RBENT Ride
Bright and early Saturday morning, a group of us recumbent riders got together for our own little parade. About a dozen of us met up in Richardson and rode down to the head of the White Rock Creek Trail, where we met up with about a dozen more before continuing down the trail to White Rock Lake.
Unlike my usual club rides, this one included a fair share of the sort of slower rider that most people associate with recumbents—which was fine, because motoring along an eight foot wide bike path at much more than our 12-13 mph pace would've been irresponsible. There's just too much bike, roller blade, stroller, and pedestrian traffic on the trail to get up a good head of steam without the risk of hurting someone.
But once we got down to the lake, that was a different story. We split into a faster group and a slower group with the fast group taking to the road and the slower group sticking to the trail. Each wedgie that passed us and each remark like "Oh! Look at the senior citizens!" drew whimpers from my Corsa (or Ba-Cheetah, as some of the group refer to the highracers), but FlyingLAZBoy calmly reined us in until after the first rest stop. And then it was time to "do the demo", charging north along the west side of the lake into a slight headwind at around 20 mph, dropping wedgies like junk mail.
Photo by Paul Brown
Photo by Paul Brown
After a couple passes like that, we'd gotten the demo out of our systems and made our way back north to the cars, after which we garbaged up on quesadillas and burritos as big as your head. Much fun was had by all (and I didn't fall over).
Out on a limb
Or, more to the point, up on a ladder.
Last weekend, Turtle and I bought a ceiling fan for what we affectionately refer to as the library. All week, it sat in the garage, and all week Turtle—either distracted by her own goings-on or simply displaying monumental patience—didn't harrass me about it.
Yesterday, I decided I was going to put the thing up.
Now, I've never been much of a do-it-yourselfer. I lack the necessary skill, tools, and extra hands necessary to complete most home improvement projects to my exacting standards. I'm also terrified of electrocution and drowning, so I avoid wiring and plumbing tasks like the Black Death.
However, after thinking about the installation process, I reckoned that the trickiest part of putting up the fan was going to be taking down the chandelier that was already hanging where the fan needed to go. At this point, I'll spare you the blow-by-blow of assembling and installing the down rod, blades, light kit, etc. and just say that after 2 1/2 hours of standing on a stepladder, grunting and (at times) cursing, Turtle and I stepped back to admire our new fully functional ceiling fan.
We were both impressed with the fact that it operated with nary a wobble, and that flipping the wall switch didn't start a fire. Probably because I had my fingers properly crossed.
I love a parade
Actually, I don't; but we sure had a doozy last night.
By now, many of you will have heard about the slow-speed chase that wound its way through three north Texas counties yesterday evening, but for the benefit of those who haven't, here's the short of it:
- A 32-year-old man stuck a gun in the face of a customer in the parking lot of a Lowe's in Carrollton.
- He then proceeded to wreck the stolen car, and when a local pulmonologist stopped to see if he was okay, the gunman stole his car
- Next stop: Fairview, TX. Fairview is a very small town with practically nothing in it but farmland and very large, very expensive houses. It's also the northern neighbor of Allen, where Turtle and I live. We ride our bikes there. In Fairview, the gunmen left the doctor's car and hijacked a bright red semi (with trailer) owned by an Allen couple. He kicked out the husband and held the wife at gunpoint, making her drive the truck.
- From there, they headed south through Plano, Dallas, and Oak Cliff before heading west on I-20.
- The police spiked several of the tires, but the truck continued west, riding on the front rims, all the way to Ft. Worth
- After shooting out some more tires, the radiator and (according to one report) the gas tanks, the police finally got the truck stopped. The gunman released the hostage, and the police shot tear gas into the truck cab, forcing the gunman out. So no one got killed.
Granted, this sort of thing has become sort of passé since the O.J.-in-a-white-Blazer incident back in '92 or so, and I'm pretty sure the Los Angelenos would tell me this is a daily occurrence there.
What bugged me is that, once the local TV stations started televising the progress of the chase from their helicopters, literally hundreds of people began lining the overpasses along the chase route, all straining to catch a glimpse of the truck. Turtle and I cringed as, at each overpass, people dashed from one rail to the other—oblivious to slow but still-moving traffic—to make sure they didn't miss one second of the spectacle.
What's wrong with people? (The question is rhetorical, for the record.)
9 comments:
I'm also terrified of electrocution and drowning, so I avoid wiring and plumbing tasks like the Black Death.
Well, certainly don't do these two things simultaneously, but I never thought of drowning in my own plumbing before. Near-Death By Toilet is not one of the stupid-but-true tales I have up my sleeve. ;-)
Glad your fan is twirling without sparkles.
Has anyone ever ridden a recumbent in the TDF? Just wonderin' if it's allowed.
Gwynne: I wasn't thinking of doing the porcelein face plant so much as botching a washer replacement that would cause the whole house to be flooded.
Don't quote me, but I'm about 99% certain that there has not been (nor will there be) a recumbent in le Tour. Putting aside the question of legality for a moment, and even assuming that a professional cyclist could get strong enough on a recumbent to do all that mountain climbing, I just don't think that even the fast recumbents could do well in a peloton of wedgies. They'd throw the drafting out of whack, and they're not nimble enough to deal with all the jockeying for position (IMHO).
I found this quote on a recumbent FAQ that I found rather revealing:
"After a French rider on a recumbent set a new world record in 1933 the UCI outlawed them in 1934. After Tim Brummer, designer of Lightning Cycles won a US national championship on a lowracer the USCF outlawed them in 2005. When a reporter asked Lance Armstrong about recumbents he said he would try one if they were legal."
On the same site, there's a history of recumbents that's kind of interesting (if you're interested).
Since I live in Texas, I was watching this "chase" as well. What bothered me was the reporters asking the police chief what they were about to do and how they were going to do it. You know the guy in the truck could just listen to the radio and hear the cops plans. The police chief had to keep telling the reporter, "I'm not at liberty to say".
Eric: I haven't tinkered with the components, other than to gradually lower the rear seat supports and to slide the seat forward. For some reason, as the rear is lowered, the seat needs to be closer to the cranks to maintain the proper distance.
There isn't much clearance betwixt knees and bars, though. Sometimes, if I don't get seated in just the right spot, I can feel the hairs on my legs brushing the crossbar. But for some reason, if I get the seat adjusted so that my leg extension is correct, I don't have clearance problems. I'd have even more clearance than I do, but I tend to prefer pointing my toe a bit more than a lot of recumbent riders do. You may have noticed that my foot isn't 90 degrees to my leg at full extension, in the picture. I've tried that, and I lose a lot of power that way. I think I've just gotten used to using more of my calves than is usual.
I have no basis for comparison, but I imagine that the highracer design is generally more awkward than many recumbent designs. At least, when it's sitting still, starting, or stopping. I can't imagine using this as my main bike for trails or commuting, but get it out on the open road and it's quite comfortable... and quick. And that's what I bought it for.
Lance: We're on the same frequency. I was listening to some talking head on the radio this morning, and he's going on about how the guy in the truck couldn't possibly know what the police were planning. As if any long-haul trucker doesn't have a TV in the sleeper. Duh!
To me, it always feels like I can get a more circular pedal stroke if I'm not quite so close to the pedals. Not only do I have more ability to compensate for variations in my seating position, but the pull portion of the stroke seems more natural when it's more or less parallel with the sole of the shoe (so my heel is pulling into the heel cup). I see these guys who have their foot at a right angle to their lower legs when at full extension, and I keep thinking they must have a lot of problems with shin splints, if they try to pull at that angle.
I don't think I'm in the market for a fairing (and I don't think you were serious), but I went and looked anyway. I'm not familiar with the recumbent models they tested, so I don't know whether any was similar to mine—but their results seemed kind of inconclusive. In fact, it kind of sounded like only one of the bikes saw any appreciable aerodynamic benefit.
So, although something like that might be handy when being pelted with soft drink cups by passing motorists, I think I'd be better off putting the $100+ toward another ceiling fan for the house!
I'm with you on the electrocution thing. Plumbing is not a fear so much of injury to myself as injury to the house. I picture exploding toilets, sinks crashing through floors, geysers of water everywhere... and the Random Wife calls our trusty plumber. I'm allowed to fix leaky toilets and running faucets, after which I flex and gnaw on beef jerky.
My ceiling fan story: I put one up in the Random Daughter's room, and everything went extremely smoothly. Too smoothly. It hung there nice and snug, and the lights lit without browning out the remainder of the house, but when I turned it on, it made some horrendous screeching sound and I quickly turned it back off.
We had some other work going on at the time, so our electrician stopped by a day or two later and after about five seconds of contemplation announced, "Oh, you didn't take the brakes out." A couple of twists of his screwdriver later, he had removed a set of rubber stoppers that were installed to keep the rotor from, uh, rotoring during shipment.
I could have sworn there was nothing about those rubber thingies in the instructions I didn't read.
So, is that YOU in the picture?
Yup, that's me. I kind of look like one of the Killer Bees from Saturday Night Live, huh?
I haven't seen Saturday Night Live in a long time.
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