omafiets

So you want a comfortable bike to take you around town nimbly balanced on two wheels?  Forget recumbents.  Omafiets, Dutch for "grandmother's bike" are the gold standard for comfort.  According to Mark Sanders, bicycle designer, a bolt upright riding posture is better than one leaning over to reach the handlebars.  Though not news to me, his accompanying photo was interesting because one of my big aspirations is to go on a cross country road trip by bike.  (And even if that never happens, I am still taking a lot of local bike trips.)  In his article Sanders was only considering upright bikes, but omafiets seem to come out on top even against recumbents.  The best recumbents I have ridden (and only recently does that statement carry any weight- see my report on Angletech) are the short wheel base "stick recumbents".  These bikes, like the Challenge Mistral or the Bacchetta Giro, are beautiful.  But while comfortable for short rides, exercising while in a very recumbent position can lead to minor numbness in one's feet, and to keep a relatively low seat height these bikes have 20 inch front wheels.  An omafiets has large 28 inch wheels that better smooth out irregularities in rough terrain.  But so can "crank forward" bikes, particularly those made by RANS.  However after reading about omafiets, RANS crank forward bikes seem to be a more expensive solution to a problem that doesn't exist, or if it does it is only because omafiets aren't widely enough known by or available to American riders.  Everything about omafiets are utilitarian, and they don't have more gears than you really need. 

I am about as far away from the Netherlands as one can get, so what are my options?  Probably the easiest thing I could do is try to assemble my own omafiets from different parts, beginning with the right size and shape of frame, handlebars, seat and wheels.  (According to some people, omafiets are similar to cruiser/comfort/leisure bikes, but there are often differences in frame geometry.)  I can also stay abreast of information from Velovision, prodigious bloggers like The Lazy Randonneur, and read Peter Eland's book "Practical Bike Buyer's Guide".  So will an omafiets make a good cross country bike?  I think so, they can easily be fitted with front and rear racks for carrying gear, so it looks like a good fit all around!  I wonder how many miles in the saddle I can log in one year?  BTW, if you look at other countries besides the Netherlands where bikes are a primary form of transportation you see the same general form.  For example, Japanese "mamachari" bikes are similar if not identical to many omafiets.

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If you want to delve any further into the minutiae of Dutch bikes, there are also "opafiets" (grandpa bikes), the picture above is a bike of this variety.  At the linked page is an image showing the shape of the handlebars, an important feature of any oma or opafiets.

Optibike

Paraphrased from the website: "The 2000 mpg human-electric hybrid vehicle augments the rider's pedal power with an electric motor and battery traveling 50 miles on $.08 worth of electricity at 30+ mph." Okay, now that I got all the hype out of the way, this is really a very cool bike. It's not a moped, so no loud smelly engine stuff. It's not a recumbent, but it is so cool that I forgive that one design flaw (could be fixed). Electric assist bikes just don't get the attention they deserve. I want. See also the Optibike Owner's group. (This or even this is much more within the realm of the possible for me however.)

Modern direct-drive recumbent bikes

When a friend of mine told me he was thinking about buying a new recumbent bike, I began surveying the choices available on the market to help him find the right one to meet his needs. Human powered transportation is a subject close to my heart. In the process of reviewing the incredible variation of bikes, I came upon the "direct drive" recumbent bike design that appeals to me (my motivation to help was not purely altruistic). A direct drive bike has the crank axle mounted on the front fork, inside the hub of the driven front wheel; no chain is needed. This front hub also houses a transmission system to allow a wide range of gears for slow or fast speeds.

The direct drive approach, though not commonly seen on bikes today, actually preceded the use of the chain drive, but was overshadowed by it as bicycle designs evolved due to the primitive stage of technical developent of hub gears at the time. The design of the transmission is probably the most complicated part of the whole bike, but today it is no longer a limitation. Planetary gear hub, Schlumpf Speed-Drive, Rohloff 14-speed hub, Sachs "Elan" 12-speed hub, and Biria continuously variable transmission hub: these are some reliable hubs that may be adapted to use in a direct-drive bike, with modification. The overall appearance of a direct drive bike is very clean and simple, and the compact drive system dramatically improves cargo carrying capacity. Though not yet available, were such a bike to enter the market, and if it were designed as carefully as Garnet recommended in his paper, I am sure it would be well received, especially by myself!

One disadvantage of this design is the width of the tread, more commonly known as the q-factor. This is the distance between the pedals that the rider's feet must straddle. Since the geared hub must be within this space, the q-factor cannot practially be reduced beyond the limits imposed by current technological ability to create a small geared hub.

References:
Kretschmer, Thomas (2000). "Direct-drive (chainless) recumbent bicycles.", Human Power, no. 49:11-14.
Garnet, Jeremy (2008). "Ergonomics of direct-drive recumbent bicycles.", Human Power eJournal, article 17, issue 05.
Photo of Kretschmer's bike
Another bike built by Stefan Daniel

kardia

Since I've thinking a lot about the physical body lately, I recently focused my attention on one of its organs - the heart, which is the theme of this post. I heart my heart (actually I have suspected that my heart was my favorite organ since 08 July 2007 when I longed to buy a heart rate monitor to use while biking).

Heart disease - biggest killer.
American Heart Association - sponsor of campaigns to raise awareness and promote healthy hearts.
Obama - Health care is a right!
Electrocardiogram - visualize it on your laptop.
ECG tattoos - creative.
Heart Rate monitors - wear them like a wristwatch.
Heart Math - profiting off of cardiology research.
What is an angiogram? - see one here.
Where does the blood flow? - diagrams here and here.
What does a beating heart look like? - computer animation here.

I really can't recommend that animation highly enough, it is worth the look. Now I am off to take better care of and appreciate the amazing organ that rhythmically pumps in my chest.

The Race

I am of average physical fitness, maybe a little above, but not much. Nine months out of the year I run/ski/bike about 4 miles a week (two miles, two days) in a three months on, one month off, repeating schedule that coincides with my work schedule. After the end of a three month period of exercise I am at my best, and I am at my worst following the one month of no exercise. May was the no exercise month. My only training strategy was to get eight hours of sleep the night before. So there's one strike against me.

June saw a sweep of illnesses in my family, last hit was me, and I am still recovering. I have a normal 40 hour work week, but also two little kids and hence less than optimal sleep at night. Strike two (and three?).

But I was looking forward to the 10K Midnight Sun Run yesterday. Last year I did a one mile road race, so this was the next logical step, right? Mostly, this was a fun opportunity that I didn't want to miss. I guess about 3500 other people felt the same way. I had a few goals I set for myself: avoid injury and beat two of my friends, who were also in the race.

It is too bad they didn't offer split times for each mile, that would really tell the story of my race performance the best, but I can provide the details myself. The start seemed chaotic - a hoard of people gathered on the road, then seemingly without warning a shot went off and we surged forward. I said good bye to my friend and trailed another person as we passed people by. Eventually I stopped passing people and they started passing me. A man stood at the first mile mark reading off the time. Seven minutes 15 seconds as I passed him. Not much later I began to wonder if I could last the remaining five point two miles. My stride shortened and I just kept determinedly throwing one foot ahead of the other. In the back of my mind was the most recent running advice I had read. Halfway through the race my right leg was getting sore. Then by mile five the pain was too much too ignore and I knew I had to walk. "You don't have to win, you just have to finish." I heard people say on the sidelines. The spectators were great, offering water, water hoses to cool you down, music to pump you up. Some of them looked a little smug and lazy. Here I was running my legs off and all they did is sit back and watch, it seemed a little unfair. When I began to walk I knew my time would really suffer for it, but better my time than my body. It was an interesting experience actually. I remember seeing runners crawl across the finish line in pain in some of the televised marathons. Would that happen to me? A few people asked if I was okay, I assured them I was. Once I got to the last fraction of a mile I again tried to run. My calves immediately cramped up. No striding allowed. Taking a cue from a runner ahead of me I began to run in short quick steps, as if I were pogoing to the finish. My last glance at the clock on the finish line showed just under an hour and two minutes. I wanted to get under an hour, but I'll take it. Past the finish line a few tables were piled with sliced oranges and watermelon - the sweet taste of success. I grabbed a juicy slice of orange and spotted one of my friends. To our mutual surprise he beat my time (we saw each other when he passed me as I walked). I got some ice on my leg from a sportsmedicine table at the finish line, caught a bus back to the start where I parked my car, picked up a few groceries, then went home.

After the finish, despite the pain in my leg, I felt good. And most of that was simply because I did it, last year I didn't. That day of the race started early for me, I took my daughter to the clinic to have her ear examined; went to a downtown Summer Solstice festival and ate cheesesteak sandwiches and berry smoothies; did a little shopping. I also visited friends who recently had their first child and met their boy for the first time. On Monday they are packing up to leave town for a new job location so it was a good bye too.

You have to be healthy to run, but you don't have to run to be healthy. While at the race I met a guy who ran it in about 44 minutes. He loved running. I am not sure I love running as much. There was a time when I did, and maybe that time has passed. Or maybe I just need to train more beforehand. My official time was 1:01:52.5, I know I can beat that next year. Either way, a 10K is the most I ever plan to run!