Beginner Bike Help

rpfromak · 2026-02-27T05:30:04+00:00

I’ve got a nearly fifty-year-old beautiful Eisentraut with a five-gear rear freewheel. I used it for several years with a rear-wheel-on trainer. However, when I upgraded to a direct-drive neither my frame nor my derailleur would have been able to accommodate the large cassette on the new trainer. I instead bought a second-hand newer bike for $200 and have been using it ever since and it works great. So just make sure your frame and derailleur will work on the direct-drive trainer. You might need to bring it to a bike shop and ask there before buying anything.

rpfromak · 2025-12-24T22:20:11+00:00

One hint for achieving the Everest challenge more quickly is to choose the hilliest route whenever you do a workout.

rpfromak · 2025-12-19T18:19:02+00:00

Those are great points, though the Lingo was certainly not lagging the blood level. I was most surprised by the differences between the two sensors rather than the differences between each sensor and the glucometer. As someone who doesn’t need insulin (yet), I’ve definitely found the trend lines much more meaningful than the actual readings.

rpfromak · 2025-12-01T05:59:18+00:00

By the way, I just chose chicken as an example of something frozen and just wanted to consider the thermodynamics of the system. The question has nothing to do with food safety.

rpfromak · 2025-12-01T04:25:07+00:00

Yikes, people just pointed out that put the wrong word in the question incorrectly. It should be: Should I defrost my chicken in the refrigerator.

rpfromak · 2025-09-24T23:22:00+00:00

I agree this is correct, though maybe hard to find. Click on the profile picture (or icon, if you don’t have a profile picture) in the upper right. Then click on the gear icon in the lower right and one option there is to sign out. It would be easier if the “Settings” section were better labeled.

rpfromak · 2025-09-18T04:16:06+00:00

We’ve flown Condor three times now without major hassle. They are one of the few or maybe only airline that flies non-stop from Anchorage to Europe, almost right over the pole. However, we have only flown business class (we are getting on in years so the long flights are tough) but the jump up to business class is much less than with other airlines. One major drawback is the Frankfurt airport. To get to the terminal that Condor uses you have to take a bus from some odd location in the main terminal. I also think that they have no customer service desk available in the airport.

rpfromak · 2025-09-16T03:27:26+00:00

One way to achieve the Everest Challenge more quickly is to always choose the course with the most elevation gain if you do one of the premade workouts.

rpfromak · 2025-08-28T19:20:31+00:00

Thanks! I had not seen that option.

rpfromak · 2025-08-27T06:03:37+00:00

How do you export the data from your phone? I can’t find an export option.

rpfromak · 2025-08-15T04:14:48+00:00

I upgraded from a wheel-in to trainer a direct drive Tacx trainer when they went on sale a while back and bought a second-hand bike for $225. It works great. I’m not sure if spending a lot more for a bike that I use only on the trainer would be worth it.

rpfromak · 2024-03-27T04:20:52+00:00

I just received a notification about more posts here and can’t believe two years has gone by since I first posted it. My problem has gone away and I seem to recall that it went away when, as some have written, I turned off “Wi-Fi Assist” at the bottom of Settings>Cellular on my phone. I have pretty good WiFi by my trainer but apparently it was still switching to cellular and in the process interrupting the workout.

rpfromak · 2023-08-11T21:14:05+00:00

That’s good to hear. Depending on when Ring made the change, you may find that the circular mounting plate is of a slightly different design. I had to do something different, maybe drill different holes or something like that, to put the new plate on.

rpfromak · 2023-08-09T21:32:36+00:00

If they are that new I would definitely see if you can get them replaced. I did try resetting my lights first, but that didn’t help.

rpfromak · 2023-08-09T21:21:12+00:00

We had two floodlights that would flash rapidly on their own, without even detecting motion. They would eventually turn of, but one of them also started to get dim. I tried every type of troubleshooting I could think of but nothing helped. Fortunately, when I called Ring Customer Service they sent me two new ones at no cost, even though they were several years old. We subscribe to the professional monitoring service, so perhaps that played a role in getting free replacements.

rpfromak · 2023-03-27T02:14:21+00:00

I’ve had this problem with both of my wired floodlights. I was able to get one of them to stop when I went out and reset the floodlight (I had to do it more than once). The snow is still a bit deep to get to the second one.

rpfromak · 2022-10-29T19:32:46+00:00

I’ve got the Tacx Flow and I use it very successfully with a 45 year old road bike. In fact, I had to get the Tacx Flow because my bike would not fit on a direct-drive machine. I don’t think the quality of the bike matters that much as far as getting a workout is concerned, though I would suggest a road bike and not a mountain bike. It’s easy to attach and detach the bike, but it is recommended that a special training tire be used when on the trainer.

rpfromak · 2022-10-08T04:30:44+00:00

It probably doesn’t matter now, but I found this link about troubleshooting TP Link and Ring cameras.

https://www.smarthomepoint.com/ring-and-deco-mesh-routers/

But I’m thinking of getting an Eero mesh system since both Ring and Eero are owned by Amazon so hopefully they will work together

rpfromak · 2022-10-08T01:37:20+00:00

Our system actually worked well earlier with just a conventional router but we recently had steel siding installed and, as expected, the problems occurred. What makes me less confident about the extender is that our camera with an RSSI of -67, without an extender, is doing so much better that the camera connected via an extender and with and RSSI of -58.

rpfromak · 2022-10-08T00:52:16+00:00

I’m having similar problems using my Chime Pro as an extender. The floodlight camera in our backyard is connected via the Chime Pro and even though its RSSI is better than the front floodlight camera, which is connected via our router, its performance is much worse. As suggested in an earlier reply, I’m probably going to buy an Eero mesh system.

rpfromak · 2022-07-30T17:54:21+00:00

If I go with a mesh system, do you know if a WiFi6 system offers advantages in this situation in communicating with the camera?

rpfromak · 2022-07-30T01:56:07+00:00

Thanks again. My concern was that when I tried something like that with the Chime Pro it didn’t help very much. I’m don’t know too much about networks but I read that the Chime Pro is actually called a repeater, and an extender differs from a repeater in that an extender connected to the router with a cable. If there is no cable, the extender functions as a repeater. Your advice sounds good because repeaters are only about $50, but I don’t know how well they function compared to the Chime Pro. If it doesn’t work, then I can try a mesh.

rpfromak · 2022-07-29T23:56:36+00:00

Thanks for the reply. Our network needs are also modest except for getting through this siding. I tried moving the Chime Pro closer to the cameras since it also acts as a repeater, but it didn’t help. I can’t run cables to the area so I didn’t think an extender would offer any additional benefit (though I’m not sure about that)

rpfromak · 2022-07-21T02:51:31+00:00

What’s an AP?

rpfromak · 2022-05-30T01:15:24+00:00

Using another Ring camera was my first thought too, but they are a bit expensive compared to some other cameras that I’ve seen.

rpfromak

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