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Winter Cycling Tips

Tips from our October 11, 2010 Meeting

Maneuvering Tips

Slow & Steady

When there’s even the chance of ice on the road, slow down. If you do encounter an ice patch, DON’T PANIC — keep your line, keep your hands off the brakes, and ride through it. If you try to turn or stop on an icy section of roadway, you’re most likely going to fall. Be especially careful at dusk and dawn when the road surfaces are just freezing or still frozen.

Generally, though, the SLOW DOWN tip is applicable to all bad weather conditions, just as it is in other vehicles.

Winter Conditions

In the area, even after a large snowstorm, roads are usually clear enough for riding within 1-3 days of a storm.

State College Borough, Ferguson Township, Penn State plow their bike lanes and paths after street snow removal is done. College Township plows some paths, but not all. Patton and Harris do not currently provide winter maintenance for their bike paths. (Bicyclists in those townships who’d like to see winter clearing are encouraged to attend a supervisor’s meeting and make a comment during the public comment portion!)

Update 2019: While we reported earlier that Harris and College Twps were clearing the South Atherton bikeway, in 2018-19, that isn’t being done. Use those paths in winter? Call the townships and let them know. Winter 2016: Harris Township is now clearing the S. Atherton Bikeway. Thanks to Centre Bike’s Jim Serene, Township Manager Amy Farkas and the Harris Twp Board of Supervisors for making this happen.

Clothing

Dry 50-60 Degree

Torso – Short sleeve jersey, arm warmers
Legs – Shorts with knee warmers, Knickers, Capris
Hands – Short finger gloves, light full-finger gloves
Feet – mid cuff socks, shoes
Head – headband for ears under helmet

Dry 30-49 Degree

Torso – Long sleeve jersey, long sleeve base layer, vest
Legs – Knickers/Capris with leg warmers, light/midweight tights
Hands – Full-finger gloves
Feet – Wool socks, shoes
Head – Helmet cover/liner or skull cap under helmet

Dry 10-29 Degree

Torso –Long sleeve jersey, long sleeve baselayer, wind breaking thermal jacket
Legs – Insulated tights over shorts or Capris, Wind pants over knickers & warmers
Hands – Cold weather full-finger gloves, Lobster gloves, handwarmers, glove liners
Feet – Thick wool socks, shoes, thermal shoe covers, or winter riding boots
Head – Balaclava under helmet, helmet cover

Dry 0 Degree

Torso –Long sleeve thermal jersey, long sleeve baselayer, insulated wind jacket
Legs – Insulated tights with baggy overlayer
Hands – Cold weather full-finger gloves, Lobster Gloves, Handwarmers, glove liners
Feet – Thick wool socks, shoes, thermal shoe covers, or winter riding boots
Head – Balaclava under helmet, eye protection

Rainy Conditions

Rain protection is either waterproof or water resistant. Waterproof means that seams will be sealed and breathability will diminish. Ventilation is important. Water resistant means that water could get through in a downpour, but a shower will be kept out. Water resistant is much more breathable and does not need added ventilation. Armpit ventilation is a nice extra to have if you are buying new rain gear (or any jacket for that matter).

Equipment

Tires

For snowy and icy conditions, reduce tire pressure for better traction. Try 40-50% of the rated pressure to start, but you’ll have to experiment based on your weight and the tire size. Too low a pressure and the tire will want to come off the rim. Mountain Bike or Cyclocross knobby tires are recommended for winter conditions (but under dry conditions, standard tires are fine, too). Studded tires are available, but the consensus was that studs are good where there are continual icy conditions, such as trail riding, but that they don’t work as well on wet or dry pavement. The attendees preferred regular tires to studded tires for mixed pavement/snow/ice riding.

Lights

In the winter, when daylight is at a premium and conditions can change quickly, don’t go out without them. Front and back. Minimally, use blinking lights that can be seen 500 ft in either direction. Better, are higher power headlamps because they not only allow you to be seen, but let you see road obstacles such as downed limbs, potholes, or piles of ice/snow. With the proliferation of smart phones and distracted drivers, we now suggest front and rear lights 24/7/365, especially with strobe/blinking modes. You need to get those drivers eyes looking up.

Helmet

Two words: Wear one! Always. This is under Equipment and not Clothing because we don’t feel a helmet is optional, especially in winter conditions. You buckle up each time you get into your car, right? Then put a helmet on each time you get on your bike. A fall in winter conditions is more likely than in other seasons and rather than being surrounded by two tons of steel and protected by a seat belt and air bags, your head is at risk for collisions with those two ton missiles and believe us, it’s more fragile than you like to think.

Derailleurs and chains

Keep your chain and derailleur pivot points clean and well-lubricated. This is especially important in Central PA where road salt is heavily used.

Brakes

A quick wipe of your rims and brake pads after a ride will keep accumulated grit from damaging wheel braking surfaces. Lube the brake pivot points as you do your derailleurs.

Something we forgot? Add a comment below and share your tips with us.

August 9th, 2010 Meeting Minutes

August 9th, 2010 CRBC Meeting Minutes | 7-8:30PM @ SC Municipal Building

This meeting was a lot less formal and had some great discussion surrounding:

A bicycle cooperative
Special events
Bike share
Winter rack maintenance & PSU’s registration policies
Safe Routes to School and traffic lights
Cooperating with PSU’s Office of Sustainability
Topics for the October meeting

1. Bike Cooperative- Wouldn’t it be great if we could collect orphan bikes, and give them a new home, a place where people will care for them. CRBC members discussed what we would need to do to get a bike coop going here in the Center Region. Why couldn’t we have a place where the community could fix bikes, teach people about bike maintenance, refurbish bikes? Would it be possible for CRBC to take bikes people no longer wanted, donated bikes, and then give folks a tax write-off? There was also talk of refurbishing bikes to help those in places where they really need bikes, perhaps in another country?

2. Special Events-Special events committee is working out bike to work month, with some possible changes that include eliminating bike to work week in exchange for a more robust bike to work month that would include activities at local venues like the YMCA, as well as events hosted by local bike shops. In their efforts to encourage biking at all levels, Special events committee members found out that State College Area School District High School has a physical education program to educate about safe biking, as well as bikes.

3. Bike Share-CRBC fully supports the idea of Bike Share, the group talked about other towns and cities that have successfully implemented bike share stations in their town, and how something like this would have significant benefits for university folks, town folk, and visitors.

4. Winter Rack Maintenance- Recently the server at PSU that holds all the bike registration information got shut down by the ITS folks because it was vulnerable? Whatever that means? This highlighted a problem that OPP faces with bikes that are registered, but don’t move…at all. Meaning, if a bike is registered it can not be removed from the bike rack. But, if you bike is not registered they can “tow” it. This sparked discussion surrounding a bike rack rule that would limit time you can leave your bike on a rack to 72 hours, with exceptions of course like East Halls and other places where bikes “live”. This would help OPP to get rid of abandon bikes before they get tires kicked, and hamper snow removal effort.

It was also noted during this discussion that the bike rules they give newly registered bike owners were out of date, and need revised.

5. Safe Routes to School (SRTS)- One CRBC member brought up a discussion they had wth a mother who’s child wanted to ride to Park Forest Elementary who lived over in the neighborhood behind the College 9 Movie Theate. Yes, the child wanted to bike to school. The mother has had discussions with SCASD transportation, as well as the police, with little head way. The SCASD has a policy of not busing children that live within 1 mile of a school, putting the onus on the parent and child to arrive safely on time for class. The discussion moved to light sensors. Wire sensors are not “tuned” to feel for bikes, but could be with a little bit of effort. Photo sensors work better for bicycles, but don’t work in blizzard, and are possibly more costly.

6. PSU’ office of sustainability manned the bike info table on bike to work week, and would like to repeat that event this fall when students return. CRBC fully supports this effort. As part of the discussion the group voted to spend $200 on creating new handouts that support the website, CRBC, and biking in the Center Region.These brochures would be used by PSU’s Office of Sustainability (OS) in the fall at an event similar to the bike to work event where a table was staffed by PSU OS Staff where they educated folks about biking to and from campus.

7. The meeting concluded with some ideas for the October meeting….which was decided will be great.

Living with hills (and how you can learn to love them)

Hills suck!

Part 1 of …

There’s an old adage in cycling: If your legs hurt, you’re in too high of a gear. If your lungs hurt, you’re in too low of a gear. If both your legs and your lungs hurt, you’re climbing a hill!

No ifs, no ands, no buts, hills suck. It doesn’t matter about your level of fitness, how long you’ve ridden, how fast you ride, hills will suck. Why? Because, the amount of energy it takes to get over a given hill at a given speed is a basically* a constant for your bike and your weight. If you and your road bike weigh 165 lbs together, you’ll need to generate about 160 watts to get over Pine Grove Mountain at 5 mph. Using a mountain bike? The extra weight and higher rolling resistance of a big tire won’t help you here and requires another 20 watts. Double your speed (a great feat, by the way) to 10 mph and you’ll get up there twice as fast, but you’ll need an extra 170 watts.

OK, so with the fact that hills suck agreed to, how can you go about learning to love, or maybe achieve a fondness for, or at least not loathe the hill that’s between you and your destination?

Well, the quickest way to reduce the amount of work you need to get up a particular hill at a particular speed is to reduce the amount of weight you have to carry up.

That reduction can be from your bike and it’s components. Have a kickstand, but you park at a bike rack every day? Lose it. Have three water bottles attached for your 20 minute commute? Lose 2 (Water weighs 8lbs/gallon). Want to
invest in a lighter bike? Seriously consider it, or at least upgrading from steel to alloy wheels!
Losing 5 lbs from your bike from any of the methods described will save you 4 watts.

Or, the weight reduction can be from you. Lighten up 10 lbs? The amount of work you have to do to get up your nemesis hill is reduced by another 10 watts and now you’re down to 145 from 160.

There are a host of other things you can do, and some of the simplest involve routine
bike maintenance that you want to be doing anyway. Pump up those tires to the maximum
pressure listed on the sidewall. Doing so reduces your rolling resistance and is an immediate
and completely free improvement (and if you ride on pavement 95% of the time, consider smoother, higher pressure tires). Lube your chain regularly and get a tune-up if you’re having shifting issues.

One of the biggest mistakes riders make when tackling hills is to go full power at the start of the slope. That’s a great way to feel like you’re king of the hill, but more often than not, your energy will peter out before you’re even a 1/4 of the way up and everyone will be passing you and wishing you a nice day. Find a speed that’s comfortable for you on the hardest part of the hill and make that your target average speed. It doesn’t matter that it’s 3,4, or 8 mph, but it should be a speed that you can consistently maintain going up the hill. Then, rather than attacking the hill at the bottom, start at or just slightly above your target average speed. You’ll find that when the going gets tougher, you’ll still have some reserves left to power through the really tough spots.

Anticipating shifts can be a great help on hills, too. If you’re halfway up the hill before you downshift, even the best derailleurs can strain under a full-power shift. A mis-shift in the middle of a climb usually leads to a great loss of momentum — and it takes even more energy to get moving again. Get into a lower gear before you need to, and you’ll find that you can keep that precious momentum and use it to your advantage.

On the rollers you find on a lot of Central PA routes, don’t be tempted to pedal fast going down in hopes that you’ll get farther up the next hill. That works occasionally but only if the next hill is smaller than the one you’re going down. If that next hill is the same height or bigger, all you’ll accomplish is to waste energy that you’ll need later. Save that energy! Let gravity pull you down the hill and shift to a medium gear that will not strain your legs and keep you at your target average speed as you climb.

The best way to start liking those hills, though, is to train and increase your power-to-weight ratio. It hasn’t been that long since I thought a 5 mile ride was a tremendous effort. As I ride around the area, I am constantly speeding up little hills that I remember absolutely hating when I first started to become an avid rider. What’s the difference now? I’ve ridden on hills that are much higher than what are now to me little bumps in the road. I’ve increased the distances I can ride so it’s not as much of a stretch to do my daily commute.

How to start training? First off, don’t just ride. You will need to challenge yourself, increasing your distances and speeds. Don’t be scared off by that; you don’t really have to stress yourself out too much. I have found that a few miles a week increase in your longest ride will slowly but surely build up your stamina. If you add a secondary goal to increase your speed by .2 mile/hr at the same time you’re increasing your distances, you’ll also slowly but surely decrease the amount of time/mile — and eventually, you’ll find you can be doing 20 miles when you used to do five. Want to improve even more? Throw in a few intervals — 30 secs at your peak output (i.e., ride as fast as you can) followed by a 2 minute cool-down. Repeat 3-5 times on a ride.

How does that help you on hills? Any increase in your distance/speed ability will be quickly felt as you tackle those hills. If you really want to increase your hill climbing, then you need to tackle more and higher hills. For that, you are in luck! You live in Central Pennsylvania! Pick a hill and try to do it once a week. Time yourself and try to shave 10-20 seconds off of your time each week. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it will add up.

Loving hills? Well, maybe that was a stretch, but if you face them rather than avoiding them using some of the tips presented here, the rewards to your overall fitness will be great. You’ll soon find yourself not even noticing smaller hills that you hate now. And you’ll get to see what’s over that mountain.

* — see the references below for a full explanation of the physics of riding and hill climbing.

References:

My favorite local hill climbing training routes:

To Where the Pavement Ends
http://www.mapmyride.com/us/state-college-pa/to-where-the-pavement-ends-route-306079

To Where the Pavement Ends (Extended)
http://www.mapmyride.com/us/state-college-pa/to-where-the-pavement-ends-extended-route-15566678

http://bikecalculator.com/wattsUS.html

http://www.cptips.com/energy.htm

http://www.blog.ultracycle.net/2010/05/cycling-power-calculations