Thursday, August 12, 2010
Hybrid Weekend
Looks like the weather will be perfect for my planned hybrid weekend. Saturday planning on a 100 mile bicycle ride to Belmar, NJ with PFW; and Sunday planning on riding the motorcycle to the AMA District II Corn Boil and pick up 2 points towards the Polar Bear Grand Tour.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Another Reason to love my Camelbak
I love my Camelbak! The reasons are many; it carries a significant amount of water, great on these hot summer days; it keeps the water cold, even on a 3 hour bicycle ride the water is cold to drink; it provides an area for storage, cell phone, wallet, IPod, banana, or anything else you’ll need on a bicycle ride and it’s comfortable to wear with the NVIS back ventilation system. Today I discovered a new reason to love my Camelbak.
Riding on Miller Road between Dayton and Cranbury, we approached a stop sign. It is a heavily wooded area and I should have known better, but I approached the stop sign at a high rate of speed. I was planning to scope out the road to the left (thinking it would be clear as we were on a back road) and make the turn maintaining my momentum. Looking left at the last minute I saw through the trees that there was indeed a vehicle coming from the left. Now normally approaching a stop sign, I would clip out of my pedals to prepare to stop; here I had to make an instantaneous decision to stop. Grabbing both brakes, I stopped at the end of Miller Road, but my feet were still clipped into the pedals. Having your feet still clipped in means you can’t put a leg out and so I fell to the left.
Not the first time I have not clipped out and stopped; it has actually happened a couple times before. You aren’t going fast, in fact you are not even moving forward, so you would think it’s a harmless fall. However, people’s instinct is to put out a hand, elbow or land on their side. All of those scenarios can mean road rash, broken collarbone, broken wrist and any number of injuries in addition to the embarrassment of falling down in front of the group of riders with you! Being an old hand at this now my instinct was to turn and land on my back. The Camelbak acted as a cushion between the road and my body, making for a relatively soft landing. My seat twisted on the post a bit (a quick turn aligned it back into position) but everything else on my bicycle and my body was pristine!
Thinking about it as we pedaled the last couple of miles back to Cranbury the Camelbak acted somewhat like an airbag, albeit already inflated. This is not a new concept. Several companies that make motorcycle racing suits have been experimenting with airbags built into their suits for years. Alpinestars and Dainese both sell leathers with airbag systems built in. There is a YouTube video of a test of the Dainese system from 2007.
One more reason to love my Camelbak.
Riding on Miller Road between Dayton and Cranbury, we approached a stop sign. It is a heavily wooded area and I should have known better, but I approached the stop sign at a high rate of speed. I was planning to scope out the road to the left (thinking it would be clear as we were on a back road) and make the turn maintaining my momentum. Looking left at the last minute I saw through the trees that there was indeed a vehicle coming from the left. Now normally approaching a stop sign, I would clip out of my pedals to prepare to stop; here I had to make an instantaneous decision to stop. Grabbing both brakes, I stopped at the end of Miller Road, but my feet were still clipped into the pedals. Having your feet still clipped in means you can’t put a leg out and so I fell to the left.
Not the first time I have not clipped out and stopped; it has actually happened a couple times before. You aren’t going fast, in fact you are not even moving forward, so you would think it’s a harmless fall. However, people’s instinct is to put out a hand, elbow or land on their side. All of those scenarios can mean road rash, broken collarbone, broken wrist and any number of injuries in addition to the embarrassment of falling down in front of the group of riders with you! Being an old hand at this now my instinct was to turn and land on my back. The Camelbak acted as a cushion between the road and my body, making for a relatively soft landing. My seat twisted on the post a bit (a quick turn aligned it back into position) but everything else on my bicycle and my body was pristine!
Thinking about it as we pedaled the last couple of miles back to Cranbury the Camelbak acted somewhat like an airbag, albeit already inflated. This is not a new concept. Several companies that make motorcycle racing suits have been experimenting with airbags built into their suits for years. Alpinestars and Dainese both sell leathers with airbag systems built in. There is a YouTube video of a test of the Dainese system from 2007.
One more reason to love my Camelbak.
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