Sunday's 20 minute ride left me gasping and coughing for hours. 18 minutes up to the park, 2 minutes down reaching 35 mph if you aren't careful on the brakes. With no actual health insurance cards, yet, that's not very safe. So I used the brakes. You really push yourself when you do that climb.
I repeated the ride on Monday, in identical warm weather conditions (70'F in January). But first I removed some weight from the bike. I started with the black aluminum rack I don't use, and the water bottle holder that's useful on longer rides but pointless on this kind of around-the-block training. I left on the rear fender since it is more of a pain to remove it and weighs little. That will get a couple pounds off it. (closer to 3, actually). The rack has some stainless steel parts that are heavy. Should have cut off the excess for improved weight.
I am also pondering lighter pedals. The fancy dynamo pedals are great for riding near roads and low light conditions but they're invisible in bright daylight, they weigh about a pound each, and they offer rolling resistance that makes hill climbing harder. I notice that once the capacitors are charged the dynamos stop drawing resistance and they work like normal pedals again so I may just leave them. My old plastic mountain bike pedals are missing, probably discarded, and were rough bearings due to rust caused by parking it outside in the winter, despite the overhang and a tarp to protect it. Steel frame, you see. Still, steel frames are the strongest and most durable, despite what you've heard. And its a hard-tail with no suspension to fail or rob your hill climbing of strength.
After I stripped the stuff off I rode up the hill. WHEEZE GASP WHEEZE. Man, I am weak. So slow going up the hill. Reminds me of being a runner. I was always desperately slow. I really wonder if my heart is bad or there's something else wrong with me that utterly prevents me from physical performance sports. I never had the strength, no matter how much I trained, to be a proper athlete, even as a teenager who was on the Cross Country and Track teams. It was just continuous failure, every single time. Funny how sports is supposed to make you more confident but it did the opposite to me.
I prefer machines which reward my remaining strengths, since I don't have the physical strength to do it. I adjusted the seat height a little higher to get better use of my leg muscles, which should help a lot with the power strokes. Still, I was down to walking speed up that hill, and my heart was going much harder than when I walk it. That's not very efficient. So what's the problem? Maybe its me.
And that gets me to scooters. A scooter wouldn't test my strength much at all, but would my balance and coordination, and it would let me putter around the various neat roads around here so I'd actually enjoy the local roads more than a 20 minute bike ride that exhausts me. So would an Enduro bike with a smaller engine, like a 250cc, since those are cheap (around $1K) used, and reasonably quiet. Not as quiet as a 650cc with a good muffler, but quiet enough if I'm being a properly respectful rider and going well under the speed limit. I like my bicycle, but walking speed while gasping like a dying man trying to go up a modest slope? That's ridiculous. And not very fun. I'm so slow going uphill. Especially those long ones that get slightly steeper the further you go. There's a couple of those here. Actually many of those here.
On the flatlands, bicycles are wonderful. You can make decent speed with no fuel cost, take alternate routes, go all over the place based on your endurance. Around here they're a serious strength workout because anything over a very modest slope is slowing you down dramatically, and the fine gravel on corners means you really shouldn't go as fast as you'd like downhill, so you're wasting that potential energy to avoid crashing on a corner. And don't kid yourself about bicycle safety. I've had my share of accidents. Injured pretty badly twice, once hospitalized with a serious concussion and stitches and broke my nose. Not fun. Bicycle accidents can be deadly, just like motorcycle accidents, and cyclists wear and helmet and gloves, that's all their safety gear. Not much.
My Dad thinks, and I agree, that I should take the motorcycle safety course this spring to get my license so I can actually buy a used motorcycle, fix it up, and ride it. Its been on my to-do list for years. He said he'd ride it too.
I suspect he'd get a huge laugh out of taking that to the gym every morning. I'd let him, too. We banter while watching Top Gear about which car would be most fun for gym commutes to Nevada City. He'd wanted a Smart 4Two for a while, but the Caterham 7 is more interesting. I like the Ariel Atom, myself, but I suspect a souped up Ford Fiesta with the turbo charger would make a fine noise. Especially with the roll cage and harnesses inside for proper hill climbing. I'd probably want the on-star crash identification setup, only with the sensitivity turned down because serious hill climbing will have the gee forces of a crash without crashing. I've grown up with that. I'm training it back into myself. Thank you Fujimi Kaido course on Forza 3. There are many roads like that around here in the Foothills, worth driving just as hard and fast, only there's no rewind button if you wreck so better not wreck.
I drive the Fiesta on the game and I like what it does. It can power itself out of instability through throttle pressure and accelerates fast so handles ridiculously well. Compare this with the Subaru WRX, which has an annoying engine death rattle despite the supercharger, is as heavy as my Honda, and handles about as well. I probably saved myself $35K of annoyance, driving that car in the game. I would NOT be satisfied with the Subaru. It would be really annoying. My ideal car? I like the R3 race cars. They have fast shifting paddles, V12 whines and full turbo chargers and high profile tires so they handle like they're on rails. They're light and accelerate like they've been kicked in the ass by a mule every time you press the throttle. So how can I get that in a sleeper car? And keep in mind, a truly great car has excellent handling and brakes rather than a huge engine, since those allow you to brake later, turn harder for more sideways Gee forces, and thus stay on the road at higher speeds. Any piece of crap can go fast in a straight line. A great car can make the turn at the end. So can I get a V12 turbo whine out of a Fiesta ST body? The current model has a turbo 1.6L, which is not only fast 196 HP, but 35 mpg highway.
That's slightly better than my Honda. Though I'm pretty sure my Honda will drive like new if I put grippy tires on it, and $550 on tires is a lot more cost effective than a $22K Fiesta ST. Even if I have to replace the worn struts, which are original with the car, its still only $1500 for those plus tires. That's a cost effective option, assuming I can get the engine to accelerate its mass a lot quicker. I want the kicked in the tail feeling. I suspect replacing the air filter might be a good idea, and probably the transmission fluid and filter, hopefully without finding metal filings on the magnet at the bottom of the pan. That's rarely a good thing. Still, that's easy work to do yourself and I don't mind doing it. Rarely I have revved the engine enough that the V6 VTEC cams have made stock car engine noises come out of it. Not really my thing. I want the angry sewing machine sound. I wonder if my car would sound neat with a turbo? Probably not legal. Start with tires. That's the handling back. No more understeer. Then see about the transmission so it shifts faster.
Having a properly working car that performs better will bring back some joy in my life. And if I get a slow motorcycle to ride on all the hills here I'm not wheezing like I'm having a heart attack as I would on my bicycle. Even lightened bike to ride, those hills are still steep and humiliating. They are the reason to have a scooter or motorcycle, so you can go 25 mph up them instead of walking pace. I did learn what the clicking sound is when cyclists go by sometimes. Its the pedal bearings seizing because the components have wrong threads and have over-tightened. Eventually the pedal is ruined and must be replaced. That's a big downside of Chinese components, so watch out for that in the reviews.
Speaking of transmissions, if the max speed limits ever get lowered by Fearless Leader (with the exception for cronies in limousines), we can all have close-ratio gearboxes to get us to that 55 mph, meaning we would likely accelerate faster so our cars would feel quicker.
Stripping out weight is the cheapest way to a faster car, but few owners will remove the back seats, which are usually 150 lbs, even if they ride alone 95% of the time. They also often need to remove various junk from the trunk and under the seats and from the glove box. Every pound slows you down. No kidding. You'll notice it when that's gone. I used to remove around 40 pounds of books and trash from my ex-wife's car, wash it, clean the window glass, check the tire pressures, fill the gas tank and windshield wiper reservoir, the battery fluid level and maybe change the wiper blades. The result was a faster and quieter car. Then she'd take it back and filth it up again in a week or two and complain bitterly how it sucks. We're divorced now, and she can be someone else's neurotic problem.
Check your tire pressure every week. The power goes to the road. Wrong pressures affect power, handling, braking, and feedback from the road. You can lose a pound a week per tire, with nothing wrong with those tires other than normal wear, through slightly leaky valves or beads. Something that can be fixed easily with a $12 tire pressure gauge and a bicycle pump to top them off. Proper pressures gives you best handling, so the car feels right in the corners. You always check your tires on your bicycle before riding. Put the same care into your car one day a week. You can do it! Once I have some things settled here I'll get sport tires on my car, see if that helps delay interest in a newer car, and maybe talk Dad into new tires on his little red race car, since its quite fast, just needs better grip to enjoy it. And maybe get my friend, That Guy(tm), to get his brakes serviced and replace his crappy winter tires with fast rain tires and alloy wheels so his racing Yaris gets closer to race spec. Wouldn't that make him smile a bit more? I think so. The Yaris is a fun car to race in Forza, like the Ford Fiesta. All kinds of fun. Maybe your car can be improved in ways to make owning it a bit longer, till the oil gets a lot more expensive, worth keeping. It could save you twenty grand, which is not small change in the modern Minimum Wage Jobs economy. So keep your car, just make it more fun to drive.
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