Month: April 2011

I’ve been using my Dinotte lights since the Fall of 2008.  They are bright, but moving them between bikes and keeping the batteries charged takes time.

I took the plunge and ordered a new set of lights from On Your Left Cycles.  What was ordered?

• B&M IQ CYO N Plus headlight
• Toplight Flat S Plus tail light
• SON28 dynohub (36 hole)
• Velocity A23 rim
• 36 spokes

The shop built the new wheel once the parts arrived and called me to let me know it was time to bring my LHT in.  This was on Friday.

I didn’t want to drive my truck to haul the bike.  I also didn’t want to walk the two miles from the bike shop to work.  So I rode the LHT towing the tailer with the folding bike in it.

Once I dropped off the LHT, I rode the folding bike and pulled the trailer to work with me.  After work, I reversed the procedure to get the LHT and go home.

The headlight is mounted to the front rack and has an integrated reflector.  This also freed some space on my handlebars.

Although the polished SON hub looks really nice, it doesn’t match the matte finish of the rear hub.  That’s okay, this bike is about utility, not looking pretty.

The tail light looks almost as if it were meant to be on the rear rack.

I’ve taken the bike out twice after dark now.  Both were short urban rides, but I’m starting to get a feel for what I do and don’t like.

The focused beam on the headlight puts plenty of light where you usually need it.  It doesn’t light up street signs as well my Dinotte, as it throws very little light upward.  I also felt a little blind while descending fast on a curve.  The light is bright enough, but the road goes off a different direction.  Maybe I should fly through Cherokee Park at night.  🙂

The standlight lasts plenty long.  I can sit at a long traffic light, and the lights are still lit, although a bit dimmer.

Strangely, the tail light gives up first when the standlight gets close to being discharged.  Also, the tail light isn’t really very bright.  It does spread the light across a wider area than a Dinotte or a SuperFlash, but it’s just not bright.  It does have an integrated reflector like the headlight.

The hub just works.  I can sometimes feel a vibration at 16-17mph, but faster or slower than that and it goes away.  You don’t really notice the hub when riding.

If I were doing it over again, I would research a different tail light.  I may do this anyway, as they are inexpensive.  I would also consider a different rim.  The rim is probably fine, but as this bike is for loaded touring, a Dyad may have been a better choice.

I put the Dinotte lights on the single-speed.  I want another dynohub system for that bike, but I have to wait until I can afford it.  I may also move the new LHT wheel to the single-speed, and have a Dyad-based wheel built for the LHT.

Too many choices, but at least I don’t have to charge batteries.

I meant to get this post up earlier, but I’ve been busy and tired.

Tim planned a nice 60-mile route starting in Hayden Indiana.  Although there had been some storms on Saturday, Sunday was looking really good.  No one else attended the ride, but the two of us rolled out of Hayden and headed north.

Tim billed this as a gravel ride, but it’s hard to determine where the gravel will be before you get there.  After the first 8 miles of mostly smooth pavement, I began to think Tim had planned poorly.  I wasn’t complaining.  Gravel is adventurous, but smooth pavement is pleasant also.

We had a nice tailwind from the southwest when we started.  It wasn’t overly strong, but allowed for a good pace.  We knew we’d have to ride into the wind later.

Our route continued generally northeast.  We came across gravel here and there.  The tailwind made it quite the pleasant ride.  There were some rolling hills, but never any long climbs.

We made a quick stop a Selmier State Forest for a photo-op with the bikes.

We eventually made it to some wonderful gravel roads once we were fairly far north-east of North Vernon.  We still had a nice tailwind and the sun was warming us up.

Both Tim and I have acquired new GPS devices for our bikes.  I believe this is the first ride where we both used them on unfamiliar roads.  He sent me the route the night before.  Due to technical issues I had to re-draw the route.  I think I made a mistake as our devices did not agree during portions of the ride.  We are both still learning the their idiosyncrasies.

It still worked well.  It was Tim’s ride, so we used his GPS when there was a discrepancy.  We have different models of Garmin devices, but with the same maps.  It was strange how they nearly always beeped at the same moment.  We (mostly) had turn-by-turn directions working.

After passing through the tiny town of Zenas we crossed the Muscatatuck River.

Once crossing the river we turned into the wind.  We knew this was coming, but the wind had picked up since the beginning of the ride.  So we had a weak tailwind at the beginning of the ride, leading to a strong tailwind at the middle of the ride.  Ugh.  Our brisk average speed of over 15mph dropped.

On the bright side, the wonderful gravel had returned.

The slower pace and harder work due to the headwind meant I took more breaks for pictures.

The route had us going through Muscatatuck, which is a “town” owned my the Army and used by the Indiana National Guard for urban warfare training.  As we approached we noticed a guard shack.  I assumed we’d have to detour.  The guard waved us through, so we continued.

There wasn’t much going on at Muscatatuck on Sunday.  I figured I’d play it safe and leave my camera in my bag.  There were run down buildings, collapsed trailers, and overturned vehicles.  It looked like, well, a war-zone.  I almost expected a blown-up bridge.

This bridge over a tributary of the Muscatatuck made a nice place for a rest.

We had more uphill gravel into a headwind to look forward to.

We rolled into North Vernon needing food and water.  Tim was carrying some snacks, but I wasn’t as I had eaten a large breakfast.  We looked at the menu of a small cafe, but decided against it, and went to a gas station for snacks and water.

We left North Vernon on some awfully smooth pavement before finding more gravel.  We eventually crossed the Muscatatuck River again and stopped for a photo shoot.

With all of the rain recently, the river is rather high.  This could be important later.

When we turned on CR700W*, there was a sign that said “Road Closed – High Water”.  I didn’t worry about it much.  Cars were coming through and there were no barricades.  It was a straight, flat, gravel road heading north.  We finally had the horrid wind at our backs.  I was ready to roll.

Then we rolled up to this.

The water never got more than a couple of inches deep.  Not only was it not up to the hubs, it wasn’t even up to the bottom bracket.  We carefully rode through.  The first stretch wasn’t bad, and I didn’t even get my feet wet.

We pulled over in the dry patches to let the cars come through.  We didn’t want them barreling by and getting us wet.

One of the flooded stretches was a bit deeper.  I attempted to lift my feet off of the pedals at the lowest part of the pedal stroke, but it was no good.  My feet got wet.  It wasn’t a problem, it had warmed up quite a bit and the ride was nearly over.

We continued north back to Hayden.  We had the wind at our backs, it was quite a nice ride.  Once arriving, my odometer was a little shy of 60 miles, so we circled to push it to 60.3.  That’s much better than 59.9.

This was one of the more pleasant rides I’ve done it a while.  It had some rolling hills, but none were so bad as to make you suffer.  It was scenic.  The weather was nearly perfect, other than the wind.  Like most loop rides, the wind was only a problem during half the ride.  It helped the other half.  It was long enough to be interesting and take the better part of a day, but not so long as to make me want to give up near the end.  All in all, quite a nice ride.

*This road is called CR700W in Google Maps and CR500W in Garmin’s maps.  Which is right?  I don’t know.

My wife and I had company on Friday and Saturday.  Two of her cousin’s kids came to spend the night.

I left work on Friday and rode out to Za’s Pizza to meet up with them.  After enjoying some pizza and beer, I rode home, beating them back to the house.  I can get through Bardstown Road traffic faster than they can.  🙂

On Saturday, Kristy wanted to stop by a co-worker’s house who was having a garage sale.  I didn’t want to get stuck there for very long and I had errands to run.  I hooked up the trailer to my single-speed, and met her there.

The house was down off of Southern Parkway.  It’s not an area I’m overly familiar with, but I didn’t have my GPS and still managed to not get lost.

I left there and headed toward Feeder’s Supply on Baxter.  Along the way the weather started looking ominous, and I had to wait for a train.  While waiting for the train, lightning started cracking.  It still wasn’t raining.

I purchased about 60lbs of pet supplied, loaded it into the trailer, and headed off.  I still had another stop to make, On Your Left Cycles, also on Baxter.

I was discussing a project with Drew at OYLC when the storm really started rolling in.  There was heavy rain, strong winds, possible hail, yellow skies, and strong lightning.  I stayed at OYLC for a few extra minutes to wait out the worst of it.

I later found out that my wife was still at her friend’s house near Southern Parkway.  She watched a metal shed/storage building tumble across the road.

Once the severe weather passed, it was still raining, and I headed for home.  My trailer still has the rain cover, which is helpful in keeping the dog food dry.

The road was littered with tree branches, trash cans, and other storm debris.  It was a slow, uneventful ride back home.

That little bit of riding on Saturday was still 14.8 miles – all of it while towing the trailer.