Some Bike Problems And My Solutions

This post is about various bike problems I’ve run into and summaries
of my solutions. I’ll probably be back to this topic.

Hard to pick up bike maintenance: Bike maintenance is
complicated and hard to get right. I used to ride in college, though.
When I was restarting, it was frustrating that this was so hard now
when it used to be so easy. Of course, much of this was because it
had been so long. But it’s the sort of thing that annoys because it’s
evidence of degradation; some of that degradation was real, some not,
I think. I think this made me too stubborn about taking my bike to
the shop for maintenance or taking classes.

My maintenance cycle:
weekly: chain oiling, tire check
biweekly: brakes (when using rim brakes)
monthly: derailleur oiling
biyearly: take to shop for cable fixup

High Impact and Rate of Bike Failure: ANY day I don’t get
exercise is a bad one. So, any period my bike doesn’t work I’m going
to be in bad shape unless I go to the gym every day. OR unless I have
a second bike. That was my choice, in the end. After a year of
starting the biking falling cycle and mismaintenance, my first bike
was already in bad shape, anyway….. The second bike is still fine.

Wheels: My irregularity in biking means I have to underinflate
my wheels somewhat.A

Brakes: If you bike with an irregular motion, or commute, your
brakes will need alot of adjustment. In the end, I shelled out for disc brakes
when I got my second bike, and became alot happier. Most bike brakes
are rim brakes – they live on the wheel rim. But rims inevitably go
out of true quickly if you bike daily, or have an irregular motion or
crash alot. When your rim goes out of true, you have to adjust your
brakes or see them rub. Or true the rims, which takes awhile, so you
don’t want to do it too often.

Dehydration: See my goop post, below.

Rehydration Goop

I just compounded some of my special rehydration goop. In order
to bike much beyond half an hour a day, I’ve had to compound a
special rehydration compound. I drink a little over a bottle per hour
of vigorous biking. The recipe is enclosed at the end.

If I just have Gatorade, I have to drink over two bottles of it to
recover from an hour of biking outside, and chow down on a salted
banana and some other fruit. EVERY DAY, while tired, or face cramps.
Or I drink a bottle of goop, end of story.

I could just buy stuff that’d fill the need, but it’d get expensive
(>$5/day?). So I make it instead, needing to spend an hour and $4-5
per week. Plus, I can fiddle with it. And, maybe it’ll even work out
as a marinade (see post two previous).

Because it does take work to make it, I also drink alot of Gatorade
and other retail sports drinks as well.

Now that I do most of my biking indoors on a trainer setup, this isn’t
quite as necessary. I could conceivably live without it by drinking even
more Gatorade and eating more bananas. BUT it’s vital whenever
I bike outdoors. My neighborhood is hilly, and I live in a windy
region, though since bike-friendly, non-major, roads are usually
less level, I suspect lots of bikers face plenty of hills. It does
feel good to get to the top of them.

The Recipe:

This is a high-intensity rehydration mix. It’s basically a slightly over
double-strength hydration recipe, using pureed fruit as a base.
Because it’s a pain to make, I make a week’s worth at a time.

Interestingly, I’ve found that I need to to add a little bit of oil to
the standard hydration recipe for it to work for me; well, it’s not
surprising that the fat-intolerant medical industry would ignore that
need. BUT I binge on much more and less healthy fat if it’s not in there.

Even this isn’t quite complete for me. I also need a small amount of
meat afterward that I should try adding.

Ingredients:

Because of allergies, I use a filtered water pitcher as the water
base. Allergies to things in water are worse when biking (though air
allergies are easier, go figure).

TO MIX INTO 5 3/4L GATORADE BOTTLES)
==============================
5 cups fruit / whole bananas / whole apples
1 3/4 cups sugar
6 tbps salt
3 tbps canola oil

To make:

Get out blender
Get out liquid measure, w/filtered water
Add some fruit and blend in batches, dding enough water to blend completely
Once it’s all in, blend for 2 1/2 min
Add salt, oil, sugar, blend
Taste mixture for sugar/salt balance, add one if needed.
Divide mixture equally into bottles
Fill bottles w/filtered water, using liquid measure
Cap, shake, clean, and refrigerate each bottle.

The original hydration recipe I started with:

TO MIX WITH 1 LITER
===================
1/3 cup + 1.5 TBPS sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup fruit or banana

Shyness Apology

I want to apologize for my lack of response to comments. Although it
also feels good, there’s something terrifying about HD-blogging. It’s
literally a deadly enemy, so talking about it is talking about death
as well.

That’s made me alot shyer even than normal. I do post to another blog
regularly, and think that blog’d agree I’m alot friendlier there.
Hopefully I can get used to to HD-blogging a bit and get better at
posting and responding.

I do appreciate the comments and encouragement, though. Thanks!