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The Bikeman Blogs section is our collection of blogs from our Team Bikeman members and friends of Bikeman. Contributions from regular riders and commuters, bike aficionados, and world class racers.
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Howdo. My name is Zach Magoon and I have been commuting year-round by bike for the last 7 years in both Boston, MA and Portland, ME. Because each day brings new challenges, whether it be changing weather conditions, crappy drivers, sore muscles or mechanicals, I think my ramblings will be, at the very least, moderately amusing. | |
Commuter Files Archives. |
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Greetings and salutations. My name is Rick Nelson (no, not that one damnit) and I am a rider for Team Bikeman.com. You can check out my profile in the team rider section. “Racin Rick” covers my trials and tribulations as a mountain bike racer, commuter, new father etc. In truth, its just a way for me to kill time at work and to see pictures of myself on the web. So here are some excerpts from all my blogging, hope you enjoy. | |
Racin Rick Archives. |
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Welcome to Tales From The Soiled Chamois. This is going to be an online journal taking you through my season of training for and racing marathon, 6, 12, and 24 hour solo endurance races all while working a full time job, being married with a two year old son. I'm no pro, even though I do occasionally race against them. I'm just out there having fun pushing myself. | |
The Soiled Chamois Archives. |
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Not to be confused with the time-trial and women's-specific 650C wheel, the 650B wheel is all about comfort, versatility, and speed over varied terrain. The key to this is all in the tires. A 650x38B setup is about the same diameter as a 700C wheel with a 19mm tire... | |
650Blog Archives. |
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The Perfect Ride |
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Written by Zach Magoon
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Tuesday, 13 May 2008 |
The perfect ride. It's a little routine I go through when I have to take the short route home to at least make it interesting. Some days, I just don't feel like riding home. It's a strange thing but by the end of the day at work sometimes, I just want to crash and chill out with a beer. But one thing that I've found that's nearly unattainable on my way home is this "perfect ride."
Pretty simple really, I try to make it home without stopping at all for traffic lights, stop signs, stupid drivers, pedestrians or squirrels. Yeah that's it. No feet down--and track stands don't count either. In Portland where there are a lot of all of these things it's pretty hard, next to impossible, but last night I achieved the perfect ride.
I always start off with pretty low expectations and many times I get nixed right outside my office door (there is a rather large 2 lane artery with a rather long light). But last night I zoomed through that light and the four subsequent ones--all green. I do have a rule about stop lights, I generally stop at them. In a perfect ride scenario, thems the rules. Stop signs, however, I roll through.
I had a near miss with three pedestrians who thought it would be cool to walk in front of me on a steep hill. I managed to squeak by while uttering a few choice words, but I can't stop all that quickly folks. I really didn't have many other close calls. I have a long gentle hill that I cranked up pretty hard to make my last stop light--it was turning yellow (as was I) as I zoomed through.
Here's the rundown of traffic signs over the 7 mile route that I take home:
9 stoplights
1 yield sign
8 stop signs
 | | click to enlarge |
I've been trying this perfect ride thing for about 2 years now and last night is the first time, I've made it. Pretty crazy. I also want to send along another perfect ride. This Spot Brand belt-driven single speed commuter. So nice. Could it be the perfect commuter? Man I don't know. I'm pretty happy with the simplicity of the 925, but a belt- driven might be the perfect upgrade in a couple of years? I hope one of my readers will buy this thing and make me jealous. Perhaps we could expense one as part of the White Bikes program? I mean I should ride the flagship bike to promote the campaign. Yeah I'm liking that idea.
Zm
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; "click to enlarge")
