me a clear view of the road, but not high enough to blind on-coming cars.  Speaking of cars; I had two come towards me and the Ixon was bright enough that their lights did not wash out my view of the pavement.  I think I was comfortably cruising along at 12-13mph without any worries.

There is not a whole lot of spill light, so I had to be cautious of turning out of the beam.  There are some reflections that hit the ground right in front of the bike, so I see no need for a small auxilliary like some rando’s use.

Now the downside:  Peter warns of this: I guess the magnetic field of this light is so powerful that it locks up my wireless computer.  It seems to need 6-8 inches between the two for the computer to work, and that just isn’t possible on my bike.  Now, you can’t see the computer at night anyway, but I’m rather anal about tracking my mileage.  I could just re-install the Vetta, but I’ve become accustomed to the nice readout of the Planet Bike.   I think I’ll end up getting a Planet Bike wired unit, but I’m not sure what to do with the wireless.  I could put it on the C’dale and put the Vetta in the parts box; or I could just try to sell the wireless, but it’s hardly worth the effort.  Such problems to have!

Back to the Ixon:  After the first blush, I like it and can see why it costs as much as it does.  It’s much more than just a flashlight mounted on the handlebars.  I think I’m going to find a small plastic case for it to protect the lens from getting scratched when not in use; and I also see a lot more night riding in my future.  Five stars.

Did a loop around the township while my son had baseball practice.  Pretty much the same route with a little bit of exploring near the end.  It was a beautiful warm sunny evening - great night for a ride!

Misc. miles: 2

Distance: 18.2 2008: 269.5

I stopped out at Pedal Pushers yesterday to pick up a gift.  After salivating over the honey Brooks saddles that were on display, I talked to one of the guys about “business.”  Turns out the rising gas prices have them up to their eyeballs with work.  Anything beyond really minor maintenance will need to be scheduled five weeks out!  While I hope they can decrease that a little, I also hope that the work keeps coming their way.  Having too much business is not necessarily a bad thing.