Comments on: What I’ve Learned From Riding My Bike

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 01:20:25 +0000

I gasped and laughed all in the same post. Must share!

By: Marshall Miller

Marshall Miller — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:17:21 +0000

+1 to Miles’ comment. So far I’ve never had a close call with a dog, but my life has been threatened multiple times by kamikaze squirrels. You don’t have to be big to be terrifying!

By: Miles Archer

Miles Archer — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:40:52 +0000

Watch out for the suicide squirrels!

By: Haven-KT

Haven-KT — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:38:01 +0000

Oh yeah, I forgot about the dogs:

Not on Bell, just in general.

My partner and I were harassed by some dogs in a residential area on a hill… couple of lab-type dogs. They did NOT like him, he got off his bike and kept it between him and the dogs while yelling at them to go home. Thus saving me, because I would have had to take drastic measures such as kicking and screaming.

Not all lab-type dogs are the typical lab-type dogs– for instance, my lab-type dog is kind of anti-social and doesn’t like strangers. But I make sure that he doesn’t get to roam free except in his dog run.

There are some dogs on my usual commute home who bark at me, but since they are behind fences I talk friendly at them and pretend they are my biggest fans cheering me on. It helps, since at that point my commute takes a turn for the Up and I’m usually on a heavy bike with heavy panniers and need some encouragement.

By: Haven-KT

Haven-KT — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:34:33 +0000

Your Woodland Meadows sounds a lot like my Bell Rd. You’re just going along, minding your own business, gradually trending upward and then you round a corner and you realize that you are at the bottom of a bell curve graph looking up.

mapmyride says (depending on the length of road you want to look at) that Bell Rd hits 15%, 14%, 13%, 12%… if you look at the 2 miles from 99w to Leann, max is 11%. Ha. Right. Try standing at the bottom of the hill looking up the wall to the top.

Bikely’s elevation map looks more like what it is– a big ugly hill.

Remember, gradient = rise/run. If you know how far up you went over whatever horizontal distance, you can figure the gradient. See, kids, math is important, so stay in school.

By: Team Coffee Nook

Team Coffee Nook — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:07:09 +0000

On one ride I had a reading of a max gradient of 14%, which couldn’t be correct because it was a sponsored ride with an advertised max gradient of 5%. Turned out the 14% was from when I carried my bike up the stairs at the hotel after the ride.

By: Paul Guyot

Paul Guyot — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:59:49 +0000

I have turned over the Great Gradient debate to the engineers at Garmin.

When I have an answer from them I will drop it here in the comments.

By: rich

rich — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:50:23 +0000

love this post….you definitely need your own cycling blog for us to follow…

By: davidh-marin,ca

davidh-marin,ca — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:43:14 +0000

Paul- I was not trying to besmirch the integrity of your ride, just having some fun. Though I’m sure ‘Bucky’ would love to see you do the wheelie. Please post video of all your attempts.

Fatty recently posted some +3 data that had him finishing his MTB Loop several thousand feet lower than when he started. That and his run where his top speed was 125mph. He’s awesome, I admit, but not that awesome.

Last day to donate to Paul Guyot Livestrong?????

By: The Bike Nazi

The Bike Nazi — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:58:40 +0000

I once had a ground hog run into me. It ran into me 3 separate times. ha ha! I was going up hill and it was coming down. It was like when a pin ball keeps bouncing back from the paddle and then finally goes down the shute.