Winter Bike Pics

Now that winter is ending, let's look back at the crazy stuff I used to ride it. Above is SlushBike, the thing I built up specifically for bad weather riding, and it's optimized for the worst case which is slush. Besides the 26" studded road tires and big fenders to match, it takes on bad weather with its Nexus8 internally geared rear hub where most of the gearing is sealed from road dirt. It also has an internal brake which is also sealed. The nexus is intended for a frame with horizontal dropouts, which I don't have, so needed to retain the rear derailleur just as a chain tensioner. I took advantage of that, though, by keeping two chainrings to widen the gear range. This sacrifices light weight, but I like the range, and this bike is so heavy that the derailleurs don't matter much.

One of my major limits for cold weather riding is cold toes. At this point I have 2 different hacks going. Above are the Lake MXZ302-X boots which I bought only after they came out in a wide size in 2008. (Even these are narrower than my feet, so I bought a size or 2 larger than would be ideal.) I use these on SlushBike and the MTB, and they're pretty good. But after the first season some heel stitching fell off, which I attribute to a design defect, so even after Lake re-stitched them for me, I added tougher stitching which you can see in the shape of an "M" above. The insoles are made of bubblewrap, too, which might be warm but which pops and falls apart. These are surprising problems coming from what looks like a mature shoe company.

Below are Keen boots I modified before I heard the Lakes were going to be available in a wide model. Here I made plates of 1/4" aluminum, cut away the soles under the plates so they'd be close to flush, and assembled it. The plates are for mounting the pedal cleat, as well as stiffening the boot for pedalling efficiency. I use this on my 'summer' bike, which uses Bebop pedals, allowing me to ride it down to around freezing. (This bike cannot use studded tires, so I wouldn't want to ride it much below freezing anyway.) I sewed the gaiters for wind protection and visibility. (I took pictures of this project, but can't find them now.)

PR Meditation

Saturday morning I rode the PR (the "Private Reserve", a local spot with good MTB/hike trails). This is a strange time of year, when warm temperatures release mud and riding becomes bad for the trails. Now that I have studded tires on my bike, I much prefer mountain biking below freezing, when the surfaces are harder and I can't contribute to erosion. The weekend forecast was Springlike, so literally too warm to ride. The best chance for a ride was Sat. morning, ending around 9 when the forecast rose to melting.

The trails were about half frozen, so I was glad to have the studs as the terrain meandered among snow, dirt, ice and rock. But the studs are less grippy on the ice than I had expected, and they're worse than summer tires on rock. The melting snow exposed scarier parts of the trails, hidden for months now, and its smooth contours yielded to the rougher trail textures. Put together, the trails felt harder than I expected. This was worst on the bridges, homemade stream crossings in various states of disrepair across the PR.

I felt thoroughly limited by my mental state. This feels ironic in what looks like a physical sport, but that got me thinking about yoga. According to my book, yoga has been practiced for millenia and is seen as a form of meditation, though it too looks (and usually feels to me) purely physical. (I am a rank beginner at yoga and barely past that stage in MTB.) I would like to chat with a yoga expert and an MTB expert on whether MTB can be a meditation in the way yoga can be. I suspect there's at least a bit of overlap.