Posts Tagged ‘commuting tips’

I love the ease of use of my Crank Brothers Eggbeater pedals.  I’ve used them extensively for off- and on-road purposes.  Mud clearance, ease of engagement, ease of clipping out and range of motion are incomparable.  Customer service has also been responsive and informative.  However, I have experienced numerous failures with Crank Brothers pedals.  I have had the spring break, end-bolt disappear, cage bent, cleat fail and other miscellaneous failures.  I’ve even started to have a collection of old pedals where one broke and I keep the other for replacement of future failures.  It isn’t always the same-side pedal so it’s not something funky I’m doing with one leg.

I believe the cleats are designed to fail before the pedal as they’re made of a pretty soft metal.  However, in my experience, they tend to last as long as the pedal.  Overall, I think Crank Brothers pedals are very comfortable to use but have average or below-average durability.

Here are several tips if you use Crank Brothers pedals:

1.  Don’t buy the Smarty pedal.  It’s worthless.  It may fail almost immediately.

2.  Inspect your pedal and cleats regularly after 1000 miles (assuming your an urban commuter).  You don’t want a catastrophic failure to occur when you’re hopping a curb.

3.  Only buy the pedals which have forged cages.  The Smarty and others have a stamped cage that is weak at best — must be built in China.  However, don’t blame it on China.  The designer, in this case Crank Brothers, tells the manufacturer what to make.  The design responsibility lies with Crank Brothers.  They only make what Crank Brothers tells them to make.

4.  Save your old pedals.  You’ll likely want to buy more Crank Brothers pedals because of how easy they are to use but if you ride a lot, the pedals will fail and you’ll need a spare.

A User Need for Crank Brothers:

I want pedals and cleats that will last  5 grand of urban commuting yet are still as comfortable to use as your current designs.

A friend of mine who used to ride BMX in his younger years enlightened me about this trick. I ride a mountain bike about town most of the time. In the course of normal use, the ends of the handle bars eventually work their way through the end of the grips. Now this doesn’t bother me much — I’m more about function than style — but if you are style conscious this may lead you to run out and buy a new pair of grips every few months. No need. I recently bought a new pair of Oury grips as my last pair was about 10 years old and had turned into something like those rubber animals that stick to the wall they used to put in your cereal box. Needless to say they were nasty. Anyway, prior to installing your new grips jam a nickel in the end of the grip. Once the grip is installed this nickel will spread the load from any impact to the end of your grip and lessen the likelihood of your bar ends ruining an otherwise lovely grip.

Also, quick tip on installing your grips. Use a compressor to shoot air under the grip when sliding it on. This makes it soooooo much easier.

A lot of people, when becoming aware that I bike commute, say, “How do you bike commute in Memphis!? Drivers here are terrible and the roads are busy.” Until recently, I couldn’t understand why they would say that, other than they haven’t been on a bike in the past 10-20 years. Then I realized, “They only know the roads that they travel by undesirable vehicle to get from point A to B.” Now I know why they think I’m crazy. They think I ride my bike on the busiest roads in Memphis.

The fact is, I rarely get passed by cars with less than ten feet of distance between me and them. Okay, the distances are closer towards intersections but the passing cars are traveling slowly. I take a wide range of streets to get to and from work. Some are always lightly traveled, some are heavily traveled and some are walks (or rides) in the park. I know what the busy streets are. My friends who drive to work take them. I take the back streets. In town, that’s easy. There’s a thousand different ways to get to work, many of the ways on back streets. I also ride through a local and very historical park. On the one busy road I have to take, I utilize the sidewalk. First, it’s my understanding that in Memphis you can legally do that and second, since no one else is using it (they’re sitting inside watching tv or driving their undesirable vehicle), I might as well.

It’s taken me a while to find the best route to work. Just two weeks ago, after commuting for almost two years, I found a small but very meaningful shortcut through an abandoned airport parking lot, over a small wooden walking bridge and through the parking lot of a career college. I couldn’t believe I had just found such an obvious short cut after more than two years. But finding the right route has been a progression. When I first tried out the commute on a Sunday morning to determine it’s ‘doability,’ I took all of the major roads. That’s fine for Sunday morning but spine-tingling on a Monday morning or Friday night. As I’ve learned the streets of Memphis more and more, I’ve change my route. My route evolved twice within the last two months, each time becoming more safe.

So what do I recommend? Well since even people living in the areas you intend ride through probably don’t know all of the streets and won’t know how to connect them for a safe and comfortable commute, I recommend this: Take several weekend scouting trips, each time selecting different routes. Don’t select roads you know will be heavily traveled during the week. Stick to the parks and small neighborhood roads. If your only option for one section of the commute is the sidewalk, I recommend taking it — at least someone will be using it then. Select your final route based on low traffic or smaller hills or just by areas you enjoy seeing. And, your route to and from work may be different based on traffic flow.

Starting a bike commute, if you haven’t done it before, needs to feel safe and comfortable. To achieve this feeling, good preparation and a little weekend scouting will not only be enjoyable but ensure your commute will get you to work in one piece.

Note for web developers: If it hasn’t been done already, a Mapquest-like search tool that not only eliminates the highways from the search but also allows the searcher to identify very lightly traveled streets would be an excellent tool for bike commuters. (Remember, it’s taken me two years to develop my current route, and I can’t be sure it won’t change again.)

If you’re like me, you like speed, especially on a bike.  If you’re like me, you also have a lot to look forward to in life.

I’ve ridden both a 14 gear road bike and a single speed, knobby-clad mountain bike on my daily commutes.  For safety, the mountain bike wins hands down.  While having better handling, fewer flats and better breaking, the lack of speed is probably the most critical to safety.  After all, hitting something at 25 mph as compared to 15 mph can make quite a bit of difference.  I’ve also found that drivers don’t typically expect to see a bicycle traveling at 25-30 mph.  I know this because I’ve almost hit several as they turned in front of me.

If you’re worried about carrying too much speed on your commutes (because, like me, you can’t control yourself) , try a single speed.  And no, it doesn’t have to be a fixie.

I don’t believe in calling the wifey to come and pick me up in our undesirable vehicle when I have a mechanical on the commute.  While most of the stuff I carry is rarely used, I don’t leave home without them.  Here they are:

1)       Park Tool multi-purpose tool  – all the hex wrenches, tire levers, chain tool, etc.

2)      Spare tube – you never know when you might have a puncture in an un-reparable location.  Plus, I don’t like repairing tubes on the road as I am too impatient and I usually bungle the job.

3)      Permanent patch kit

4)      Temporary patch kit – it bailed me out last week when I bungled two permanent patches.  I don’t like these kits (See my review of Slime Skabs) but they can be handy sometimes.

5)      MTB pump – because I ride MTB tires to work

6)      Cell phone – it’s nice to have as backup in case you do have a mechanical that is not possibly repaired on the road.  I’ve only had to use my phone once but despite being home my wife didn’t answer her telephone and thus was no help at all.  A friend saw me walking my bike and pulled over.  Reason I called:  Had a flat, changed it, started pumping only to realize my pump was broken.  Since I ride Presta valves, the gas station pump was no help either.

7)      Spoke wrench

8)   Aluminum tire lever – I don’t like to take the Park Tool apart and I always seem to break plastic levers, like the park tool levers.  I only carry one because I’ve lost (or my kids have lost) all of my others and I never need more than one anyway.