Bikes | RandoTips

The Copenhagen Wheel

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Beyond1200#5510970799316672322

The Copenhagen Wheel is touted as bringing the web, online social media, green power and cycling together.

The wheel itself feels like cool technology for technologies sake, and I don’t mind that. Efforts to do new things inspire others to do new things and that all works together in the end.

All it needs now is to include a Rohloff hub and you’ll have an ridiculously expensive wheel that does a whole lot of cool things. And it will bring your bike one step closer to being the electronic beast that most cars have become.

I have to give it credit for being a super-simple way to add electric power to any bike.

Here’s a video about it:

This was from an article at The Guardian.

Shimano MTB Cycling Shoes Review Update

The original review is at Shimano MTB Cycling Shoes Review but I took new pics with a better camera, so here is an update.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Beyond1200#5510940003743186482

Faithfully serving me for over a decade, this pair of shoes don’t disappoint. Being my fourth pair of cycling shoes they have lasted a helluva lot longer than any other shoes I have owned.

The typical minimal design and comfortable shape all make the shoes almost unnoticeable after I put them on and start riding. Seeing as I already did a overview of the shoes before, lets look at how they have held up specifically.

From the picture above, the areas of wear and tear are quite clear, but I’ll identify them more clearly here.

The leather has held up through all these years. It is has dried out and I have never applied anything to make the leather stronger or put back the shine. The original glossy red is no longer there, but still, bright red shoes don’t need to be shiny to be noticed.

The sole and the body started to separate a few months ago, as can be seen where the nose piece attaches to the main body. I outline how to repair shimano cycling shoes previously. After a bit of patching they are now ready to go.

With good fit, there is less necessity to have tight straps. Like the fit of a good helmet, the shoes should stay on even without being strapped in. This is true with this pair and the two straps serve as the final bond to keep your shoes and feet together. The straps combine a plastic strap part with velcro. The plastic and velcro are almost completely separated, so it seems the plastic part was superfluous and probably just there for branding purposes. The velcro still holds strong and will probably be strong enough to last for a few more years.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Beyond1200#5510940111682878386

The bottom of the shoes shows the deterioration of the rubber. Seeing as I don’t walk around in these shoes much the rubber has just worn out with time, rather than from heavy use.

The wear patterns do show the most contacted points of the sole. The area around the cleat is worn out because it takes a bit of beating when the engaging and disengaging the pedal. The nose of the shoe also takes a slightly harder beating when walking.

The hardened rubber no longer provides great levels of grip when walking on slippery surfaces and I need to watch out when walking on smooth, wet floors, but then again I need to be careful when I do that with all my ordinary shoes too.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Beyond1200#5510940891451020194

A closeup of the rubber near the cleat.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Beyond1200#5510940791701511106

The sole of the shoe has been strong and dependable.

As I haven’t bought any new shoes in such a long time I’m not clear if modern shoes experience the same problems as all my original shoes did.

At the time I bought my first set of Shimano shoes (not this pair) many of my friends had problems with the soles of their shoes cracking or breaking.

The sole of those original Shimano shoes cracked right across, just behind where the cleat was mounted. Friends were quick to tell me that it was because I did crazy things on my bike or that I was heavy, but that’s just rubbish and as these shoes have shown, those original problems were in the design.

This pair are as strong and dependable as before, although now a little tired looking, much like the dude who puts them on every now and again.

You Can’t Do That On a Bike

Why is it that people’s first reaction to a lot of my riding or any suggestions about riding is “you can’t do that”. There are unspoken preconceptions of what you can and cannot do on a bike, and even what is “normal” to do on a bike.

In general, riding more than 5km is not “normal” on a bike, riding fast is not “normal” on a bike, riding for more than like and hour is not “normal”, folding a bike and taking it on the bus is not “normal”. The list goes on and on, but I will spare you the rambling.

So this comes down to a problem of how we define “normal”.

For most people, this is how it comes out. They don’t do those things like that, so why would anyone else.

Well, here are some of the things that people do on bikes that are slightly out of the ordinary.

Endurance

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Mobile#5471033951220163890

A recent post on Taiwan in Cycles talked out Jure Robic, a Slovene who is considered to possibly be the world’s greatest endurance athlete. The picture above is him after 2,530 miles and 7 days, 9 hours and twenty minutes on the bike. In that time he only got 9 hours sleep and consumed a mind boggling 100,000 calories. At a different time he set a 24 hours riding record of 834.7 km.

The article in the New York Times outlines the metal breakdown he goes through in his attempts at RAAM, a non-stop race across the USA.

Definitely not “normal”

Speed & Distance

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Mobile#5471035309137834018

Bicycles are usually considered fairly slow, but here are some figures…

200m flying start record (HPV): 132 km/h
downhill speed record (on snow): 210 km/h
24 hour distance record (HPV): 1041.25 km

These are all records that were set on human power alone. The reality is that these were all achieved with very specialized bicycles and in perfect conditions, which might lead you to discredit them.

But not so fast, because the entire Human Powered Vehicle crowd are basically University students and people who do it as a hobby. There are no big sponsorships and to use a computing metaphor is closer to the open source crowd than to the battles of the big names.

Big Stuff Transport

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Mobile#5471033954412823490

Let’s get a little more practical. Moving big stuff is often a reason for cars, but just like trucks are specialized motorized vehicles more moving lots of stuff, so there are also bike for doing the same thing.

Introducing the Long John. Nope, not a pair of underwear to keep your precious bits warm in the winter, but a bike for hauling big things, typically up to 120 kg or so.

Not for long distances probably, but definitely convenient for errands.

Kid Transport

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Mobile#5468000275273485762

As a parent of two, one of my main struggles is with just how to take the kids along on rides. Oftentimes it is just me by myself, so I need to be able to get both on one bike.

My solution is to take a very standard production bike, put a kid seat on the back and another one between the seat and handlebars. It works, but does lack a bit of comfort for longer rides, which is where my other favorite kind of bike kicks in.

The cargo bike is designed with a very long tail, which adds stability when putting lots of weight over the rear end of the bike.

Take Them Anywhere

http://picasaweb.google.com/hellotopeter/Mobile#5470327669696775330

And finally, if you really need to take a bike with you and are short of space, something like the little guy below fold really tiny and can take you short distances.