Amusing Crash info.

http://www.strava.com/rides/84696

You can zoom on the satellite picture, and see the speed bump, how far I bounced/slid, and the crawl over to the grass.

BIked to work

Well, to the Caltrain, and from Caltrain to work. Not pretty, but substantially faster than MUNI/VTA...

A few days off

Update: I have my bike back. I did in fact have to get my rear wheel rebuilt but the rest of the bike was ok. I actually rode it from 24th/Mission to home, up a couple of hills, and it wasn't too awful, so I'll be riding again soon enough.

And I know you've all been waiting for photos of the carnage!



Pretty serious bruising.

I complain about the hijinks/route on the Google ride but lo and behold when I go down myself, it is all my fault.

Going into the Foster City cutoff, there is a short section on a bike path. Yesterday I exchanged some texts with some riders on the road that I was trying to cut off at the water stop on the bike path in San Mateo. Turns out they were about 4-5 minutes in front of me and said they would soft-pedal until I caught up. So I dropped the hammer in pursuit.

On the short bike path leading into Foster City, I was smart enough to think "OK, this path ends with a bollard, have to set up the right line to get past it". Well, this in isolation was smart, what was not smart was thinking there was any point in taking that speed off the bike path. The bike path leads to a neighborhood which has a series of speed bumps, which I have ridden around/past/over dozens of times. This time, I just spaced it out, came off the bike path at speed and dug deeper. Instinct had me look up just long enough to see "no cars" and I put my head down. Within seconds I had reached the first speed bump, and was headed over the top of the bars with a loud crack.

Now that is stupid.

I have a pretty bad contusion on my right hip, and an upper back muscle strain. The contusion sucks but I have had one before and just as it starts to look really bad, it's ok to ride again. The strain is more limiting, it keeps me from bending over and will have to be in good shape before riding again because it limits shoulder checks.

The rear wheel which I just had rebuilt is pretty messed up and I'll probably need to have it rebuilt again. We'll also be looking at my fork for potential replacement.

Ouch. Haven gotten in 150 miles last week including some very hard riding on Tuesday this is a bummer, but onwards and upwards.

What if the Spectrum ride was run on a bike path...

Then you would have the SF2G attempt to break the Bayway Commute Record

The record was in fact broken on Tuesday and I did take part.

We started with a lot of riders on what ends up being some pretty scary "terrain" but made it with only one casualty, a Zipp 404 wheel that was banged up pretty bad (see blog post) bunny hopping the curb where the little tiny ramp goes out of the parking lot in Hotelland.

I finished with the front group but have an asterisk. As we approached Coyote Point Park, we sort of swarmed around a white pickup truck and I, in the back, decided that I am too old for that shit and followed the pickup truck through the stop sign instead of preceeding the truck. 100 yards later I was 25 yards behind, I clawed back to within 5 yards but no closer. Fortunately this is at the start of the "Feral Cat Freeway" bike path around Foster City, I shortcut through Foster City and beat the group to Oracle. This added the benefit of not riding a short bike path in a 7 man group (including a tandem) on a narrow bike path with mixed traffic, allowing me to rejoin on the more drag strip portions of the course.

Smart riding would have placed me in the front of the bunch to be able to react to any shenanigans that the leader might try to foment regarding our applications of the CVC. Smarter riding meant that once we were into Menlo Park I limited my turns at the front to 15 seconds top.

Strava Log

I really suffered towards the end but stayed on with some pretty tough riders and a tandem with Crosby captaining and Faye Steiner providing a very capable stoker slot. 2 days later I am finally feeling normal after finding time to stretch last night.

Fixing Velcro Straps on Sidi Shoes

I love my Sidi Genius shoes. Great shoes, and you can just keep wearing them and replace the various parts that wear out. Cleats wear out, put new cleats on. The rubber heel stops wear out, replace them (though they are a bit expensive and I wear them out fast, usually from running down the Caltrain platform to get a train). The buckles at the top of the front of the shoe are also replaceable.

However, I've had an annoying problem that I've let slide for the last year or so frankly, that isn't of the just unscrew the dead part and put in a new one. The velcro straps on my Sidis stopped velcro-ing.

After ignoring it for a while I decided to look around. Turns out the answer was pretty straightforward - this isn't the revelation that figuring out how to fix the stuck wake button on my iPhone was, but it's pretty useful.

Here's one of the offending non-sticking straps.



Materials. Little pack of velcro I picked up at a craft store for $3. The velcro has a sticky back, but the craft store lady and I decided I should also throw down some real adhesive as well. I used "Fabric-Tac", (the bottle cost $8) but after I was done, it was pretty clear that regular super glue would have been fine.



The problem was pretty simple to diagnose. The "furry" part of the velcro was the "defective" chunk. Both sides are synthetic - "Hooks and Loops" - so in theory this shouldn't happen, my understanding is the furry "Loops" side is more likely to lose its mojo. I've even read info on how to get the mojo back, but I just peeled the velcro off of the toe strap.



I cut a piece of furry velcro the same size as the old furry. I had already checked that the new furry velcro would stick to the hooks side. Stuck like glue.



I glued the new furry stuff onto the toestraps, let it dry, and trimmed the new velcro to match the toestraps as best as possible.



Worked like a charm.