No, it’s just the opposite - Bringing the Order, and Getting Rid of Junk!

I never use the “numeric keypad” on the right side. And it takes valuable space from my right hand. So what’s the problem if I got the hacksaw? Read on how I did it (with pictures and instructions for followers).

I’m not an advocate of drop bars anyway. IMO they are reasonable for just two cases, either riding really fast (meaning, races or sportive group rides), or riding really long (meaning randonneur rides). I’m curious about people who prefer drop bars for commuting (this style seems to be popular in the US). I’d never hold on the drops between home and work, and always holding on the hoods is, IMO again, vastly inferior to good old flat bar. Not to mention that the brakes with drop levers are never as ergonomic and efficient as with conventional flat bar ones.

So, as I’m not expecting any brevets or fast road club rides this autumn any more, I installed the wide flat bar on what originally was a “cyclocross” bike. The only other replacements are the stem and the front brake. The latter is swapped from a cantilever to a V-brake with a booster. I left the rear brake as it was; braking with “V-levers” on a cantilever brake is very poor, but for me the rear brake is almost of no use, except as a backup. Rear shifting is compatible between road and mountain Shimano shifters (thanks Shimano; SRAM was not as smart as to provide such convenience). Front is not (no thanks Shimano!), but as far as the crank is double not triple, it is easy to set up the shifter with bigger cable travel to work.

The first ride made me extremely happy feeling that I got rid of drop bars and wrist-twisting brake handles

Some thumbnails:

Impressions clearly overloaded my brain. This was first time I’ve been to Real Mountains - the highest pass, Kunzum, was at 4500m. And this was my first time I’ve been to a non-Western country (not counting my home Russia, which I’d put “on the border”).

The route was easy: start at Shimla, and follow the National Highway 22 (with some variations in the beginning) until Manali. Oh the highway… Never have seen anything like this before.

Numbers, mostly of interest to cyclists only:

• 9 ride days
• 750km covered
• Total altitude gain is still not counted, although three biggest gains were 1600, 1300 and 1000 meters

What else:

• Was caught in a snowfall in Lossar, 4000m:
  
• In the plains (Chandigarh), the temperature was in +30 range
• On the National Highway 22, passed landslides three times. Two of them, the bike could just ride through, like this one:

  

  once had to wait until it’s cleaned (I waited just half an hour, but others were there from the morning to the evening):

  

• Stayed in the tent two times, in hotels and various “rooms” 11 times.

In fact the impressions of India as a country overweigh the “mountain-cycling” impressions. It deserves much more than one blog post - even much more than one book. All my perception of the surrounding world is now a little bit different than it was before. Probably such thing is called “cultural shock”. I’m so happy that this happened; now I see how terribly narrow view I previously had.

Of the real India, I have seen only Chandigarh, which is described in all guides as most comfortable city in the country. Still it is, of course, Indian city (just like my home Saint Petersburg is the most European of the Russian cities, but still fully Russian).

I’m feeling own deficiency of not being a good writer to describe my thoughts about these two weeks. I will certainly do what I know I can - produce a technical report, with details for cyclists such as what tires to put on your bike and how much food to carry.

All pictures (unprocessed) piled here.

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Now I have 2000km on my roadbike’s computer during this season. Quite an achievement for me, taking into account that I was not cycling during 3 weeks when we went out for family trips, and that I do most of my everyday commuting on the other bicycle. Now intensive collection of kilometers slows down; I have a positive feeling that the time available to collect them was used at full extent.

The team looked terrific. Right, at least the core was composed of pro (or former pro) riders. Of course I could not keep up with 40 km/h speed… but nobody said I had to. I made the first lap at 34.4 km/h, hanging in the tail of the second group.

At the second one, I fell out of the small “peleton” I tried to stick to. Fortunately, pair of other riders did so as well, and I arrived to the second stop without too much delay. But at the third one I was almost dead, and lost even that group. Had to ride alone for some 15 km, during which my motivation went down and I just “cruised” at relaxing speed. Fortunately, somebody from the tail caught up with me, and we finished in two. My average was 31.9 over all the course of 100 km. Below is the map with laps marked:

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I’m definitely not a competitive rider; in fact I have not ever participated in a road race. This was not a race neither, but it worked very well as a competition against self. It is probably thanks to other riders that I consumed almost 3 liters of water during less than 4 hours. Sportive!

Not a keystone point, but definitely something to note: there was no participation fee. Thanks to the club which organized the ride and provided a service car (visible on the photo), which gave us water refill during stops. Sorry I do not even know what club it was.

Scribe is a free Python Wordpress publishing client for Symbian S60 phones. Worked fine so far on Nokia E90 - this post is written in Scribe. Insertion of images is still not supported though; seems that the only client capable of it is a commercial Wavelog.

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The first span, Espoo-Karkkila, was nothing too interesting; I rode main roads to cover the distance faster. Early Sunday morning even roads like Valtatie 2 are almost empty. Then the nice part came. 2832 was a really great road: excellent pavement, very low traffic, spectacle outlooks. On road 283, in a small village Teuro, an exhibition of old machinery could be viewed at “Teuro old technique day”:

Old machines at Teuro day

Old bicycles at Teuro exhibition

40 km along road 2846 were another pleasant experience. The headwind, which I was fighting against all the route, became stronger; but I had enough time before our meeting and did not care about riding at too low speed. In the end, the average was (disgraceful for me) 24.6 km/h; well I have an excuse of that headwind.

It made altogether 230 km door-to-door - I did not cycle back but took a train. Great ride!

First was Hanko. Espoo-Hanko distance is 110 km by an arrow-straight, relatively flat, moderately loaded road. Last 35 kilometers are especially flat and especially nice; the path is cut through very clear and dry pine forest. The area was a battlefield two times in the history. About 20 km to Hanko you can turn for a cup of coffee into a military museum.

This segment is very windy, and the wind is always from Hanko. I know that it is not just my impression: alongside this road, you can see the only wind powerplants in Southern Finland.

If the first 75 km by a motorway sounds boring, one can follow the former King’s Road. It provides you much more total altitude gain and some sightseeing points: oar built in 1646 and Raasepori, a castle from 14-th century.

Hanko feels like a real see city, located on a cape. Be prepared to spend some half hour walking by the main street and along the sea bank (unless, of course, you are riding again a traditional 200km brevet Kirkkonummi-Hanko-Kirkkonummi!).

The other route is “Around Lohjanjärvi“, which makes 150 km starting from the western city outskirts. Karjalohja makes for a perfect eating stop exactly in the middle of the distance. We made it today; had more than 10m/s west wind, used all lower gears we had on the way from home. Managed to catch up at 27.5 km/h, which I consider kind of achievement for myself - despite not so high average speed, I was almost dead at home. Now I’m still half-lying legs up and stuffing my stomach with everything which could be found in the kitchen in an attempt to recover

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Do you know the Finnish traffic regulations applicable to bicycles? When you are obliged to yield to a car by the rules, and when to do this only if you see that you’d be ridden over otherwise?

The best thing is to read the source, but to get the feeling, you may answer 9 test questions for car drivers. Only a beginning knowledge of Finnish is required.

Answer 9 questions

The main issue which is unfortunately not known to some cyclists: when you are riding along a facility for pedestrians, such as pedestrian crossing, you do not have the priority over cars! Pedestrians do. Bicycles do not. You get the priority if you dismount and pull the bike in your hands.

I do not see any “discrimination” here, but a very natural logic instead. Pedestrian crossings are designed so that they are safe for the slowly moving ones. Car drivers have time to react accordingly to a human being walking at 5 km/h speed. Bicycles move faster, sometimes much faster than pedestrians, and there is not always enough time for a motorist to slow down after the cyclist is in the visible area.

Thanks to fillarikesä blogi for the link!