The personal and professional website of Douglas Van Bossuyt
You are currently browsing articles tagged bicycle.
I went on a Slow Ride for Fat Kids today with the cycling club. Well, it was only me. The rest of the club was a bunch of wusses when it started raining hard. Dan was especially a big wuss.
Total Distance: 14.1 miles
Total time: One hour exactly
Average speed: 14.0 miles
Max speed: 37.3
Calories: 764
Dan, Kyle, and I went on a quick ride along the Coffee Loop. We tacked on some extra by doing Witham Hill as well. According to my computer we did 19.6 miles, I hit a maximum of 40.3 mph, the average speed was 14.8 mph, and it took us about 1:20 to do the whole route. My cycling computer tells me I burned 1050 calories. That should help work off a few of the beer calories from last night’s fun.
Tags: bicycle, Coffee Loop, Dan D, Kyle, Philomath, Witham Hill
Dan and I went out for a road ride for fat kids today. Including going to and from Dan’s house, my ride was about 20.5 miles. Our average pace was 12.6 miles (sloooow). My max speed was 31.6 mph. Total time including waiting around at Dan’s house was 1:39. Total calories burned was 1078 (according to my little $10 cycling computer).
Tags: bicycle, Coffee Loop, Dan D, Felt 95, Road Ride
I went on a road ride today to try and remember what it feels like to work out. My course took me through Philomath and back. In total I went about 16 miles.
Chris and I went on a quick ride up Dimple Hill. Our original goal was Mc Cullock but my bike’s issues made us have a late start. The front tire had gone flat the last time we had gone for a ride. Three attempts at patching the tube failed when the tube exploded as we were getting ready to reinstall the wheel. Luckily I had some old tubes in my old wheelset.
The whole ride was about 16 or 17 miles.
Tags: bicycle, Chris S, Corvallis, Dimple Hill, Mountain Biking
I went on a 21 mile road ride this morning to exercise the bike a little more during one of the rare dry weather breaks. I did the coffee loop again with an extension down to Airport Road. It was a nice ride but dang it was cold! If I can’t work the fat off by exercise maybe I can freeze it off.
Tags: bicycle, Coffee Loop, Felt 95, Road Ride
Yesterday I picked up my freshly updated mountain bike. I had been riding on the same original bike that I bought back in 2002. Needless to say, there were parts that needed replacing. I put a Marzocchi Bomber fork (10 Marzocchi 44 TST2 Air 140mm) on the front to replace a destroyed Sid Race fork. The wheelsets were changed out for XTR WTB Trail Lazerdisk rear and XT WTB Trail Lazerdisk front. New 2.3″ Continental Vertical (made in Germany!) tires. Juicy 3.5 disk brakes to replace the old vees that ate through the last set of rims. The upgrades weren’t substantial and the fork could actually be seen as a downgrade but the handling and performance of the bike was GREATLY improved.
Jordan and I went out for a short mountain bike ride up the back side of Dimple Hill on Lower and Upper Horse Trails. I was almost able to keep up with him on the descents. Still getting the feel of being able to go fast and take turns hard. One thing I did notice is that it’s more difficult to pedal the bike uphill. Must be the extra couple of pounds of weight and the larger mass at the outside of the rims.
The mountain bike ride was about 10 miles long. We turned around at the end of Horse Trail because Jordan had to be at work in a little while. The bomber run down the trails was great!
After I got home I decided to do a little road bike ride to try and keep the break-in process going for my new Felt 95. The weather looked ominous but I figured I could beat the rain. Just as I got to the base of Bald Hill the rain hit in full force. I raced back to my apartment just in front of the storm. The road bike ride was 5.5 miles and I did it in about 20ish minutes. Rain is a big motivator!
Tags: Bald Hill, bicycle, Biking, Covered Bridge, Dimple Hill, Jordan, McDonald-Dunn Forest, Mountain Biking, Road Ride
Here are a couple of photos of my new Felt 95. The first two are from the first ride with Kendra. The last is of the bike hanging on the wall in my kitchen.
A few weeks ago, Samantha and I took a little bicycle ride to the covered bridge. We both noticed the leaves had just begun to change. Fall is fast approaching in Corvallis.
Tags: bicycle, Corvallis, Covered Bridge, Samantha
One weekend I decided to take an afternoon ride across the Rhein river into France. Equipped with my boss’s mountain bike and my camera I set off without a map or any idea of what lay ahead other than that there was a bridge near my apartment and a ferry further up the river.
Crossing the Rhein. It was a few more kilometers to the border with France. Karlsruhe is right in the crux of the piece of France that juts into Germany. Had the world wars not happened, the whole Rhein river valley would still belong to Germany.
Looking out across the Rhein from the center of the bridge.
At the border crossing between France and Germany. This is looking back toward the German side.
The sign marking the border. No border or customs stations exist anywhere near this crossing. The old German customs house is an American 50s style diner now. A soccer field even crosses the border. And the town that is bisected by the border seems to not care a bit that half are French citizens and the other are German. Everyone spoke a heavy dialect of German. They also didn’t particularly like to speak to me in German and in fact I had to generally communicate in French or English. They all could understand me just fine. They just didn’t want to since I was speaking high German like that taught in the public schools and spoken at home in the northern parts of Germany.
A little concrete marker showing the border. 1991 was when this particular border crossing was opened. Now the marker serves as a good place to park a bicycle.
This cute little ferry took me back across the Rhein into Germany. Shortly before the ferry a carload of Germans pulled up alongside me and asked for directions in very bad French. I answered them in equally poor French that I wasn’t from there and had no idea where the town was that they were looking for. This ferry was built on top of old pontoon boat things left over from World War II. In fact the whole contraption appeared to be straight out of the American Army Corps of Engineers playbook. A few more kilometers of riding after I crossed the ferry and I was back at my apartment, tired but none the worse for wear.
Tags: bicycle, France, Germany, Karlsruhe, Rhein River, Road Ride, Summer 2005
Recent Comments