Bicycle Fans - official thread for people who love riding th

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  • cloggsy71
    cloggsy71 Posts: 2,208 Member
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    Following the lead, to lead with my bike as the profile pic. It's my Madison fixie, not a single piece of carbon on her, love it. I have a couple other bike pics on my profile...my road bike, a Trek 5000, GF Erwin I built into a monster cross with 29er wheels. It's 100% badass. I use the GF for long bouts of gravel and rough terrain, plenty of that in the midwest. I have 2 other bikes.... but they are my secret weapons against tyranny and oppression, to be revealed when appropriate.

    Does a Fixie take much getting used too?
  • StuAblett
    StuAblett Posts: 1,141 Member
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    I just finished 185 miles down the C&O Canal trail from Cumberland MD to Georgetown VA :bigsmile: Went with my youngest son & the boy scouts (18 boys). Wonderful weather, rain at night, mud in the am - made for 'air conditioning' on the 'underside' (if ya know what I mean). We had to wash the bikes twice because the mud was interfering with the gear shifting. Made for a great workout. But now my body wants to eat like it is going to ride for 2-8 hours each day LOL :laugh: Now I want to keep riding!!

    Wow, that sounds like quite the adventure, did you guys camp out at all?

    When I was in scouts, we did a lot of hiking and camping out, some canoe trips, but never bicycle trips, way cool!!
  • TeteDeLaCourse
    TeteDeLaCourse Posts: 100
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    Years ago my exhole and his friend rode from Syracuse, NY to Rising Sun, MD. That sounded like an amazing ride! The Pennsylvania mountains had to be interesting.
  • RunRideRay
    RunRideRay Posts: 1,536 Member
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    Does a Fixie take much getting used too?

    OH YES it does! I got my fixie in Feb this year, and starting riding her in the April time frame. I was very intimidated at first, it was unnatural. After a few short rides in town I finally got confident to venture out a bit, and now it is one of my favorite rides.

    The main things.....
    > Hard to clip in, pedals are in motion
    > Corners suck, you have to pedal and don't realize you coast on corners
    > Down hill sucks the worst, spin-fest..... and often can feel almost out of control
    > When you forget you are on a fixie, and that leg whips around....hehe.

    BUT, it the simplicity and feel of the bike is hard to explain, but worth it.
  • cloggsy71
    cloggsy71 Posts: 2,208 Member
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    OH YES it does! I got my fixie in Feb this year, and starting riding her in the April time frame. I was very intimidated at first, it was unnatural. After a few short rides in town I finally got confident to venture out a bit, and now it is one of my favorite rides.

    The main things.....
    > Hard to clip in, pedals are in motion
    > Corners suck, you have to pedal and don't realize you coast on corners
    > Down hill sucks the worst, spin-fest..... and often can feel almost out of control
    > When you forget you are on a fixie, and that leg whips around....hehe.

    BUT, it the simplicity and feel of the bike is hard to explain, but worth it.

    :noway: Sign me up - NOT! :laugh:

    I'll stick with gears for the foreseeable future :tongue:
  • TeteDeLaCourse
    TeteDeLaCourse Posts: 100
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    I need some glove recommendations. Since I'm riding in a different position now my hands are getting a little sore, especially the top of my hand right at the base of my fingers. I don't like full gloves though. What do you all use?
  • sassy1959
    sassy1959 Posts: 1
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    Hi everyone! Glad to see this thread since I love cycling too! I am unable to ride a regular bike because of health issues, but have been very active riding a tandem recumbent with my husband. We have a Barcroft Columbia, and ride it daily. We are lucky to have a lot of rails-to-trails in our area, and they are great for riding on. We do from 5-20 miles a day, depending on how much time we have. We actually put the tandem on a trainer last winter, and we both used it to try to keep in shape when it was too snowy and icy to ride.

    My husband rides a Burley recumbent when he is on his own. We just picked up a Thunderbolt recumbent at a yard sale, and I've ridden that a bit, but find it difficult - I have balance issues. We plan to go try out some recumbent trikes, and if that works out, I will be able to ride on my own soon.

    We travel a lot in our work (beekeeping), and the bike goes with us! We always try to find good rides everywhere we go. Last week we were in Mobile, Alabama, and had a hard time finding a safe place to ride. But even the tremendous heat didn't keep us off the bike!
    We're in Michigan now, and enjoying the cooler weather while biking!
  • cloggsy71
    cloggsy71 Posts: 2,208 Member
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    I need some glove recommendations. Since I'm riding in a different position now my hands are getting a little sore, especially the top of my hand right at the base of my fingers. I don't like full gloves though. What do you all use?

    I use full gloves; just for the extra protection when I fall! :sad:

    A friend on mine has fingerless mits with gel inserts in the palms to reduce numbness caused by pressure...
  • hawkeyegal1995
    hawkeyegal1995 Posts: 2,009 Member
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    I need some glove recommendations. Since I'm riding in a different position now my hands are getting a little sore, especially the top of my hand right at the base of my fingers. I don't like full gloves though. What do you all use?

    I am wearing Pearl Izumi with the gel inserts in the palm areas right now but seem to change brands every year. My biggest challenge is finding gloves that fi! I have found the best way to deal with my hands and arms getting tired and sore is just to keep changing up my positions on the handle bars. I move around from the hoods to the drops all the time so they don't bother as much. When I rode a flat bar road bike them bothered more.
  • NiallWallace
    NiallWallace Posts: 78 Member
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    I use the Altura Classic/Crochet mitts, to go with my Retro Prendas Jerseys.

    There isn't that much padding in them but way better than bare hands on tape.
    You can also get more comfort from your tape choices, usually it's just cork tape but you get gel tape as well as various different comfort levels in cork. I remember having foam on the bars when I was wee, awful stuff!
  • CDGolden
    CDGolden Posts: 343 Member
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    Does a Fixie take much getting used too?

    OH YES it does! I got my fixie in Feb this year, and starting riding her in the April time frame. I was very intimidated at first, it was unnatural. After a few short rides in town I finally got confident to venture out a bit, and now it is one of my favorite rides.

    The main things.....
    > Hard to clip in, pedals are in motion
    > Corners suck, you have to pedal and don't realize you coast on corners
    > Down hill sucks the worst, spin-fest..... and often can feel almost out of control
    > When you forget you are on a fixie, and that leg whips around....hehe.

    BUT, it the simplicity and feel of the bike is hard to explain, but worth it.

    This about sums it up, got my fixie about 2 months ago, really takes some getting used to....BUT I do like it....I will also double as a single speed cross bike this fall.
  • Leigh_mc
    Leigh_mc Posts: 46 Member
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    Hey, i do love to cycle, i don't do it as often as i would like to though to be honest, i normally end up going out of a weekend early morning, i cycle around 20miles each ride...although am pushing it up to about 26-28miles now, and trying to cut down the time, did 26 miles couple days ago in 1hr 40min,! i have a trek 4 series front suspension mountain bike, but i have switched the big nobble off-road tyres up for some schwalbe big apple road tyres, and it has made such a huge difference to my road riding now!!!
    i plan to start cycling to work, i just need to get organised and take a change of clothes in the day before so i can get changed into my work clothes (shirt + tie etc) once am there!!!!
  • johnwhitent
    johnwhitent Posts: 648 Member
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    I need some glove recommendations. Since I'm riding in a different position now my hands are getting a little sore, especially the top of my hand right at the base of my fingers. I don't like full gloves though. What do you all use?

    I am wearing Pearl Izumi with the gel inserts in the palm areas right now but seem to change brands every year. My biggest challenge is finding gloves that fi! I have found the best way to deal with my hands and arms getting tired and sore is just to keep changing up my positions on the handle bars. I move around from the hoods to the drops all the time so they don't bother as much. When I rode a flat bar road bike them bothered more.

    I second all of this. I adore Pearl Izumi Pittards Leather Carbon gloves (long crazy name and I think there is a P.R.O. in there too, but they are great!) And drop bars offer so many advantages over flat bars, and with a stem adjustment you can position drop bars at the same level as flat bars so you gain hand position variety and lose nothing compared to flat bars. (My two cents) Additionally, my wife was having problems with hand pain and we found it was actually lack of core strength which led her to put too much weight on her hands. (For what its worth.)
  • TeteDeLaCourse
    TeteDeLaCourse Posts: 100
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    Ahhh, that could be part of my problem too, lack of core strength. I'm definitely putting way too much weight on my hands when I'm on the hoods. The drops feel a lot better but I just don't ride there a lot. I'm working on the core strength though. It'll be interesting to see if it helps. Thanks for all the suggestions!
  • johnwhitent
    johnwhitent Posts: 648 Member
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    Hope it helps L.
  • campbellcjdm
    campbellcjdm Posts: 97
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    We camped every night for 6 nights. The campsites along the way are in excellent shape. The only place we went off-trail to camp was at Antietam - there was a detour because the trail washed out. So we went into town and found 'Nutters' - the absolute BEST ice cream in the world. We had done about 80 miles at that point ... we earned it :laugh:
  • 4WAVK
    4WAVK Posts: 14
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    My DH & I just started riding & are LOVING it! We ride 10-15 miles on hilly terrain 3 or 4 days/week. I have also recently started back runnng, and was amazed to see that I was burning almost as many calories biking as I was running as it doesn't seem as awful... I guess because I actually enjoy it, it doesn't feel as if I'm working as hard... other than when I'm huffing up the 2 biggest hills... then my thigs are sceaming! Glad to see ther are so many people who share our enhusiasm for cycling!
  • lodro
    lodro Posts: 982 Member
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    I'm late to this thread, obviously.

    I own a very unglamorous Koga Miyata World Traveller that's been going for ages. It's the Landrover among bicycles and a dedicated long distance trekking bike. Getting ready to do a 300km ride up north, to get to my art project that's taking place on one of the Dutch islands, with full camping gear and cameras and all. So I'm training for that now, trying to get in 50 km daily around where I live (Rotterdam, in The Netherlands). This is biking country, and the majority of people here ride for utilitarian reasons, but most love a good, classic, upright touring bike.
  • lodro
    lodro Posts: 982 Member
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    Ahhh, that could be part of my problem too, lack of core strength. I'm definitely putting way too much weight on my hands when I'm on the hoods. The drops feel a lot better but I just don't ride there a lot. I'm working on the core strength though. It'll be interesting to see if it helps. Thanks for all the suggestions!

    also a good thing to check is saddle position: if it's too much forward, the saddle won't give you maximum support, which causes you to use your arms and hands to support you on the bike.

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