Dave and I took our bikes to Knife Edge trail last week to see how it
stacked up as a biking trail.
Answer: most of it is ridable, except for the short "knife edge" section
that inspired its name ... but it's pretty rocky and bumpy, making it
not as fun as other nearby trails. Still, it's a beautiful place with
great views.
But there was a reward at the end. Someone had decorated a piñon
tree at the very end of the trail. Even better, they used edible
decorations — popcorn, berries, pretzels, and what looked like
seed balls. Should be popular with the local wildlife!
If you can't make it to the end of Knife Edge, have a festive holiday
season anyway!
Tags: humor, bike, trails
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18:29 Dec 23, 2022
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I've long been wanting an "action camera" to shoot mountain biking, and
maybe R/C plane, videos.
Last week I ordered an Akaso V50x.
Everybody seems to agree that Akaso offers the best bang-for-the-buck, but
choosing among Akaso's large and varied collection of models isn't easy,
especially since there aren't many comparisons between the V50 line
and the Brave line. The V50x was well-liked by most reviewers,
and gets high praise for its digital stabilization ("6-axis", which
apparently means three axes of translation plus three gyro-driven
rotation axes).
I worried, though, that all the sample V50X videos I found on YouTube
were severely underexposed, and I had written it off my list until I
stumbled upon a review that listed all the V50x Settings options and I
learned it offers exposure compensation (which it calls "Exposure
value").
In the few days I've had the Akaso I've been fairly impressed.
The stabilization is indeed very good — if anything, it's
almost too good,
Read more ...
Tags: video, bike, MTB
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17:46 Nov 15, 2022
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I wrote in midsummer about the fun Dave and I were having on our
Lectric ebikes.
We've been riding the Lectrics most days for errand running and jaunts
across town,
and it's gotten us back into pedalling our regular mountain bikes again, too.
But then one day a big box showed up on the doorstep. Dave had been
lusting after a different sort of ebike: a Jackrabbit.
Read more ...
Tags: bike, ebike
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20:01 Nov 08, 2022
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Ever since a friend let us test-ride her electric bike at PEEC's
annual Electric Vehicle Show two years ago,
Dave's been stewing over the idea of getting an e-bike.
Why an e-bike?
One goal was to help us get into the back country. There are several
remote places -- most notably, in Canyonlands' Needles and Maze
districts -- that can only be accessed through trails that are beyond
our Rav4's ability. Or at least beyond our risk tolerance.
Read more ...
Tags: bike, ebike, MTB
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16:49 Jul 26, 2021
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Going to Toastmasters today, I decided I'd try taking light rail.
There's a light rail station a few blocks from Coherent, where the
group meets, and on this end the Children's Discovery Museum station
is about 10 minutes away by bicycle.
(I'm trying to use bikes more and cars less -- more exercise, less
pollution. But it's not always easy in most parts of California.)
I tried to use VTA's trip planner, but it's hard to use if you're
planning a bike trip: the maximum walking distance you can specify
is a mile, and it's a lot farther than that to the closest light
rail station. The trip planner prefers buses, which adds a lot
to the trip time. If you want to use it for bikes on caltrain or
light rail, you have to do your own research to figure out the
nearest stations, and use those as your source and destination.
You can't just use VTA light rail schedules to plan your trip,
because while they have a list of expected arrival times at each
station, it's not listed in columnar format like most timetables,
so there's no way to tell what time the 10:45 train in San Jose is
likely to arrive at Tasman.
Biking to the station and purchasing a ticket went without a hitch,
and a train came by maybe 7 minutes later. The web site said to use
the middle door of the car, so I did, but there were no bike storage
facilities obvious, so when the train lurched into motion I sat
down. Eventually I saw a "Bikes ->" sign, so at the next stop I
followed it to the end of the car and found the bike storage area.
The way VTA light rail's bike storage works is that there are tracks
on the wall of the car, and a hook up near the roof. The hook is
way up high and it's offset so you can't stand under it, so I can't
just lift the bike straight up like I do when I store my bike on hooks
at home. (Maybe really tall people can do that.) There are
instructions on the wall that say to get the bike wheels in the
tracks, then push on the frame and the seat to walk the bike up the
wall, then hang the wheel on the hook. This doesn't work at all;
you have to hold on to the front wheel somehow (the handlebars
probably work better if you're over six feet all and can reach
that high) to keep it from turning, but you have to push against the
back of the bike because it's too far in from where you have to
stand to be able to hold on to the down tube. Holding on to the seat
and top tube doesn't give you enough leverage to swing the bike
vertical.
Of course, this would all be easy with a nice lightweight bike.
I guess everyone should be commuting on a 24-lb aluminum or titanium
wonder. (I have a lovely 24 lb mountain bike, which I don't use for
commuting after my previous lovely lightweight bike was stolen.
And yes, it was locked, which isn't an option on light rail.)
(Bikes on Caltrain are a lot easier. There are bike racks near the
doors, and you just wheel your bike into them and secure them with
a bungee cord.)
I eventually did get my bike hooked, and settled down for the ride,
covered in sweat (much more so than I had been from the bike ride)
and watching the alarming swaying of the bike, wondering whether
it might come off the hook (they're more secure than they look).
I exited at Tasman, rather than going to the end of the line
(Baypointe) and transferring to the Tasman line to get closer to
Coherent. I was running late and figured it would be faster to
bike it. As it is, I made a wrong turn after I got off the train,
so I was late anyway. It took me an hour and a quarter for the
whole trip, but that includes ten minutes lost to my navigational
error. The trip takes about 25 minutes by car in average traffic.
A little over double car-time seems fairly typical for public transit.
On the way back, I decided to take the Tasman line to see how much
difference it made. It was a 12 minute wait for a train, but even
so, the trip took an hour and ten minutes, about five minutes longer
than when I rode the Tasman section. Probably worthwhile.
But it was on the return trip that my problems started. The bike
section had three bikes in it already, so I didn't have much room to
work with struggling to get my bike up, and managed to wrench my
back in the process, and couldn't get past that to get the bike
up where it needed to be. A nice fellow rider helped me.
I rode the rest of the trip in pain. I got the bike down without
too much trouble when I got to the transfer station,
but when transferring to the Santa Theresa line
again I couldn't lift it high enough -- it hurt too much.
Again someone helped me.
I sat near the bike, trying to find a position that didn't hurt so
much. Every so often someone else came on with a bike, struggled
with it for a while, eventually got it up, then looked at me,
we exchanged sympathetic glances, and the other rider would say,
"My bike is heavy" or "I used to have a lighter bike, but it got
stolen". Apparently it's not just me -- lots of commuters have
this problem with the VTA bike racks, because they're set up for
fancy lightweight bikes and lots of people use cheap heavy bikes
for commuting.
(That made me feel better.
I don't normally have back problems, and I'm fairly strong
for my size. I have no trouble lifting a bike, even this heavy
klunker, over my head to store it on a normal hook. It's the
unusual angles on the VTA cars, the inaccessibility of the hook,
and the lack of space in which to work which caused problems for me.)
I'm home safely now, with ibuprofen and a comfortable chair,
wondering how long my back is going to be sore and whether
I'll have the courage to try VTA again.
Certainly not without a regimen of abdominal and back exercises first.
Or a much lighter bike.
Tags: transit, bike
[
17:19 Aug 19, 2004
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