Upgrade Your Water Bottle Now!

 I often start my rides with temps in the 70s or 80s, but they end in the 100s, so I have learned from experience the tremendous difference between CamelBak's Podium Ice and all other bottles. Seriously, the Podium Chill aren't worth the water they displace, because you could pack the bottle with ice, fill with water, and the loss in volume when the ice melts is less than the 3-4oz you lose to thicker insulation in the Podium Ice. 

Bottom Line: It's Podium Ice or warm Gatorade.

So why the "News-Flash"?, because the small silicone cap on the  inside of the lid has been flagged as a choking hazard, so these (and all other CamelBak) bottles are now on sale for up to $11 off, making these wonderful, but expensive $26 bottles a once in a lifetime bargain. Oh, and if you're one of the few people left on Earth who still use a Polar Bottle, for God's sake upgrade your gear!

I have two stations for water bottles on my Pinarello. The Red one on the down-tube is for Gatorade, and the Blue one on the seat-tube is for water. I actually prefer the pale blue one, but this one is more distinctive, so a better illustration.

I have quite a specific management protocol for hydration using these bottles, as I live in the high desert and it's very hot and dry here. 

The Gatorade bottle gets filled about half full of the crescent shaped ice my ice maker supplies, but I make the Gatorade from powder and water that sits overnight in the coldest spot in my refrigerator, so it's usually partially frozen. I add Emergen-C powder to the Gatorade powder, pour in the quasi-frozen water and shake. I then put the entire bottle in the freezer while I dress & shower. The insulation prevents the mixture from freezing and ruining the bottle, which it ABSOLUTELY will do! 

The pure water bottle is packed with ice. If you have crushed ice, use it. Whatever ice you use, don't add any cold-wicking water to the bottle until you absolutely have to while out riding. Solid ice has very little contact surface with the walls of the bottle, so it will last a lot longer if you don't fill it with water. I can fit a Zefal Magnum water bottle on the seat-tube, which is where my pure water goes. It's a great option, filled with ice, if you only have warm tap water to refill with on your ride. Its much larger size makes it a better option than the Podium Chill bottles bc it holds so much more ice.

When you need more Gatorade, take the cap off and hold it in your mouth, the same one you're going to be drinking with, and WITHOUT taking the lid off the bottle holding melted ice, squirt the very cold water into your Gatorade bottle. Replace the cap you've been holding in your mouth. NEVER take the lid off of both bottles at the same time as an unlucky gesture like trying to keep your bike from falling over, sliding, etc. leaves ALL of your fluids dumped into the sand. This could be fatal, or at least life-threatening (probably not, but it's a very, very bad feeling to see all your hydration spilled on the ground). 

When you have an opportunity, fill the bottle with ice and melted water with the coldest water you can find, and repeat the process to make more Gatorade. This is the ONLY time the lid should come off of your water bearing bottle, and only when the lid is on and tightly shut on your Gatorade bottle. The idea is to sacrifice cold water for cold Gatorade bc warm Gatorade sucks, and doesn't do anything to cool you off that just sweating would. Try to keep the bottle for water only ice by topping up your Gatorade bottle.

When you get to the end of your ride they won't  be enough ice left to chill a full bottle, so try to judge how much water you can add and still end up with cold Gatorade when you use it to make Gatorade in your front bottle. I often can only top up my Gatorade bottle with chilled water at this point, and have to fill my water bearing bottle with warm water, but that's still a great problem to have after 4-5hrs of riding in 90-115F heat.

PS: If you just have to have pure water along from the start, consider buying an ice-cube tray that makes giant ice-cubes - like 2" squares. Walmart sells them and so do others. The larger the cube the longer it takes to melt into the water that's in contact with the walls of the bottle. It works, but it's a  PITA to work with giant ice-cubes.

New Phone, Old Charger/s

 Last year I did a post on my portable power station here (scroll to bottom half of post), and I'm thrilled to report the Yilon AC Charger's USC-C port will fast charge my new Motorola Moto G7 Plus as fast as the charger that came with the phone - full up in ~ 30min. 

 

After waiting 18 months I finally snagged this $325 (original price) phone for $120 unlocked at Best Buys ($65 with an AT&T contract). As it doesn't support CDMA I switched to the virtual carrier RedPocket, which is buying time from T-Mobile, the carrier providing the cell service. My pre-paid (no contract) RedPocket service is unlimited talk, text and 1G of data for ten bucks. Yup, you read that right, $10/mo! I transferred my phone number and while RedPocket warned it would take 2 days to 2 weeks, Verizon had it done in ~ 2 seconds. Nice!

Unfortunately, the LIPO battery-based chargers I bought will NOT fast charge my phone, or anything else, because while they can charge it, they can't speed charge it, so it takes hours. Thus I'm now looking for such a battery-based speed charger. 

You may recall I bought two separate devices is because I want the AC charger to be able to charge all of  the stuff on my bike AND the LIPO charger's battery AT THE SAME TIME, so when I have access to an AC outlet I can charge my devices and my portable charger. This allows me to ride all day if I want with only one AC outlet on hand. 

This Anker 10k MAh Power Bank comes close, but as you can see, it takes over 4hrs to fully recharge. My phone wouldn't take the whole 10k, as its battery is only 3k, but it would probably take 4k (a lossy process) and even if just topping off, this Anker would take over an hour. I'd much rather have a 5k unit that fully recharges in 30 min from the Yilon AC charger I already have, so I will keep looking, but if you're training for a Double Century or a long cross country tour, 10k might be nice, and maybe even something bigger like a 25k MAh. Note that with this Anker you'd need a 3:1 "Y" splitter cable, and 4-5 would be better, for charging low-power bike stuff, saving the C-to-C speed charging port for your phone. Amazon seems to be churning them out like hot cakes.

Just a heads-up. When the sun starts to set and you're still not "there", this stuff all becomes a LOT more important. You need those lights to work all day in Day-Flash mode to keep you safe, at night to see and be seen, and to phone home to give loved ones a new ETA and status report.

NOTE: I originally tried to go with a $15 T-Mobile plan directly (not via RedPocket), made an appointment at the local store, and then sat there for 20 minutes while they fiddled with their system until finally reporting the required website was down and they couldn't do anything useful for me, directing me to the Target store across the parking lot. Driving home I decided there's no point in having local "support" that can't get anything useful done for me, and decided putting in my own SIM card couldn't be THAT difficult. It wasn't. I had to wait 2 days for USPS delivery for the SIM card, but everything went smoothly and RedPocket's online support, which was asked some pointed questions BEFORE buying the service, was pretty good. RedPocket has plans as low as $2.50 a month.

Air on the Side of NOT

I was asked this question by a friend the other day and realized I have never weighed in on this pretty basic, yet important tire maintenance question. If you don't ride for a few days/weeks should you keep airing up your tubeless tires, or just let them go flat? 

Thinking about it, the answer seemed pretty obvious. Let them go flat, or fla-ish. Tires like the Conti GP5KTL, especially the first 300-500 miles, can let go of the rim if air pressure falls below 10psi, but as they age that number drops to almost zero. If you don't let the bike stand on the tires bc it/s turned upside down, or hung, that number is also probably a lot closer to zero based on turning mine upside down a few times.The greater the pressure differential, the faster the air leaks out, so the last 10psi takes 20X as long to leak out as the first 10psi. (this is true for heat too btw, where pressure is called the "heat gradient")

 

 

WHY is this an important issue? Because every time you add air it sucks up some of the liquid in the sealant, and takes it out of the tire as it escapes. Eventually you end up with dried sealant in the tire that does nothing useful. The conclusion is obvious, cycle as little air through the tire as possible so you don't dry out the sealant. This is NOT a recommendation to ride at a lower tire pressure, although I'd recommend a personal search for the lowest number, because it gives a more comfortable, puncture resistant ride, but that's not what I'm aiming at here. 

Also, for those of you who are new to the sport, CO2 molecules are much smaller than air, which is a mix of gasses, and mostly nitrogen, and therefore, CO2 will leak away tire pressure much faster than air. (there's also a special gas mixture you can buy, StayFill, originally developed for fire-extinguisher systems, that will probably go for years without losing pressure if you could somehow manage not to run over thorns, nails, tacks, or glass)

It was 1yr ago on the 25th, Memorial Day 2020 that we found an abandoned dog, which we named Emma, and she's been an absolutely wonderful addition to our, and now my, household. I can't believe someone threw her away, but they did, and lucky us, we found a very scared and traumatized puppy who has grown in so many ways and become an awesome companion. What someone else didn't want, or couldn't keep, was our immense gain. 

To a lessor degree, this is true of old bikes as well. If it's just sitting around gathering dust, find a good home for it and make someone very happy. Nieces, nephews, cousins, and grand-children are obvious choices. My first bike probably cost my dad $25 - back when a buck was worth a buck, but still a bargain.

Back in the Saddle Again

"Life" and very challenging weather has kept me off the bike for a bit over 2 months, but I had a nice ride on Sunday, and as expected, am feeling it today. I had a little back pain while out riding, but to my surprise, it's my calves that are killing me. Long-time readers may remember I tore my right calf badly in 2010, so in order to prevent re-injuring it, I'm taking another day off today. 

I'm a little surprised because I have a dog now, and she's a working dog, so requires a lot of exercise, so it's not like I've been sedentary, but as I discovered when I tried to substitute walking for riding before, riding is just much more demanding, especially if you're riding 50-70 mile rides.

For my comeback ride, I did a little over 20 miles on pretty flat terrain and stayed nearby so if $hit happened I could get home without too much trouble. The only way to do it is to "Just Do It". Nike had that dead right. 

After moving, and only partially unpacking, it took a long time to get out the door because so much of my routine was baked into putting things in "their" place, allowing me plenty of short-cuts to get out the door quickly. I assume the next ride will go a lot smoother. The weather though was finally accommodating, with the wind remaining fairly calm until noon and the pollen, at least whatever it is that has been bothering me, took the day off. 

I'm smiling through the pain because it's still thrilling to be propelling yourself through time & space under your own power, especially while drawing social security checks! Also, I really do love the Pinarello!

Cheers!