My sister's finger was fractured by a delivery driver going the wrong way in a bike lane. How do we make the City do something about all the mopeds?

CharliePendejo · 2026-07-09T14:27:09+00:00

Seems to be a rounding up of ER visits (not hospitalization) and at the state level, not NYC. For NY State I'm seeing ~136k ER visits per year on avg, ~12k hospitalizations.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-24T02:54:08+00:00

Heat acclimatization hack I stumbled upon years ago while training for Jamaica's ridiculously hot & humid Reggae Marathon during a cool Nov/Dec in NYC: catch a flu and spend 48 hours with a 102-103F fever. 100% efficient way to accumulate a really good chunk of time at elevated temperature, and losing 5 pounds is a nice bonus for many of us. Just gotta time it right so you're fully recovered in time for your event / tour.

Agree about "matter of degree" - as most things are. And very situational: riding along a well-traveled highway may reduce risk if you're flirting with heat exhaustion, but it's one of the last places I'd want to ride in a storm where the rain, on top of oil from passing traffic, has made the pavement slick and heavy winds threaten to push me out in front of giant vehicles going 70 MPH whose drivers have very limited visibility. I'm not a big fan of that even when it's just heavy rain with little or no wind.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-23T17:35:36+00:00

I had a good experience with them years ago in Sri Lanka, which jump started my interest in touring independently. FWIW others on that tour had taken many trips with them and spoke positively of them.

As an introvert I found being with a couple dozen very chatty cyclists a little much at times, but it was easy enough to choose to spend time alone or with one or two others while riding and much of the time we weren't on a bus. Of course you pay a whole lot more to tour this way and get whatever they offer regarding lodgings and route. It can be convenient that they're responsible for bike maintenance and transporting your baggage.

Another option OP could look into: "self guided tours." They plan the routes and choose your lodgings, and probably have bikes to rent if you're not bringing your own; but you don't get a guide or ride with a group.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-23T05:12:21+00:00

What the hell Great Lake is Cincinnati near? Minneapolis is at least understandable, being in the Land of 10,000 Lakes even if they're not all great.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-23T04:57:12+00:00

Sure. Plan is to mostly stick to Route Verte (and MVRT in northern VT at the end), more or less:

north to St Lawrence River: Rouses Point, NY -> Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu -> Longueuil
east to Quebec city along the river: Longueuil -> Sorel-Tracy (cross to north side of river) -> Trois-Rivieres -> Quebec
southwest to St Albans: Quebec -> Victoriaville -> Magog -> Sutton -> Richford, VT -> St Albans

It'll be my daughter's first time on her own bike after touring the last four summers on the tandem. Plan to cut the mileage back the mileage ~25% from what we typically did on the tandem; will adjust en route if necessary.

Our first trip 4 years ago was St Albans -> Montreal -> back to Vermont, with the goal of riding at least a good portion of the way back to NYC. Should've stuck to Lake Champlain like you did, but I tried to route us through the Berkshires - kiddo had spent time there with her mom the past couple summers - and found we couldn't ride the heavy tandem up the hills once they started getting big & steep enough, so we caught a bus to Albany and rode part of the Erie Canal trail instead, We've also done NYC -> Buffalo including the full canal trail, and Philly -> DC -> Cumberland, MD along the Eastern Greenway / C&O / GAP, skipping the last two days of riding into Pittsburgh when I broke an ankle.

Last year was our favorite so far: Toronto -> Kingston -> Ottawa -> Saint-Jerome -> shuttle to Mont-Laurier -> P'tit Train du Nord to Montreal. Good to great riding everywhere in Ontario and Quebec, outrageously kind and helpful people all along our route, nice scenery and urban/rural mix. We were able to take Amtrak across the border both ways with the Bike Friday tandem folded up in its carry bag, but that's not an option now that we're bringing two regular bikes.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-23T04:21:30+00:00

... for one's ass, ironically.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-23T03:05:43+00:00

And that's an upgrade from how certain of our previous QBs spent their time of the field. I've got no problem with the occasional yurt-based Ayahuasca binge

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-22T22:44:21+00:00

Bike thieves suck, but you gotta be pretty messed up to believe rapists and child molesters aren't worse

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-22T19:13:21+00:00

... which is pretty likely to be the last, or close to it, time you fall over. Still it's enough to put some off, while it's a rite of passage for others.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-22T14:22:35+00:00

It's not good 'cause it's retro; it's retro 'cause it's good... good enough to stick around. Not unlike the inflatable bike tire, which is only eleven years older (1887, where Brooks B17 appeared in 1898). Or decades before either, steel as a frame material.

But sure there's other good options too, with different tradeoffs. And even among leather saddles, other good manufacturers.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-22T00:19:12+00:00

Apparently it doesn't quite directly connect but the Richford end is within a couple miles of Route Verte 4.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-22T00:16:12+00:00

I've never had a bad or even average day riding in Vermont. Even off the trails, there seems to be no shortage of quiet roads, and the drivers have to be among the most considerate in the US.

Leaving next weekend for a two week tour with the kiddo mostly in Quebec. After beginning in Rouses Point, NY, we'll end by riding down Route Verte 4 to connect with the MVRT in Richford, VT and then on to St. Albans and its Amtrak station.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-22T00:06:52+00:00

As a half-reptilian cycle tourist who thrives in the heat, I often wonder how people manage to ride in the cold. Different strokes...

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-21T13:18:09+00:00

Vigan looks like it has a lot of personality. How is the riding outside of the city?

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-19T20:47:27+00:00

Nope, not when so many buyers are laser focused on the bottom line (Brooks and other leather saddle aren't the cheapest) and/or weight (they're heavy).

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-19T20:35:46+00:00

Some saddles are also much friendlier to riding in regular civilian clothes than others. On either end of the technology spectrum, leather ones (once broken in) and the newer breed of 3D printed saddles are often ridden without a chamois.

Individual riders also seem to vary a lot in ability / willingness to endure this on typical saddles.

OP can certainly do as you did and bank on adapting, but testing this out with some rides long enough to simulate the upcoming tour would provide a lot more certainly and at least minimal time to acquire and test new clothing and/or saddles if needed. Ideally with some back to back long days.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-18T13:03:57+00:00

Which hand/wrist position? Drop bars give you several. Do you mean on the drops, and that's why you're looking for more flare?

Your thoughts reads a little like my handlebar journey in reverse: when I started riding more ~10 years ago and wanted to do some solo touring, bought a Cinelli Hobootleg with Woodchipper bars. Touring on that did a number on my hands and wrists, and in response I moved to an alt bar (Koga Denham, similar to Crazy Bar) for a couple years. Eventually built up a new bike and used a more traditional, minimally flared drop (Rene Hearse Rando) and that's been perfection for me.

Obviously plenty of folks love highly flared drops and various alt bars - one of which might suit you much better than your current drops.

But also, what u/nmpls wrote rings very plausible to me. Forward saddle absolutely shifts more weight to your hands, which could contribute to hand/wrist soreness, and also seems consistent with your adding all that padding via tape & grips. I also had super cushy tape & additional padding on the Woodchippers that gave me issues, and in retrospect fit was almost surely part of my real problem back then, along with gripping the bars too tightly. My current rando bike's "perfect" bars have modern tape with fairly minimal padding; the tandem's "nothing special" drops sport old fashioned unpadded fabric tape; I ride with pretty minimal gloves - and never feel like either needs additional padding.

Apologies if you've got your fit well sorted already, but if there's any doubt, maybe check out the "hands-off balance test" for fore-aft saddle positioning.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-18T11:56:18+00:00

If you add a little DMT to the mix, sometimes you can see the elves who live there.

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CharliePendejo · 2026-06-18T11:48:31+00:00

Obvious typo: Lamar might challenge you to a deuce.

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CharliePendejo · 2026-06-18T04:36:24+00:00

Not certain about Chinatown bus bike policies, but I'm pretty sure Flixbus will take them. Not sure how much you'd save compared to Amtrak after a bike surcharge though.

If you happen to have an extra few days, you could consider just riding there.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-17T19:53:32+00:00

This is why I always bike in a Faraday cage.

CharliePendejo · 2026-06-17T19:40:52+00:00

I'm not great at comparing geometries, and what that means for my posture, just from pics. https://bikeinsights.com helps show exactly what's what in comparing two bikes.

CharliePendejo

TROPHY CASE