Tour de France, the Cobblestones of Stage 5

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Rob

Yep, summer is here and so is le Tour de France! I must admit, I got a late start watching le TDF this year and it took me a little while before I started to get totally involved in it. Well, I can say that I am totally into it again this year and I would encourage all you riders out there to tune in whenever you get a chance to see what this year’s Tour is all about.

Before I get into the details and my own take on the race so far this year, you can find the latest new, updates and winners on the 2014 TDF on the official TDF website here.

Le Tour is broadcast on the NBC Sports channel here in the US (in Chicago anyway) but keep in mind that the broadcasts are delayed after each day’s race has taken place so if you don’t want to know ahead of time who wins what, do not check out the website news until after you get a chance to see the current days’s broadcast.

So, very briefly, the 1st 3 stages were in England and the most recent stage (today) was in France. As of the end of stage 4 today, Vincenzo Nibali wears the Yellow Jersey (the rider with the lowest cumulative overall time for all stages completed), Peter Sagan wears the Green Jersey (the rider with the most points which are earned by winning various events within each stage), Cyril Lemoine wears the Polka Dot Jersey (the king of the mountain or the best climber) and Romain Bardet gets the White Jersey (the best rated young rider). Of course, this will all be out of date tomorrow!

What I really wanted to get to with this particular TDF post is that tomorrow’s stage (stage 5) is going to be very interesting with all these expensive race bikes, with their skinny tires, on the cobblestone roads of France.

I feel like I can relate to this since I have often ridden some pretty rough roads (even some cobblestone roads, I believe) with my skinny tired road bike. Of course, I am not usually riding at 30-40mph, or more, like the TDF riders!

They say that this is a very dangerous and unpredictable stage. It is probably not as scenic as the high mountain stages but it does sound like it is going to be very interesting.

I hope that you get a chance to watch at least some of this historic cycling event this year!

BTW: The photo that I included above is a close up of the TDF logo on the Proform TDF Indoor Cycle (here) that is shown in some pretty cool commercials during the TDF.

Bike Tire Stats – Continental vs Bontrager

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Rob

I finally pushed my last set of bike tires to the limit ~ 3,388 miles in this case ~ and ended up with a flat tire last week and a brand new pair of tires this week.

Old worn out Continental Ultra Sport and New Specialized Armadillo Tires

The tires that I just replaced were Continental Ultra Sport – 700x25c. I wrote a blog post on these and my previous tires, Bontrager Race Light Hard Case – 700x28c, back in September of 2009. See the New Tires Blog Post Enter Here for the detailed stats on my older tires.

Well I keep detailed information on my bike tires and other equipment so now that the Continental tires have reached their limit (or are well past their limit for other riders) I have all of the details on how these tires compared to my previous tires.

Bike Tire Stats:

Bought 6/21/2014 Specialized Armadillo 700x25c $90.00
Bought 9/27/2011 New Columbia Ultra Sport 700c25c $48.00 Miles used 3,388 2 yrs 9 mos Cost/mile 0.0141677 Cost/1000 miles $14.17
Bought 7/1/2008 New Bontrager Race Light Hard Case 700c28c $80.00 Miles used 4,907 3 yrs 2 mo Cost/mile 0.0163032 Cost/1000 miles $16.30
Bought 8/10/2005 Original Tires – 8/10/05-7/1/2008 Miles Used: 3,719 2 yrs 3 mos

So there you have the latest stats on the various tires that I have used on my Trek 1500 over the years.

The Flat Tire Story

Well I was just out on a local ride not far from my house when I got my flat tire but I had checked the weather radar before I left and I did not have a lot of extra time before I saw some storms heading towards me.

Fortunately my daughter was home and was able to come out and save me before the storm hit.I slid my Topeak Bike Bag off along with my GPS Bike Computer then locked my bike so I could go back and get my van to pick it up. My friend called it my “SAG Car” like those team cars that follow around the racers in bike races.

I didn’t have a spare tire or a patch kit with me so I didn’t have a lot of options anyway. In this case it worked out well because if I would have taken the time to fix the flat tire instead of calling my “Sag car” to pick me up I would have gotten soaked. We had a major downpour!

I do believe that it was the extremely worn tires that caused this particular flat so I was actually very lucky that I was not 20, 30 or more miles out like I was on some of my recent longer rides. I do plan on carrying a spare or patches (or both) on my next long ride so I don’t get stranded if this happens then.

Speakin of rides… I did do a couple of new rides recently up in the Chain of Lakes area. Actually, I was on the Chain Of Lakes Trail in Grant Woods and the trail in the Chain of Lakes Park. I have photos but have not had a chance to post them and write the story yet. I hope to get to that soon and I will post an update here too.

Hope you all are enjoying this excellent riding weather!

Wisconsin Bike Trails, Gazelle, Divvy Bikes and a Beautiful Day

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Rob

I got a little behind on my blog posts so I decided to cover a variety of topics that I really wanted to talk about in this post.

First off, I went up to Sparta and Cashton Wisconsin last week to visit my family and I also packed up my bike to try to hit a few bike trails while I was there. I was most interested in riding the 2 trails that connect to the Elroy-Sparta Trail to the west ~ the Lacrosse River Trail and the Great River Trail,

This turned out to be a total bust for 2 reasons. First it was cold and snowed while I was there but I also wanted to mention that, after I got there, I called Speed’s Bike Shop, which is right on the Elroy-Sparta trail to get the trail conditions and discovered that these crushed stone bike trails do not open until some time in May. The trails are still soft and moist and they try to keep them in better condition by keeping bikes off of them so early in the year. So the lesson that I learned here was that if you are planning a bike trip in Wisconsin in early spring you should call first.

The Gazelle: The next topic seemed appropriate for the cold, snowy weather on my Wisconsin trip but a little out of season based on the weather that we had yesterday (Easter Sunday). Since I have ridden and reviewed so many exercise bikes for this site and have also used and reviewed a number of treadmills on my new treadmilll website, www.treadmillereviews.com I am always interested in the various aerobic fitness equipment that I am able to check out.

It turns out that my brother got a Gazelle workout machine recently and I saw it parked in the corner and decided to check it out.

These workout machines are very economical ~ they usually only cost about $130, new, for a basic model ~ and you can get a pretty good aerobic workout on them.

I only did about a 10 minute workout and, since I had my bike computer and heart-rate transmitter, I checked out my HR and saw that I got it up to about 80% of my max HR in that 10 min workout. What I noticed the next day is that my calves were sore so it seems like this machine gives your calves a pretty good workout.

The main downside to this machine, like almost any indoor fitness equipment, is the repetitive motion and that it can get pretty boring if you do not have anything to keep you entertained. My brother had some music playing on his PC so that helped and I usually like to have a tv around to help with the boredom factor too.

Although most indoor aerobic fitness equipment has pretty repetitive motion, I think that I like the motion of exercise bikes, treadmills and elliptical trainers a little better than the motion of the Gazelle (which seems a little like cross country skiing). The advantage that the Gazelle has is that it is so economical and it does not take up much space when it is setup for use and even less space when folded up and moved out of the way.

Divvy Bike in Chicago (and our car in the background)

Divvy Bikes in Chicago: My final topic for today has to do with those light blue Divvy bikes that you can rent in Chicago. As I mentioned earlier in this post it was a Beautiful Day yesterday here in Chicagoland and my wife was in the city, rented a Divvy bike (for a 24 hour period) and took quite a few trips around the city for just $7!!!

The Divvy bike rental system is really designed to be used for commuting and quick trips around the city but if you know how to work the system (as my wife discovered) they can also be used for some economical touring and site seeing.

If you do not have an annual membership then the minimum time that you can get a pass for is 24 hours. This costs $7.00 as I mentioned above. The problem is that you must return the bike to one of the many docking stations within 1/2 hour or pay an additional fee ($2 for 60 min, $6 for 90 min). The additional fee is not even all that bad but the costs could add up if you kept the bike out of the docking stations for too long.

Chicago Lakefront Trail downtown

The 30 minute time limit for the docking stations can be a hassle but since there are so many docking stations it is possible to check in to a docking station after 30 minutes then just check the same bike back out again and move on to the next station.

My wife even took a little ride on the popular Chicago Lakefront Trail. I am not sure, however, if you would be able to cover a lot of ground on this trail using a Divvy bike.

Overall, the Divvy Bike System seems like it can be a pretty cool option to have when you are downtown and if it meets your needs at the time.

Well, that’s it for my blog topics for today. Sorry for the blog backup and long combination topic post. I’ll try to keep these posts coming more regularly ~ especially now that we are fully in outdoor riding season!

Bike Trail and Route Mapping with Google Maps

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Rob

I am sure that many of you are already aware of this but I wanted to mention a very handy tool that I have been using lately for planning my bike rides ~ either on bike trails, road trips or around town.

What I am referring to is, of course, Google Maps in combination with their zoom and Street View options. Google has put a lot of resources into their mapping applications and they are really quite advanced and useful at this time, especially for bike trails and routes.

Google Street View
© 2013 Google

I still use hard copy and PDF maps to find new trails that I may want to ride and I also have my Bike GPS computer (with mapping) for reviewing where I have been (and for a little help when I am out riding) but I have been using Google Maps more and more for checking out the bike trails that I am going to ride (or have already ridden).

The reason that this subject came up again for me is because we are having some problems with our vehicles and I have been using my bike more for trips around town and may need to ride to the Tour of Elk Grove (TOEG, that I mentioned in the post below) this weekend.

I already know of a lot of good routes and connecting bike trails for trips around town but there are times that I may need to go somewhere different or a little farther (like the TOEG) and it is nice to zoom in and especially to use the Street View option to check out what the roads or trails actually look like. You also have the satellite view to check out the terrain and surroundings.

If you live in populated areas that Google has photographed then you can get the Street View for the entire trip. For bike trails and routes in less populated area you can still follow the routes and zoom in for quite a bit of detail and Google includes many major bike trails.

Anyway, for my latest situation, I was planning a ride from Palatine, Il to Elk Grove Village, Il and there are busy roads and expressways to deal with. What I found out (via Google Maps) is that I can use a combination of bike trails and sidewalks, that run alongside a few major roads, for the entire trip. I was also able to verify that there was a sidewalk over Interstate 90 (where I wanted to cross) and a way to get under route 53 in a few locations and I could see how wide the underpasses were.

I don’t like riding on major roads or highways in this area and prefer the sidewalks myself if there is no other good option. The problem on longer trips is that you often run into a gap somewhere where there is no trail or sidewalk and only a narrow road without much of a shoulder and cars zipping by at high speeds (that’s not my idea of fun (or even of good survival!)).

With Google Maps and the Street View option, I was able to Virtually Ride my entire planned route on my PC before getting out there and taking chances or risking my life on dangerous roads.

Hints for Using Google Maps and Street View for Bike Routes

For those of you who are already proficient with Google Maps you may want to skip this part although there still may be something helpful here.

The real keys to using Google Maps and Street View for your bike routes is in zooming in to the correct level and selecting Street View when you have the option and when you need to see the actual surroundings.

Step One, of course, is to go to Google Maps. For this, just go to Google and click on MAPS at the top of the page.

Step Two is to find the bike trail that you are looking for or the route that you are planning to take. This is basically just typical search queries.

For popular bike trails, you can often enter the bike trail name in the Google search box to get to the trail. For trails and routes in a specific area, just search for the town (or other more specific location) in the search box. For a route between 2 locations just select Get Directions and enter the 2 locations. This will give you driving directions on the road but it can be a good starting point for finding the best bike route.

The Final Step is to zoom in to see the local roads and bike routes. You may need to zoom in as far as you can before the bike routes appear or sometimes you can see the bike trails zoomed out a little in order to get a bigger view. For a longer ride you will probably need to zoom in and out many times as needed.

To see the Street View or Photos of a Location, you can select the little orange man (icon) that is above the zoom bar and drag it to the map area (or if you zoom in as far as you can and if there is a street view available it will also appear that way). Once you are in Street View you can navigate through your route or get a 360 degree view of the area. For those of you who are familiar with this feature, you know how cool this is!

If you are in a less populated area that does not have Street View available, you can still zoom in as far as you can and usually see the bike trails and local streets and there are often individual photos posted to view the area. To see if there are photos available select the little orange man process (described above) once again. These can give you a visual look at the area but they do not give you as much detail as the actual Street View option.

In some cases, you may need to switch to Satellite View and zoom in as far as you can to get a good look at the area. Satellite View also gives you much more detail in more populated areas but hopefully this will keep improving and maybe at some point we’ll have good satellite views and street views of the smallest country roads.

At any rate, I have found Google Maps to be extremely helpful for finding, reviewing and planning bike routes and rides and I hope that the info above may help some of you also.

For more info, photos and videos or many of the bike trails in the Chicagoland area, see our popular Bike Trails pages and as I’ve said for so many years, Enjoy the Ride(s).

le Tour Ends… The Tour to Begin Soon…

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Rob

As many of you already know, the final stage and award presentations for the le Tour de France was held yesterday (7/21/2013) which wraps up this year’s race. I watched most of the stages of this year’s race on TV and still love watching. I am disappointed that it is over but it would not be so special if it were on all the time.

le 2013 Tour de France ends

I was glad to see Chris Froom win the yellow jersey this year especially after his sacrifice in taking 2nd place in the overall standings of last year’s race. There were times it looked like he could have even won the 2012 TDF but instead put his support and effort into helping his teammate Bradley Wiggins to take the win. At any rate it’s been a very good 2 years for the Brits in the TDF.

Being from the “left side of the pond” I was hoping to see the Americans take some stages or maybe a jersey but that did not happen this year. TeJay Van Garderan (last year’s white jersey winner) looked like he had stage 18 won, and I was holding my breath at the end until he was over taken by the French rider Christophe Riblon and ended up taking 2nd place for the day. I guess our French hosts needed a win but it would have been nice for a win for us too. We also had a great showing from American rider, Andrew Talansky who took 10th place in the overall standings.

Of course, you can get all the detailed stats on a number of websites including the official www.letour.fr site but I just wanted to mention some of the results and things that I found to be interesting.

As for myself, I really love the high mountain stages, like the last few stages in the Alps this year. The scenery is beautiful, the riders really work hard getting to the top of each mountain and the descents are fast (dangerous) and exciting. The fans can also be entertaining especially towards the tops of the mountains where they all gather (some of them in costumes) and barely give the riders room to pass and often run alongside the riders. Of course, some of the fans can over do it too and I have seen many of the riders pushing fans aside to get through (which looks frustrating).

As I mentioned before “le Tour” began this year, Proform had come out with a new version of their popular indoor cycle ~ the Proform Centennial TDF Bike ~ and I noticed, through my website traffic stats, that this indoor cycle has been very popular this year.

As for the second part of this blog post title above ~ The Tour to Begin Soon ~ you probably noticed the big difference is “le Tour” (i.e. the French version) vs “The Tour” (i.e. the English version) and the Tour that I am referring to is The Tour of Elk Grove, for those of us who live in the Chicagoland area or for those who may be visiting us in the beginning of August.

The Tour of Elk Grove to Begin Soon

The Pro Races at the Tour of Elk Grove (TOEG) are actually major international bike races sponsored by Alexian Brothers Hospital and recognized by the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale, based in Switzerland) but there are also amateur races and plenty of other activities to keep you entertained (if you get bored with the races… what!).

This event will start on Friday (8/2/2013) and run through Sunday (8/4/2013). You don’t want to miss this and you can check out all the details on the official TOEG website at www.tourofelkgrove.com.

This event is also televised locally on Comcast Sports Network (CSN Chicago) usually about a month after the event is held. I will try to post the dates of the broadcast ahead of time this year as I did last year.

One of the things that I noticed on the TOEG site for this years event is that Bob Roll is scheduled to announce this years races!!! This is the famous “Bobke” (as he is called) who is one of the main Tour de France TV announcers.

I attended this event on all 3 days last year and it was a lot of fun and a great photo op for those of you into photography. You can see our photos of the 2012 TOEG on our 2012 Tour of Elk Grove pages.

Another App Yap – Wind Direction this time.

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Rob

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about a simple riding tip on checking the Weather Radar before your rides on questionable rainy days and that I have recently been using the MyRadar App on my smartphone for this purpose. Well, I have another App to yap about this week.

Here’s the thing… What weather/ride stat is missing on your bike computer (even gps based) and on most weather apps on your smartphone? Well, I’m sure that the title of this post has given that one away. It’s Wind Direction and Wind Speed.

I love my gps based bike computer (it’s a Garmin Edge 800) and I love to monitor all sorts of stats on my rides (I’m kind of a geek that way). I check out my speed, average speed, and trip miles of course but I also keep tabs on my heart-rate, my current grade, my total uphill and downhill distances, my max speed, what direction I am heading, check my odometer occasionally and even have a window set to show the time of the sunset everyday. That’s really only some of the stuff I use but you get the idea.

The one element that was always missing though was Wind Stats (wind speeds and wind direction). Of course, I will usually have an idea about which direction the wind is coming from after riding for a while and changing directions a few times. I also watch out for the flags that I pass on my usual route.

One of the problems is that the wind is not always consistent and can be variable at times so, even though you may know that the overall wind direction is from the North (for example) it may not be as obvious if it is NNW, NW, NNE or NE. Like I say, I’m geeky that way and I just like to know exactly where the wind is coming from ~ and the speed while I’m at it.

So I did a App search recently for “wind direction” and “wind speed” apps and similar search terms but mostly just got a ton of weather apps. Well, I don’t really need another weather app (the one that comes standard on the iPhones is usually fine for my purposes (along the the MyRadar app)) but most either do not have wind stats or if they do it can be hard to find.

AccuWeather weather app with Wind Stats

So I downloaded various free weather apps and checked each one out. Most didn’t have the wind stats that I wanted so I just deleted them and moved on to the next one.

Finally, I found a weather app that displays the wind direction and wind speed very prominently on the main page when the app starts up. The app is called AccuWeather and, as you can see on the sample screen that I’ve included here, it is associated with ABC 7 and Accuweather.com. This is a free app so there is also some advertising at the top (that I removed in the sample).

The overall wind direction is prominently displayed and you also get the wind speed and wind gusts speed. I don’t always check the wind direction before my ride but as I start riding I start to wonder about it. I always have my phone with me so when I really need to know, I just pull over and check the wind speed and direction. This is also good to check on longer rides when the wind may increase, decrease or shift a little during your ride.

I would prefer this stat to be easily accessable on my bike computer but I understand why this would not typically be available on one. You would pretty much need a “Smart Bike Computer” meaning it would be able to connect to the internet via a cell signal. I still love my GPS based bike computer and it gives me almost all the stats that I need but maybe soon we will also have the option to get a “Smart” bike computer. With that said, I’m sure that they will come out very soon and this post will be obsolete. 🙂

Of course, I am aware that there are Bike Computer Apps for smart phones too, which kind of qualifies as a Smart Bike Computer but the bike computer apps that I have used (I’ve only tried the free ones) are just not as good, robust or as complete as a good GPS based bike computer (imo). Besides, I don’t really want to have my phone clipped on to my handlebars for all of my rides ~ I use it for enough other things and I would worry about it getting broken (the regular gps bike computers (Garmin models anyway) are made to be pretty rugged).

Hill Riding ~ Keep Your Momentum

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Rob

I was just thinking about a few very simple techniques on my last ride that help me to conserve energy on hilly rides and decided that I would mention them here since we are pretty much in peak riding season (at least here in the northern hemisphere).

First let me mention that when I write about a popular topic, like this one, I usually do an internet search and check out the articles ~ and videos ~ that are already out there on the subject. What I found is that there are quite a few articles on this topic as I expected. Many have to do with racing and others, have good tips but get into a little too much detail for me.

So here are my own personal tips, that I have learned from many years of riding experience, for handling hills on hilly rides (specifically I am referring to rolling hills more so than steep hills or mountains).

Keep Your Momentum

The key thing that I have found to be the most helpful is to keep your momentum, or even increase your speed a little, as you approach a hill (going up). If you are coming off of another hill (going down) then you should keep pedaling to keep up or increase your speed especially towards the bottom of the hill and start of the uphill part.

Don’t Downshift Too Low or Too Soon

One mistake that I used to make quite often, and still do on occasion if I am not paying attention, is to downshift to a much lower gear too soon before going uphill. This is really one of the key points that I wanted to make. You will want to shift to a lower gear when climbing a hill but if you gear down too soon, you can lose your cranking power, break your momentum and start to slow down much too soon making it much harder to climb the hill.

It takes a little practice to get your timing right but I have found that there is a huge difference on the energy that I spend or use depending on how well I handle the hills.

Standing vs Sitting

I found that there were quite a few articles that go into the advantages or disadvantages of standing on the pedals as you go uphill This technique can be helpful in some situations but it can also work against you if you don’t do it the right way or at the right time. I have found that standing on the pedals works best for me only on very steep hills and towards the top of the hill. If you already have some speed built up as you approach an uphill section and stand too soon… once again you break your momentum.

I’m not going to get into a lot more detail than I already have posted here. I have found that the techniques that I’ve mentioned here can make my hilly rides much easier when done right.

Other Stuff

Well, yesterday’s broadcast of the Tour de France included highlights of the initial stages of the race since it was a rest day for the riders. OK, I guess they might need a rest after so many hundreds of miles at top speeds and into the mountains. 🙂 . I actually missed some of the climbs into the Pyrenees which I like to see.

Regarding this hill riding post, I do notice the TDF riders standing at times as they climb into the mountains but it seems like they are seated on most of the climb. I’ll pay more attention as I watch tonight and see if I notice any obvious patterns.

I also keep an eye on the traffic that this site gets (via Google Analytics) and I have noticed a big increase in the interest in the Proform Tour de France Bike, which is not suprising at this time of year, with the TDF happening.

One other thing that I wanted to mention is that I am usually out riding new trails at this time of year and photographing and documenting them on this site but we have had some problems with our vehicles and I have not been able to get out to the new trails yet. I still hope to get out there soon though.

And finally, I am currently in the process of moving all of my existing Bike Trail Videos to YouTube. Originally, I kept my bike trail videos on this site exclusively, rather than posting them on YouTube since I was able to generate the Flash videos myself but I have found that there are now some very good reasons to move these videos to YouTube.

I have quite a few Bike Trail Videos, of the trails in our area, and they do a pretty good job of documenting the trails but they are a few years old now and the quality of videos have gotten so much better that I see I need to upgrade my video equipment asap. I will post more on this once I have completed the transition.

Summer Begins… and so does the 2013 Tour de France!

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Rob

One of the events that signals that summer is officially here, for me, is the opening of le Tour de France. So I just had to post a quick reminder here that the Tour de France bike race begins this Saturday, June 29th (tomorrow) and runs through Sunday, July 21st.

This is also the 100th year that cyclists have competed in le Tour de France. Yes, this is the centennial edition of this historical bike race. The first Tour de France was actually in 1903 but there were 10 years that the race was not held due to WW1 and WW2.

This years race will be 3,404 kilometers or 2,115 miles (for those of us on the west side of the pond). So this would seem like a nice little cycling vacation in Europe… except for the intense competition, the mountains and pace of the rides :-). Yea, it is incredible how intense this race is and I am always impressed by the condition of the riders that are in it.

I am not a racer myself but I think that anyone that enjoys cycling can easily get into this event. I enjoy the competition of the race but there is really a lot more to it than just that. I also really like the scenery of the race, as it winds through France, the beautiful mountain ranges and into the other bordering countries.

I am hoping that the good old USA can win some jerseys this year but now that Lance has been disqualified we have only ever had one American to win the Yellow Jersey (Greg LeMond, of course).

I am not going to get into all of the race history and details here since you can find that info on so many other websites. I just wanted to post a reminder that le Tour starts tomorrow (Saturday, June 29th). So check your local TV listings and check in on it occasionally. I know I’ll be watching and I think many of you new comers may find this race pretty interesting and exciting.

One final note, I just discovered that Proform has come out with a new version of the popular Proform TDF Indoor Cycle to coincide with the start of the 2013 Tour de France race. Proform introduced it’s original high tech TDF indoor cycle at the start of the 2011 Tour de France and has been improving on it since then. This years model is called the TDF Centennial and you can find out what is new with this bike on our Proform TDF Review page. I will be doing a little more research on this model and posting a separate blog post on it at a later date.

For now… check those TV listings and enjoy this year’s Tour de France!

Weather Radar Updates for Your Rides

Posted on June 27, 2013 by Rob

I have written about this topic each riding season for the last few years but I still find this particular Bike Riding Tip to be very helpful and it is a good reminder even for those of you who are already aware of it.

My riding tip is actually very simple… Check the Weather Radar for rain before your bike rides. OK, this is not totally necessary on a bright sunny day with a clear blue sky (although it doesn’t hurt to check) but it is especially helpful when it’s cloudy and looks like it may or may not rain.

Usually, the general weather forecast is not very accurate when it comes to rain because weather forecasters will show rain in the forecast, for the day, when there is as little as a 30% chance of rain. This also does not specify at what time it may or may not rain. In the past, I have used the hourly forecasts on the Weather Channel website for a more accurate forecast but I find that I still like to check the radar to really get a feel for what is going on up in the skies before I ride.

I was thinking of this blog post on my last ride since it looked very cloudy and the weather forecasters were predicting rain (in general for the day). Before my ride, I checked the radar and saw that it was totally clear and there was no rain heading in my direction for the time of my ride. I had a nice worry-free and dry ride and there were very few other riders out since it looked like rain.

There is always a possibility of getting a few sprinkles of rain, on a cloudy day, during your ride, even when the radar does not pick up anything but I don’t mind that. I just don’t like being surprised by a heavy rain or a downpour when I am quite a few miles out on my ride.

Where and How to Check The Weather Radar

These days there are quite a few places where you can check the Weather Radar and you mostly just need to find which service you prefer. There are many weather websites that give you a animated radar display and you could even just check the Weather Channel on TV (although I prefer checking online since you have more options and I don’t have to wait around for the Weather Channel to display the local radar).

MyRadar app screen

The Weather Channel website has a pretty good radar display and many of the local news media sites also have good radar displays. I recently got an iPhone and downloaded the free MyRadar app and this is probably my favorite service now since it is always handy, up to date and so easy to use.

The image that I have included here is from the MyRadar app. This is a free app so there is a line of advertising at the bottom which I cropped out in this case. As you can see from the attached image this is NOT a good day for a bike ride (which is why I am inside blogging 🙂 ). We are actually having major storms and flooding right now.

The color codes on the attached image are pretty common too. The lightest precipitation is usually blue and green, moderate precipition yellow and the heaviest is in red.

The way that you will usually want to check the radar is to make sure that you are looking at an animated display (not just a still display). Then note the time range for the display ~ there is usually a display of the time of the radar image that matches the animated image (usually from 1/2 hour to an hour). Then if you see precipitation heading your way you will need to make a prediction of how much time you have before it reaches you. You will want to zoom out to check a longer time frame and zoom in for more detail in your immediate ride location. You can actually get pretty good at this after a little practice.

I have found that the blue areas and even sometimes green are pretty safe to ride in. Blue may just be clouds and green could be clouds or a sprinkle of rain. Yellow is going to be a pretty good chance of rain and red means you are going to get soaked if you are out on a ride.

Another Related Tip

While I’m on the subject of rain and bike rides, I wanted to mention one other tip that may be helpful to you. These days, I always have multiple electronic devices with me on my bike rides. I always have my Edge 800 GPS Bike Computer and my iPhone and when I am out exploring and documenting new trails I usually have my camera and sometimes a camcorder. This makes me nervous when I get caught in a heavy rain (OK, it can still happen. Sometimes I don’t check the radar or I just decide to ride even if it looks like I might get caught in the rain).

My GPS Bike Computer is weather resistant but I like a little extra protection so I also carry a baggie and a rubberband to cover it when it rains. A soft, non-zip-lock baggie works best for this. For my other devices I carry some additional zip-lock baggies that are the best size for each device. I also have a bike bag and camera bag that are fairly water resistant but they do not claim to be completely waterproof so I put my electronic devices in the baggies inside the bike bag (and camera bag) for a real hard rain.

So there you have it. a few simple tips that can make your rides more fun and worry free and even give you the option to ride when everyone else thinks it is going to rain on them.

Keep in mind, these tips are also helpful for quite a few other outdoor activities. 🙂

Road Bike Rider in the Snow and Photo Stuff

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Rob

I just wanted to mention an unusual kind of thing that I saw this weekend when I was out on the bike trail behind my house working on a Photoshop project that I wanted to try for my personal FB profile picture (also an unusual kind of thing).

I was out on the bike trail with my camera, a mirror and a tri-pod in order to get this in-camera-lens photo that I tried one other time on a birthday card. Fortunately there was no one else out there because of all of the snow on the trail since I think my situation would have looked pretty quirky to anyone else that might have been there.

Well, I shouldn’t say no one else was out there because after I finished my photo project and as I was packing up my stuff this cyclist on a road bike rode by! There was a good few inches of snow on the trail and this guy was on a road bike with very skinny tires (and was managing to stay vertical).

As this cyclist was riding by I said “wow, in the snow?”. All he said was “this wasn’t planned“. I have no idea what that meant or how he could have been on his bike on a bike trail and it not being planned but that’s what he said.

As he was riding off into the distance I realized that I had my camera right there and that this is something I should have a photo of. So I got a photo of this rider as he was going up a fairly steep hill on this trail.

The photo that I have included above uses the “in-camera-lens” effect that I was working on out on the trail and the photo of the bike rider (within the camera lens). I’ve included the larger blowup of this photo so you can see it better if you click on the photo.

Well, I completed the Photochopping for my FB profile picture, uploaded that and I got quite a few comments and likes on the photo effect (even though it had a picture of me in it too 🙂 ).

I don’t want to overuse this effect but I think that I am going to update the About-Bicycles Facebook page to use something like this too soon.

BTW: if you do a LIKE on our FB page (the link above) then you will also get notifications when there are updates to this blog since I have it set to update the FB page whenever I do a blog post here. Or you could even read the blog posts out on FB if you prefer.

If you would like to know how this is done in Photoshop (it’s not difficult) just post a reply here or send me an email and I’ll give you the details.

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