Xblog

When I started biking, I was over a hundred pounds more than that. I had read about this being a problem before I got my bike, so I eschewed a light road bike and went with a bulkier, heavier hybrid. The bike as a whole has stood up pretty well, but a few parts have suffered worse than others.

One lesson I have definitely learned: salesmen will automatically assume that heavier people need a seat mount with a spring in it to soften the bumps on the road, and they couldn’t be making a bigger mistake. The springs will inevitably be worn out much faster from having to deal with weight far in excess of what they planned.

That’s the least of the problem though. The real problem is my rear wheel. My added weight puts tremendous strain on the rear wheel. I’ve repeatedly bent spokes and/or the wheel, even as I’ve lost weight from the riding. I’ve spoken to several experts, and the consensus is that off-the-rack wheels just aren’t strong enough to handle the load. I’ve upgraded to a stronger rear wheel, and at least so far that has kept the wheel from needing work, but I still seem to get a lot of blown tires.

I looked at this information on tire pressure, but it seems to suggest I need tire pressures well above 100psi, which seems insanely excessive for the fairly beefy tires on my hybrid. The tires I’m riding with are rated at 85psi, which is where I try to keep them (checking their pressure every few days), but I have to admit that when I’m riding they do seem bend a bit more than I’d like. I checked the tube on my last flat, and it appeared to have a snake bite, but I’m not entirely sure whether it got there before or after the air leaked out of the tire.

A friend of mine who is a much more experienced biker says that I need to buy aftermarket spokes and most importantly learn to build my own wheel to get something strong enough to handle my weight. I think I’ll be taking this route soon, but I have my doubts as to whether this will really solve my problem (are bike shops really that bad at building wheels?).

So, I turn to the great internets. I can’t imagine I’m the only overweight cyclist out there. What have the rest of you learned to do to compensate for the industry’s seemingly obsessive focus on those who are already at a healthy weight? Have you encountered other problems I have yet to deal with?

This morning I got out of the house a tad earlier to meet up with one of my co-workers, who was doing the trek all the way from Pasadena (I kid you not). We met up at a Del Taco at Hollywood & Santa Monica, and biked in together from there. I can’t say enough about how much more fun it was to bike in with someone else. 15-30 minutes on a bike by yourself is no biggie and can actually provide some useful “me time”, but for longer trips, I’m enough of an extrovert that having some company really makes the experience more fun. Better still, having someone else along for the ride made both of us work harder to maintain a good pace. Particularly since we had some… significant differences in gravitational forces applied to us, I had to work harder to keep up with him when going up inclines, and he had to work harder to keep up with me on the declines. Net effect: he actually set a personal best time for his ride in (and by a significant margin), even though he covered an extra mile from his previous record, and I likely did the same (if only I kept track of such things).

I didn’t make the effort to visit all the stations where they were handing out all the free schwag, but I was handed a Google-branded portable bicycle pump for my efforts. I actually already have one of those, so I’m offering it to anyone who actually has participated in Bike to Work Week. If you have other interesting schwag to offer in exchange, that’ll bump you to the front of the line.

The ride back was solo the whole way, but was still shockingly effortless, confirming once again that my body really does repair itself better on five days rest as opposed to four (or none), even if I’m dreadfully ill during the rest time. To those of you who don’t grok what this means, I’ll spell it out for you: I’m getting old. :-(

All, in all, this has made me more interested in trying to find like minded (and like-capable) parties to share the ride in to and back from work. I’m sure if I do some hunting around amongst the various biking interest groups in LA, I’ll find some good candidates.

Other bike-to-work observations:

• Bus drivers don’t care if it is Bike to Work Month/Week/Day. I probably should have just ended that sentence at “care”, but in fairness they do seem to care about the folks that are actually on their bus… just noone else.
• The Los Angeles area really does just have an insane number of potholes along the side of its roads, and Beverly Hills is shockingly one of the worst offenders.
• You might think that reporting potholes would be a wise way to address the above, but you’d be wrong! The potholes I reported last week were mended… resulting in a massive lump of asphalt rising from the street, surrounded by a protective moat that appeared as though dug by some diminutive siege engineer attempting to provide protection to a soon-to-be built castle at the summit!
• Bike to Work Day is probably the only day you can “take the lane” while going under the 405 on Santa Monica without anyone honking at you.
• Worst part of biking in warm weather: waiting at a red light while seemingly paradoxically producing more sweat than the entire time you spend on the trip actually moving.
• Biking to Work is good and all, but be sure not to accidentally take the car keys with you as you head out the door. I have a very forgiving spouse, but I think I still may need to sleep with one eye open tonight.