Takin' It Slow In The Snow

When there's snow on the ground and ice on there road--the conditions we've had here since Christmas--you ride more slowly.  Of course, it makes sense, especially if you ride in the dark, as I sometimes do when I'm riding home from work.  There's nothing like hitting a patch of ice you didn't see when you're pedalling at 20 mph!


Even though I know it's sensible to ride more slowly in the conditions we've had, I don't make any effort to do so.  Somehow I just find myself pedaling, sometimes, as if the cold air were turning into molasses.  I wonder:  Does cold air slow us down?  Or is it the somnolence I often feel on winter days?  The latter makes some sense:  After all, most primates move more slowly--if, of course, they're not hibernating.  Does it have to do with the shorter days?


Or maybe it has to do with the fact that, about this time of year, I'm starting to lose whatever conditioning I built up during the summer and fall. 


Another good reason to cycle more slowly, I've discovered, is that brakes--rim brakes, anyway--seem to take longer to stop than they do in milder weather.  I wonder whether the cold surface of the rim has anything to do with it.  Or, perhaps, brake pads harden a bit in the cold.

From Cyclelicious

If my hypotheses are correct, do they also apply to disc brakes?  I've never owned a bike that had them, and I've ridden them only a couple of times, never in the cold.  But those of you who've ridden them--or all of you scientists and engineers:  What do you think?


I experienced the inverse of what I described the first time I cycled into the Alps. Just outside of Pontarlier, I had just crossed the border from France into Switzerland and, on a descent about a kilometer into Switzerland,  I got a flat.  When I pulled on my brake levers, it took more and more force to get the bike even to keep the bike from accelerating, let alone to slow it down or stop it.   Fortunately, the turns in the road weren't especially sharp and  only one car passed me from the time I pedaled out of Pontarlier.  So, I was able to stop the bike not far from the base of that descent.  


When I took off the wheel, my finger glanced off the side of the rim as if I'd touched a frying pan.  And my fingertip throbbed red for the rest of the day.  


I wonder what riding in winter there would've been like.

Pro-Flex Reflection

Today I took a very short ride along the river to the Long Island City pier.  Along the way, I saw someone riding a bike I hadn’t seen in a long time.  


Back in the day,  a couple of my riding buddies had them.  I even knew a guy who raced on one.

If you were a National Off-Road Bicycle Association (NORBA) member in the early to mid 1990's, as I was, you knew someone who rode this bike if you weren't riding it yourself. The Pro Flex was one of the first mass-marketed full-suspension mountain bikes.  

The first time I saw one of those frames, I thought that the rear was something Salvador Dali might've made if someone had stolen his palette and brushes and left an Erector set in their place. 


I never owned one, or any other full-suspension bike. However, I did have the chance to ride one. I was not prepared for the springiness and cushiness of the ride, accustomed as I was to hardtail mountain bikes and very stiff road bikes.  In fact, I found the bike's bounciness disconcerting--like something I might expect of a pogo stick on wheels.  


I suppose that had I raced off-road, or simply become a more dedicated off-road rider, I would've appreciated the Pro-Flex or some other full-suspension bike.  But having such boingy ride was rather distrubing to me:  I felt that I had less control over the bike.  


Plus, I came to feel about this bike, and full-suspension bikes, the way I came to feel about carbon-fiber bikes: They're great if you're willing and able to replace them every couple of years.  (I was riding a lot, and hard, in those days.)  A year or so after I first saw those bikes, the suspension mechanisms broke on some of them.  Once, during a ride on a trail upstate, I saw a guy lash the ends of his frame together so he could ride his suspensionless suspension bike back out to wherever he parked his car.

Later versions used elastomers.  They were shaped sort of like miniature tires, and performed one of the functions of a tire:  shock absorption.  The problem was that, in time, the elastomers either hardened or collapsed like deflated tires.  In either case, they no longer absorbed shock.  They were replaceable, but not easily.  Plus, they were a proprietary part.  Thus, anyone who still has one of those bikes would need to find replacements on eBay or, as "Citizen Rider" did, improvise new parts.


I'm guessing that ProFlex bikes have been out of production for at least a few years now.   That would account for their relative rarity. Plus, performance-oriented mountain bikes simply don't last as long as good road bikes because they get more wear and tear.  I know that because I  wore out more chains and sprockets, and broke more parts, in my first two years of off-road riding than I did in twenty years of road riding.


It will be interesting to see whether this bike develops "cult" status and collectors start buying them.  That brings me to another parallel with carbon-fiber bikes:  They date themselves, which means that they don't grow old gracefully.  A quality lugged steel road frame will always look and feel right, whether it was made in 1930, 1960, or just last year.  The same can't be said for a full-suspension bike from 1990.  That means, I believe, that neither the Pro-Flex nor any other full-suspension bikes will become "classics" in the way some iconic road bikes have.

Midwinter Reverie

It just figures:   Right after a snowstorm, I'm surfing the web.  And but what to my wondering eyes should appear?

At one point in my life, I would've said that I wouldn't mind seeing those ladies.  Now, since I have become more honest--or, truth be told, since I've started to turn into one of those crotchety people who doesn't care what anyone else thinks--I will say that I want to be one of those ladies.  In my next life...

I found it interesting that both of them were using toe clips.  I, for one, like to use some sort of foot retention on all of my bikes, and for all kinds of riding.  Plus, having ridden with some European commuters and urban cyclists, I know that their cycling is no less "serious" or "intense" than that of sport cyclists.

Speaking of which...I find myself thinking about taking a new European bike trip.  I don't think I'll do it this year:  I want to be in better shape, physically and financially.  Plus, I don't want to go there merely to do rides (or other things)  I've done before or to pursue ghosts.  I simply want to enjoy the ride.