OT: Cycling ... as in... riding bikes... as in... bicycles

[Tarekith]

Aqua, nice! I used to go to PR a lot for my last job, mainly Ponce and Jayuya, sometimes I'd get lucky and get to go to Rincon for a bit of surfing. Maybe the EL Caribe in San Juan if we got some free time.

rdomain - I rented that same bike up at Whistler this summer, sick ride. 40mm stanchions while cruising Blue Velvet or Crank It Up = Heaven.

[rdomain]

Cheers aqua_tek! That was just at the local spot the other week. Fun tracks!

If anyone is interested in a chunk of dh footage (esp helmetcam), head to my youtube page and have a squiz. Some music there too!

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=rdomain#g/u

[rdomain]

@ Tarekith. Which bike was that? The Demo 7? Sweet ride for sure. I had the Iron Horse Sunday when I went to Whistler. Killed it! haha.... Crank it Up. Great track!! Lots of air. I dug the alternate bridge drops half way down! In my vids, you can see me crash on my first day there hitting up Crank it Up. So good!

[Tarekith]

Yeah, the '09 Demo 7.

[rdomain]

It'd be perfect for Whistler! I was scraping my bottom bracket with the Sunday heaps over there with all the steep rockrolls etc. I'm def planning on going back. Loved it there. It's just a long way from Australia!

[Tarekith]

I'm spoiled, it's only a 4 hour drive for me.

[rdomain]

Man, now that is envious. Very lucky. I reckon I'll head back in 2011. Europe for 2010.

[8O]

Cheers aqua_tek! That was just at the local spot the other week. Fun tracks!

If anyone is interested in a chunk of dh footage (esp helmetcam), head to my youtube page and have a squiz. Some music there too!

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=rdomain#g/u

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-nYxRtwnPU - is great, love the commentary, kudos...!

[rdomain]

Haha.... cheers! Crash commentary and all. hehe...

[aqua_tek]

So... I arrived home today for the holidays.

While talking about my bike adventures and misadventures in NY, my mom revealed that she's been interested in having a bike down here at home.

Nothing crazy. All she wants is a simple single gear or 3-speed vintage roadster-ish, commuter type to pop on a basket and just ride around. Kind of a pain in the ass to find appropriate bikes here in PR, sadly. Shops are scarce and all they sell are brand new road bikes or MTB's.

And if I'd known about this before, I probably could've bought a nice used vintage one in NY, then shipped it over. Too late for that. It's either wait til I get back or try and get her one online somewhere.

Any ideas? So far, I've seen a few slightly decent, not-too-expensive ones in bikesdirect.com, but trying to find more options.


PS: I'm also slightly tempted to get me a cheapo SS/FG from bikesdirect to keep here and ride during my visits.

[contakt321]

I think you would be able to find one for cheap on Craigslist in NYC easily.

[aqua_tek]

I think you would be able to find one for cheap on Craigslist in NYC easily.

That would've been the first choice. If I'd only known about this a few days ago.

Maybe I'm getting too ahead of myself. All of a sudden I got this urge to get her the bike for the holidays, but it's probably wiser to just find one on CL when I get back to NYC and send it over.

[aqua_tek]

I think I may have found her a bike locally. f*** yes.

Anyways I have a question. I know I should just man up and brave the conditions, but I'm a realist and know that the cold will not be very motivating for me to bring the bike out. Plus it gets a little crazy out there with all the slippery ice, and narrower streets due to the snow, and the drivers will be equally horrible, if not worse than in previous months. So I'm considering getting an indoor solution like a mag trainer OR rollers to use over the winter.

Rollers seem to come closer to actually riding, but are more expensive and on top of that you usually have to buy other barrels separately if you want to increase resistance.

Mag trainers just hold the back wheel there, and the entire front half does absolutely nothing but provide support. So far from the real feeling. That kind of blows. But they are cheaper and provide variable resistance.

So I don't know. I'm leaning towards the rollers for feel but maybe it's a good idea to have variable resistance. Then again maybe not if I just want to stay in shape over the winter? As long as I ride the rollers hard enough I'll be set?

Thoughts? Anyone tried either or both and want to chime in?

[Tarekith]

One thing to be aware of is how loud both are. IF you live in an apartment, your neighbors might not like you very much anymore.

Personally, I never thought either felt all that much like the real thing. I'd rather just take the winter off biking and focus on running or something else. Gives your legs a break to some degree, varies up the workouts, and keeps you from getting burned out long term.

[8O]

Yeah, I'd second Tarekith's suggestion of diversifying over winter - keeping fit in different ways so that you can be ready to go when the weather clears up. I had a mag trainer once, used it a couple of times then got completely bored and also felt it didn't really provide a work-out at all, I could never get the resistance setting high enough - it was more about spinning the legs rather than a good cardio-vascular workout.

I found proper spinning classes at the local gym pretty good though - you know those bikes with the massive flywheels on the front. Plus stuff like circuit training/cross training - recommended.