The Rain Bike: Frames and brakes and Happy Thanksgiving!

When winter falls on the northern half of the Earth, Rain Bike is there, saving you (sometimes) from multi-hour trainer sessions.

In this continuing post, we’ll cover some questions of frame choice and expand on some of the comfort/safety options we covered last time. Let's look first at frame types and their relative advantages.

Road-style frames end up being the most common choice. One huge advantage of using an old road frame is that you might already own one or, if you don’t, you can usually find someone trying to sell one for cheap. Older road frames also often accept fenders and wide tires more easily than new frames because their forks are made of aluminum or steel. Aluminum and steel forks are usually built with more tire clearance, especially in the upward direction. That means an easier installation with less cutting and bolting of fender pieces and less potential rubbing of fender and tire, even when the tire is on the wide side. Lots of road frames, however, do not have eyelets for mounting fenders, so we end up using a few extra parts anyway.

Among road-style frames, I find the most attractive option is the disc brake-compatible road frame. More companies are making these now (the one I particularly remember, because our rep brought several to show us, is the Orbea Avant), so they're available in a wide range of frame material and component options. Disc brakes are awesome in wet weather because the pads last longer than rim brake pads, they don't wear out your rims, and they grip well even when the brakes are wet. I'm a disc brake fan.

Cyclocross frames make great rain bikes. They fit and handle a lot like road bikes, but they're built to ride around in the rain and sand and really sticky mud. They have loads of tire clearance and they're built to take a beating, which is a plus with any rain bike. There are lots of metal options for cyclocross frames, both aluminum and steel, and some manufacturers are building carbon frames. More companies are offering disc brake options on their cyclocross bikes, too. Of the bikes we sell, the aluminum F65X by Felt and the steel Soma Double Cross (also available as a non-disc brake frame) have been the most popular rain bike conversions.

Touring bikes are another option. They're built more heavily than road bikes and tri bikes, and they don't handle the same, but they take fenders easily and often have a road-like fit. If you're looking for a rain/commuting combination bike, a touring frame is probably your best bet, with mounts for everything from water bottles to racks and pumps. Another advantage for Seattle commuters: touring frames usually ride more smoothly than comparable road frames.

Since I have the Soma page up, here's the Grand Randonneur as an example of a touring frame. Notice all the eyelets and water bottle bosses. I commute on a Raleigh touring frame myself. It's heavier than I'm comfortable with for long training rides, but I'm never worried about taking it out in the wettest and grimiest conditions.

Lights and such.

On a different topic, there are a lot of different bike lights to choose from. When you're choosing lights, you're weighing the price of lights and their brightness, with price and brightness generally increasing together. I think most people (like me) do their winter riding between dawn and dusk, or ride on somewhat-lit streets at night, so we do just fine with some version of the blinking front and rear lights.

I use the Thunderbolt Headlight and the Seatstay Taillight, both by Serfas. These two lights fall above what I would call "The Threshold of Safety" for a blinky light, which pretty much means that on a dark night, on an unlit street, a driver can see me against oncoming headlights, even through the rain that's gushing down the windshield. It takes a pretty punchy light to meet that threshold, but there are plenty that do. For the dawn-to-dusk and lit-street riding that I do, my lights are plenty. I wouldn't go for a training ride down a dark country road with them, though.

For people who do ride down dark country roads, there are brighter lights. They can cost a lot more, sometimes on the order of a few hundred dollars, but trying to ride at speed with poor front lighting
is....kind of like betting against the house in Vegas. It's a gamble you can't win forever. So I'd splurge on the lights if you're going to be training in the dark.

Okay, we're out of time for the week. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

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The Rain Bike: Sacrifice

This is another post oriented toward Seattle-area triathletes looking to train outside through the winter for the first time. Specifically, it addresses the Rain Bike. 

Rain bikes are sacrificial bikes. When Winter starts throwing the rough stuff, a rain bike lets you do even long training rides outside without thrashing your nice equipment. If you have an early season race like Galveston or Coeur d’Alene, it’s another way to get off the trainer on wet-pavement weekends.

This year, we had a good run of fair weather through mid-autumn, but we’re still left with a stretch of dim, drizzly months before the turn of the seasons brings regular sunshine. Our winter weather isn’t always predictable, except in that general “it’s going to rain some time”, but it is predictably rough on bicycle parts. From your bike’s viewpoint, wet weather is trouble because everything sticks. Even when it’s not actively raining, wet road dirt gets thrown all over the drivetrain, wearing out your chain, cranks and cassette, and sand sticks in the brake pads, scraping your rims hollow. That’s where the sacrifice part comes in. With your rain bike, you get outside and the nice bike stays home.

It doesn’t take much to make a rain bike. The only real requirement is that you have to be okay with this bike getting wet, dirty, covered in sand and flung worms, and you have to be okay with parts getting obnoxiously worn out. You can take any old bicycle, ride it as is, and as long as it’s saving wear and tear on your other bicycle, it’s a legitimate rain bike. Nothing else needed. Technically. 

However…

When it comes to outdoor winter bike training, there are some things I’ve found to be Very Convenient (and I think other people would agree), and some things I’ve found to be Absolutely Vital (and I think other people would agree here, too). I’ve listed these items below with some notes about each.

Item 1: Fenders

I rode in the rain for a while without fenders. Then I bought fenders and saw how foolish I had been. I use a set of Tanaka hammered aluminum fenders because I got tired of my plastic fenders wearing out and breaking. Also, metal fenders look classy. Keep in mind that if you install fenders on a rain bike, you probably won’t be removing them on purpose. 

Portland Design Works makes a lovely, though not cheap, aluminum fender set that fits road bikes with 700x23 tires. Tanaka, Velo Orange and Honjo have aluminum sets for wider tires and some different wheel sizes.

SKS and Planet Bike make plastic fenders in a variety of sizes. You can get some pretty cheap plastic splash boards, but a full fender will block a lot more spray. 

Item 2: Mud Flaps 

These are a soft extension of your fenders. The rear flap is to protect friends behind you; the front flap protects your feet from front wheel spray. I don’t ride in the rain much with other people, so I just have a wide front flap. Just like with the fenders, I rode without a mud flap for a while, then put the thing on and said, “How foolish I’ve been.” Most of these are pretty cheap and easy to install.

Item 3: Lights

 

The cost for lights depends on how powerful you need them to be. The common blinky light, front or rear, doesn’t cost much, but a headlight that you can see with on a dark road can cost quite a bit. I limit any long riding to daylight and evening hours, so I have a decently bright Serfas headlight to be seen by, but it wouldn’t be enough for nighttime training rides. 

Lights, by the way, classify as Absolutely Vital for me. Even if I think I’ll make it home while it’s bright out, I take lights, because it never pays to be the Bike Ninja. 

Item 4: Tires

 

Ridden at a somewhat lower pressure, wider tires will give better traction. And traction is key. A lot of road bikes will take up to a 28mm wide tire. Most will take a 25mm. It’s usually more comfortable to ride wider tires around Seattle roads anyway, but even outside the city, more grip means more security when turning and braking downhill.

In Part 2 of this post, we’ll continue the rain bike theme, and I’ll also go over some frame choices for rain bikes.

The Sound in Winter - Cold Water Swimming

Written By: Gregory Wolfe

This is a post for anyone curious about swimming in cold water, especially swimming open water through the winter in Seattle. I’m not going to touch much on swimming safety in this post, so I’ll just preface everything here with: Please swim safely. Swim with buddies, be visible and remember to bring warm clothing to wear after you swim.

The winter swims that I’ve done have all been in Puget Sound, either at Alki, Golden Gardens or Richmond Beach. I swam with a wetsuit, goggles and a silicone cap. Of the swimmers I went with, some were skin-swimming, some were bundled up like me. Water temperatures were between 54 degrees and 49 degrees, if I recall correctly. So those swims are the basis of the impressions I’ll relate here.

Cold water swimming is a lot like swimming in warmer water. Most of the things I think about are the same. I think about my swimming form. I think about work. I think about the sand and the fish. All the normal stuff. But on top of that, there’s this time limit that I’m always aware of – the core temperature time limit.

In warmer water, I can swim for as long as I have the heart to stay in, or until I need a drink, or until I need to go to work. In cold water, after a certain point I’m not generating enough heat to keep my body temperature up. If I’ve eaten something beforehand I can stay out longer. If I’m eating during the swim, I can stay out even longer, but there will still be a moment when I feel my chest and belly starting to chill. Then I know that I either have to start working a lot harder or I have to get out. It’s one extra thing that hovers in my head while I’m swimming, constantly checking myself and saying, “I’m still fine…still fine…still fine.”

The goal is to stay lucid, to get out of the water with all brain cells in working order and go get coffee. I don’t think it’s hard to make that happen, but I do think that when things start going wrong, they get worse quickly. That’s why I’m always checking in with myself. 

I was surprised how quickly it got easier to stay in the water. Very pleasantly surprised. Each time I went out, even though the water was getting colder every week, it took less time to get into a swimming groove and I could stay out longer. My hands stopped freezing into “the claw” after a couple weeks, and when I concentrated, I could keep my lips closed underwater. The two things that didn’t get easier were getting into the water and warming myself up after getting out. The first minute was always a bitter minute, and after getting out of the water, it always took me a while to warm up again. I don’t think there’s much to do about getting in. It will always be a character builder, and the faster I was in the water, the better I felt. But a little bit of planning can make warming up afterward a lot more pleasant. 

After swimming, my hands would be stiff and cold, the skin on my arms and stomach would be cool to the touch. I’d put on a sweatshirt, jacket, pants and gloves. The best advice I can give on post-cold-water-swim clothing is: make sure it’s easy to put on. If you’re trying to put on a tight pullover sweater, it might take five minutes to work your hands through the sleeves because your fingers are numb and keep getting stuck in the fabric. Zip-up sweaters are great. Hats or hoods are awesome. Have something warm to drink near at hand, too. Swimming at Alki, we could walk to the coffee shop across the street. When you’re warming up, remember that you’ve been using up your most available energy while you swam. At the same time, you’ve been cooling your body temperature. So give your body something to work with while it’s trying to warm up, a little warmth, a little energy.

Also, I’m pretty sure driving right after cold water swimming is a lot like driving drunk, so maybe hop out of the water and start warming up twenty minutes or so before you have to go anywhere. It’s a really good excuse for sitting around and drinking coffee with people you like. 

As a final note, I did find swimming in the Sound to be some of the most interesting swimming I’ve done. There’s the current that you get to fight in one direction and race with in the other direction. The waves are larger and more regular than lake waves. The water was much clearer in the Sound in winter than, say, Lake Washington water.

Lots of thanks to Randy, Guila, Laura, Leonore and Sam for getting me in the water.