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Tally Time

OK, I've been eating vegetarian since July and bicycle commuting for nearly two months. Thought it would be a good idea to do a tally of my energy/cost/CO2 savings to see the total impact ONE person making MINOR changes can have...

First - some of the base numbers:

• my bicycle commute to work is 14mi round-trip
• I've commuted 36 of 40 possible days for a total of 403 miles (adding in grocery runs, etc.)
• my car gets about 22mpg in the city
• gas averaged about $3.50/gal during this period
• cheap downtown parking costs me $3.50/day

I've saved over 18 gallons of gas and reduced my CO2 emissions by 332 pounds (11.5lb/day)

I've saved $217 in gas and parking.

I burn an extra 336 calories per day by bicycle commuting to work.

On the vegetarian side there are additional savings...

The production of food for the average vegetarian (not vegan: I eat eggs, dairy and some fish) emits 7.3lb/day LESS in greenhouse gases versus an omnivore. That results in an extra 800lbs of reduced CO2 emissions since July.


I wanted to see what this meant FOR ME on an annual basis, so I did a little more math with the assumption that I keep going:
>> 120 gallons of gas saved
>> $1,340 saved in gas and parking
>> 2000lb (1 TON) of reduced CO2 from bicycle commuting
>> 2665lb of reduced CO2 from eating vegetarian
>> 2500 miles bicycle commuting and 75,000 calories burned!

That is some good motivation...

My Cleveland Commute

I've been in Cleveland now for almost two weeks and have gotten my bicycle commute down pretty well. It is 7mi each direction and mostly flat except for the bridge shown below. My main streets are Madison, Grace and Detroit - Detroit being a main thoroughfare between the city of Cleveland and the western lakeside suburbs.

Because I need a little Grace every day I take a left on it:


Then a right onto Detroit - here is my view heading east at the stop at 117th Ave, the dividing line between Cleveland and Lakewood (my fair city...)


As friend Warren Waldron noted - "when you live on the west side of Cleveland your commute is into the sun both directions." How true!

One of the curious things you get to think about when bicycle commuting - restaurant names. Please say with me three times quickly, "pho que, pho que, pho que..." ;)


After 6 miles comes the prize - the Detroit-Superior (Veterans Memorial) Bridge. Not steep but fairly long:


After that it is a quick shot through Tower City and onto Prospect Ave for my arrival at the UCC Headquarters.

The B.U.S.S. (big urban single speed) needed some professional wheel attention but other than that has held up well.

That's it for now, more sights later...
Peace!

Fredder is Better!

Polly (the single speed Paragon) had two tweaks since the last post.

First, I adjusted the chainline using Sheldon Brown's (may he RIP) excellent article.

Pretty easy using the spacers included with the Forte single speed kit. The whole thing runs a lot quieter now that I adjusted for nearly 6mm of offset that my "eyeball" method had come up with.

The second tweak was to get a more stable right front fender mount than zip ties. Here was effort #1:


The Rock Shock SID Race XC fork does not come with fender mounts. But if you are willing to possibly scratch your $500+ suspension fork, a hose clamp works fine. I bent the loopy part of the fender mount to match the fork angle, cut a bit of old latex tubing and fastened it all together like this:
Top:
Bottom:

Now that is FRED!

Oh yeah, total cost of new stuff needed to convert this bike to a single speed commuter:
Single Speed Tensioner/Cog Kit: $21
Fenders $20
Tires: 2x$8 ($16)
Bell: $7.95
Hose Clamp: $2.25
Misc Screws: $1.89

Total: $69.09

Transformer Bicycle

The transformation is complete. My Gary Fisher Paragon (circa 1995) has been a great bike. Aside from new rims and a SID Race fork in 2001 it was pretty much all original. I did some off-road racing on it and began cyclocross racing with this bike.

Its parts were a bit weary so I decided it would make a GREAT fixed/single speed bike.

I had raced fixed gear on the velodrome and wanted to go that route first but cost and time were prohibitive.

Fixed gear chain tensioning is normally accomplished with horizontal dropouts on a bike, but derailleur based frames like mine have vertical dropouts...

The only reasonable option to have this frame be a true fixie is to use a neat hub from White Industries called the ENO. It has an elliptical axle offset that allows the variable chain tensioning required for fixed gears.

The next option was to use my existing freehub and a chain tensioner - similar to a single-cog rear derailleur but with no motion. I ended up going to the nearby Performance Bicycle Shop for their Single Speed Conversion Kit. (Sorry LBS friends, it is the best bike shop around - see an older post below about that.)

Well, I tore off the derailleurs, shifters and cables. I removed the cassette and made a guess at alignment (more on that later.) I removed the front granny and inner chainrings and moved the outer 42 tooth chainring to the inner position to help with alignment.

The single speed kit came with three cogs: 16, 18 and 20 tooth. I made the chain length compatible with the 20 tooth cog so that it can be used. The tensioner seems to take up the slack when using the 18 or 16 tooth cog just fine.

Enough talk - we want pictures!

Sweet ferrules - rear brake cable running down the middle (no front or rear derailleur cables needed!)


Chain tensioner will allow 16-20 tooth cog on the back. The 42-16 is being ridden day to day but with the Burley attached or with an XtraCycle conversion the 18 or 20 will be handy:


Starting to get a little Fred (definition #2) with these repurposed blue anodized aluminum chainring bolts! (Note the chainring mounted inside, where the middle ring would normally go...)


Fender mount #1 (actually a disk brake mount...)


Fender mount #2 (zip ties == duct tape for bicycles...)


And a bell - even more Fred! (Note the lack of shifters on that clean bar...)


The complete SS machine with 20+ year old Blackburn Mountain rack, Forte 1.5" city tires and Freddy Fenders installed:

Ticket to ride

We live in perhaps one of the most bike UNFRIENDLY towns in the US. To be fair, the mayor has commissioned and initiative to look at expanding the possibilities for bicycle commuting. Yet, for the past 100+ years that had not been part of the plan - hence the lack of access and understanding.

A few years back a local bicycle shop (since closed) asked if they could purchase and install bike racks at the junior and senior high schools. The school board turned them down because they were using busing as a leverage point to obtain more funding for operations.

(i.e. The school board STOPPED busing kids for a period of time claiming a "budget crisis" which forced parents to all DRIVE their kids to school and get fed up enough with the inconvenience to pass a tax levy... Coercive?)

I've been trying to defy this unfriendly bicycling tone by riding anyway - even pulling Gus around in the Burley trailer on the safer roads (lots of alleys actually.)

Decided to trek to the grocery last evening - rack and single pannier attached:


Not a bad haul and only 20 minutes of biking round trip. It would have taken the same time to drive: