Last Ride of August

By CE Taylor

The last OWLS ride of August departed the church Tuesday evening for a ride north of town.  Sixteen bikes plus one tandem headed out Highway 45 to Tunnel Road.  We had short stops at Mt. Gilead and Tunnel Road to regroup.  The ride down Lentz was far more pleasant than the climb up Lentz we did a month ago.  The group had split into several smaller groups by this time.  After the climb up Firehouse Hill on Old 37 we met for the last time at the fire station.  The route then went east on Bethel and then south past Griffy Reservoir.  It is sad to see the water plant infestation in the lake.  As usual on our evening rides, once we got back to town, riders split off and rode their separate paths home.

It was a great evening for a club ride.  We had good weather, challenging hills to climb and friends to ride with.  If you haven’t been out riding with one of the weekly groups you are missing out on a good time.

RAGBRAI 2011

By Jim Schroeder

Sylvia Stoub, Sandi Owen, and Jim Schroeder travelled to Iowa for their summer vacation.

Iowa? an exotic destination? in July? the heat? the humidity? corn? why?

If you know anything about bicycle touring, then you'd all know that Iowa in July means RAGBRAI - The Register's Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa!  They've been doing it for 39 years now. There's 10,000 riders registered for the week; 5,000 more on day passes and about 10,000 more bandits or locals.  This should be on every biker's bucket list!  This is the only ride I've been on where state highways are closed off by law enforcement for the bicyclists.  Small towns shut down and cater to the bicyclists passing through and will sell anything that is edible or drinkable or photographable for their local fund raisers!  Each day is about 65 miles and each town that RAGBRAI passes through is like a county fair.  The overnight cities bring in top name entertainment, but we were usually too exhausted after setting up our tent, showering, and eating supper.

This is one ride that is not about the miles nor the bikes.  It's about the people: the bicyclists, the city folk, the farmers, and even the vendors!  At least every mile there would be a vendor selling or giving away water, gatorade, freeze pops, smoothies, secret potions, lemon shake-ups, french toast, pancakes, corn dogs, pork chops, ice cream. or even beer.

Lance Armstrong even dropped in for a day's ride.  I didn't see him, though.  I was relaxing under a huge shade tree in some farmer's front yard.  I guess the ride could be described as a Hilly Hundred on steroids.  We spent more time eating, drinking, and relaxing.  We met a lot of nice people, especially those from Iowa that are awful proud of their state and this ride.

Oh, did I tell you about the heat?  It was over 100 for two days, and the remainder highs were always in the mid 90's!  Iowa could have sold us shade but they didn't.  The funniest sales pitch was "$1 for a dip in our swimming pond, free for skinny dippers"

For a week long ride there were highs and lows.  Most cyclists are worried about two things at the end of the ride: showers and supper.  Each hosting city had a different list of priorities.  The best would have to be the small college towns.  They had it figured out.  Don't ask me about Altoona, though!

Here are some of Jim's photos. Click on them to see full-size images.

Tire Tools

By Allan Edmonds

After my experience of a couple weeks ago with four flats with bad tubes (and my blistered right thumb) I was primed to be thinking of alternative tire tools. Although I've never had much problem getting a tire off using two standard tire tools, my hands and wrists just aren't strong enough to muscle a road bike tire all the way on without tools more than one time in ten. (I've always succeeded well enough with the larger tires on my commuter hybrid.)

So I perked up when we got email from new BBC member Jim Walls about an invention of his from some years ago that he is now actively marketing, called the COBRA TOOL. Here's a picture:

Jim wrote,

"I am a new member to the BBC. I am also the inventor of the Cobra Tire Tool. This is a new tool that I introduced to the cycling world at last year's Hilly Hundred. I designed the tool over 13 years ago but just recently started producing it for sale.

The tool is totally homegrown as I designed it here in Bloomington and contracted with a manufacturer just south of town to produce the tool.

I am trying to get the word out locally and would like to offer the Cobra Tire Tool to the BBC members at a discount. "

The information on the Cobra Tool highlights its use in removing a tire. (That's the part that's never given me much trouble, although others may differ.) If you've struggled with tire removal this might be just the thing for you. Check it out! They don't say much about using it to put a tough tire back on the rim. What they do show seems to involve using the Cobra Tool by hand just like any other tire tool to pop the last hard bit back onto the rim.

Here's a review of the Cobra Tire Tool by Jim Langley at RoadBikeRider.com, entitled "Cool Tool for Tire Removal".

And here's a link to Jim's web site at cobratiretool.com  where you can view a video of the use of the Cobra.

Good luck to Jim marketing his neat invention. If you've struggled getting tires on or off, you might like to give it a try.

Jim is offering the Cobra at a discount to club members. He writes "I would like to offer the tool to BBC members for $4.75 ea. including sales tax. Members can contact me direct on my email for questions or to make a purchase. Shipping and handling may be additional depending on quantity and destination. All orders that are hand delivered will be for free!" Contact him jimwalls@cobratiretool.com.

***

For my own purposes the best I've found for remounting a road bike tire has been the VAR tool. You can read about it at this blog posting . It has two parts that together can be used like ordinary tire levers for removing a tire. The creative part is how you take the main"wishbone" piece, straddle the tire, and pop the last, hard bit onto the rim. The VAR tool is reputed to be hard to find. But a web search should turn up something. I bought mine several years ago at a local shop. The funny thing was that in a pinch I always seem to forget just how to use it. I'm hoping that this latest study of the two alternative bike tire tools will help me remember how to use the VAR next time I need it.

P.S. While working on this post I discovered a You Tube video that shows a technique for working a tight tire onto a rim by bare hands, by pushing the done parts so the bead is deep in the rim well, giving just a bit more slack on the diametrically opposite side of the tire. The demonstrator uses string or toe straps to hold the done parts deep in the rim. It looks pretty good for working at home, but not like something I could pull off out on a ride.

Four Bad Tubes

By Allan Edmonds

A couple of weeks ago I rushed out to the garage at 7:30 am to pump up my tires in preparation for heading to Bryan Park for the Saturday. The tire flatted. I proceeded to change out the tube and discovered a leak at the base of the valve stem. That's one reason I don't like smooth valve stems. Every time I put my pump on, it pushes the stem into the wheel slightly. After a year of that it eventually gave out.

I put a new tube in, pumped it up, and re-mounted the wheel on the bike, and it went BANG! Oh, no. I must have a bad tire.

At that point I gave up all plans of going on the club's Cordry-Sweetwater Ride.

Later I inspected more closely and couldn't find anything terribly wrong with the tire. What I did find was a long 8 or 10 inch split in that unused tube.

In any case I went downtown and bought a couple new tubes and put one in the tire and one in my seat pack, while waiting (impatiently) for Tuesday's OWLS ride.

We didn't get any farther than Snoddy Road when my tire went flat again. I changed out the tube (with another 4 inch split) with assistance from a few friends on the ride. Pumped it up. put it on the bike. FLAT AGAIN, with another split! John offered me his spare. To be safe he pumped it up slightly and found that it didn't hold air either. Another brand new tube with a pin prick hole. By then CE had come back looking for me and offered me his spare tube. That one held up.

By that point I was exhausted. That's when I noticed my right thumb hurt. It turned out that I had created a big blister trying to get my tire back on the first time without using a tire tool. (Subsequently my friends encouraged me to use a tire tool for the last little bit, which worked.)

My bike was working, but I decided just to head home.

Four Bad Tubes

Next day I bought two more tubes from another local shop. So far so good. I've done a Saturday tour and two weekday training rides with no problems. And a week and a half later my thumb is almost healed. A heck of a week, though. And that sore thumb got me to thinking about tire tools and how change tubes more easily.

A True Experience

By Allan Edmonds

After having some issues with bad tubes, which I'll report on separately, I realized my rear wheel had some very loose spokes and was badly out of true. So for the first time I took out my never-before-used spoke wrench, consulted my bike repair book, turned my bike upside down, and endeavored to fix things. I actually improved the wheel a little bit, so that at least it wasn't rubbing on the brake pads. But it still had a major wobble.

At that point John Bassett offered to loan me his professional quality Park Tools truing stand. I accepted the challenge and studied up some more on truing wheels, listened to John's voice of experience, and set to work on the wheel.

I removed the tire. I also lightly oiled each spoke nut. One of the things you need to avoid is just twisting the spoke without ever turning the screw end.

So I found the worst spot and loosened a couple of spokes on that side and tightened two or three on the other side. Then I repeated that process several times.

Overall the whole wheel was pitched slightly to one side so I also carefully loosened all spokes on that side a quarter turn and tightened the ones on the other side a quarter turn.

I checked for roundness of the wheel and didn't see any major problem. Then I checked for trueness again, made a few more adjustments and finally declared the job done.  I reinstalled the tire and was ready to go the next day.

It may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than before. And I was happy to use that spoke wrench I got for Christmas a couple years ago.

Dark and Wet

By Allan Edmonds

Thirteen OWLS debated among themselves whether to do the planned route, do a shorter route, or jump ship altogether, given the questionable skies and weather forecast. Eventually we decided to do the planned 26 mile Triple Creek Ride, originally designed by former club member Al Abbott (now retired and living in Arizona, and by all accounts primarily doing mountain biking). That led to our uncharacteristically late departure at 5:48 PM.

All went well as we headed out to Kerr Creek off of 46 (= East Third Street) just east of 446. We sailed down into the valley along Kerr Creek, then turned up along Getty's Creek, stopping briefly at the new bridge where we joined up with Mount Gilead Road. We next stopped at the church on Brummett's Creek Road, near Unionville.

It was time to start heading back toward town and the sky in that direction did not look good. But there was nothing to be done but set out. Soon it was thundering and raining and we naturally had to slow down a bit, especially on the down hills. Those who had rear flashers or headlights along all turned them on.

Before long we were pretty well soaked. Suffice to say we were not hot. Pretty soon we had to climb Fleener, one of the steepest climbs around. As Dave remarked he was never before so comfortably cool after climbing Fleener. There was a near problem when one rider tried to stand up on the pedals and had his rear tire slide out from under him. and then when he put out a foot that slid out too. He barely missed me, and I was able to continue riding. But four bikes behind were forced to stop mid hill, and they all had much trouble trying to get started again.

Several people wisely opted to walk down one of steeper down hills since their wet brakes seemed unreliable and the wet road was very slippery.

By the time we were back to the top of Kerr Creek Road the rain was pretty much over, and I began to feel better and safer. In due course we all made it home safely, with an average close to 13 mph over 26 miles, after one of the more memorable rides of the year.

P.S. Reports are that the FOWLS cut their planned 30 mile ride short and were back to Cascades Park before they, too, got wet.

Larry Limestone Tour, August 13

Jerry Arveson led a reprise of his fun "Larry Limestone Tour," a drive-and-ride out of Heltonville, about 20 miles south of Bloomington, on Highway 58, just off of 446.

One group left Bloomington early by bike to turn the ride into a (near) century. See Mike Finger's report below.

I was the last to arrive, about 9:08, by which time the whole group had already started out. A couple of friends saw me drive up and waited a few minutes for me to catch up to them. Otherwise I would have been riding by myself the whole way.

It was a beautiful cool morning for a ride that takes us onto some roads that we rarely ride on out of Bloomington.

The route went clockwise, starting at Heltonsville. The main group stopped at a store in Leesville, but had just left by the time my little trailing group got there.  We did meet up at the next stop (at the turn south of Buddha ad Pinhook) and had a larger group riding along, including ride leader Jerry.

At two points we encountered evidence of severe tornado damage. Here's a photo of the first one, along the eastern part of the route:

The main group had a refueling stop at a convenience store on an out-and-back along Highway 50, where 446 ends, teeing into 50 (see the map).

It was a great day for a ride but that last LONG, STEEP climb before Heltonville was universally felt to be a killer. See the elevation chart:

Our group end up averaging about 14.2 mph for the 56 mile ride.


REPORT FROM THE CENTURY GROUP BY MIKE FINGER:


I arrived at the designated meeting place (Brusters) promptly at 7:47am to find I was the only one there. OK-I admit I was 2 minutes late. At about the same time Tim Dowling showed up and we waited about 5 minutes before setting out for Heltonville.  We hadn't gone far when Tim announced that there was another bike chasing us from behind and it was gaining fast. A few minutes later Kevin Hayes caught on to our back wheel, and then we were three. Kevin announced that he wasn't doing the club ride, only looking for an out and back to start his day, so he could do most of the pulling. Tim and I gladly took him up on the offer and we proceeded to fly south

Shortly after passing Chapel Hill Rd. we became aware that we were slowly gaining on some bikes going the same way and we subsequently caught them to discover it was Stan Ellis, Doug Edwards and Tom Schroeder. They had arrived at the meeting place early (what a strange concept!) and had departed at the stroke of 7:45am. Now we were six. Kevin continued to pull until we reached the bottom of the long downhill, and partway up the short rise on the other side, whereupon he pulled out for the back portion of his out and back. We thanked him for his good work and rode the last few miles into Heltonville. We arrived in time to hang around a few minutes before the large group set out, and to see more bikes arriving that had made the trip down from Bloomington. I had a fast start to my day, averaging over 20mph on the way down, thanks to the good work of Kevin.

Jerry handed out maps and words of encouragement and shortly after 9am we set out. After a leisurely ramble down Hwy 58 in a large group we made our turn onto Back Creek Rd. At that point Colin Allen and Andreas (sorry, Andreas, I don't have your last name) pushed up the pace a bit and a few of us followed in pursuit. Within a few miles we seemed to have established our working group of Colin and Andreas, Tom Schroeder, Tim Dowling and myself. Once again we were fortunate to have a real machine in Colin to stay at the front and set the pace for the majority of the day. Somehow we managed to follow the map and make all the correct turns in spite of the fact that almost all of the road signs were missing. That's right-the poles are there, there are just no signs on top of them. I decided that people must be stealing them to use as wall hangings in their homes-a sort of Lawrence County decorator chic. We continued to make good time and found our way to the lunch stop on Hwy 50 at the terminus of 446.

After a bit of relaxing and refueling we set out on the second half. Once again Colin was setting the pace, and the rest of us were doing what we could to maintain contact. With a few exceptions, we found the roads to be in great shape with a lot of new pavement. The weather was beautiful and the temps reasonably cool all day long-a perfect day for riding! We kept flying along and it wasn't long before we were approaching the last big climb on Dunn Bridge Rd. before dropping into Heltonville. The pace of the day hit me pretty hard on the way up that climb on Dunn Bridge-if I'd had a lower gear I would have been going slower. However, we had nearly 80 miles for the day, and just a quick jaunt up 446 to finish the day, so I was feeling pretty good.

As we were leaving Heltonville Tim announced he was going to take his time and to not wait for him, so we became four. The four of us stayed together (with Colin pulling, of course) all the way to the climb up from the Causeway, where I made a strategic move to the back. My last view of the gang was to see Colin and Andreas dwindling in the distance up the hill, with Tom about half way in between us and dwindling fast as well. I didn't mind. If the day was going to devolve into a bitter solo grind to the finish, that was a decent place for it to happen. I was still averaging 18.5mph for the day, and was set to finish in under 6 hours, so was quite pleased with my day. As I was approaching Moores Pike, nearly within sight of the finish line, Stan Ellis caught up with me and we finished together. He reported he had done a somewhat shortened version of the basic ride, but was still going to have 90 miles for the day by the time he rode home. When I pulled into my driveway I had a total elapsed time of about 5:50 and a rolling average of 18.3mph over a total distance of 98.15 miles. A good day on the bike!

Old OWLS and New FOWLS

This week marked the beginning of parallel OWLS and FOWLS rides. Here's a report on our first day.

The Original OWLS met at Sherwood Oaks Church and did its "Long Leonard" ride to west south west. We had 9 bikes = 10 riders, averaged 13.1 or so door-to-door over about 26 miles. I was often at the end but could always see the leaders. We had two new faces, which was nice. We kept together until the end, when we split over going back to town on Fairfax or taking Ramp Creek. Two of us did Ramp Creek while the others took the shorter, perhaps easier, but more traffic option.

Over at Bryan Park the Faster OWLS or FOWLS also had 9 cyclists. Tom R reports: the training ride group joined us for the first 8 miles then went on alone while we regrouped at the Vernal-Howard intersection.  The repaired surface on the final section of Vernal before the highway was most welcome.  We rode 35 miles, "enjoying" Whitehall hill along the way, engendering mutterings that I had mapped the ride in the wrong direction!  The pace was fast while we were with the training group then slowed to a more reasonable FOWLS pace once they left us behind.  We encountered a kind young lady on Reeves Road who gave a bottle of Gatorade to one of us who had run out of water possibly saving a life.  We have nominated her for a CNN "Hero" award.