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!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
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.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
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!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
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.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
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!
Sunday, June 27, 2010
The Cow Creek Country Classic Heart Attack
Several folks have asked "what happened?", so here it is!
It was a really beautiful start to the Cow Creek Country Classic Bike Ride. With a 7:30 am starting time, the weather was still pleasant. Rhonda went with me to ride the 19 mile course with our friend Jenny Vidrine, and my son TJ and friend Joe Vidrine were riding with me on the 36 mile course.
I've never felt better on my bike than I did at the beginning of this rally. TJ rides faster than Joe and I so he wasn't always right with us, but would allow us old guys to catch up from time to time, and I knew we'd see him at the rest stops. Joe and I have not known each other long, but had a lot to talk about...much about bikes, but other stuff, too. The first ten miles seemed to fly by...very few hills to climb, and the wind was mostly at our backs.
Just as we left the 10 mile rest stop, I got a flat on my rear tire. (Of course it was the rear tire, it's ALWAYS the rear tire!) While I was fumbling around wasting two co2 cartridges, some guys from Mad Duck Sports stopped and repaired it. Bicycle shops are represented at almost all of the rallies, and what a great assistance they are. I was back on the road in no time!
The next 10 miles had more hills and was more into the wind, but I still felt GREAT! Maybe it was the nice conversation with Joe that made this ride seem so easy, but it really was never a struggle, until....
At 19 miles we passed a bike car wash, and I thought maybe it was also our next rest stop, but there were not a lot of bikes there, so we rolled on by. Sometime during the next mile I began experiencing some chest discomfort. I felt like if I could rest for just a few minutes, it would pass (it has always done so before), but we still needed to make it to the next rest stop. The discomfort was bad enough that I began to get concerned that the car wash had actually been a rest stop, so there would not be another one until another 10 miles passed. I told Joe that I needed to stop so I could check the map, so we rode on to the top of the next hill and pulled off the road.
Neither Joe nor I will ever be known as cartographers. I'm still not sure where we were, but Joe was pretty sure the next rest stop was close, so we pressed on. It was only about a mile or so to the next rest stop, but it was a long way for me, The "discomfort" in my chest was moving towards "pain". When we got to the rest stop (it was about 12 miles from the previous one), rather than head straight for the water and sports drink as I usually do, I laid down in the first shade I could find. It was the shade of the port-a-potties, but still shade!
Joe had told TJ that I was not feeling well, and when TJ checked on me, the pain was going through my chest to my back. I have never failed to finished a ride like this, and it was a hard decision to make, but after TJ gave me some Gatorade, I told him to let Joe know that I was gong to SAG on to the finish, and TJ loaded my bike in the back of the SAG truck.
I actually felt bad about dropping out. I figured that after I was in the truck for a few minutes, the pain would subside, and I would regret my decision. I REALLY like to ride my bike. The pain did not subside, and actually intensified, so I had Rob Cagle, the SAG driver, take me to the hospital ER.
A LOT of stuff happened there, but in summary, there was an elephant on my chest that needed to get off! They asked me on a scale of 1-10 how intense the pain was, and I chose "8" most of the time. I figured it was at least two steps short of having a baby.
It seemed like a long time before the pain subsided, but probably was a lot less time than it seemed to me. I had three nitroglycerin pills, one aspirin, three shots of morphine (gotta love that stuff) plus some other stuff that I don't know what was. Eventually, they gave me the "clot buster" and it worked., By the time the helicopter came to fly me to Baylor Hospital in Dallas, the pain was gone.
It only takes 10 minutes to get to Dallas by helicopter, and since I was feeling okay, I looked out the window like a tourist. The flight was smooth with very little turbulence, so aside from being strapped to a gurney, I enjoyed it.
I can not say enough about the care I got at Baylor Waxahachie and from the care flight team. I thank God for them.
I also have to thank my beautiful wife, Rhonda for the strength and encouragement she gave while I was in the ER, and TJ for "riding like the wind" to get to he hospital. He got the call that I was in the ER and was probably 7 miles away. He looked for a SAG vehicle to carry him, but there wasn't one, so he raced to the hospital on the big chain ring and little sprocket all the way! You'd have to be a cyclist to know what that means, but it means a LOT to me. Some other riders were following him, thinking he was just racing for the finish line...he had to stop and tell them he was headed for the hospital. Sure hope those guys aren't still lost in Waxahachie.
I can't say enough about how our friends Joe and Jenny dropped everything to help us out. They took care of Rhonda and the bikes, plus got the prayers started for me.
I had not been in my hospital room 5 minutes before Doug and Pam Stokes arrived, and soon after, my room was overflowing with friends and family. My prognosis is good...I'll have a heart catheter on Monday to check it out, but I don't expect them to find anything. Thanks to all of the professionals, friends and family, I'll be back on the bike in no time. Thank you all for your continued prayers.
It was a really beautiful start to the Cow Creek Country Classic Bike Ride. With a 7:30 am starting time, the weather was still pleasant. Rhonda went with me to ride the 19 mile course with our friend Jenny Vidrine, and my son TJ and friend Joe Vidrine were riding with me on the 36 mile course.
I've never felt better on my bike than I did at the beginning of this rally. TJ rides faster than Joe and I so he wasn't always right with us, but would allow us old guys to catch up from time to time, and I knew we'd see him at the rest stops. Joe and I have not known each other long, but had a lot to talk about...much about bikes, but other stuff, too. The first ten miles seemed to fly by...very few hills to climb, and the wind was mostly at our backs.
Just as we left the 10 mile rest stop, I got a flat on my rear tire. (Of course it was the rear tire, it's ALWAYS the rear tire!) While I was fumbling around wasting two co2 cartridges, some guys from Mad Duck Sports stopped and repaired it. Bicycle shops are represented at almost all of the rallies, and what a great assistance they are. I was back on the road in no time!
The next 10 miles had more hills and was more into the wind, but I still felt GREAT! Maybe it was the nice conversation with Joe that made this ride seem so easy, but it really was never a struggle, until....
At 19 miles we passed a bike car wash, and I thought maybe it was also our next rest stop, but there were not a lot of bikes there, so we rolled on by. Sometime during the next mile I began experiencing some chest discomfort. I felt like if I could rest for just a few minutes, it would pass (it has always done so before), but we still needed to make it to the next rest stop. The discomfort was bad enough that I began to get concerned that the car wash had actually been a rest stop, so there would not be another one until another 10 miles passed. I told Joe that I needed to stop so I could check the map, so we rode on to the top of the next hill and pulled off the road.
Neither Joe nor I will ever be known as cartographers. I'm still not sure where we were, but Joe was pretty sure the next rest stop was close, so we pressed on. It was only about a mile or so to the next rest stop, but it was a long way for me, The "discomfort" in my chest was moving towards "pain". When we got to the rest stop (it was about 12 miles from the previous one), rather than head straight for the water and sports drink as I usually do, I laid down in the first shade I could find. It was the shade of the port-a-potties, but still shade!
Joe had told TJ that I was not feeling well, and when TJ checked on me, the pain was going through my chest to my back. I have never failed to finished a ride like this, and it was a hard decision to make, but after TJ gave me some Gatorade, I told him to let Joe know that I was gong to SAG on to the finish, and TJ loaded my bike in the back of the SAG truck.
I actually felt bad about dropping out. I figured that after I was in the truck for a few minutes, the pain would subside, and I would regret my decision. I REALLY like to ride my bike. The pain did not subside, and actually intensified, so I had Rob Cagle, the SAG driver, take me to the hospital ER.
A LOT of stuff happened there, but in summary, there was an elephant on my chest that needed to get off! They asked me on a scale of 1-10 how intense the pain was, and I chose "8" most of the time. I figured it was at least two steps short of having a baby.
It seemed like a long time before the pain subsided, but probably was a lot less time than it seemed to me. I had three nitroglycerin pills, one aspirin, three shots of morphine (gotta love that stuff) plus some other stuff that I don't know what was. Eventually, they gave me the "clot buster" and it worked., By the time the helicopter came to fly me to Baylor Hospital in Dallas, the pain was gone.
It only takes 10 minutes to get to Dallas by helicopter, and since I was feeling okay, I looked out the window like a tourist. The flight was smooth with very little turbulence, so aside from being strapped to a gurney, I enjoyed it.
I can not say enough about the care I got at Baylor Waxahachie and from the care flight team. I thank God for them.
I also have to thank my beautiful wife, Rhonda for the strength and encouragement she gave while I was in the ER, and TJ for "riding like the wind" to get to he hospital. He got the call that I was in the ER and was probably 7 miles away. He looked for a SAG vehicle to carry him, but there wasn't one, so he raced to the hospital on the big chain ring and little sprocket all the way! You'd have to be a cyclist to know what that means, but it means a LOT to me. Some other riders were following him, thinking he was just racing for the finish line...he had to stop and tell them he was headed for the hospital. Sure hope those guys aren't still lost in Waxahachie.
I can't say enough about how our friends Joe and Jenny dropped everything to help us out. They took care of Rhonda and the bikes, plus got the prayers started for me.
I had not been in my hospital room 5 minutes before Doug and Pam Stokes arrived, and soon after, my room was overflowing with friends and family. My prognosis is good...I'll have a heart catheter on Monday to check it out, but I don't expect them to find anything. Thanks to all of the professionals, friends and family, I'll be back on the bike in no time. Thank you all for your continued prayers.
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