Bicyle Helmet Advice

A friend of mine recently asked me for advice about buying a bicycle helmet. The advice I actually gave was more rambling, but I thought I should compose my thoughts a little better and share it with you. So here goes.

There are two basic things to look for when buying a bicycle helmet.

Comfort: A bike helmet should be easy to wear. If it is so comfortable you forget you have it on, that is a good helmet. Most helmets can be comfortable on some people. The more they adjust, the more likely you are to be in that range where they are comfortable. So buying a helmet that is more adjustable is generally a good thing. For this, it is really going to help to go to a store and try a few on. The most common bike helmets also have big holes for ventilation. The need for this will vary by the type of riding you do. It is helpful if you are going very fast all the time, but not as much if you are stuck in traffic. They can also be worse if you are riding in the winter or in the rain. It is best to make sure you have the right kind of helmet for the riding you actually do.

Style: It may sound silly to think style in a bike helmet is important, but it is. If you don't think you look good wearing the helmet, you won't. If you don't think you look good wearing the helmet, you won't. Again, it is best to find a helmet suited to your bike and riding style. If you get a full face helmet, that says you are going to be going off 20 foot dirt jumps at any moment. It looks pretty silly if you are on a beach cruiser. I won't go telling anyone about fashion, but just know that other cyclists and drivers will make assumptions about you based on what you wear on your head.

I do also have a few words on price. Be prepared to spend between $40 and $50 dollars on a helmet. There are less and more expensive helmets but that range is generally the sweet spot. For cheaper versions you are sacrificing comfort or durability. For more expensive versions you are paying for a name brand, an insignificant amount if weight reduction, or a "look".

Notice how I didn't mention protection? Pretty much all helmets are rated to soften the blows to your melon. Getting to a level where the helmet makes most impacts non-lethal isn't hard. The hard part is everything else. The comfort and the style. Any modern bike helmet you get will provide a decent level of protection. Beyond that, just remember that the best way to protect your head is to ride safe.

-Dravis

Tour de Watertower - 2012

Distance: 40 miles
Date: July 22nd, 2012
Max. Speed: 33mph
Song of the Day: Dayglow Vista Road - Minus the Bear


I only heard about the Tour de Watertower about a month ago. It is a race to the various water towers of Seattle. Of course, if you know anything about water towers, you might remember that they tend to be placed at the tops of hills. In effect this race was a trip up seven of the cities biggest hills.

The race isn't really a true Alley Cat either because the route is given ahead of time. This gave the competitors time to scout out various routes before the race. Not that I actually did that. It was still an unsanctioned event, so no streets blocked for the competitors. Much of the challenge is in the navigation of the city. Not just the best route to take, but how to avoid cars and stoplights.

Instead the race was a time trial. Cyclists were sent out every two minutes from Cool Guy Park. My slot was at 3:10.  From there it was right up the hill to Volunteer park. By the time I got there I had already lost my manifest. That is the piece of paper that means you made it to the stop. Whoops. I am still flabbergasted at my ability to loose the manifest before the first stop. It was too late to go back, so I had the guy manning the first stop sign my arm and took off again.

I went up to the water tower on Roosevelt, then made another mistake. I thought 85th would take me across the freeway. It didn't. I ended up going to 92nd before I could cross and come back.

After the water tower at Woodland Park Zoo I did do one thing right. I took the Aurora bridge. That saved me a few hundred feet of climbs. Though it was still a struggle to get from there to the top.

From Queen Anne it was down and up Dravus to the water tower on Magnolia. The ride down from there was amazing. The sun was out. The city and Elliot bay were gorgeous. I zipped through traffic and pedestrians all along the waterfront.

I did make another mistake in West Seattle too. I never looked up the cross streets for the water tower on the North side. Since I had lost my manifest I had to look it up on my phone. That took a couple of minutes, but I got there.

Then it was up to High Point. I live less than 10 blocks from the highest place in the city, so I felt like that was home turf. Getting to the towers there was no problem.

Then it was a race to the finish. I bombed down 35th. I will admit it gets a little scary screaming down that hill. Nothing scared me more than the fixed gear rider next to me though. He would stop pedaling to slow down. This would lock the back tire and the bike would fishtail. The sound was awful and I was sure the guy was going to wreck at any moment. Ride whatever bike you like, but I will take one with breaks any day.

I did make one final navigation error. I knew the finish was on Eastlake, but with no manifest, I didn't know where. I overshot the place by 10 blocks and down a hill. So to finish I had to come back up to the top. Urgh.

All in all, I had a great time. I could not have asked for a nicer day. It wasn't as grueling as I expected, either. I still felt good turning around and biking back to West Seattle. I would also like to thank Greg from Go Means Go for putting it on.

-Dravis

Welcome!

Welcome to Bikequestrian. I decided to start a new blog about my life as a cyclist. Some of you may have followed me here from my other site, MyLifeRebooted. I started that to record my travels around the world. Now that I am back and living a more normal life, I wanted to have a blog the reflect that.

That is the reason for Bikeqestrian. The posts in here are going to be about more of the day to day stuff I do riding around the city. I might include rants and musings about various cycling related activities. It will also include a re-cap of many of the bike related activities that I attend.

I hope you enjoy it.

-Dravis

Wind Blows

Three weeks ago I moved out of the suburbs and into the city. I have a new residence in West Seattle. It has made me a full time bike commuter. That leaves me a lovely nine mile ride every morning. That is if it is lovely out. Which in Seattle it often is not.

The first week it rained almost non-stop. One day it even went from sunny to rain to wind-driven snow. This meant that each morning I arrived soaking wet to work. I do have a place where I can shower and get changed though. I have even started to keep spare clothes and a dry pair of shoes in my desk. (I know that I could wear thick protective rain gear, but my experience is that by the time I have enough to keep the rain out, I arrive so sweaty that a shower and change of clothes is necessitated anyway.) In the evenings I would change back into the soaking wet clothes and shoes for the ride home.

This last week was a little different. It only rained one day. The biggest problem was the wind. Most evenings I would push my way though the soup on my way home. On Wednesday I was struggling to maintain 12 mph while watching guys go the other way at double my speed. It brought back memories of days in Iceland and Morocco. It couldn't help but remind me that "wind blows".

Why do I mention my travails? I do so, not to tout my own rugged demeanor, but to acknowledge my compatriots who are out riding every day. It is these inclement conditions that separate the hardy cyclists from those who like to bike only when the weather cooperates. It takes a tough person to get out on two wheels no matter what is going on outside.

These all weather cyclists are elite group. I have ridden through rain, wind, hail, and snow. I have pedaled through temperatures over 110° F. and below freezing. You don't have to travel the world to be one though. There are are riders out there from Fairbanks, Alaska to Key West, Florida who ride in conditions most others wouldn't dream of. To all of them I say "bonne route", and I will see you down the road.

-Dravis

FHR - 2012

Distance: 33 miles
Time: 2 hours
Average Speed: 16mph
Max Speed: 39mph

So the FHR was on Sunday. I love this race. It is fast enough and tough enough for my purposes, but casual enough that I can enjoy it. I went to the race last year and had a great time. This year was better because it wasn't raining. It was colder, but I will take clear and cold over rain.

I met up with the rest of the crew under the viaduct around 8:00. Then took the 9:35 ferry to Bainbridge. The ferry was full of cyclists. I am always impressed by the number of people who bike around here. It isn't a small number, and to see a bunch of them in one place is pretty impressive.

Once back on land Derrick kicked off the race with "I guess you can start." And we were off. I thought I would do pretty good this year. I have been putting in a lot of miles. Then again, I spent a week down in Houston and didn't ride. But I was able to keep up. After the first couple of miles I fell in line with Torrey, who is also from the .83 crew. We were pretty well matched and traded pull and draft positions. It worked really well for the first half of the race.

Halfway through the race is the traditional vodka stop. I had been looking forward to that the whole first half of the race. I needed a extra minute to catch my breath though, so Torrey took off without me. I also started eating some energy gummy bears. I am glad I did. The next thing was the big hill of the race.

I felt good about my performance up that hill. The lowest gear I have is 46-34, but I didn't put a foot down once. At the top it started to snow a bit. Actually it was more like really tiny hail. It didn't slow me down one bit.

On the down slope of the hill I fell in with another cyclist. He asked us what our "deal" was. His explanation was "You dress in dingy clothes, ride beater bikes, and blow the doors off of everyone else". Pretty much. You don't need spandex or dura-ace to go fast and have a good time.

The last six miles of the race I was running out of steam. I bonked really hard toward the end. Each hill my body kept telling me to pull over and take a nap in the grass. My average speed dropped form 18mph to 16mph, and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. But I didn't stop, I must have been through worse, right?

When I rolled into the finish line I headed straight for the chili. They warned me that it was just put on the stove so it wouldn't be that warm. It didn't matter. I needed food. My friend Sean, who finished a couple of minutes before me, was sprawled out in the grass. That seemed like a fine plan, and I did the same for a bit.

After the rest and the food settled in, I started talking to folks and congratulating people. It was amusing at that point to notice the cognitive impairment in other people. I had figured this out in my big tour. At the end of a long day I couldn't deal with finding a place to sleep until I had some food and a chance to sit for a couple of minutes. After the race people weren't very talkative or coherent until after a bit of chili and some rest.

All in all a great race. I am so excited to have been a part of it this year. A big thanks to Derrick for putting it on. Also thanks to the sponsors for donating gear.

-Dravis

You know it's Thrilla, Thrilla Ride

Date: Nov. 6th, 2011
Distance: 21 Miles
Song of the Day: Thriller - Michael Jackson

I finally got a Sunday free. It seems like I have had plans for every weekend for the last two months. I finally got some free time to head out with some friends to go mountain biking. The plan was to go head out to Woodinville and roll the Thrilla route.

I somehow missed everyone else though. It could have been the daylight savings change, or my mistake expecting that people would be faster to get going on a Sunday morning. Either way, I was on my own.

I had a good time though. The trail was about a 20 mile loop. Mostly on dirt or gravel. It was sunny too, cold but bright. When I left there was even a bunch of shady spots that had a dusting of white frost.

The route listed on the website is complicated to say the least. At its core however are just 5 simple trails. The first is the Sammamish River Trail. It is paved, but there is a dirt and grass horse trail on the landward side of the trail.

From there you head up into the hills on the Powerline Trail, and I do mean hills. Even in my lowest gears I was spinning my tires on a few of them. Going down isn't always better either. On steep grades, you can wipe out pretty good, but I am getting better at controlling the bike without squeezing the breaks.

At the top of the hills, in the area of the Redmond watershed, were a bunch of trail runners out having a race. I had realized by this point that I was probably way out in front of anyone else I was supposed to meet with. So I stopped to wait for them and also get my bearings.

This is where the route heads onto it's third trail, the Pipeline trail. But it wasn't all that clear how to accomplish that. There were a ton of little trails that wound all over the hilltop. Eventually though reading the trail description, looking at my map, the little trail signs, and yes, a fair bit of trial and error, I found my way.

Then it was to the next trail. This is the Collins Creek trail. This was mostly a gravel horse trail through a housing development. Mostly pea gravel. Not anything that my fat tired mountain bike couldn't handle, but probably nasty on a skinny wheeled CX bike.

Then it was onto the Tolt Pipeline trail. It is basically a wide dirt road made to service and check the natural gas pipeline there. Cyclists, hikers and horse riders are also allowed on it. Cars are kept out with gates. And it is straight, but not flat. The pipeline trail rolls up and down over a couple fairly large hills. Finally dropping precipitously back down to Woodinville. That last bit is actually a bit scary. It isn't made any better by the fact there are gates set at the bottom and halfway down. Not something you want to try to navigate at full speed.

Once at the bottom, you get back to the Sammamish River Trail and finish up the loop. Not bad for a Sunday morning.

-Dravis

Blood and Miles

Date: November 3rd, 2011
Distance: 48 Miles
Song of the Day: I Can See for Miles - The Who

Well, another Thursday ride. Nothing too special about that. I started from West Seattle, where I have been doing some work. Then to Westlake Center to meet up with the rest of the crew. The night wasn't bad. Clear and cold, with some wind coming out of the North.

At 7:30 about 30 riders took off, heading South. We rode all the way down Rainier into Renton. Then headed off to a secret wood. Some of the folks had picked up some fire wood, so we had some heat and light to stand around. Actually too much heat. I kept backing away from the fire because it was frying the part of my legs not covered by my shorts. I never thought that I would desire pants because shorts were making me too hot.

There was one other problem with my attire. Because of the heat of the fire, I backed my unprotected leg into some nasty foliage. That blackberry got me pretty good.

After the fire started to die down. We headed out, up to Georgetown. Found a nice place indoors. No fire, but they did have a nice place to sit. After a few libations, the party broke up, and I was in for the long ride home. Seattle to Issaquah after dark is a hell of a ride. I thought this would be the first week in more that a month I hadn't done 100 miles or more. I guess I was wrong.

-Dravis