Yeah! I see... Have you fallen recently? May I suggest not to get an "armored" bike (not even an armor for the bike) but a more generic "safety ride" wish on your bike? I mean, armor means weight. I haven´t ever thought of how much would a hitproof bike weigh but it will be a wee on the heavy side for sure!!! would be barely impossible to follow Jorge´s light speed . If you wish you and your bike to be immune to falls better spend your wish in some kinda petition like "safety rides for us all!". No additional weight to carry out this way Hi Narah. Feel at home and tell us something about you, the style you´re into, where in Spain you live and whatever you wish... Lately it´s all about wishes!!! Cheers!
Wow! Awsome Acapella singing group! vocal people!!!. Going on in their music, take a look at this Queen tribute!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIaVPHRU1kE What bike did you pick up for today´s weather? Your roadie?
Oh wow, a fellow English teacher! If you live in Madrid we may actually know each other. Inter, good pic above! You always manage to come up with good stuff :aplauso2
Iniciado por chainring Oh wow, a fellow English teacher! If you live in Madrid we may actually know each other. Inter, good pic above! You always manage to come up with good stuff Yeap! McKem is also an english teacher and he´s also thinking about settle down nearby Madrid. There´s plenty of room for you guys!!! Now, good stuff... what about this?: Here you are two well known clipless pedals from EggBrrothers. Eggbeater 1 and Eggbeater 11. http://www.crankbrothers.com/pedals_eggbeater1.php http://www.crankbrothers.com/pedals_eggbeater11. Pretty similar except for the fact that some parts of the 11 series are made of ti.,keeping them 100 grms lighter than 1 series stamped steel parts on them. No other major remarkable differences but the color itself and the price range from 1´s 60€ to 425 (7 times the price of the 1 series!) for the 11 series. In fact, they have a look alike. Are titanium components on the 11 series worth it?. Well, could be, but take a closer look to this warning on the titanium model: Max rider wgt 90 kg!!!... No warning at all when we go and see the 1 series specifications!!!. Oh, oh... Are we missing something here?. 7 times the price for taking 100 grms out of the pedals weakening the whole structure and a mandatory legal warning notice there to let everybody know how weak they can be???! :sableluz
Inter-esting, ha ha. If you ask me, the eggbeater11 are for professionals and for those with fat wallets and and an obsession for every gram. And often these ultra-lightweight top-of-the-line products don't last too long. I mean, everything is as thin as it can possible be, so if someone over 90 kg gets on, it might break. I wonder if you weigh like 80 kg and pedal reeeeeeally hard, it'll break as well. For me it makes sense to buy the cheaper version that lasts longer! Of course, I'm not competing either. You know, we've been talking about putting on weight this Christmas, well, it's pretty easy to get two or three kg overweight, and we're worrying about 100 grams on the pedals! Seems it might be easier to lose the 100 grams in body fat, not to mention cheaper. But having said all this, if I had plenty of money I'd go for the eggbeater11, no doubt about it. Alas, we English teachers aren't normally rolling in dough.
No Inter, it's a long time since my last fall. That's because it's a long time without sharing routes with Jorge, ha ha! For some reasons not having to do with my bike I've been out of all of this for a long period. Now I'm trying to get back to all of this step by step, riding slowly on flat and easy tracks, and so on, but to tell you the truth I miss every steep, twisted and rocky trail!! ¡Hala! Yo también tengo Tapatalk.
Thank you all for the warm welcome! I'm a vet but unfortunately there isn't much work here so I'm teaching English. I enjoy teaching anyway and the timetable is much better than having to be on call most of one's free time! As for cycling, when I studied in Cambridge and lived in Denmark I always used a bike to get to class/work and I've always loved it! Unfortunately in my opinion it isn't safe enough to ride around the city here in Spain, at least not in Lugo where I live. So now my boyfriend gave me a mountain bike for Christmas and we're going out for rides. I'm fitter, he's braver so it's a good combination. I still have a lot of getting used to those large 29" wheels! My old bikes were always second hand or whatever was lying around so it's fantastic to have a bike that truly fits!
Cool! 29 inch bikes on the rise! You´ve got bigger wheels to roll over obstacles better so that you can keep easily your speed while delivering a smooth ride with better traction and braking power. Weight and tighter fit are some of the disadvantages of a 29er but I´m sure your boyfriend has taken all into account when choosing your Xmats present. You feel comfortable on it?
Hmmm, yeah, get back into it little by little until you're ready for steep, rocky, twisted and harrowing... ha ha ha. Yeah, getting into it, taking it to the next level, all right! A real shame it's not safe to commute on bikes. Actually I used to do that in Madrid way back before it was sort of popular, like about 15 years ago. Now you see more people doing it. When are they ever going to put in some decent bike lanes? It's really long overdue.
I didn't know you were all teaching, i'm ashamed of my poor level . awwwwww!!! what did you say Chain, that you fancied peeping the PArdo track?? i'll pm it to you if so. Do you know what? This year's reading is 'To Kill a Mockingbird' , how do you feel about it?
Chain, it's not so clear to me that they do have to roll on bike lanes in Madrid. I prefer the apparent current policy of signaling cyclo-streets with a 30 km/h limit and clear reminders of safety distances.
Don't worry about that, I'm not really after linguistic perfection, and I like talking about biking in English with people from around here, so you're doing me a favor because I can express myself more easily in English than in Spanish, so you have to do the hard work of putting your thoughts into a foreign language! I don't really want it, I know the place like the back of my hand. BTW, if you want we can go for another ride there sometime. Obviously reading anything in English is great, but generally speaking I recommend recent literature as it tends to have more current expressions, slang, vocabulary, and all that. On that score the book doesn't sound too bad, tho it obviously wasn't written yesterday, but it's good literature!
Maybe I'm not familiar with the current policy, but from what I see in the center of Madrid you ride with traffic, which is actually not so bad when you're on small back streets because traffic goes pretty slowly. You get right in the middle of the lane and cars can't pass you, and if you go fast they often don't need to. But it can be frightening when you're on streets with fast cars like Arturo Soria or the Castellana, so some kind of protected bike lane there would be great. And I think more people would ride, like Narah.
In the same link that peldez wrote down there is what they call "plano calles tranquilas". It's a great idea to specify which streets are usable for safe biking, and if you don´t find the route you need, you only have to contact them and they'll help you. Of course adding safe lanes in some of the main streets will also help to encourage people to ride their bikes in the city, even more nowadays with the economical situation, etc. In my case, in Alcalá, I hardly drive my car into the city, because I ride my clunker and I've even succeeded convincing my girlfriend to do the same! I hope as time goes by people start to change their minds so we can see more people friendly cities.
Indeed Mario, precisely, today I went riding my bike around downtown Madrid and man! I discovered new cycle-streets -those which Peldez is talking about- or whatever you call it, along with bike signals and new bike-lanes! You now can go to Sol square by bike when it´s forbidden to cars!. Something is changing here. There also are more and more people who commute on bikes and that I guess is a major boost to improve cyclist safety with better facilities. We need further actions in the pipeline! 8) Alcala st. new bike-lines
Oh, this IS surprising, change is in the air, or on the asphalt. Well, this is certainly a step in the right direction :aplauso3
