Fat Guy In Utah

Riding again!

2007-03-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

Well, the weather finally got nice enough to ride again a couple of weeks ago. It's been really nice getting on the Trike again, although I am very out of shape. On saturday I hooked a trailer to the back of the trike and towed Hannah around the mountain. It was a killer. 35 miles in three hours. Some of those up hill climbs I was at the lowest gear and barely climbing faster than I could have walked. I'm sure the extra 100lbs behind me helped to burned some extra calories though.

To get the family into riding with me I finally had to buy two more trikes. I got another Cruiser for Sonia and a KMX SL for Harold. That way if I put trailers behind both trikes the whole family can go out. It's awesome. I can tell right off though that some enhancements will need to be made. I think we'll start of with some clipless pedals.

Back Again

2006-11-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

Yeah, that was pretty lame of me to say that I was back and then not really come back. My exercise and diet has moved down the priority scale as I have had to concentrate more on business. Plus, it's been cold out anyway.

The last three months have kept me extremely busy as I have completely renovated the Guy Graphics websites. I had this idea in August that we should add more products to our online catalog and we increased the number of products from just under 10,000 to well over 30,000. While, at first this seemed like a good thing, it proved to be disasterous initially. With that many products on our site it became very difficult to find any specific product and our website lost its focus of being a source for audio and video production equipment.

My answer to this was to filter the products by brand and type into different sub-sites. I figured that creating specific sites that focused on just one brand would make it easier to market. So I started by creating about twenty sites with the "buy" prefix, like buyAvid.com and buyCanopus.com. This worked out well, but the server load became huge and brought our the system down on two occassions.

My next step was to completely redesign our sites and use a common template for each of them. This has worked very well, as it allows me to make updates in one place and all sites are affected. I also created six main sites in addition to the brand-specific sites, with no one site having much more than 10,000 products on it. This has helped us to organize our products, which makes it easier for customers to find products and easier for us to market effectively.

So, that's what I've been working on while I haven't been writing here.

I'm Back

2006-07-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

July has been a crazy month and I've let my blogging lapse. At the beginning of the month we went to California for the July 4th weekend. After returning to Utah, we decided that we needed to work on our back yard and plant more trees at our place. Instead of riding the trike every morning I started working on the yard. So, my routine started to change because of the yardwork and I grew lax on my diet too.
The good news is that I've maintained my weight and have not gone up at all. Actually I've lost about 5 lbs since we got back from CA.

We are almost done with the back yard so I should be able to get back to my weight loss routine again.

My Morning Diet Coke on the Trike

2006-06-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

Video from this weekend!

2006-06-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

Here is my first attempt at posting video on my Blog. This is a one minute downhill run on the Provo River Parkway. It was recorded using the AV500 and uses the DivX codec, so you'll need that installed on your system to play it.

Final Camera Mount

2006-06-27T13:30:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of the latest and best-so-far camera mounting arrangement for the front of the trike. You can see the camera is mounted in a rubber microphone clip (MY100) which is attached to the support shaft. I also tightened up the accessory bar which is connected to the blue frame (derailer post) and that made a lot of difference. I run the camera's cable down the front of the frame and along the bottom and then connect it to the AV500 in front of the seat. The little length of cable between the camera and the coils seems to be enough to let the camera twist freely without getting tangled.

On this closeup picture you can see the bolt assembly better. The lock nuts work much better than the wingnuts did and the neoprene washers do a good job at keeping the whole assembly tight while still allowing it to twist. The basic mic clip seems to provide just the right amount of dampening without letting the camera bounce around too much.

My Trike Videos

2006-06-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

Recording video while riding a trike and have it turn out ok depends a lot on the camera placement. The camera position determines the area that is recorded and the action's point of view. The other important aspect of recording is what is actually being recorded.

For my first test videos, I had the camera placed on the right side of my helmet with some velcro. I had the recording device (Archos AV500) in my saddlebag. This immediately presented a couple drawbacks. First, my head was now tethered to the trike, which means I have to take the helmet off before I get off the vehicle. Not doing this hurts. Second, because of the cable length from the camera to the recorder the AV500 has to get put in the bags in back. This means that once I'm rolling I can't see what's being recorded or if the unit is even still on. Despite these limitations I did make some recordings and the video did turn out. My head acts like a big shock absorber for the camera making the image pretty steady. The bad news is that, apparently, I move my head side to side quite often. Good for seeing the sights, but quite dizzying on video. This was combined with a constant view of the side of my helmet on the left of the screen. This could probably be resolved by moving the camera to the top of the helmet.

The main thing I learned from the helmet-mounted-camera test is that unless I'm riding among other riders, the video looks boring. Mounting the camera to the front would be an ideal position because then I could rotate the camera to point in different direction including at myself to break up the monotony. So, with a handlebar mount from a walmart bike headlight and some hardware from home depot I came up with the contraption to the left. The Viosport cameras have threads on them, so I screwed a bolt right into it and used a wingnut to lock against it. Having the camera placed in the front of the trike also meant I needed the AV500 in the front. I liked this idea because I could mount the unit so I could see the video live from the camera. So, I built a cradle for the AV500 out of some Aluminum and a bike bottle holder. This allowed me to mount it to the stock accessory holder. It was time for more testing.

The position of the camera in the front is much better. I can turn the camera while rolling and aim it at whatever I want. I quickly disvovered that my mount needed some work. Everytime I would rotate the camera one of the wingnuts would loosen. That meant I was constantly adjusting and then tightening. The next thing I discovered was that the vibrations of the road were too much for the AV500's hard drive. I was able to fix this by covering the bottom of my aluminum cradle with Velcro and about 25% of that amount of Velcro on the AV500's battery. The unit is now held secure but has enough dampening from the Velcro to prevent damaged video files. With that taken care of I got some good video, but the vibration made it almost unwatchable. Running the video through SteadyHand gets rid of most the vibration. SteadyHand is a software image stabilization program.

Even with SteadyHand, I thought I could get some better video if I minimized some of the vibration. My brother thought that an audio microphone shock mount might do the trick, so I remade the mount to include the AT897 shock mount and reworked my bolt arrangement to eliminate the loosening wingnuts. To lock the bolt on and still allow me to rotate the camera without loosening, I used nylon locknuts instead of the wingnuts. To keep tension on the handlebar mount I used two fender washers and two neoprene washers. With the whole assembly bolted up I put the camera camera in the shock mount. The results -- smoother but more shaking due to the camera being suspended in the mount.

My next step was to replace the AT897 mount with a basic mic clip. So far I think that's the best setup.

Next time I'll talk about the actual video and post some samples.

My First Organized Trike Ride

2006-06-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

Russ Card from Recumbent Cycles of Utah, organizes summer events called the Bent Bike Boogie. On Saturday I got to ride with the other participants along the Provo River Parkway from the Orem parking lot to Vivian Park and back. The event is open to all the local recumbent riders, bikes and trikes alike. The only ones that showed up this time were trikers. I connected our Walmart-special bike trailer to the back and towed Hannah behind me.

It was an absolute blast. It's fun to ride the trike the trike alone, but with a group of others it's even more fun. And, out of pure coincidence, all of except for one guy were wearing red t-shirts, so it felt like we were part of a club.

The ride to Vivian Park is slightly uphill, but with towing the trailer it was enough to make it hard to keep up with the leader at times. Coming back on the downhill run was a different story. The extra weight of the trailer added some momentum and made it easy to cruise up front.

It's a great group and we already set up a date for our next ride. I told them about our ride around West Mountain, but they said they weren't quite ready for that yet.

I did get the ride on video, but I'll post details about that a little later.

Back to the video stuff!

2006-06-19T23:52:00.000-07:00

Now that I've got all my drivetrain tweaks made I can get back to the video stuff. I hadn't touched the VioSport Camera or the Archos AV500 in a couple weeks. On our weekend ride around the mountain I attached the camera to my helmet and put the AV500 in my saddlebag. It recorded well, although it gets kind of boring just seeing straight ahead all the time. With the camera attached to my helmet there are not a lot adjustments that can be made.

I decided that I needed to mount the camera to the front of the trike with a pivot so I could point it in any direction. I also decided that I needed to mount the AV500 on the front so I could see it while seated, thus allowing me to adjust the camera angle and such.

Mounting the AV500

I decided that a good position for the AV500 would be the stock accessory mount at the base of the seat. That mount is no good for a drink holder anyway because it is horizontal and too close to the bend in the tubing to allow for good drink retrieval. I decided to start with a Bell drink holder that I found at walmart for $4. It has a nice aluminum mounting setup with some bars that could be bent. I started by taking off the plastic strap and bracket that holds the drink in place. Once I had done this I realized that this unit itself was not going to be enough to safely hold the AV500.

I dug through some old boxes of junk in the garage and fount a piece of 1/8" aluminum sheet that I had been saving for about 15 years. At one point in time I thought I could use it to make a cool RC car chasis out of it. I cut it with a wet diamond-dust tile saw, drilled some holes in it, cut it some more with the jig saw, beat the heck out of it with two hamers a vice and an anvil, smoothed it all out with the belt sander and ended up with a perfect receptacle for the AV500.

With my carrier plate made, I drilled some holes in it and attached it to the Bell drink holder. I then bent the tubing on the bottom around so it would wrap in front of the AV500. I tried doing something with the top tubing, but in the end I decided to just cut it off and grind it down. I must say that I am very happy with the way the unit ended up. To secure the AV500 in the carrier I attached a small piece of velcro to the top. With the unit bolted to the frame I tested it out and found it to be a very good position, just as I hoped.

Mounting the Camera

I found some good ideas about mounting cameras to handlebars on the web, and they pretty much went along with my original ideas, so it went along very easily. I started by using a handlebar mount from a cheap headlight kit I found at walmart. I punched out the threaded screw and cut off the bottom to get me a flat surface for my new screw. For the shaft I used a 3" Stainless Steel 1/4"x20 bolt with a wingnut on it and inserted it up from the bottom of the mount. I then put two neoprene washers, a flat washer, and another wingnut on the bolt. These two wingnut would allow me to tighten the mount to my bar. For the base of the camera I used another upside-down wingnut, a flat washer and two more neoprene washers. Those would be used to tighten the camera on the shaft. Of course, all of this is possible because the Viosport camera has threaded camera mount holes built into it.

With the camera threaded on the shaft I mounted the assembly to my accessory mount and everything seemed good to go. I had to wrap the camera wire around the post over to the AV500. My trike's sleak appearance is starting to look a little junky with all the wires building up. Connecting the camera to the AV500 is not a problem, but connecting the camera's battery pack does present some problems because the cable is fairly short. I strapped the battery with some velcro in the meantime. With some duct tape I'm sure I could make my trike look really junky.

Now it's time to get some sleep. I'm looking forward to trying it out tomorrow.

Fathers Day

2006-06-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

For Fathers Day we went to the Provo River Parkway Trail and I rod the trike with Henry on the saddle bags and everyone else walked. So, the pace was about 2.5 mph. It was the first time we had beeen to the trail and I must say that I really like it. It is tree lined, and follows the river. We walked from the Mt. Timpanogas Park to Bridal Veil Falls which is about 3 miles. Once we got there I headed back to pick up the car. The ride back was a gradual downhill slope and I pretty much coasted at 20-25 mph. The trail is quite populated with people walking and rollerblading, so I was constantly ringing my bell.

I let three people try the trike out today. The trike definitely draws the crowd. The main questions are always: Is it comfortable? Where do you get one? And of course, How much does it cost? I really need to get some business cards made with some info.

Around the Mountain

2006-06-17T19:37:00.000-07:00

I invited my brother and his wife to join me for a ride around West Mountain this morning. I didn't now how long the trip would be but I estimated about 25 miles. When all was said and done it ended up being a 32 mile round trip. Not too bad, except my brother got sick about 10 miles into it and we had to make some frequent stops to let his stomach settle. I'm impressed he made it the whole way under those conditions. I'll definitely want to try the loop again in a couple weeks.

While keeping pace with the group meant I couldn't race along, the trip was a good test for the new tires. The one time that I actually got out of the trike I saw two large thorns stuck into the front right tire. I just pulled them out. My stock tires would have been flat at that point. I also decided that since we were moving slower I would work on my cadence and stay in the low gears, so I never got past 3rd and spent most of my time in first. I found that at 150 rpm I can go 18.5 mph in first. I can't maintain it for too long though because there just isn't enough resistance on the pedals. I think for next weeks commute I'll stick to the low gears and keep working on the high rpms.

New Tires

2006-06-14T13:44:00.000-07:00

I have not been very happy with the stock tires on the trike. They do give me a cushy ride with a max of 40psi, but I have already had 4 flats total and the rear one already looks worn down after only a couple hundred miles. So, last week I started looking for a replacement tire that would be more flat resistant and go faster. I found some tires mentioned on a few forums, the Schwalbe Marathon Plus. They have a thick rubber layer for the best puncture prevention and have a much lower rolling resistance than my stock tires. I'm sure they roll easier because of the better rubber compound and the higher air pressure they can hold (45-70psi). Well I got them today at the office and quickly swapped them over. They feel much slicker with a harder material. The tread/tire thickness is much thicker than my stock tires so they should be better with the flats. I inflated the fron tires to the max of 70psi and the rear to a cushier 60psi. I am thinking that might give me better pedaling traction. At 70psi the front tires feel like rocks. I am anticipating a faster ride home with a bumpier ride.

Riding with the Nexus

2006-06-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

My last two days riding with the Nexus hub and my new 17t sprocket have been great. Just as planned, I spend most of my time in 5th gear. Shifting is super smooth and almost imperceptable except for 5th gear where I can feel the click of the gears locking to give me the 1:1 ratio. I am very happy I made the switch to the internal hub.

The gear ratios I get are perfect for my current riding level, so I don't think I'll need to tweak the gear ratios any time soon. To test it out good I rode 17 miles on the way to work yesterday and 12 miles home. Today I rode 27 miles to work (by way of going around the mountain). I had lots of good uphills and downhills to test on.

In 5th gear (using the Schlumpf overdrive in front) I comfortable ride between 16-21 mph with a usual speed of about 18-19mph at a 70rpm cadence. On flat terrain this is my usual cruising speed. On today's mountain climb I found that as I steadily downshifted I was in first gear (still with overdrive on) fairly quickly. I just barely got the nerve to take this trike up hills, so it should get better as I condition myself more. In first gear I was still doing 10mph, but it was still to hard to maintain a good cadence, so I had to shift out of overdrive. My next gear ratio down without the overdrive is actually about 5th gear in the rear, so very quickly I clicked the Schlumpf shift button and twisted the grip to 5. Perfect dual shifting action. The hill climbing went on for a while, but I was able to maintain a speed of above 5mph for the duration. Yea!

By the time I got up the top of the mountain I saw the big road heading east towards the freeway and knew I was going to have to book it if I was to make it to work on time. So, after I drank a whole 20oz bottle of Gatorade I set downhill. I love going fast downhill. I wanted to go as fast as I could so I kept pedaling and upshifting. When I got to 8th gear I was going 38mph (my new speed record) and decided that was enough pedaling. I coasted for about 5 minutes above 30mph and started pedaling in 7th gear. One thing I really like about this hub is that I can shift while I am coasting. I was able to stay above 25mph until I hit the next hill in Payson. This time going up the hill was not as smooth. When I was in first and went to downshift the Schlumpf and upshift the hub, my left foot unclicked from the pedal and I had to stop to click back in and shift out of overdrive. Bummer.

Overall, I am very pleased with the combination of the Schlumpf High-Speed Drive and the Nexus 8 Hub in the back. According to Sheldon Brown's calculator I have a combination of about 15-120 gear inches with only one overlapping gear ratio giving me 15 usable gear combinations. This should be enough to climb about any hill and go as fast as I want to.

Shimano Nexus Hub

2006-06-12T20:50:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I made a major modification to the trike. I exchanged the rear derailer and cassette gears with a new wheel with an integrated transmission. the main advantage of an internal hub transmission is super smooth shipping and the ability to shift when stopped. I chose the "red-band" Shimano Nexus 8-speed hub and had Harris Cycles build me a wheel around this hub. I chose this particular hub for it's gear range and high efficiency.

Instead of multiple sprockets and external shifter, the internal hub has just one sprocket and an internal shifter that locks various internal planetary gears. The gear range is determined by the number of teeth on the sprocket and the size of the wheel. I decided to choose my rear sprocket size based on the gear that I normally spend my time in, instead of trying to match my old gear ratios. The reason I did this is because the hub transmission is most efficient in 5th gear with a 1:1 ratio where the hub gets locked to the sprocket. According to my tests on the stock 11-34-tooth cassette I spent most of my time on the 20 and 17-tooth sprockets. For my initial setup I installed the 20-tooth sprocket. It was good enough to test the whole setup, but it was immediately obvious that this gear was too low. With the new wheel I had them send me a 20, 19, and 17-tooth sprocket. The 19 would be too close to 20 so I tried on the 17. I soon noticed that the 17t sprocked was too thick for my chain. I went to the local bike shop and he traded me my 20t for an 18t off a kids bike. He didn't have any 17t sprockets. I gave it a shot for about 50 miles and was happy, but it wasn't quite there yet.

After talking with Harris Cycles I found that they don't make sprockets with less than 18-tooth for 3/32" chains and they are all for 1/8" chains. I guess people would normally use the hub with a larger wheel than 20", so the bigger sprockets would be ok. Since I can't put a bigger wheel on the trike I decided to make the thicker 1/8" sprocket work with my 3/32" chain. So I used the table belt sander and milled 1/32" off the back side. After I tested it for fitting the chain I attached it to the hub. The size of the 17t sprocket is enough smaller than the 20t that I needed to pull off another link of chain. I don't need a chain tensioner, but I may have to play around with the rear idlers some. I haven't ridden with this new setup yet, so tomorrow is the day.

Flat Tires

2006-06-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

So, what's the deal with all the flat tires? I mean, I've been driving a car for years and I've only had maybe 2-3 flats, and only one while actually driving. I had three flats on the trike just this weekend. I know that were dealing with thinner rubber, but this is ridiculous. I am getting very fast at changing tubes in the tires though. I haven't patched any of the tubes yet because I can't find my patch kit. I've used all my spares so far though, so I'll either have to buy a patch kit or more tubes.

Chances of Rain ...

2006-06-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

The thing I like best about riding my trike everyday is that it helps me feel at one with nature. Yeah, I'm riding around on paved roads for the most part, but it still feels good to be surrounded by fields of alphalfa and cows. When it rains I feel even more at one with nature.

It rained all night and when I woke up at 6 it was still raining. I answered a few emails and started to get ready slowly. I was trying to decide if I was going to ride or not. Actually, I knew I was going to ride. I feel compelled to ride. I must get my pedaling fix. And, most importantly, I must earn some calories so I can eat and still stay on my diet. As I was picking out clothes in my closet I saw a T-shirt I had given my wife from a convention I went to in Washington. It's a reddish T-shirt with the Space Needle on it and it says "Seattle" really big on the front of it. I had never worn the shirt before. When I had bought the shirt it never would have fit me. But now it fits me kind of big -- good for riding.

I ate a bowl of cereal and then mounted my trike. It was sprinkling outside. As soon as I got over the hump of my driveway and on to the road I felt the back wheel squishing around and I knew immediately that I had gotten my first flat tire on the trike. I turned around and rolled back into the garage. I really didn't want to fix a flat tire, but I didn't want to drive either. I haven't driven to work in over 4 weeks and I didn't want to ruin the flow. Besides, I already had my bike shoes on and I would have to go back in the house and change them. So, I decided to just pump the tire up and see what happened. It pumped up very easily and was holding pressure just fine. I couldn't hear any air leaking out, so I stuck my ear on the tire and listened for hissing. After a few seconds I decided it was good. I checked the front two tires while I had the pump out and they were both low, so I topped them off.

By the time I got out of the garage again the rain had stopped. Riding on the wet roads is kind of fun. It seems like the trike just glides over them. The roads are cleaner and not dusty. I do have to watch out for the puddles though. My trike does not have fenders so I have to keep my elbows tucked in when I go through any water. The tires spray a mist of water anyway, but I can avoid most of it. I made sure to stop at all the stop signs, instead of coasting through them, so I could check the back tire's air. It didn't seem to lose any.

Instead of my normal meandering route to work, I decided it would be best to head straight there via the shortest route possible. I had already had the delay of the tire, and I really do prefer to not get rained on. So I headed through the back roads dodging pot holes filled with water. I've decided that if I could only have one gear in the back it would be the third one. I actually spend most of my time in 4th gear, but third is the best compromise. I can easily cruise at 16-17mph in third and can even get up to about 22mph when I need to outrun dogs. Plus, If I need a lower gear I can always kick the 1:1 ratio on the Schlumpf drive to climb any hill. Well, as I was thinking about all this, I rounded a corner and very quickly had to swerve to miss a piece of shiny metal in the road. Normally I don't stop to look at road debris, but for some reason I decided I wanted to take a closer look. As I started to turn around I remembered that one thing I don't like about this trike is that I can't easily turn around on a two lane road. Because my feet are clipped in I have to do a three point turn using my hand (wheelchair style) to roll back in reverse. There has to be something I can do about that. Anyway, so I go back to the siny piece of metal and I find a perfectly good bucknife with the shiny blade exposed just waiting to slice someone's tire. Luckily, it wasn't my tire that got slashed and I am now the proud new owner of this bucknife.

The rest of my ride was uneventful. There are supposed to be rain showers today. I'm hoping that there will be a window of open sky when it's time to ride home.

New Record Speed

2006-06-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

On the way home from work on Tuesday a started to get pelted with raindrops, so instead of keeping my "looking at the scenery" pace I decided to speed it up. I was pedaling like crazy and noticed that my cadence was at about 100 rpms. I was really surprised when my speedometer read 29.2mph though. I was so close to 30mph that I had to go for it. I kept spinning and spinning hovering around 29.8mph and then finally 30! As soon as I reached 30mph I coasted down to 20mph just to catch my breath. I must have been faster than the clouds though, because I didn't see any rain the rest of the ride home.

Riding In The Rain

Yesterday, I was not quite so lucky. The weather here this past week has been strange. In the morning the sky is relatively clear and by quitting time it's overcast with rain clouds. Well, yesterday about 4 o'clock the clouds unleashed their fury and it started raining pretty hard. After about 15 minutes the rain had stopped and the sun was peeking through the clouds. By the time I left work, it seemed that the weather would stay nice. I only got about two miles a way and boom -- The water came down and I was drenched. It actually wasn't too bad. The air was warm and the water refreshing. What I didn't like was the wind that accompanied the rain carrying it sideways into my face. It was nice to know that my travel bag on the back is waterproof and nothing got wet.

Exploring Benjamin

I've been leaving about a half hour earlier in the mornings which lets me go another 5-7 miles, so I've started exploring all the back roads in the country. I started out by going down all the roads in Benjamin and then Lake Shore. Today I rode through Palmyra, which is a really small community between Spanish Fork and Lake Shore. It's cool to see all the old barns and tractors.

Dogs

One thing that I noticed when I started commuting on my bike is that all the dogs in the various neighborhoods bark at me. If they are lucky, they'll even come around and chase me. Well, since I've been riding the trike I am a lot lower to the ground. Now when the dogs come out they look a lot bigger and are right at my hieght. They'll start chasing me and I'm afraid that they'll bite my arm. So, far I've found that the best way to deal with the dogs is to pedal faster. When they do come close to me I'll actually steer towards them like I'm going to run them over. They'll usually back off at that point.

Commuting on the trike

2006-06-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

This last week has been great. Mostly because there were only four work days, but also because I got to commute with my trike. Riding on the trike is much better than riding the bike. It is so comfortable and makes going to work a totally different experience. My wrists and hands don't hurt anymore an d I'm having a lot of fun.

The first day of riding in the streets with cars it became very evident how much lower I am in the trike. Instead of being able to see over small cars I am now at the height of their doors. I also can't ride all the way in the shoulder anymore due to the width of the trike, which means I have to depend on the mirror a lot to see if there is anyone behind me. The mirror that came with my trike is nice, but it doesn't stick out far enough. I get a good view of my bicep, but can't see behind me very well. So, my first modification was to extend my mirror out an extra inch. It took me about 1/2 hour at Home Depot to find the right parts, but I was able to tweak it for less than $3. I got a 2" machine screw to replace the 1" default screw and then I was able to find some 1/2" spacers that had the same outside diameter as the mirror rod. The inside diameter was two big to allow the assembly to be screwed together straightly, so I found two smaller spacers that fit inside the larger spacers. The whole thing screwed together nicely. The spacers were white though, so I used a black Sharpie pen and colored them in to make them match. The whole project worked out very well and made a huge difference. I now have a much better view of cars coming up behind me and I feel much safer now.

Besides the mirror, my only irritation with the trike has been the loud rumbling from the rear idler. Everytime I pedal I can hear the chain bumping over the plastic wheels. I really wanted to get a better idler like the one in the front of my trike from Terracycle. According to their website, they only had a front unit available for sale. I decided to email them and see if they had something that would work. I heard back from Robert at Terracycle, and he told me that they actually did have one, but they weren't shipping it quite yet. If I was interested in one they could send me one. I told him to ship it to me and I got it today.

The new unit mounts in the same place as the stock idler but is considerably longer. On the drive side it has a sprocket and on the return side it has a strong super-slick plastic ring. The unit has two Abec-7 bearings and a modified shaft that allows the whole idler unit to slide to the left or right allowing it to line up with the chain best. The whole unit installed in about 5 minutes. When I got on the trike to test it out I was immediately impressed. There is no more noise from the idlers. The only noise I hear now is the chain rolling over the front sprocket and rear derailer. It is a stealth trike now. Riding home with the new idlers was great. It feels very smooth now instead of the previous bumpy feeling. I recommend the Terracycle idlers to any recumbent rider.

I've noticed that when I encounter people while riding the trike their reactions tend to be different than when I'm riding a bicycle. With the trike they tend to give me more room on the road. They wave a give me the thumbs up. I constantly hear comments like "I want one of those!"

My New Trike

2006-05-29T19:05:00.001-07:00

My Trike finally arrived on Friday. After my initial ride around the block I adjusted the seat forward a little and removed 4 links of chain. It took a little tweaking to get it to fit on my rook racks but I did get it securely situated and was on my way home. You can see it here decked out with flags for Memorial Day. Also, you'll notice the reflective strips on the tires glowing from the camera's flash. I guess that what it looks like to cars when I ride at night.

My First Ride

When I got home the family insisted on going out to dinner, so I didn't get a chance to ride it immediately, but once the kids were asleep I strapped on the light and went for a ride. I ended up riding from about 11pm to midnight. It was smooth and responsive. Although the weather was quite windy I didn't really feel it because of the trikes low position. Because of my headlight's relatively low range and the generally poor condition of the Benjamin country roads, I didn't ride it real hard. I did manage to take it up to about 24mph, but I averaged about 10mph for the duration. The trike is very comfortable. I seriously feel like I could ride all day without hurting. The steering felt very sensitive, and the faster I rode the more the back end would shake during pedaling. Also, I noticed a consistent rumbling sound from the rear idler whenever I pedaled, but coasting on the machine was silent. About midnight Sonia called me and wondered where I was. When I told here I was out riding she told me to get home, so I did.

Bad Weather

Saturday and Sunday were not good days for having a brand new Trike. A storm came in and it was cold, windy and rained most of the weekend. Since I couldn't go out and ride I stayed in and started some tweaking.

Here you can see the front of the trike. I got it with a Schlumpf High Speed drive instead of the standard 3-sprocket derailer. With the stock rear cassette it gives me a gear-inch range of 15-116". In addition to the nice range, it eliminates the front derailer and shifter, frees up the front post, and that small sprocket just looks dang cool. The Schlumpf drive has a button in the center poking through the cranks on each side. You push the right side with your heal to engage overdrive and push the left side to engage the 1:1 sprocket. The overdrive is a 2.5:1 ratio, so with the 27-tooth sprocket, overdive gives the equivilent of a 68-tooth sprocket. You can also see in this picture the front idlers, which I had replaced at the factory with the upgraded Terracycle idlers. These idlers are smooth and produce no noise during riding.

In this picture you can see the front end well, with my "empty" derailer post. I had my dealer mount the extra accessory mount on the top to give me some more room for mounting gadgets. On the vertical shaft of the accessory mount I put the Garmin Edge 305 GPS computer. On the horizontal shaft I mounted the DualCross headlight. The empty derailer post is the perfect place to mount the light's battery pack with enough room for a front reflector. You'll notice on the left side I mounted the Edge 305's cadence sensor. Normally the sensor mounts on the back of an upright bike's frame by the rear wheel, since this isn't possible with a recumbent's bottom bracket placement I had to turn the sensor sideways. I used an 1/8" piece of rubber between the sensor and the tubing to get the sensor close enough to the crank to read the magnet. It works very good. I also got the Shimano 520 clipless pedals to go with my new shoes. I'm new to clipless pedals, but I gotta say that I absolutely love them!

Here's another picture of the front end. If your wondering why I got the Cruiser instead of the more expensive Tour, I'll tell you. After doing my research I found that the main cost difference between the two models is that the Cruiser frame is welded overseas (but otherwise identical) and the Tour has better drivetrain components. Since I knew I was going to immediately replace the Cruiser's front derailer with the Schlumpf drive and will be eventually replacing the rear derailer and cassette with an internal gear drive hub, I would be paying extra for components that I wouldn't be using anyway. Besides, I really like the blue color.

Speaking of the trikes rear components, here's a picture of the rear derailer and sprocket assembly and also the rear idler. The rear idler is the one part of the trike that I do not like. It is the only part of the trike that makes noise. I emailed WizWheelz about it and the tech suggested that I look at the chain guards and adjust them if necessary to make sure that they aren't rubbing against the chain. I did check them and they are not rubbing. I think that the noise I am hearing is normal and I'm probably just being too picky. If Terracycle had a rear idler option I would buy it immediately. The Terracycle idler, seen on the front, is slightly larger and has a sprocket gear on the drive side. This means that the chain isn't just bumping along on the plastic groove like with the stock idlers. The return idler uses a slicker harder material on the return side to eliminate more friction than the stock idler. Eventually when I replace the back gear assembly with an internal gear hub, I am hoping to eliminate the need for the rear idler altogether.

One reason that I really wanted the trike is that it gets hard to carry a lot of stuff on a bike. So, I got the trike with the Aluminum Rack, Seat Bag, and the Trunk Bag. When I picked up the trike, they had mounted the Seat Bag and the Trunk Bag, and while they looked very sharp, it was obvious that neither bag would be big enough for my laptop that I commute with everyday to work. A bag made by Ortlieb from Germany is the size of a small briefcase and has a plate on one side that locks onto another plate mounted on the rack. It looked perfect to me. It took me a little work to notch out the brackets with a jigsaw to get the mounting plate to bolt on to the Aluminum Rack, but it was worth it. This bag is the perfect size, and being so easily removable will make it perfect for the trips to the supermarket, in addition to meeting my commuting needs.

My First Real Ride

When I woke up on Monday morning the weather was beautiful, so I decided to go for a ride to really test it out. My goal was 20 miles. I went around on some of the back roads and then followed the edge of the mountain. I road past a lot of farms, the local dairy, and then ended by the local park which is just a mile from the house. By the time I had gotten home I had gone about 17 miles. My average speed was 13.5mph according to the GPS, which is about 2mph slower than my typical upright speed. My top speed on flat ground was about 22mph. I probably could have gone faster but I need to learn to control the trike better. The faster you go the more sensitive the steering becomes. The harder you pedal, the more the tendency to sway back and forth with each power stroke. With concentration, I was able to pedal hard and stay straight, so I'm sure that it is just a matter of technique that I will pick up with experience. The one thing that I noticed overall is that for the most part I don't have to concentrate on riding the vehicle. There is no upper-body pain to focus on and it is, for the most part, like driving a car. I just let my legs pedal and in the meantime I can look around and view the surroundings. The ride is very comfortable and smooth. Bumps in the road feel much smoother than my upright bike.

Overall, I am very happy with my new trike. I plan on doing some more tweaking on the rear drivetrain components in the near future, but other than that I like it the way it is. I'll be commuting to work with the trike starting tomorrow, so I'll really be able to compare it with my other bike.

Dead Batteries

2006-05-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

When I strapped on the camera about to document my morning ride I quickly discovered that the AV500's battery was dead. It's my fault. Last night I had been testing out some of the AV500's other cool features, like being able to hold my entire audio library, so I had connected it to my computer and transfered all the songs over. I didn't disconnect it or shut it off when it was done and the battery ran out of juice. Oh well, we'll have to wait for another day.

In the meantime, I hooked up my phone/mp3 player to my bike's amplified speakers and began to ride. After about 5 minutes the sound coming out of the speakers became unbearable and I had to stop and shut them off. It appears that 4 AAA batteries only last about a week. The way that I've connected the speakers to the frame means I'm going to have to take off the whole unit to replace the batteries.

I can ride without music though, so I kept going. At about mile 6 the Edge 305 started beeping and I thought it seemed weird because I wasn't wearing the heart rate monitor and certainly wasn't traveling very fast. A small box popped on the screen and said "Battery Low". I hope I have enough wall outlets to charge all these things.

The good news is that I explored some side streets and found another way to get across the free way over to the office. Now I have a route that doesn't require riding with hardly any traffic. Nice!

Got The AV500

2006-05-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

So, I got the Archos AV500 recorder in today and started to test it with the Archos helmet camera and was thoroughly disappointed. Upon plugging the Digital Mini-Cam into the AV500 it was immediately recognized and I could see an image on the unit ready to be recorded. This was going to be easy. The picture was fuzzy and out of focus, so I assumed it needed just a little more time to auto focus. Nope. I tried it inside and outside and everything was blurry and out of focus. Inspecting the camera closely revealed that there was no adjustment mechanism easily accessible to change the focus. So, I called Archos technical support and was informed that the camera had been discontinued. Weird, it had just come out. It appears that many people, according to various discussions online, had gotten the camera and had the same results as me. No wonder someone had returned it to us. I talked with our purchase manager and he informed me that yes, indeed, the camera had been discontinued.

Well, I was not about to let this be the end of my helmet-cam adventures, especially before I had even had any! So I contacted the nice folks at Viosport and discussed their line of cameras. They make some very nice equipment and have cable especially for the AV500. They are sending me a unit to test out. While at the Viosport website I came across a FAQ that offered many troubleshooting tips. One of them was how to adjust the camera if it was blurry or out of focus. Hmm, this sounded interesting. It said remove the end cap by unscrewing it. So, I took the Archos camera and twisted the end cap and it came right off. So far so good. Next it said to adjust the focus by rotating the lens until the image was clear. A look at the lens made it clear that it was threaded and could be rotated, but a small hex set screw was on the side preventing the lens assembly from turning. If only I had an allen wrench. Well I didn't.

A trip to Home Depot later found me with a complete set of allen wrenches of both the Standard and Metric sizes. It turns out a 1.5mm allen wrench fits nicely. After I loosened the set screw I was able to turn the lens assembly. I connect the camera to the AV500 so I could get some realtime feedback and started twisting. After twisting the lens out almost two complete turns the picture was sharp and clear. I carefully tightened the set screw and replaced the lens cover end cap. It looks like I have a working camera. So, for any of you that have bought the camera and couldn't get a clear image, you might as well try adjusting it before sending it back. I will test it tomorrow on my ride to work. It will be boring footage but should be sufficient to determine video quality.

Spinning The Wheels

2006-05-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

When I was exercising daily on the elliptical I noticed that if I turned the resistance up as high as it would go and set the incline to its highest setting I could burn more calories in a given amount of time than with a lower setting. Setting the resistance meant that I did not have to go as fast to get the same workout. When my bicycle commute to work started to replace my elliptical time I took the same approach initially and would pedal using the highest gears. While I didn't have to pedal as fast, I did have to push harder to keep going. As I experimented with different pedaling speeds while remaining in the same high gears I noticed that by the time I got to work (or back) I always burned about the same amount of calories. I also noticed that my knees have started hurting some.

While on a popular bike forum yesterday I came across a discussion about the most efficient cadence. For those that don't know, cadence is the rate at which you pedal or the rpm of the crankshaft. I was surprised to learn that the most efficient cadence (being described as the most power per stroke) is between 80 and 100 rpms. Wow! A rough count of my normal cadence is definitely below 60 and probably more like 50. Another thing I read is that due to the position of a recumbent riders legs, "spinning" is an important technique to learn and is essential for climbing hills. This was especially interesting to me since I should be getting my new recumbent trike on Friday.

So I decided that today I would start to train my legs to spin the pedals a lot faster than I had been. I realized quickly that the only way to spin faster was to start in a lower gear. I found my middle front sprocket and 6th rear sprocket to be a very good starting place. In this gear I can easily start from a standstill and climb small grades without any difficulty. I was able to get up to about 18mph before I would start to "spin out", or reach the point when it was just too easy to pedal and felt like I was just pedaling air. I decided at this point to shift to the 7th rear sprocket, which at that speed felt fairly easy. I found that the faster I pedaled the easier it became and I could sustain about 22mph pretty good. On both my to-work and from-work trip I averaged almost 4mph faster than my normal speed and it felt easier than pounding on the high gears the whole time.

Longer Ride

2006-05-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

The sun came out early this morning and most of the house was up by 6am. Instead of hanging around the house and eating breakfast, I decided to leave early and explore new routes to work. Since I had already found all the direct paths to the office I decided to head east into Payson. I climbed steadily uphill into the town center and then went north. I followed the main route that connects Payson, Salem and Spanish Fork. It has some nice rolling hills and nothing too steep. Once I got into Spanish Fork I took a right into the residential area and rode through some of the older neighborhoods. By the time I got to work I had gone 14 miles and had burned 1000 calories.

One thing I am starting to notice about this area is how cruddy the bike lines are. Most areas don't even have bike lines, and when they do they are filled with all sorts of debris. Yesterday as I was riding home I swerved to avoid a pile of broken glass and almost ran over half a pair of discarded scissors. It's almost like the sweepers come and sweep all the dirt of the road and into the bike lanes. I had never thought about it before while driving, but now that I'm on a bike and especially since I've already had one blowout, I pay much more attention to the garbage in the road.

Mini Camera

2006-05-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

When UPS came to the office today I saw that someone had returned a Digital Mini-Cam accessory for the Archos AV500. I wouldn't have noticed it except for the picture on the box of a guy in a bicycle helmet with a borg-like attachment attached to the side. I asked why it was returned and was told that the customer simply hadn't been happy with the quality. I decided that this would be the perfect type of product for me to review. It comes with an adjustable headband that holds the camera and an inline remote control that lets you record just by pressing a button. I think there is a microphone somewhere too.

We sell lots of the Archos AV500 units and accessories but I have never actually used one. I think it could be cool for filming bike trails and such. I'll be getting a 100GB AV500 unit in for me to test with the camera in a couple days. I'll check it out and if I like it I'll even post some video clips. Another cool thing about this AV500 is that it can hold tons of videos and pictures. I may even mount it to my trike and hook it up as my sound system instead of the cell phone.

The River Road

2006-05-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

I left at 8am this morning on my bike and expected to make it there much quicker than normal due to the recent modifications. What I didn't expect was a constant fight against the wind slowing me down. Also, I wasn't able to go as comfortable as I'd like because I had to strap my laptop to the handlebars and my knee kept hitting it. I'm going to have to find a better place to carry it now that my trunk is gone. I don't think I'll put the trunk back on anytime soon though. With it gone I was able to move my seat back about 3 inches. This makes the ride much more comfortable and puts less weight on my hands.

Since I was going slower I decided that instead of timing myself I'd explore a new road. Right before I get to the overpass there is a road to the left called River Road. So I hung a left and followed it around. It's fairly short and not as cool as a road by that name should be, but it does have its own entry into Spanish Fork which does not require going up and over the freeway. I think this will be my new favorite route.

It looks like it might rain today. I saw it raining on the mountains and it was overcast the whole way in.

My First Blowout

2006-05-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

For lunch I had 4 leftover chicken mole tacos, so if I wanted dinner I was going to have to earn some extra calories. I decided a bike ride was in order, but only after I made some modifications. After weighing my bike this morning I decided that 55lbs is just too heavy for a bike. It was time to remove the ZAP drive. I figured I'd also remove the trunk and the extra bike computer (although it only weighs a few ounces). When I was all done I weighed the bike and it only weighed 36lbs -- almost 19lbs less!!!

After I made these modifications I decided to take it out for a ride. I decided I'd test out the new Shimano MT40 bike shoes at the same time. This bike doesn't have clipless pedals, but I didn't have any problems using the shoes with it. I figured that I'd ride out 10 miles and then head back for a 20 mile loop. As I got going the bike felt totally different. It responded much better and I was much faster. Instead of my normal 13-15mph, I was easily doing 17-21mph with the same effort. The shoes make a huge difference as well. I'm not sure exactly how to explain it, but its like they focus the power of my legs into the pedals more efficiently. I could feel different muscles being used. I'm sure that once I get my clipless pedals it will be even better.

Anyway, about 4 miles out I made a turn and heard a loud hissing from the front tire. Then I got hit with some of the fix-a-flat slime that was oozing all over the place. I wasn't very excited about this, but I had just installed a pump on the bike and had a patch kit. When I got off the bike I saw that the ooze was coming out of the side of the valve stem. It looks like the tube had twisted and kinked the stem causing it to rupture at the base. Basically, I was stuck. I started walking home. A look at the Edge 305 told me that it would take me one hour to get there walking 4mph. After about 10 minutes of walking I started to slow down though. Bike shoes are not meant to be walked in for very long distances. The rigidity that makes them so good for the bike makes them lousy for walking. Fortunately, a friendly neighbor pulled up alongside and took me and my bike home.

I didn't have any spare tubes so me and Harold went to walmart to pick one up. They had some filled with Slime, so I picked up two. After 15 minutes I had the new tube installed and decided to go back out. I still needed to earn about a 1000 more calories for dinner, so I decided to tow Harold in the trailer. Now, Harold weighs about 100lbs, plus the weight of the trailer -- it was not as much fun as my pre-blowout ride. After 6 miles I decided to head back to drop him off.

I had gone a total of 12 miles so far, but I wanted to log 20 today, so I head out by myself again for a final ride. Once again, the bike felt light, responsive and fast. I felt tired and thirsty at this point, but decided to push it. It's all flat out on the main Benjamin road grid, so there's no hills to help me out. I got it up to 27.2 mph and held it at over 25 mph for about 2 minutes. After that I felt like I was dying, so I decided to head home. When I finished my final ride I had done about 7.4 miles with an average of 19 mph. If losing just 20 lbs off the bike makes this much of a difference I can't wait to see what it feels like once I've lost another 50 lbs off of my body!

After all my riding I've earned 1200 calories, and just in time for dinner too. Boy am I hungry! By the way, did I mention that I tried my new blue jersey. I'm not sure what I think of it yet.

Heavy Metal

2006-05-21T09:31:00.000-07:00

I followed a post in one of the biking forums the other day where everyone was talking about how much their bikes weigh. Most people posted that their bikes weigh about the 20lb mark with one guy posting that his was a very heavy 35lbs. I decided to weigh mine today. The best way I figured to do it was by using our digital bathroom scale, hold the bike and then subtract my weight. Well, it turns out my bike weighs 54.2lbs. Add all the resistance from the wobbly front wheel and it makes sence that I'm losing weight faster than the calorie calculators tell me. The Edge 305 bike computer does ask for the bike's weight and I had initially put in 35lbs (as I assumed that was the right guess for a "heavy" bike), but I'll adjust the weight input and see if it makes any difference in the calorie adjustments.

I'm not sure that there is much I can do about making the bike any lighter. I could remove the trunk from the back of the seatpost, but then I wouldn't have a good place to store my computer or spare clothes while riding. I guess the obvious answer is to remove the ZAP motor and the battery tray. I'm sure that would get rid of at least 10lbs. If I do remove it I'll have to add it to another bike at the same time. Hmm, maybe Sonia's trike could use a motor!

Strawberry Crepes

2006-05-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

When faced with a decision of doing yardwork or running errands its amazing what kind of things come up that keep us away from the house. In anticipation of getting my trike next week I still had some things that I needed, so we went to the REI in Sandy. I'd never been to REI before and I thought it to be pretty nice, but maybe a little expensive. I started out by getting the bike carrying rack for the roof of my Tahoe. I filled a shopping cart with all the parts and they had to give me one of the display models. After that, I got some Shimano shoes with SPD clips for the pedals that are being put on my trike. I've never used clipless pedals before, but I hear that it's the only way to go for serious riding. Before we left the store we walked through it to see if there was anything else we wanted. Sonia thought I should get one of the lycra/spandex-type riding jerseys, so I did. We'll see how that goes.

When we left the store it was already 1 o'clock and the kids were starting to get cranky, so we stopped at the Village Inn for lunch. I ended up having my breakfast and blowing all my calories on this one meal. It was good though. Strawberry crepes, hash browns, bacon, and two fried eggs. About 1800 cals I figure, so I made it today's only meal.

After lunch we decided to drive up through Payson Canyon to scout out a potential camping ground for memorial weekend. I also kept my eye out for potential biking roads/trails. We found a nice place after about 30 mins of driving. While the kids went for a walk with Sonia I put the rack and all the parts together. It looks impressive with all the hardware. I need to find a way to remove the factory cross bars off. Maybe a prybar?

Saturday morning ride

2006-05-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

The problem with weekends is they disrupt my diet and exercise routine. I usually wake up later, don't exercise in the morning, and eat a huge breakfast. Last week for breakfast I had 1200 cals of potatoes, eggs, bacon, and there might have even been a slice of french toast or two in there. It gets quite frustrating to do so good during the week and lose it on the weekend.

This morning, I decided to skip breakfast and go for a ride. Henry was the only kid awake so I loaded him in the bike trailer and off we went. Since we weren't really going anywhere we just headed north until we hit a dead end. It was nice. We saw all the ranches and animals and smelled them too. Someone apparently raises emus out here. Once we ran out of northbound road we headed west toward the mountain and then followed the base of it back around. Henry had a good time, especially when a dog came and ran along side him.

The ride ended up being 13 miles and took right about an hour. The 305 said I burned 670 calories but I'm rounding it up to 750 for pulling the trailer. We saw a lot of other guys riding this morning too.

Flags flappin' in the wind

2006-05-19T07:51:00.000-07:00

Good news. The tires were still full of air. I turned on the music and began riding. The flags were flapping in the wind. Things were not going as smoothly as I hoped though. There seems to be something rubbing. I had a hard time pedaling comfortably over 13-14 mph which is about 4 mph slower than normal. I just geared it down a bit and kept going. I'm not one for doing roadside repairs.

The flags really seem to grab peoples attention. Everyone was pointing and waving. The teenager punks yelled with their smart@!& comments, while an old vet even saluted. The mirror is not as cool as I hoped it would be. It seems that all the vibration from the front tire goes right into the mirror. If the car behind me has their headlights on I can see them otherwise it's almost useless.

I didn't mention it yesterday, but I also got a new helmet and sunglasses at walmart. The helmet, besides matching my flag theme, has vents in it which makes it much cooler than riding with my X-Games rollerblade helmet. It also has a visor which keeps the sun out of my eyes. The sunglasses work great. They are polarized and make the Edge 305 easy to see just as I thought.

Once Clayton got in to work I had him help me check out the wheels to see what was rubbing. The bad news is that both the front and real wheel were both rubbing. The back wheel was rubbing hard against the edge of my ZAP electric motor drive. It was easy to fix just by turning the motor to the side. I really should just take it off because I don't like to use it too much -- it's just too slow and the battery weighs over 15 lbs. But, I leave it on because I know if I took it off I would misplace all the parts for it and never be able to use it again. My front wheel was rubbing on the brakes. The only thing I could do was loosen the calipers. It shouldn't effect anything because I have lots of travel on the handle. The front rim appears to be slightly warped. I'm not sure if that is something that can be fixed or if I need a new rim.

My Diet

2006-05-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

When we moved from California I weighed 350 lbs. Yep, that's right! When I got married I was about 200 lbs, so that's 150 lbs in 10 years. I had tried dieting several times with various pills and drinks, and while I usually saw some results they were short lived. When we moved to UT we drastically cut down on our consumption of fast food. This is probably due mainly to the lack of In-and-Outs in UT. I mean Sonic is OK, but they don't have a double double! Well, just by cutting down on the burgers my weight fell down to 327 lbs. Woo hoo!

In January my family went through a flu cycle and we all had earaches. When it was my turn my eardrum burst and I decided to go see a doctor for the first time in 7 years. They said my eardrum would be fine but my blood pressure was through the roof. When I asked why the answer was obvious -- I was a sedentary fat dude. I made an appointment with a regular physician and she said "pick a diet and follow it, and get some exercise".

At that time I decided that I really wanted to change my life. I wanted to be active. I wanted to rollerblade, ride a bike, and run without getting out of breath and jiggling all over the place. I also knew that whatever diet I chose would have to involve a complete lifestyle change. And, most importantly, I didn't want it to take 10 years to lose all the weight. The secret to losing weight is as simple as gaining weight. It's all related to how much you eat and how much energy you spend. Losing weight is as simple as eating less calories than you spend.

Enter Dietpower
In order to know how many calories I burn and how many calories I eat I decided to use Dietpower. DP is a software application that allows you to log your food, exercise, and weight. You enter in daily and it calculates your metabolism. You enter in a weight goal and a date and it tells you how many calories to eat every day to reach the goal. You can earn more calories by exercising. It works great as long as you honestly log in everything daily. And, you can eat whatever you want. (If you check it out and decide to buy it enter "Ashley Guy" as the dealer name and save $5). I decided that I wanted to lose about 4 lbs a week. To achieve this goal DP gives me about 1000 calories a day. Ouch!

Time to workout
I like to eat, so 1000 calories a day just won't suffice. If I want to hit my goal and eat then I have to exercise. I started out by joining Gold's Gym in Spanish Fork. I went religiously every morning for two hours until the time changed. My internal clock got messed up and I couldn't wake up at 6 a.m. anymore. I still needed to eat, so I started exercising at home. We got an elliptical and a Bowflex Revolution and setup a home gym with the other equipment hiding in our garage. So far it has been great for the whole family. While cleaning our garage a few weeks ago I found my old bike. It hadn't been ridden in about 4 years, but it was in good condition. I started riding in the evenings and after I felt comfortable doing about 15 miles at a stretch I decided to start riding to work. The office is about 10 miles away, and once I ride there I HAVE to ride back!

The Results
It has worked great so far. I lose about 1/2 lb a day and am down to about 250 lbs now. The amazing thing is that I can find clothes at regular stores now. I can actually wear a Large shirt now and wear 36-inch pants. Bad thing is I have to keep buying new clothes and then they are too big after a couple weeks. I'm not complaining though!

Pimp My Bike

2006-05-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

My trip to walmart went well. Me and Hannah spent an hour in the hardware, automotive, bicycle, and sporting goods sections getting stuff to attach to my bike. Upon returning home I took care of the tires first. I put about 3/4 can of fix-a-flat in the back tire and the rest in the front. After filling both tires to 65psi I went for a mile ride to let the stuff circulate. It feels much better to ride when the tires are full. We'll find out tomorrow morning if I have to add any more air.

My next "upgrades" were meant to make my bike more visible to prevent getting hit on my commute. First, I added tireflys. They are these little lights that screw into the schrader valves on the wheels. While you move they flicker with bright LEDs. Next, I added a flashing taillight to the back of my helmet. I tried to add it to the bike but I couldn't find a place to hook it to. My trunk is in the way of the seatpost. Finally, I added two 12x18" flags w/poles on the back. It worked out perfectly that the locking brackets on my trunk box have holes that the poles will snugly fit into. As a further safety precaution I added a mirror to the left side of the handlebars. I'm not sure how well it will work. I thought it would fit inside of the handlebar, replacing the endcap. Instead it velcros around the grip on the end and doesn't seem to solid.

My final upgrades were purely for my enjoyment. I got a replacement cell phone a couple months ago that has a built in MP3 player with a speaker on it. I normally fold it over one of the cables on the front. I can hear it great as long as I'm barely moving and there's no wind or traffic. Obviously this is less than ideal. Well, as we were walking to the checkout we passed the electronic department and I saw a little amplified speaker box designed for an Ipod. So I hooked it to the frame with a hose clamp. The wire isn't long enough to connect to my phone's normal spot so I had to mount a cell phone clip on the frame with another hose clamp. The end result is exactly what I wanted -- I now have the perfect volume.

By the time I finished I didn't want to do any elliptical. I'll just log my shopping and tinkering in DP and call it good:)

Squishy Tire & Chicken Mole

2006-05-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

Every day my ride home seems harder than my ride to work. Every morning before I leave I have to add 20psi to my back tire. I think there's a corelation. My back tire felt really bad on the way home today. I think I'll go to wal-mart and pick up a can of fix-a-flat. I don't want to spend a lot of time on it. The weather is getting warmer but as log as I keep moving the breeze keeps me cool. Those stop lights on Main Street are killers though.
So, after my commuting I had burned about 1300 calories. Dietpower gave me about a 1100 so I thought I'd have no problem. But, Sonia made chicken mole and I went about 200 calories over my budget. I couldn't believe it. I might be a little off though because I couldn't find calorie numbers for the mole sauce. I just weighed the whole mess and calculated 3/4 chicken and 1/4 chocolate. I'll burn a couple hundred on the elliptical after walmart -- just in case.

Sore Back Morning

2006-05-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning with a really sore back but I was a half pound lighter. I soaked in the tub for an hour until my back felt relaxed enough for me to get going. With the Edge 305 on my bike I don't need to wear a watch anymore since it has a clock on it. That's nice because in addition to the sore back, my hands start feeling numb after about 20 minutes of riding.
The heart rate siren came on twice when I hit above 170bpm. Once when I passed a bus and the other when I was climbing the overpass hill. That hill was a bummer today too. Usually I like to climb it fast and then rocket down at ~30mph, but as soon as I got over the crest I could see the road crew had blocked the base and had flagmen letting one car through at a time. So, I had to coast down with the brakes on. Disappointing to say the least.
About the heart rate alarm, I think I'll be able to use that for training pretty good. I can set it to a 125-130bpm range for maximum fat burn!!!!

Treasure found!

2006-05-17T19:22:00.000-07:00

Garbage day is on Thursday here. It started on Monday when we moved here but every time there's a major holiday that the garbage guys take off they move our day to the next. Anyway, I digress.
So, since we've changed our diet we only fill up one garbage can instead of three. I'm not ready to give the extra cans back so every Wednesday we clean the garage until all the cans are filled. So far we've found a lost treasure every week. This week we found Sonia's missing tennis shoe. They were a brand new pair that got split up during the move. Reunited and it feels so good!
Harold saw my new bike computer and asked if he could have one, I told him he could have my old one once he can ride. He said he could but then chickened out. If anyone has ideas about teaching a 6-year-old to ride a bike let me know. He has training wheels but he's still terrified of falling.

First ride with the 305

2006-05-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

So, I had my first ride with the 305. I'll need to play with its position. It was hard to see the screen at times -- it could use an antiglare screen but maybe some polarized sunglasses would work. I had the display set up to show 8 different things which is probably too much because of the small size of the display. Happy to say that the heart rate monitor worked great. I didn't even notice it on me while I rode.
I'm working on my sprints and I did two 5 minute stretches where I sustained over 20mph (and no, it wasn't downhill). I averaged 16mph and made it home in just 30 minutes. The 305 said I burned 670 calories which is right on par with DietPower. Maybe I'll lose another 1/2 pound tomorrow!

Edge 305

2006-05-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

I got one of the Garmin Edge 305 Bike GPS units today. I mainly ordered it for my Trike (which is being built right now), but figure I might as well hook it up to my regular bike for the ride home. It looks pretty good. I tested the heart rate monitor and it worked and wasn't too uncomfortable. It has a lot of display options on it which I'm excited about.

First Day of Blogging

2006-05-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

So, I've been thinking about getting into this blogging thing for some time and after finding another guys blog on this site I thought I might as well do it. So here it goes!