Ready for the HHH

In 2008 and 2009, I rode 100 miles at the Hotter n Hell Hundred at Wichita Falls with my son TJ, and 12,000 - 14,000 other cyclists. This year, TJ is still going for the 100 miles, while my younger son Josh and I will be riding the 25 mile route. This will be Josh's first bike rally, and 25 miles will be a good distance for him, and it will be a good distance for me as I recover from my littel mishap on my last rally.

I've been riding about 10 miles every morning before commuting by bike to work, and Sunday afternoon TJ and I rode 15 miles to Palmer and back in the 105 degree heat. There is a cold front rapidly approaching, and we expect the high at the HHH to be in the mid nineties. Josh and I will be finished by mid-morning. TJ will be out in the heat, but probably not as long as 2008 and 2009 when he was having to wait on DAD!

I'm already making plans to do the 100 next year...perhaps both of the sons...and maybe a daughter and daughter-in-law or two...will join us? Stay tuned!

Riding with the Mrs.

It has been fun riding in the dark mornings for the past few weeks because Mrs. Bicycle Bill has been getting up with me at 5:30AM to ride. We both have lights on the bikes, and in town the streetlights help a lot.

Today we rode especially hard, as we got a good, early start and I thought we could get 10 miles in. We almost made it, as my odometer showed 9.8 when we locked the bikes back up. We also averaged almost 13 miles per hour, which is pretty good for in town with traffic and stop signs and such, although in the early mornings we actually see very few automobiles. We can find a number of small hills to climb on our early morning rides, and today I think we found all of them! We are both feeling them a little, but she actually thinks that is a good thing!

Macho Bicycle Bill

Last Saturday, I went to the local hardware store to purchase some U-bolts to attach a front rack to my commuter bike. Tim “The Toolman” Taylor from the sitcom Home Improvement made it especially cool for guys to go to the hardware store. There’s so much stuff to look at, projects to dream of, tools to lust after….(insert barking sounds here).

Unfortunately, I failed to take pictures of the trip to the hardware store. However, my daughter came in from Hawaii (vacation, she doesn’t LIVE there) and offered to buy a pedicure for me. At this point I should probably lie and say I’ve never had a pedicure before, and I only went because I had not seen my daughter in a while and she BEGGED me to go. That would not be honest. I’ve had several pedicures, the first was on a cruise about four years ago.

Frankly, I really enjoy having a pedicure. My feet have never felt better, and after they finish with the toes, they massage your feet and legs…(insert barking sounds here)…and I did take pictures at the nail salon.

So here is Bicycle Bill's daughter, Mrs. Bicycle Bill, and Mrs. Bicycle Bill's mom. Who sang that song "Macho, Macho, Man"?

Fat Tires

If you go back and read the early history on this blog that tells about my first foray into bike riding since I was a kid, you’ll see that I started out with a mountain bike. After a couple of long rides on the mountain bike, I soon desired a road bike for the long rides, and maybe became a bit of a bike snob about it, because I had been told that the mountain bikes were “wrong” for the rallies, even though I had done away with the knobby tires in favor of road slicks.

Well I haven’t exactly abandoned the skinny tires, but I have fallen in love with my hybrid bike in just a few weeks of riding it on my morning 7 to 10 mile rides in town and for commuting and errands. It is not just the width of the tires, though that is part of it. It is more the lower tire pressure that the wider tires require. I generally run 100 psi in the skinny tires on my road bike. That tire pressure is necessary for a clydesdale rider like me to avoid pinch flats and possible rim damage from hitting pot holes and other road hazards in town.

The wider tires run about 70 psi, so they absorb more of he bumps in the road. If someone asks me what kind of bike I’d recommend they consider for their first time back on a bike in a while, I’d probably suggest a hybrid today. If they really want to get into riding long distances at rallies and such, then the road bike is the way to go, but if most of their riding will be done in the city, I’d have to say the hybrid is the bike of choice.

Mrs. Bicycle Bill's Birthday Bike Ride!

Today is Mrs. Bicycle Bill's Birthday! She did not HAVE to ride her bike to her birthday dinner, but she wanted to! Plus, she wanted to get a few miles in before we stopped to eat, so we road North from home, then back South to Don Jose's for delicious Mexican Food. We try to eat light on bike rides, but that's kinda hard at Don Jose's. We made a total of about 8 miles, had a wonderful time, and no, I don't think we broke any speed limits on the way home!

Road ID

I would be remiss if I did not tell you about one very important piece of "equipment" that I always have when I'm on my bicycle, and, since my recent experience, I have it all the time. It's called a Road ID, and it gave the doctors in the emergency room my wife's and son's phone numbers so they could get in touch with them while I was having my recent heart attack. I think the picture speaks for itself. Click on the picture to make it bigger if you want to read what I have engraved on mine. You can get one at www.roadid.com.

Spinning and Coasting

Back on the bike again two weeks after the heart attack.

Two weeks ago, I left the Cow Creek Country Classic Bike Rally in this helicopter for a quick, ten minute ride to Baylor Hospital in Dallas.

Spinning on the bike refers to staying in a low, easy gear and spinning the pedals rather than hammering down in a high gear. Everyone knows what coasting is, and so went my ride today for the first ride of any distance since the heart attack two weeks ago.

Early this morning, while the streets were still damp from the rain, I “spun and coasted” to Starbucks for the typical breakfast of oatmeal and and bold, black coffee. I stayed there for a while and worked on tomorrow’s Sunday School lesson, then leisurely rode home.

Hey! I’ve got a new old bike! I purchased this bike just to get the 700C wheels for the Trek 510 that I recently rebuilt, but the bike is so relaxed and comfortable, I put my fenders and rack on it and plan to use it for my commuter and errand bike. It is a 1993 Trek 700 Multitrack. This bike has wide tires that are very comfortable, although it would not have been considered a “high end” bike when it was new. It has a very basic 18 speed drive train with twist grip shifters. I’ll never ride it 100 miles in one day, but for commuting and errands, I really like it.

I left the house again around 11:30 to get a little more spinning and coasting in.

It was good to get back on these two local streets, Preston and Sleepy Hollow. I've ridden on them so much, they seem like old friends. Dirty, wet, bumpy old friends!

Today was humid, but not unbearably so, and the cloud cover is keeping the temperature tolerable.

I put in another 7 miles, stopping for lunch after about 5 miles at Los Aztecas Market. I had the chicken quesadillas with rice and beans, and it was muy bueno! Mrs. Bicycle Bill and I have stopped there to eat several times, and we have never been disappointed.

So I'm feeling great! I have a followup visit with my cardiologist in early August, and I expect him to order a stress test to see how the old ticker ticks, but as far as I am concerned today, Bicycle Bill is BACK!