When on the bike? It's good to be seen...

Blinking red rear bike lights are a good idea to put to use, mainly because without them, you may not be seen by another cyclist, or worse, a car coming from behind.

I mostly ride during the day, but just because it’s a sunny day, doesn’t mean you couldn’t use a flickering red light on the back of your bike. In the fall months, especially. Shadows are longer and darker and when we ride into shadowed areas on a roadway, we can be invisible to a car.

My riding buddy Brian pointed that out to me on a recent ride. I told him I recently rode into a shady area of the bike trial I frequent, only to look over to my right to see a large deer standing at the edge of the trail. The shade had made this huge animal invisible. As I rode by, I could have touched the deer. It didn’t move a muscle. I was glad it didn't, since it could have bolted right in front of me and I could have T-boned the big beast. And I’m worried about hitting squirrels! How about a big freakin’ deer! Uh, no thanks.

Brian rides with a USB chargeable red tail light on his bike, which he sets to a blink to be more visible in traffic and in the shadows. After our ride, I was convinced to go buy one and put it on my bike. There’s about a quarter mile of heavy traffic I ride through to get to and from the bike trail I often ride on, and having a red light flickering under my seat can only help attract drivers’ attention that I’m also using the lane they’re in.

I also bought an LED headlamp for my mountain bike helmet, since I sometimes ride that bike at night coming home from work. The first time I rode home in the dark – the ride is only a couple miles or so – I rode down a familiar back alley to connect to a neighborhood street, but suddenly realized I was riding in complete darkness.

Now that’s a freaky feeling. It reminded me of the time I was mountain biking down a trail on a hot summer day in the Sierra foothills a few years ago and there was a tunnel to ride through that went under a highway. It was bright and sunny, and I rode into the tunnel at a pretty good clip. It was suddenly completely dark, and I was riding on squishy sand. This was weird, because my eyes didn’t adjust too well to the darkness because I was wearing sunglasses. I looked ahead to see a patch of light at the end of the tunnel, and pedaled hard to get to the end. I made it, but was a bit rattled by just having pedaled through a space/time warp of sensory deprivation! I remember thinking if I dumped the bike in that tunnel, who knows what was lurking in there in the cooler air. I was thinking rattlesnakes in my worse case imagination! That just made me pedal faster.

But back to the headlamp purchase for night rides on my mountain bike. A co-worker who rides a lot at night suggested getting a hiker’s or miner’s headlamp style light which is attached to an adjustable headband. This guy doesn’t wear a helmet, so he pulls it over his forehead. He said it works well because the light illuminates wherever he looks while on the bike. That’s a good option to not only light the path of the bike but any areas you want to see peripherally, which a bike-mounted light may not do as well. I stretched the headband over my mountain bike helmet and so it’s night ride, road ready. Probably won’t use it till spring, though, when night commuting isn’t so freakin’ cold!

      
       Sand on the trail

A great mountain bike ride in the Lake Tahoe area is the Flume Trail on the northeast rim of the lake. It has spectacular high up views of the lake and surrounding mountains, which is a big reason to ride it. But the one thing it also has is trails that are softened up big-time by decomposed granite, better known as sand.

Most of the sand on its trails isn’t too deep, only a little squishy at worst. But I remember a part of the ride that had a stretch of sand that really tested the ability to stay on the bike. It is at the end of a fast descent from the mountain ridge above Marlette Lake. Most of that trail is hard packed and good for traction. But near the bottom, you get to a part where your bombing pretty fast, and it’s suddenly a sandy, somewhat sideways slanted part of the trail. If you don’t keep your speed through it, it’ll dump you off the bike.

My buddy John told me he hit that very spot and made the mistake of hitting his brakes. He took a nasty fall when the bike bogged down in the sand, and he went flying. He got skinned up pretty good, but John, being the resilient and optimistic guy that he is, insisted that all things considered, it was still a great ride.

But bottom line, sand can throw you off the bike in a heartbeat if you don’t keep your speed all the way through it. Sometimes you can, sometimes not. But the using the brakes in sand? Uh, don’t do it, the bike’s almost sure to go down.

        Slog rides are good? Yep

I’ve recently had a lot of what I call slog rides. You know, the ones where everything’s working against you. Wind, low energy, detours. But those rides, even though they’re slow, are productive pedal times. You get your ride in, and you work on your mental and physical toughness by slogging through all the obstacles. You’re building a foundation for riding through a bit of suffering. It’s good conditioning and makes it easier to handle any mentally and physically tough situations that sometimes pop up in any ride.

        

        Til next time, remember to strap on a helmet every time you

get on the bike. Then, keep the rubber side down, ride safely, and don't forget: Have a blast.

-- Mark Eric Larson