So after shoveling the walkway and driveway for about an hour and about one mile of walking, it was time to do another fat burning exercise (more on fat burning exercises later) it was then time to pull out the good ol' Schwinn Ranger 2.6 MTB converted to a shiftless SS. There is a story about this bike, actually a brief one as it were.
So back in May I was paying a speeding ticket at a local police department and noticed a boat-ton of bicycles lying around on the grounds and figures it was the police officers' bikes and they all rode in to work which is cool. So I had thought, it turns out that these bikes were all impounds from the spring, a whole lot of them, mostly beater bikes or crappy department store bikes, but they were bikes nonetheless. Being very curious that I am, I saw a maintenance man walking between the buildings and approached him about the bikes, asking if they were for sale, in turn he pointed me towards an officer who was just walking by and he said to contact the city’s website and look for the auction page. I did and was amased at the golden finds there, in fact, I had immediately called my father and told him the jist, as he was also interested in some cheap starter bikes for himself and my mother, cool. After some bidding we grabbed two Schwinn Ranger 2.6 MTB’s and a Woman’s urban assault cruiser for 1/3 the cost, and they were all pretty much brand new, with the exception of an out of true wheel and a bunk set of tubes. So a week later my father and I went for a quick spin to check out the bikes, I rode my Gunnar Fastlane and he rode his Schwinn Ranger. All was good but the shifting on the Schwinn was kinda jenky, akin to a n00b panic shifting (When you are in mid-shift and the chain slips under load, this usually occurs on a hill or when you need it during an intersection.) which made me chuckle a bit before helping him out with it. Then all of a sudden, I hear him trying to shift to a lower gear, and the clickety clattity was quite noticable now. Things went south from there, the rear derailleur swung past the granny cog too far, this compounded with an out of true rear wheel caused the spokes to hang up the derailleur and rip the damn thing to shreds, quite literally actually. It was a trip, as it were, so back to the home stead we went, I did make a video and shall post it here if I can find it, it is kinda coo seeing how we jury rigged the chain just to hobble it along a short distance.
So I converted the donor Schwinn Ranger 2.6 into a SS.
After salvaging parts from the other Schwinn (mine) we got his bike all tuned up and solid, I even trued his wheels for him and re-fitted the bike so it was near perfect for him. That is all fine and dandy but now we have a donor bike in shambles, what to do. The first thing I did was strip off all shifters, derailleurs and popped the chain and made it a manual shift two speed, pretty ghetto as the rear drop outs were just that, drop outs and had zero travel for the axle to slide thus making a SS a very difficult fit, to say the least. I rode it that way every time I visited my parents and went for a ride with them, it wasn’t that bad and I actually started to like it. Time went on and it really was just doing nothing over there, so this winter I just so happened to pick it up and take it home, that’s when the magic really started to happen. The first thing I did was swap out the bar with my mother’s stock bars (I had them lying around because I had replaced hers with these awesome cruiser chrome bars, real easy to steer and a blast to ride!) and throw on a rear derailleur from my ’81 Schwinn Traveler. This was only to take up the slack in the chain line so I could seat the axle proper, then it was GTG.
Onward, to the prowl!
Our prowling was quite fun actually, we ended up riding for 4.2 miles and really making some great progress in the snow, thanks to the larger tyres at a lower PSI. If I was on my gunnar, even with the 34mm Hutchinson Bulldogs, it still would have been to much, this was the way to go, and such a relief as I never went over 161 BPM, here are the stats:
Overall
Time: 01:06:57
Distance: 4.20 mi
Elevation Gain: 20 ft
Calories: 583 C
Timing
Time: 01:06:57
Moving Time: 00:37:52
Elapsed Time: 01:07:01
Avg Speed: 3.8 mph
Avg Moving Speed: 6.6 mph
Max Speed: 31.6 mph
Avg Pace: 15:57 min/mi
Avg Moving Pace: 09:01 min/mi
Best Pace: 01:54 min/mi
SpeedPaceElevation
Elevation Gain: 20 ft
Elevation Loss: 29 ft
Min Elevation: 611 ft
Max Elevation: 642 ft
Heart Rate
Avg HR: 129 bpm
Max HR: 161 bpm
Riding the road less traveled, this was the motto for the ride, as every roadway was filled with at least 6 inches of snow. Spikes on the front tyre would have helped much.
Part of riding like this, as in any form of cycling really, is the ability to explore off the beaten path and stumble upon magnificent sights, such as abandoned rail-cars.
Whoops.
It just slipped my mind, this wasn’t supposed to be a longish voyage.
Oh yeah, that segway into the fat burning exercises, yeaaahhh… So I have a confession, I have been eating a bunch of cookies lately and have started to put on the weight, it sucks. Last Saturday I weighed 172 lbs and the afternoon of January 11th I weighed 179 pounds which is some major crap man!!!! I have been noticing the belly fat coming back, and it seems to grow like, overnight. So I am starting a new plan to burn the fat off in the shortest amount of time possible. This morning I weighed in at 176 and hope to drop a few more pounds this evening when I ride 20-30 miles on the rollers, plus my daily routine of waking up at 0500 and doing 3 sets of 30 sit-ups and other various leg and arm exercises, this will work out.
[RADIO EDIT: AS OF 20110113 I weigh 171 again!]
So I am a weight weenie and obsessed with my blood pressure, it is part of life as the Wannabe Cyclist I guess. Note: Too much peanut butter sandwiches could also be a factor here.
-WCFTW
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