Ride report, (ride AT work day)

You might have heard the phrase "ride to work day". Usually it's a call
for people to ride their cycles to work, typically bi-cycles or
motor-cycles. Well, I don't ride TO work, because it's a 20 mile
commute and even if I had the time the route is too dangerous for
cyclists.

So I ride AT work. I've mentioned before that I usually have one of my
unicycles with me in the truck, (I'm a truck driver), in case a ride
opportunity presents itself. I even have a growing list of spots that
work frequently puts me near, so I get to ride these places a few times
a year. Belle Isle is one such place.

Yesterday I found myself doing deliveries in Detroit, (yeah, on Sunday,
it happens sometimes in this job), and with enough time between the
last two appointments to park the truck on the island and ride. I
didn't have the coker, (damn it why didn't I think to bring the
coker!), but I had the 24" municycle. Good enough. I rode around the
western tip of the island. I wanted to do a complete circuit of the
island, about 5 miles, but I was wearing down after two miles and took
a shortcut back to the truck, reaching the three and a half mile mark,
according to 'gmap pedometer' (http://www.gmap-pedometer.com).

It is a beautiful place to ride, and near the western portion of the
island there are great views of downtown Detroit. Along the southern
side you see Windsor, Ontario, and if you're lucky some Great Lakes
freighters gliding up or down stream. The weather was brisk, about 35
degrees Fahrenheit, and a bit windy. It was exhilarating!

Here's the gmap pedometer satellite image of my ride (zoomed out enough
to see Detroit and Windsor):



[image:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2111/...53ae080_o.jpg]


Riding during lulls on the job has become a vital source of physical
and mental therapy for me. One thing I forgot since the last time I
rode he the tire gets full of goose poop. Makes it a bit gross
putting back into my car at the end of the day.


--
idiorythmic
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Very cool.

I love Canada for the reason theres a trail in everyones backyard
(sometimes literally). Makes finding a good muni trail easy!


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ChiliDawgz
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ChiliDawgz wrote:
Very cool.

I love Canada for the reason theres a trail in everyones backyard
(sometimes literally). Makes finding a good muni trail easy!



Your view of Canada is very biased my southern friend.


--
Borgschulze

'deviantART'
(http://borgschulze.deviantart.com/)'Gravity'
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ChiliDawgz wrote:
Very cool.

I love Canada for the reason theres a trail in everyones backyard
(sometimes literally). Makes finding a good muni trail easy!



I was riding a municycle, but not riding muni, Belle Isle is networked
with wide smooth asphalt or concrete roads. Part of my ride was on a
'formula one grand prix course'
(http://detroitgrandprix.cbtpreview.com/). I really should have had my
N36 or my 29er that day but my planning skills were poor. The ride was
still nice though.


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Doing a bit of math I found something that is probably not very
surprising, but still interesting to me, -my riding limits are not
determined by distance, but rather revolutions-. Consider:

~ The farthest I've gone on my 26 (with only slight breaks for
remounting after a upd), is about three or four miles.

~ The farthest I've gone on my 36 (with only slight breaks for
remounting after a upd), is about 5 miles.

After this 3.5 mile ride AT work I did the math and found that it
amounted to about 2715 revolutions of the wheel. If I did 2715
revolutions on my 36 it would result in a distance of just under (yep,
you guessed it) five miles, my distance record on the 36.

So now I can think of my distance limit in terms of revolutions, not
miles. If I'm planning to extend my limits I can do it on any
unicycle of my choice by taking the diameter into account and
calculating the theoretical limit I need to get beyond. I'm going to
put it down here and copy it to a file on my desktop for future
reference, so that no matter which uni I have available I can figure
out how far I need to go in order to push my distance envelope.

26" 3.5 miles

29" 4 miles

36" 5 miles

The ratio of distance limit (miles) to wheel diameter (inches) is about
0.13 at this point, so if I try it on a 24 or some other wheel I can
just multiply the diameter by 0.13 to get how far I need to shoot for.
This factor will obviously change as I get stronger.

I expect there are other factors I'm ignoring, (crank length for one),
but in general this will help me as I work to extend my distance
limits.


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Very cool. I like making good use of lunch breaks, doing short rides
around town or in a local park. I keep my muni in the trunk, so its
there when I need it.

Recently I've been riding to work and back, about 3.5 miles each way.

-Aaron


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FlyByTire

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should
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Very good, commuting to work! I bet you're feeling more fit just from
that.

My next challenge is to see how much riding I can maintain during the
coming Michigan winter. I figure as long as the pavement is free of
slick ice I ought to be able to keep riding. I've already heard from a
couple of my friends over here that "the season is over" and "riding
now would be stupid". Time to see just how stupid I can make myself.



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idiorythmic wrote:
Very good, commuting to work! I bet you're feeling more fit just from
that.

My next challenge is to see how much riding I can maintain during the
coming Michigan winter. I figure as long as the pavement is free of
slick ice I ought to be able to keep riding. I've already heard from a
couple of my friends over here that "the season is over" and "riding
now would be stupid". Time to see just how stupid I can make myself.



riding in the winter around here is not too bad. Just watch your tire
pressure, cause the cold makes it seem low.

As long as we dont have as many cold days as we did last year (-20 F
with windchill) you should be fine.

Did you see any good trials stuff on Bell Isle?


--
Det-riot

Jerrick wrote:
I think we should get off the topic off kinky/horny girls and unicycles,
and back to creepy horny men.




Into the blue wrote:
GILD, did you have clothes on when you spoke to me on the phone?


'MRIS!!!!' (http://tinyurl.com/2486qk)
'3,000th post!' (http://tinyurl.com/2g9sg2)
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Det-riot wrote:

Did you see any good trials stuff on Bell Isle?



Not being much of a trials guy myself it's hard to say, but I think you
could have some fun there. Not sure how alert or concerned the local
security would be, (since many of the places are historic structures),
but yeah there seems to be lots of potential. In particular the Casino
looks good, with lots of walls, stairs, and rails. I didn't get much
of a look at the east half of the island, who knows what's over
there...


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Oh crap how could I forget the playground? Near the zoo there is a huge
playscape which might offer lots of interesting trials riding. There
might even be a skate park in there.

For reference, the playground area is at the sharp left turn just after
the 3 mile marker in my image above. The Casino is in the middle of
the island, about midway between the 1 and 2 mile markers on the image.


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