I have to bike long-distance, because that is the only way to find interesting sights in a suburban town. I can’t bike for too long, because eventually the pedestrian road will end, forcing me to share the road with cars, and I can’t go very fast because I have a heavy mountain bike. Instead of being trampled by a car, I usually take safety precautions.
Also, drinking a lot of milk gives me a stomachache afterwards. I’d rather just bring water, and the sodium can be obtained through food before the ride.
As others have mentioned, there are many ways to mount a water bottle or two. I once suffered from severe dehydration during a bike ride, and trust me, you don’t want that. You should drink about one standard water bottle an hour - a little less if cool outside and a lot more if hot and humid - especially if you are working hard on the bike. Once over 2 or 3 hours of riding, you’ll also need some carbs for fuel. Sports drink in the water bottle is one way to get this. I use powdered drink mix and I usually dilute it about half strength.
As far as working out, heart rates, etc., unless you are training for specific events like racing or century rides, just enjoy yourself out on the bike. I do about 4K miles a year and most of those miles are just for the fun of riding. The physical health benefits are secondary to me.
Do what I did. Get a bike carrier for your car, drive out to a more rural area and start from there.
I second and 3rd what other people say aboout water. Don’t start riding long distances without it, unless you know there are plenty of stopes along the way where you can get it.
Also, if you get a touring or racing bike, your speed will just about double and you will use less energy. If your point is just for exercise, I suppose it doesn’t matter, but if you have goals involving distance it will make a BIG difference. Back when I was your age a 60-80 mile ride was pretty routine for me. I couldn’t possibly have done that on a mountain bike.
I’d be interested to know where the OP lives. Different parts of the country have very different situations with respect to being able to get around safely.
Where I live now, in southern Maryland, I feel perfectly safe riding around on narrow back roads. Similar roads near Bristol VA/TN when I lived down there, I felt like I was taking my life into my hands. The difference was in the attitude of the local drivers.
So where I live now, I can go on rides of pretty much any distance my legs can manage, without having to retrace parts of my route. And I can just pull my bike out of the shed, get on it, and start riding. When I lived in Bristol, I had to drive to an off-road bike path when I wanted to get in a decent bike ride.
This. I can’t imagine lugging the extra weight of a mountain bike along with me when I’m riding on pavement or even firmly packed dirt trails (e.g. C&O Canal in/near DC).
Generally one can find decent bikes pretty cheap on Craigslist. (Or used to be able to; haven’t been there in awhile.) That’s how I got a cheap but functional touring bike that I keep down at my in-laws’ in Florida.
Just don’t buy into the fallacy that rhythmic pumping of the legs is required for a satisfying bike ride. It’s purely a cultural habit. One good thrust will get you there if it’s strong enough.
Fine. Maybe I could bring salted peanuts and dried cranberries and a bottle of distilled tap water. The main purpose of adding electrolytes in the commercial sports drinks is to keep an isotonic balance in the body.
[QUOTE=Boyo Jim]
Also, if you get a touring or racing bike, your speed will just about double and you will use less energy. If your point is just for exercise, I suppose it doesn’t matter, but if you have goals involving distance it will make a BIG difference. Back when I was your age a 60-80 mile ride was pretty routine for me. I couldn’t possibly have done that on a mountain bike.
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I wonder if a mountain bicycle can be modified into a touring bicycle. A mountain bike has two shifters, one on each handle. I usually leave those alone, because I am not entirely sure how they work. My mountain bicycle is relatively new. Before my new mountain bicycle, I rode on an used mountain bicycle. The old mountain bicycle was very noisy, and I had to expend more effort to pedal upslope than what I now do on my current mountain bicycle, though I am not entirely sure whether the easiness to use the new one is really the bicycle or just me. One day, the old mountain bike had a flat tire, presumably caused by some unidentifiable hole that could not be fixed simply by a bike pump, and one of the brake cables broke, forcing me to walk home. That’s how and why I got a new one. One reason that prompted me to choose the mountain bike was that it could travel on many different terrains, and it has brakes. When moving downslope, I would like to have brakes, because traveling downslope on a pavement too quickly makes me anxious. I also do not use a helmet, when I ride a bike, because the helmet is too narrow and oval-shaped to fit my round head. In my parents’ home country, many people would ride bikes to commute to work or school. None of them wore helmets, but then the society in which they grew up didn’t have many motor vehicles on the road at that time.
Here, pedestrian pathways may have traffic lights at intersections. This may be very helpful for those who want to travel across the street safely. Alas, there are some parts of the roads, where there is no pathway for pedestrians and bikers or traffic signals to protect pedestrians and bikers. Sometimes, the roads may be too narrow to fit a bike and a car at the same time. If a slow mountain bike were to share the road with a car, then that would definitely impede traffic and cause disruption. I remember the driving laws of the state prohibit bikes from riding on the highway for the obvious reason that the biker cannot catch up to the pace of the highway and would thus impede traffic.
While I agree that pedaling on a bicycle is learned, learning how to pedal is what I consider to be most important in riding it. Otherwise, you are not giving the force it needs to stay in motion. Also, what is considered to be “satisfying” on a bike ride may vary from rider to rider. Some people have to constantly pedal in order to maintain motion and balance, while other people can intermittently cruise without pedaling. Cruising without pedaling can be just as enjoyable, but it will only work when you are going downslope or on a flat terrain. When going upslope, it is much preferable to pedal and work against gravity.
Learning about gears can greatly improve your riding experience and allow you to ride much faster. The first thing you need to be aware of is that you cannot shift gears unless you are pedaling (the chain has to be moving to jump between gears).
The shifter on the left, I think, typically controls the front dérailleur, which, on a mountain bike, has 3 gears (“chainrings”). This is a good place to start: go for a ride and see how each setting feels while you are pedaling (the low setting would be for starting from a stop or for climbing an upgrade, the high setting would be for once you are going fast and do not want to spin the crank too fast, the middle setting is, obviously, in between). Just using the front dérailleur can improve your comfort and speed quite a lot. Get used to anticipating when you have to stop and shifting to low gear right before you stop pedaling (it is always good to be thinking ahead while riding).
The right-hand lever controls the rear dérailleur, which has lots of gears on it (probably between 6 and 10). Luckily, they go in order from quick/easy pedaling (for climbing or headwinds) to slow/hard pedaling (for higher speeds). Racers sometimes shift both dérailleurs at the same time, but that takes a great deal of practice and is kind of unnecessary. You will probably find the most comfortable gear range for any given part of your ride on the rear and use the front to choose the upper, middle or lower gear for right now.
It just takes a bit of practice to find the gear you want to use at any part of the ride, but once you get used to shifting, you will probably start to enjoy riding a lot more.
Learn how to shift. It will become second nature very quickly and it’s pretty important for any serious riding.
This is why bikes have gears.
Bike pumps don’t fix flats. You need to patch or change the tube when you get a flat. Sounds like you need to learn a little basic bike maintenance as both of those problems were much easier to fix without buying a new bike.
All bikes have brakes (except for some fixed gear bikes, and we can ignore them for now). The ability to ride on rough terrain comes at a cost, it’s much less efficient if all you are doing is riding on the roads.
Buy and wear a helmet. A bike shop will have one that fits your head. Just get one.
Except where specifically excluded (like interstate highways) bikes can safely share the road with cars. I ride in Boston traffic and while it does have its dangers it can be done with some common sense, situational awareness, and a sense of caution. But it sounds like you haven’t quite reached that level of comfort on a bike yet.
I would guess Umbridge would have a hard time justifying the cost of a 'bent, new ones tend to be close to $2K.us, at a time when most people feel $300.us is a lot to pay for a “toy”. But why wait? Why spend decades punishing your body when you can have a big-grin bicycle (which, I can attest, almost always gets comments of approval) right now? The crotchety-old-man bikes are the low-slung tadpole tricycles, not so much the two-wheel models, and the high-racers actually get respect from the hard-core DF riders.
I challenge this assertion. A rigid mountain bike with a rigid fork(think Old School rockhopper or Trek 820) and slicks is not really gonna slow you down much more than a hybrid. And the weight difference would not be materially substantial between such a MTB and a Surly LHT. A lot of people use something similar for touring no problem.
I knew a kid (well, teen) who had hydrocephaly and CP, and rode one of those adult trikes (He could drive a car too, and walk with crutches, but he rode the trike for fun and exercise, and was a member of the local bike club). Standard bike helmets didn’t fit him, but he found a hockey helmet that fit his head, and was allowed to use that (the bike club required helmet use). If that guy could find a helmet that fit, anyone can.
I just got a new helmet, and they have a dial on them that allows for a more personal fit, in addition to the fact that they usually come with different sets of paddings of different thicknesses that velcro in. You can make them fit a more oval head, a rounder head, a head that’s flat in back, has a protruding forehead, whatever.
“PT”?