Nicholson Loop

Spring is in the air. Today was crisp and clear. The forsythia was in bloom, and my riding buddies Dave and Kelly took me out for a whuppin'.

I'd heard them talk about the Nicholson Loop, but had never done the ride. I knew I was in for some hills since we were heading for Beulah Road right off. From there we had to climb up the part of Summers School Road that is just to the right of the photo at the very end of this post from just over a week ago. I probably mentioned there what an incredible descent that is. Well, what goes down, must go back up.

Just past Nicholson Chapel we turned onto the loop road and headed ... up. I thought they were kidding about that; I didn't think there was a whole lot more "up" to do without a helicopter. The forsythia with the lovely light on it was conveniently located for a nice break on the longest and steepest pitch. Once on "top" we had an exceptionally clear view. Dave says that the speck above the distant hills is the power station at Shinnston, nearly 30 miles away. Click for a bigger view.

We did eventually top out and head down Kingwood Pike where we easily stayed ahead of the cars for miles at a time. It's amazing how quickly that hard won elevation drops away. Down to Aaron's Creek Road and on to home. Well Kelly did throw in a short stinker of hill that handily topped 20 percent. Purely gratuitous.

Around Morgantown

Some friends decided to do their around Morgantown ride today, and I tagged along. Lots of little hills and back roads I that I didn't know existed.

Here's the view of Morgantown and the Monongahela River taken from in front the the WVU President's house. This was a really lovely scene before the power plant. The residents of Morgantown were more united in their opposition to the siting of this plant than anything I've seen here before or since, but there was too much political power behind it.

Oh well, still a nice view that probably doesn't have the negative connotations for folks who came here after the power plant fight.

Quality Glass Company; Van Voorhis, W. Va.

"Manufacturers of Illuminating Glass" according to the old (1970's?) catalog laying open on the floor of one of the beautifully decrepit old buildings. "Hand blown by highly skilled union craftsmen." More pictures at my documentary blog Booger Hole.

This old glass operation sits immediately beside the old railroad right-of-way, now the Mon River Trail. The trail follows the Monongahela River from Pricketts Fort to the old community of Van Voorhis, W. Va. Work just started that should complete the trail to the Pennsylvania state line by June.

I took the steep climb out on the "main" road. I passed the Mount Union United Methodist Church dated 1883 (an earlier building maybe?), then completed a nice loop that included a long stiff climb I'd only done in the downhill direction. Now I realize why it feels like you are in free fall coming down that hill. This was the first time I've needed to use the lowest gear on the Gold Rush for any length of time on one of my road rides. The 28T granny was perfect today.

Bretz Coke Ovens

The old beehive coke ovens at Bretz are just across the creek from the Deckers Creek Trail. This picture is actually made from beside the trail, though I've walked (crawled) across the spooky old RR bridge numerous times to explore the coke ovens site. It was even more interesting a few years ago before they did a major environmental cleanup. Lots of dirt was moved and removed for that project, several interesting old building shells were taken down, and a nice old coal mine entrance was closed in.

My friend Jay and I took an 8x10 Deardorff in on my tandem bike a number of years ago and got some nice shots. Later I managed to get a small Cirkut Camera in using my BOB trailer. I hope to post some of those photos to my Booger Hole documentary photography/music blog soon, but I'm sure getting behind the many projects like that I need to finish.

The coke ovens are fascinating. I believe there were about 150 of them, and most are still in pretty good shape. The few that are caving in provide a better idea of their construction. There were several slightly differently shaped bricks used in the construction (5, I think).

This day we went up Kingwood Pike again and finally got to do the longer loop, weather had cut the ride short the two previous times this year. I've been wanting to shoot a video of the fantastic downhill run after the long climb up the Pike. This picture looks back toward the end of that run. There is a wonderful fast sweeping turn just out of sight in the dip here. I did try to shoot video with my camera mounted in a bag on the bars, but had too many problems this time. That's a great reason to go back up very soon.

Today the rain held off until we were off the road and onto the trail. The storm hit just as we were past the coke ovens.

More Hills, Then the Pits (Sand that is).

I wanted to make sure my new small chainring (28T oval, see previous post) would get me up anything that needed gotten up, so Kelly and I headed toward Snake Hill Road again today. We did this ride exactly one week ago on a beautiful 70 degree day (posted here). It was a bit chillier today, but still very nice.

I moved the Sky Mounti inclinometer over to the Gold Rush so that we could check the grades on a few of these hills. That was a perfect excuse to take the shortcut up Knocking Run Road. We often come down that way from rides, but usually take the meandering, but still plenty steep, way around going up. Thatis the hill where I made a YouTube video of the long downhill run into town. We measured 20 percent near the top where I did get a brief respite when someone in a WV DOH truck stopped to talk. I thought maybe he was unhappy about something, but just wanted to let me know that he'd have a heart attack if he tried to pedal up that hill. The new oval (but not as low) low gear was adequate for the hill; not exactly easy, but manageable. That has pretty well satisfied me that my granny is low enough. I may try a few real stinkers sometime later just to see what I can get up with this gear.

Snake Hill was nice as always. I'm afraid I can't really swear to what difference there was in speed; that mile and a half first grade just takes away any enthusiasm I have for really pushing hard. The grade is mostly only 10 percent (with short bits of 13 percent), but it just wears you down by going on so long. I do know that I worked harder on the climbs today. I've actually had trouble working hard enough on hills this year, until I switched to the oval ring. In the past it just didn't seem like I had the legs for even my limited aerobic ability. For some reason the oval granny ring seems to let me work harder. For the first time my legs feel like they usually do after a hard and hilly road bike ride (thoroughly used up). My wife was enjoying not having me waking her up from screamingly painful leg cramps; that may end tonight. Is that a good thing? In some weird way I have to think it is.

We figured the trail would be kind of sloppy from the melting snow and yesterday's rain, so took an interesting rough dirt road that we've only done a handful of times. Sandbank road (picture at top of this post) climbs up from the rail trail, steeper than I remembered. It's name comes from the sand that was quarried here. This is one of the pits left after the sand is gone.

Kelly and I have climbed up an insanely steep hill (on foot) from the Deckers Creek Trail where this sand came down to a tipple along the old M&K Railroad. I need to check the topo map; it sure seems like that is quite a ways from here. I believe a lot of this sand was used for the famous Morgantown glass plants, all gone now.

We came back down on the nice descent on Summers School Road, but stopped part way down at Nicholson Chapel for the view looking back toward town. If you click for a larger view, you might just make out just left of center the WVU Coliseum where the Mountaineers just one their basketball game. About one third in from the left is the road we're heading down. I like to make sure any cars get a good headstart here so that I don't have to ride my brakes too hard :-)

What the heck? More snow.

I thought we were done with snow here for a while, but we got it again on Saturday. This did give me a chance to mess around with chainrings on my new Goldrush.

I ordered my bike with the 24T small chainring giving a 19" low gear. It is nice having the ultra low "bailout" gears, but you sure give up some shifting performance. I actually had more trouble going up to the 42T than down to the 24T, except the jump down to the 24T is so extreme that you have to grab a handful of rear gears to keep from having such a big jump that you're just spinning air.

I'd intended from the beginning to upgrade to oval Q rings from Rotor, but they don't have a small granny for my crank (30T is their smallest). I did have an old Sugino Cycloid 28T in my parts bin, so thought I'd give it a go. I think this was probably a copy of the original series Biopace. The ovalizing is more extreme than the Q rings. The original Biopace and it's copies used a progressively more oval shape for the smaller rings than for the larger. The Q rings keep about the same differential across all the sizes (percentage, not tooth size difference).

I took the new setup out for a trial on our neighborhood hills yesterday. I like the oval ring. A lot. It seems very smooth, and yet powerful. Not jerky, but you get that extra resistance right where you've got the leverage to take advantage of it. Even with the extreme oval to round shift, it is much smoother shifting than the more extreme 24T to 42T I ordered on the bike. And the transition is also much nicer (not nearly such a big jump). The only downside is not having as low a granny. I got up every hill I tried, though Southpointe Circle was tough (I think it approaches 25 percent near the top).

I was anxious to check the gearing out on a real road ride, so headed up Kingwood Pike ahead of the rain today. The sun was out when I started. There was still plenty of snow on the ground once I gained some elevation out of town. I'd hoped to do the long version of this ride, but the rain caught me right at the turnoff for the shorter 20 loop, so I headed down at that point. Rain snow and sun all in one nice ride.The gearing was great. I used the low, but didn't need anything lower, and surprised myself going up Sawmill Hill (see Kingwood Pike link above) clicked up one sprocket up on the cassette.

The transition to the round 42T was a non-issue. I liked the oval ring and found myself dropping to the granny sooner just to use it, but both felt fine. You'd expect one or the other to feel weird, but that was not the case.

It is difficult to compare directly to round rings since the gear ratio varies through the stroke. The 28T front (oval)/28T rear (on click up) is numerically the same as the 24T round ring shifted up one more sprocket to the 24T in the rear. Both are 1:1, so give about a 27" gear, but the oval ring feels firmer. I'm trying not to say harder, because that's not exactly it. Remember that the 28T oval ring probably ends up like a 32 or so on the power stroke, and maybe like the 24 over the dead spot. It feels like I'm able to push a harder gear with the oval ring.

I guess the real comparison would be to check cadence since the oval ring is still 28T overall (or compare speed, or time), but I probably won't. This is what I've got, and I like it. I plan to order a 40T middle Q ring, but was so happy with the setup on todays ride that I'm not sure I'll bother.

Snake Hill Road

Nobody knows for sure where the name came from, but the road does snake over the hills, and there are plenty of snakes on those wooded slopes. Snake Hill Road runs somewhere along the far ridge line. Beyond that is the Cheat River, and then Chestnut Ridge. Kelly and I have already climbed up from town here and are about to head down into the little valley that is just over the hill before heading up again.

The first climb is what gets you (or at least me anyway) early in the season; it is nearly a mile and a half long and fairly steep. The weather was spectacular today with a high above 70 F, so I wasn't too surprised when I caught a glimpse of a bicycle helmet a couple turns ahead of us on that first climb. We saw her again briefly along the top before we broke for a pit stop at the Snake Hill Wildlife Management Area, which was actively being logged as we stood "enjoying the view". We didn't see anybody again until heading up the steep slope on Rt. 7 into Masontown,W.Va. where it was now 3 cyclists ahead.

When we pulled up at Conrad's Market, we made it an even dozen. A couple Morgantown cyclists were giving some of the Johns Hopkins Cycling team a sampling of West Virginia hills. Does anything look out of place here?

Nobody even looked at the Gold Rush. I suppose it seemed too much like something out of Deliverance when a fat old man on a chopper bicycle pulled up. I did have on my usual summer attire of Walmart Hawaiian shirt and Hostel Shoppe Mt. Borah shorts. Kelly is on the far right, fitting in better with his Cannonball bike and "normal" cycling clothes.

The racers headed off for some more hills, and the geezers headed down the Deckers Creek Trail toward home.

Oh heck, I forgot to tell them about the great Pecorino Romano cheese at Conrad's. At $5.49 per pound I'm sure they'd have grabbed a hunk; I did.

We knew that the rail trail surface would be a little soft from the freezing/thawing action, and there are always some mucky spots on the flat stretch along top. Kelly was just saying that he didn't want to jinx things, but that the trail seemed to be in remarkably good shape, when we rounded the bend and hit patches of snow and ice.

The "clear" track was interesting with lumpy frozen spots that felt like riding over (slick) rocks, but everything cleared up nicely in a couple miles and we had a good run back into town to finish off a very nice ride.

Kingwood Pike

I got out for some hilly riding on my new Gold Rush on Friday and Saturday, so took a nice easy spin Sunday.

The forecast looked great today so I sneaked out for a couple hours before the appointment I had scheduled at 2pm, so I headed up Kingwood Pike, a longtime favorite ride of mine. I'd been seeing the Pike off in the distance on my neighborhood rides this winter and looking forward to getting out there. He's a picture of the start of the Pike from back in early February. It's all up hill from here.

You go up in spurts, leveling off periodically. It's a very nice ride and scenic in a real rural West Virginia way; you get the whole range from down and out, to pretty views. This spot was beautiful today with the silvery shimmer of the bare trees. I'm already getting a little frustrated with the group rides even though they're just starting up for the season. What is the point of blowing right by a scene like this without even slowing down to enjoy the view, let alone stopping for a picture. Believe me, you might not even catch a glimpse of this on a typical club ride since this view is along a bit of a downhill and everybody is usually going all out here to get a run for the next hill. Click the picture for a bigger view. Go ahead, what's the hurry.

I think I've heard the "correct" name for this hill, but have always know it as Sawmill Hill. It beats the crap out of me every spring. It really isn't super steep, but there's about 1/2 mile of it and I usually just get to the point I want to get off and walk. If you click the picture to enlarge you can see the Ramada Inn off I68, it's the reddish building barely visible almost dead center on the nearer ridge line. That is already a bit of a climb up from town. Just over the ridge and down from there will be the Monongahela River and Morgantown.

I love downhills but seldom go back down the Pike, it's just a little more excitement than I need. One of the few times I did go back this way years ago I hit 59 MPH at the bottom of this hill on my Trek road bike. I saw 56, 57, 58 on my computer once in a great while, but never 59 again.

Today was the easiest time I've ever had going up Sawmill Hill (even looking back 20 years). The low gearing is great, so maybe I was just taking it slow, but I sure didn't feel bogged down and the hill just rolled by. What more can you ask from a bicycle.

Stonewall Jackson Lake Ride

The CRCyclists group had a nice 25 mile ride around Stonewall Jackson Lake Saturday. I hadn't been here before and knowing the ride leader, I was suspicious of the "rolling" description of the route. Jack's "rollers" are my "long grinds", but then that's Jack's butt disappearing in the distance in the picture above. You might just see El Presidente Kelly disappearing over the top if you click for a larger view. These two pictures were taken a few seconds apart, one to the front and one to the rear.

I was way off the back for the start of this ride. The hills were fairly steep and frequent, and my chain kept popping off on the front. I stopped at least 4 or five times to put the chain back on, and to get the low limit screw set better. The 24/42 jump is just a bit much to ask of a front derailleur. Since I wasn't up front to harangue folks into regrouping, they just kept on rolling without me. El Presidente was sweep, so felt obligated to babysit me which just made me feel worse. I couldn't even see the group in the distant views so finally just settled into enjoying the ride at my own pace and even stopped and got a couple pictures. It turns out that this first stretch was by far the prettiest anyway.

They did stop to regroup after about 8 miles (at the first turn), so I got to ride with the group for the rest of the 25 miles. I was able to hang on okay with the new Gold Rush; I was often toward the rear on hills, but at least not off the back. More hill work needed.

A Nice Downhill Run

The weather was great today so I got out with a couple buddies for a nice hilly ride circling east of town. Here's a video of part of the run back into town.

Stupid Bike Tricks

On my way back from my first ride on the Gold Rush (very fun, post started, but I can't seem to wrap it up), I somehow noticed that I could ride the bike no hands. I've never been able to do this on a recumbent, so documented the results here. The run with the camera is hairier because I had to stick my camera arm out so far in order to get the bars in.

Anyway, the result is fun to watch and much scarier than in real life which wasn't scary at all-well maybe a little with the camera throwing my balance off. Don't do this, it's foolish. If you do it anyway and break your neck, don't blame me.

New Gold Rush!

Man, I like this bike. I liked it the minute I got on, and liked it better the longer I rode it. There are a lot of reasons to like it, but I've got to admit that as soon as I heard about the color I was a goner. Fast Freddy said, "The new orange is my pick. I think it looks way hot!" Uh, huh. I'll show you my trio of orange bikes sometime and you'll realize that I was helpless at this point.

Fast Freddy and Denton were very generous with their time helping me spec the bike. After going over just about everything, it ended up pretty much a stock Speed and Sport, but with the 24T granny. Easy Racers has really done a good job of making this bike model right straight out of the box. I plan to add Rotor Q-rings at some point; Easy Racers likes these rings, but doesn't sell them.

I definitely wanted the Cobra seat. I've been feeling a tug in the Easy Racers direction for a while, since stumbling onto an original EZ-1. Once I took the Sun Coolback seat off that bike and put the original Cobra back on I was really hooked. This seat is a support you can really push off of on hills; it doesn't soak up your pedal energy. You can even rock the bike under you a bit, like when climbing or sprinting on a road bike.

There is a delay on my fairing, so the bike got here naked. I'm glad it did; this just spreads the fun out more. I may well ride the bike like this anyway when it gets hot and humid (the sooner the better, please). If you've followed this blog, or this BROL thread, you know that I've been debating what recumbent to get for riding with my non-recumbent roadie friends. I think I got it right. And since I keep up just fine on the flats, and already have a weight advantage downhill, fairingless will probably be dandy for some of those rides.

Still I'm anxious to try a fairing and sock; I've never ridden with either. This is gonna be fun; I feel like a kid in a (very expensive) candy shoppe.

The View Never Changes

My new bike is on the way. Fast Freddy says that it will be like adding another 200 hp to my car (of course he doesn't realize my car only has 100 hp to start with). I sure hope he's right because if todays ride is any indication, I'm gonna need all the help I can get.

This was the first club ride of the year, and my first real road ride for the year-30 miles, lots of hills. I took the EZ-1. Here is the view I saw on most of the hills. Well the uphills anyway.

In addition to just being totally under prepared for this much ride, I think that the other biggest problem was the forecast of 38 degrees with rain. The sane people stayed home. Luckily the rain held off until were back in town.

Early in the ride I was totally discouraged and disgusted. As the day went on, I realized that I was holding on fairly well on the steeper climbs (like the one ahead here)-not really any different than I would have expected on the Rambouillet this early in the season. Where I was really dragging was on the gentler grades. On the flat or downhills I was well toward the front.

I'm still discouraged, but realize:

1. I would have been perfectly happy with my riding if I were alone, or with more compatible riders. I didn't feel the least bit slow except when I saw the pack pulling away from me. I do hate being the slowest person on the ride.

2. I did fairly well with the one thing I'd been working on this winter-steep hills. I dropped back on these, but always have with this group regardless of the bike I'm on. The problem came in when there was a long run up to the hill, like in the photo where I was already well off the back before it got steep.

3. I was not hoovering. I even felt pretty good at the top of the mile long 12 percent grade. I think I was only badly winded one time and was pushing fairly hard on that hill (the one in the picture). It was my legs not my lungs that were limiting my speed on the slight up grades. I hope that concentrating on that type of situation will make a difference. I think this might be indicative of what some people say about climbing on recumbents, that you can't bring in your upper body like on an upright (using more muscles). You aerobic fitness is the real limit though, and it's easier to build up leg muscles than aerobic level.

4. I really have very few miles on this year. I've been riding the steep hills around my neighborhood, but not much distance (because of the weather).

5. I suppose the new bike might help. Most people say that it will make a big difference. I hope they're right.

Deckers Creek Trail Ride-Video from the LX2

Link to my video here. It is a 9 MB Quicktime movie. I'll work on making the thumbnail at left into a link to the video tomorrow.

There are a bunch of great videos on the web shot by recumbent riders. The Recumbent Blog videos are some of the best. When it was cold and icy out my window this winter I could watch one of Alan's videos and imagine the better views to come.

The Recumbent Blog also led me to this YouTube "community" of recumbent videos.

The angles these guys get seem amazing to me. I've shot photos from my bikes for a number of years (here's one from 2003 of the Deckers Creek trail later in spring when it has greened up a little-shot from the VRex I think). I thought it would be fun to give video a try.

My new Panasonic DMC-LX2 has a 16:9 widescreen mode that I think is great for bicycling. I haven't managed to get iMovie to accept it without letterboxing the format yet, but know it is possible.

This was not our first run up Decker's Creek Trail this year; we had freakishly warm weather the first week of January. But this was the first ride since the thaw. I had tried Saturday a week ago, but the ice patches were just too much excitement.

The trail was in surprisingly good shape, but the freeze/thaw action had left some soft spots that would catch you by surprise. A couple of those ended up in the clip. It looks like I was reaching for the bar with my camera hand on one of those. Maybe I'm not cut out for this.

Panasonic DMC-LX2

Here's some more about my new camera-a Panasonic DMC-LX2. I want to say right up front that I really like this camera and think it is a great bicycling camera.

Now that that's out of the way, here's some things you should be aware of before making the LX2 your choice for bicycling.

1. It has a lens cap! When was the last time you saw one of those on a digicam? I suppose this could go into either the plus or minus column. The little blades on the usual self-capping lenses are very fragile; I would bet that they are the most common mechanical failure on digicams. A real lens cap is much more durable, realiable, and protects the lens better. It is also a pain in the rear to deal with while riding a bike, or even while standing balancing a bike and shooting.

The camera comes with a nice little lasso to keep the cap from getting lost. I haven't tried it since I like to shoot while riding and don't want it flapping around in the breeze. Maybe the lasso with a piece of velcro to fasten the cap to the base of the camera would be a good solution.

I usually carry the camera in a vertical pouch on my handlebar with the lens facing forward and just leave the cap off . I'll try to add a picture of that setup later.

2. The lens protrudes even when retracted. Look at the pictures at Panasonic's site to see what I mean. That cool retro looking body with the flat lens is not ready to take a picture; that is the fully retracted storage position. See the picture at DP Review for what is looks like ready to use in the wide angle position.

3. Like all of the digicams I've used, settings get bumped around taking the camera in and out of a pouch or pocket. On the Panasonic this is only the mode dial. Just check it before use. I leave mine set to "P". I may add a little piece of duct tape once I get over the new camera thing.

There's really little else not to like. The lens is really noticeably great (for a digicam). Having a 28mm equiv. wide angle is very handy. The 16:9 format (a setting option) is very cool. The camera feels even better made than my old Canon A620. The battery lasts forever (I do leave the flash turned off), but you should always have a spare anyway-I picked up a generic for half the Panasonic price. Plus you can have raw file output if you want it, and a good program to support raw (but you have to work hard to top the jpegs the camera puts out). Even the manual is pretty darned readable (a rarity).

Low light performance is probably not a big issue for most bicycle riders, but other cameras can do better at that-most notably the Fuji F20, F30, and presumably the F40 due out in April. I have used the camera a ISO 400 and posted a few shots here, and at ISO 1600 here. The 1600 results are very funky, but I liked them okay and liked being able to get a couple shots in very substandard lighting without flash.

All in all, this is an enthusiast's camera, and I'm really enjoying it. If you don't care about the wide angle lens, or the 16:9 format, or can't live with the lens cap, then you might prefer something like the Canon 700IS or Fuji F40.

90 Percent of Hill Climbing is 50 Percent Half Mental

With apologies to the great Yogi Berra. But it is almost at least half true. Riding one handed, taking pictures over my shoulder while going up extremely steep hills, trying to keep the pedals turning and the bike right side up, distracted me so much that I hardly noticed the effort.

Kelly was doing his darnedest not to get caught on camera paperboying the hill; I was wobbling like crazy back and forth across the road myself, but more from lack of control.

And while I'm not recommending stupid bicycle tricks, I am serious about the distraction. I'd forgotten how nice it is to be able to take your mind off the hill sitting in front of your very slowly turning wheels. Some friendly competition, or nice scenery would serve the purpose nicely.

Except for the first week of January, I've been riding alone so far this year. My regular riding buddy Kelly finally came out of hibernation today and wanted to do the Tour de South Park, which is pretty much any variation of the hilly neighborhood rides I've been doing for the past two months. I was hoping that almost two months off the bike (but in the gym) had taken a toll on his riding.

Well, it was worse than I'd hoped, but better than I'd feared. The Bear was undroppable, but the 7 weeks of concentrating on hills did help me to keep up tolerably well.

We actually did two hills I'd never climbed before, including this one on a loop road (Southpointe Circle) which I'd, quick sensibly, only done in the other direction. One of our riding buddies lives down at the bottom of this hole, and another lives just past the top of this hill, which is still pretty well down in a hole. I can understand why they drive to the start of our rides even though that is often only a mile from here.

I like the picture but am pretty sure Kelly was just giving me a lead for picture taking.