April 2018

It’s roughly 3 weeks since I started cycling and progress had not been that great, but I’m still motivated and quite enjoying it.

Unfortunately I was in bed with a nasty cold for almost a week (from before Easter weekend until after). And other than that I commuted (cycled to work) one day, which my body wasn’t ready for yet so that took me off the bike for a few days.

These are not excuses, this is just what happened. I’m not giving up, so no need for excuses and in fact, I’m just getting more and more excited about cycling.

Basically in the last 3 weeks I have done 15 rides ranging from 1.1km to 8.4km. Very happy with the comfort on my bike, I was expecting to have a lot more pain based on what it was like on my previous bike. I’ve had the handlebars raised, fitted a 1.5L Camelbak water bag to my stem so that I can sit water from a pipe rather than having to bend down to reach my bottle and I’ve got some good lights for both front and back of the bike.

Up until this weekend it’s felt like riding a mere 4.6kms, my legs were getting more and more tired each day. I know, it’s such a short distance, but this is where I’m at right now. However, now I’ve cycled for 4 consecutive days and today I’ve felt stronger than yesterday instead of feeling more tired and I’ve managed to record my best time for that 4.6kms. It’s a mere 17.8kph, but it’s faster than any of my other rides up to now.

So it’s been a slow start, but I’m getting things sorted and now just have to keep putting in the effort until these short distances get easier. Next goal will be to attempt another commute and see if I can recover from it more quickly.

I cycled to work once about 2 weeks ago, but I wasn’t happy with my visibility on a very busy road. So that together with being sick for a week and being very unfit meant that I haven’t tried to commute again since.

Then someone asked about these Lezyne Laser lights on a local cycling forum and I decided to give one of them a go.

Here’s a brief video showing it flashing on its brightest setting. Note that I’ve got my old light mounted above the Lezyne and also going at the same time. If I do commute, it’ll be early morning and I’m a little obsessed with being seen, so I’ll run both of them at the same time.

In my opinion, this is bright enough and probably I don’t need the second light. However, I think the “Lazer” part of it is absolutely useless. who’s going to see those thin little lines on the road next to you? Maybe if you’re touring far away from city lights, but I don’t see them serving any purpose if there are other lights around.

Improving Visibility On Your Commute

These bright, flashing red lights are important to get motorists’ attention, but don’t underestimate the effectiveness of reflection. I wear a high-viz vest when cycling to work and my pannier bag has some reflective strips in it.

In my experience while driving in my car, I can’t always tell what I’m looking at when I see a flashing red light and also, you can’t always tell how far the object is away from you – especially when there are other car headlights coming from the front. But reflective strips shining your own headlights back at you make it easier to identify the cyclist and how far they are away from you, in my opinion anyway.

I was looking for an image online to show what I mean, which I couldn’t really find, but this image does give you an idea. The guy’s clothing is much more visible to identify than the little red light.

Got it from this article and it might be worth reading that – https://cyclingtips.com/2016/06/does-reflective-and-fluorescent-clothing-make-us-safer/

Some interesting stats about how motorists perceive cyclists based on what you’re wearing in there.

Archives for April 2018

Three Week Check-in

Improving Visibility On Your Commute

Improving Visibility On Your Commute