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The Cost Of “Aero”, Is It Worth It? Bicycling Magazine’s Take, And Mine.
I watched a video about the cost of “aero” in cycling that answered the question of “is aero worth it” in the title; The Grim Reality Of Owning An Aero Bike.
Now, I’ve come up with some intriguing titles before, but that one’s pretty ominous. Now, if you’ve priced out an aero bike of late, especially a top-spec aero bike, the price tag is scary. However, all top-spec bikes come with a scary price tag. I get the feeling the title is a bit of clickbait.
I’ve got the good fortune to own and ride two high-end race bikes, one aero and one “from a time before aero”, from 1999 and I don’t have to gush on about this for long, as I’ve written about this at least once a year since 2014.
If you can afford the upgrade, aero is worth it. It’s worth it on a bike, it’s worth it almost anywhere you like, it’s even worth it riding with your friend, Mike… though probably not on a trike.
You absolutely, positively, all other things being equal, can feel the free speed. Riding my Trek 5200, you can feel just a little more drag from the bike. It’s unmistakable, even using the same wheels on either bike.
On the other hand, until just four years ago, my fastest ride time on a bicycle was on the Trek, not the aero bike. So let’s say it’s a difference you can feel, but it’s not enough you can’t make it up with a little bit of want to.
And that’s where I’ll leave that. I love both bikes, but the Venge is unquestionably badass.
I Love My Bicycle(s)… BUT… That Has A Limit Now
For the longest time, I’d get home from work, change into my cycling garb and head out the door for an hour to hour-and-a-half. It’d be 7:00 in the evening before I was cleaned up and we were eating dinner. My wife put up with it because she wasn’t working and she’d ride with the retired folk in the morning.
And there wasn’t much that came between a nice evening and my bicycle. Whichever I felt like riding that day.
As it turned out, I missed a lot and made my wife and kids put up with a little more than they should have. However, to get to the proper point of this, I have to hop forward to jump back.
The last couple of years, I haven’t missed any of my kids’ events, unless they seriously interfered with work and I couldn’t get the day off. It’s happened a few times (just yesterday). I’ve been to every big deal I could. Swim meets, tennis matches, helping my wife (I was awarded the League of Michigan Bicyclists “Volunteer of the Year for 2023 – more on that in another post, tomorrow). I’ve really been there. Unfortunately, my cycling has suffered for it because cycling was once a selfish indulgence that I partook in just a little too much… but because I changed, I’ve had a vastly happier life, with my kids and my wife.
Throw in cycling on the tandem and I struggle to think how it could get any better.
The last couple of days, after work, I went out for 12-mile rides. I was back and showered by 5 and we’d finished eating at 6:30 and had a few minutes to hang out with our daughter and talk before turning in. I’d never boast I’m as fit as I used to be, because I’d be lying.
I am happier, though. I (still) love my bikes. There’s simply a better balance today.
Do You Suffer From Chain Noise In Just A Few Gears? The Likely Culprits… I Just Found A New One, Too.
Do you have a loud chain whilst riding? It’ll be one of those things, you flip the bike upside down and everything sounds fine. As soon as you hop on and ride away, your bike sounds almost as if you’re half-geared, but without the extra-loud click that signifies the chain skipping a bit. Worse, the low/easier half of the cassette (the bigger cogs) seem to operate quietly, but as soon as you hit 22-mph and shift for that harder gear, you’re fed an unnerving chatter that you didn’t experience on the bigger cogs. Oh, how I hate that!
Maybe I can help!
- Chain line is off. Now, this one’s going to emerge from trying to rebuild a bike with new components. This will be the rarest, but it’s also an easy fix. Stick a shim behind the cassette. This assumes the chain line problem can be fixed by bringing the cassette out, of course. If it’s the crank that has to go out, you’ll have to look at another bottom bracket… and if that’s the case, I’d take mine to the shop. I have a 2-mil spacer behind my Trek’s cassette. Without it, I couldn’t ride in the big ring and easiest gear on the cassette without the chain falling off the big ring.
- Limit screws are misaligned. Now, having the limit screws off to a point your last shift is the chain hitting the frame, or worse, the spokes, is the stuff of cycling nightmares (my wife says I shift in my sleep, and I believe her). We’re not talking about anything so egregious. What if they’re just a little off, though? Let’s say you’re on the low side on the H-limit screw and on the high side on the L-limit screw (Not quite into the spokes on the L, and not quite into the frame on the H – Low and High refers to gears, not the size of the cogs. The high gear is the smallest cog. H=Small L=Big). Anyway, if the distance is just a little too spread out, You’ll have messed up the distance the derailleur has to move to get from one gear/click to the next by making the overall gap too wide (or, vice-versa, to narrow going the other way). If you don’t know what you’re doing, this is a great article that fully explains the operation in excellent detail.
- The coup de gras, I just realized this was a thing; the rear derailleur’s B screw, the Tension screw, is keeping the jockey wheels too far from the cassette teeth. This will cause a gear, usually about fourth-highest, to chatter (can depend on number of gears, in my case 11-speed). Shimano wants about 5-mm between the biggest cogs’ teeth and the jockey wheel. I like it a little closer, personally… but only by a mil or two. Not near enough to crash the jockey wheel into the low gear (big cog on the cassette). For this adjustment, I like to shift into the low (big) cog on the cassette and adjust then. Of course, if you’re not absolutely certain, check to make sure the B screw is in enough that your jockey wheel won’t crash into the cassette by slowly pedaling and operating the rear derailleur by hand. Trying the adjustment in any other gear can lead to horrible problems if you go too far. If you’re in the proper gear, you’ll see where to stop long before you get there.
With any luck, one of these is causing your headache. Happy, quiet cycling!
A Beautiful (and Safe) Mother’s Day On The Tandem With My Wife
Mother’s Day cycling is a little tricky for my wife… she’s been in two Mother’s Day crashes. One was on a wet quad train track that hits the road at such an acute angle, you have to use four lanes (it’s not a four-lane road, the road just opens up at that point by design… the speed limit is 25-mph). It was damp after a rain the night before and the boards between the tracks were a little wet… several of us went down, including my wife. Thankfully, nobody was hurt seriously.
The next one, just a few years ago, was bad. Just my wife. Her foot cover kept her from properly clipping in at a stop and she went for a sprint a few miles up the road. Halfway into a massive push, her foot slipped off the pedal and she went down hard. She was probably a little concussed and still has a scar for her misfortune.
So we were rolling out under that cloud. I knew my job, and I made sure I didn’t get cocky all ride long. I actually had to check my motives a couple of times and remember to be safe on Mother’s day. Still, we topped 32-mph a few times on nice downhill runs.
We had a glorious ride. Not a cloud in the sky and it warmed up enough we were shedding clothes at our first stop just twelve miles in.
And we didn’t even come close to a mishap on the ride. We got to the driveway with an 18-mph average for just under 40-miles and smiles on our faces for the Sunday Funday effort.
With our daughters home and my wife’s mom and stepdad over for dinner, we did our best to make it a special day for my wife. Including not crashing on the morning ride!
A Note To Beyoncé; A Tandem Captain’s Warmest, Sincerest THANK YOU! Alternatively, I Thought I Knew What Fun On A Bicycle Was… Till We Bought A Tandem And Found True Happiness (After A LOT Of Work).
My wife and I went on a cruise with a couple of friends, yesterday. It was damp and chilly and we’d planned on waiting another hour or two, but Mike called and said he was already on the road, so we had to make a decision; ride alone or ride with friends. We decided to quickly dress and I got the tandem ready to roll. We made it outside before Mike, who’d collected Diane, had a half-mile left to the house. They slow-rolled it. We could see them coming down the road as we threw our legs over the top tube.
Off we went, on the damp, but not wet enough for a rooster tail, roads. I was pretty quiet throughout the headwind part of the ride. Two things I don’t like for riding are cold and damp. Still, even cold and damp beats lazy by a lot. And headwind? Hey, it’s Michigan. Nothing you can do about it.
We hit all of the headwind in the first half of the ride. It was a bit of a slog, but not too bad… it was a 13-mph (21 kph) crossing headwind from the south-southwest and the temps were well above freezing, but well below room temperature. With a light long-sleeved jersey and a thermal vest on, I was just the right mix of cool so I wasn’t dripping all over the top tube. My wife and I handled all but a few of the headwind miles up front before turning toward home for the big push.
It was good times all of a sudden.
About eight miles from home, my wife tapped me on the butt and quietly said in my ear, “Beyoncé” and I chuckled. I know what time it is when Beyoncé plays in her right earbud (she leaves the left out to remain aware of traffic). I shouted, “Beyooooncé!”. My wife laughed and said, “We’re going to play.” I could feel the pedals lighten as my wife put the power to hers. Our pace jumped from the low 20s to the upper 20s. Mike and Diane slipped off the back as we passed 28-mph (45-kph). They were quite a way back when we got to the next intersection. We sat up and soft pedaled to wait for them to catch up. The next three miles were crossing tailwind, heading north. Then, three more with tailwind and we were home, with just a touch over 29-miles. So, thank you, Beyoncé.
We had an impressive collection of dried, departed worms stuck to our frame when we finished. We talked with Mike for a minute before heading inside to get out of the cold. I spent a little time cleaning de-worming the bike, we cleaned up and ate some lunch… and took a marvelous nap as the rain began again in earnest.
Almost from the minute we walked through the door, I was thinking about how much more fun I have on the tandem that I do the single bikes. It’s not even close.
A photo from warmer, sunnier, Kentucky days… but with two Mikes in our draft.
Beware Where You Buy Your Bike From! HAHA!
I saw this flipping through YouTube and I couldn’t help but laugh. It’s not just that the handlebars are turned around. No, the stem’s backwards, the handlebars are backwards, and the brakes and shifters are on right.
It’s literally like the person putting the bike together had no clue how a bike cockpit… works… but was just dangerous enough to know how most of the parts go.
Anyway, it’s worth a laugh.
Now That’s The Mötley Crüe I Remembered!
Mötley Crüe has been one of my all-time favorite bands since I was just a young lad (going on 40-years, now). The only band I’ve seen live more often is Metallica, and they’re only in the lead by one show.
I had all of Mötley Crüe’s cassette tapes, then all of their CDs… up until Generation Swine. I just couldn’t get into that one. I tried a couple of their albums after that one but found myself not swayed. I was a big fan of Vince Neil’s solo work, even. That had its limits, though. Until just the other day. Fair warning, the video is a little out there…
Out of the blue, I got a notification from Apple Music that the Crüe has a new song out. Now, if there’s one thing I know about Mötley Crüe, it’s that Vince Neil can’t keep up live. He’s just too washed up to carry the high notes, so he ends up sounding like he’s constantly out of breath, hitting two or three lyrics out of five… and that he looks like Ron Jeremy’s brother doesn’t help.
Anyway, I clicked on the song, just to check it out… and it was AWESOME! Vince took it down a notch (or an octave) for this song, so I get the sense he’ll be able to perform it live. Which is double awesome.
If you’re a Crüe fan at all, give this one a listen. It’s pretty freaking good!
Commuting By Bicycle To Work Is A Little Harder Than I Expected…
I’d been fantasizing about riding to work for so long, I didn’t put much thought into what would really go into it. Now that I can commute by bike, and actually have to go the long way home to make the ride an enjoyable length. This has come with a learning curve, though, and some trouble spots have been quite funny.
- No matter how hard I’ve tried not to, I still break a sweat on the way to work. I think part of the issue is that I’ve always ridden hard. I’m not used to just chilling out. It’ll be weird fighting the urge to push on the pedals with my usual verve.
- I ride race bikes for my commute. Wise or not, I love my 5200 and Venge and that’s what I’m going to ride. There’s no fitting a pannier, so I’m riding with a backpack that weighs well over 20-pounds (10kg). That gets a little heavy after eight miles or so.
- It takes three times longer to get to the office. Well, 2-1/2, or 15 minutes. I have to leave early to make it on time and that messes with my wife and my normal routine for getting ready in the morning.
- Showing up in cycling shorts to the office is a little weird. In the future, to avoid this, I’m going to throw on a pair of regular shorts over the Lycra. Figuring this one out came with a little… well, awkwardness.
In the end, I think I’ll end up picking and choosing which days I ride to work and which I simply ride with my wife after work. It’s not set in stone, of course. It was just a little more work than I anticipated.
What a Weekend!
I wrote about Saturday’s ride. Sunday started out beautifully with a diminishing chance of precipitation. Apparently the weather didn’t get the memo.
What should have been partly cloudy skies opened up to a gentle sprinkle, then a full-on light rain. Halfway through our 39-mile ride we were soaked.
We rode through it, though. Nothing else we could do!
It was a slog, and if we got behind a wheel, well, we didn’t have to worry about drinking out of a water bottle.
We had some laughs over that throughout the day.
After a bunch of yard work, we were off to bowling. Our last night of the season.
We rocked it. 5 of 7 points and I went 224 – 217 – 236 for a cool 225 average on the night.
On top of the fun stuff, we got our daughter’s room cleared out so she could get a new laminate floor, burned our brush pile down (without getting the FD called on us, which was a small miracle – I thought for a minute NASA would call), and I got the yard cut and trimmed.
What a weekend! Thank God for recovery.
Tapping the big miles again – oh, how sweet it is!
We started breaking into the big miles yesterday. My wife and I have been in the teens and just breaking into the 20s on the tandem, but we started kicking it up yesterday. We had just under a 40-miler with crosswind the whole way. When the wind blows from the east, the only thing we can do is head north or south.
One thing notably different on the tandem is my wife making sure I’m eating enough… we were just over halfway into the ride and she tapped me on the butt and asked if I wanted a gel… probably a little early, but not a bad idea, I thought. It helped me stay strong through the rest of the ride – in fact, I really felt good.
Today is another big one, in the 40-mile range. We were kicking around 57 but figured that was just too much of a jump…
Yesterday’s ride was simply amazing. We had great weather and a nice six-person group. It was smiles and laughs and good times for the whole ride. It’s really nice to be back at it! Thank God for spring!
Fit Recovery 