High Heels and Saddle Height

A belated Monday Mailboxpost, on account of my wifi having conked out yesterday. Here is a variation of a question I've gotten from several readers this summer:

...I'd like to wear high heeled shoes on my bike, but find it's hard to get the saddle height right. If I adjust the saddle for my heels it is too high when I wear flats, and vice versa. What do you recommend?

The problem here is not so much with the high heels themselves as it is with platform soles. Over the past year platform and wedge style shoes with substantial stack heights have become popular again. And alternating between shoes that are flat, and shoes with a 3cm rise in the sole will make a noticeable difference in leg extension on the bike.



For short distances, this might not matter so much. Some women will adjust their saddle height for flats and then simply ride with it too low when wearing heels and platforms. Others (myself included) find this uncomfortable even for short stretches. And of course for longer distances riding with your saddle too low is simply a bad idea - not only uncomfortable, but bad for the knees.





Aside from the obvious but unhelpful suggestion of picking a heel height and sticking with it, one thing to consider is converting your seatpost to quick release. This should be easy to do on most bikes: You simply purchase a quick release skewer, and install that in place of the seat clamp bolt. I now have QR seatposts on my everyday city bike and on my cargo bike, and they have changed my life. Well, not really. But they have liberated me to wear crazy heels again without worrying about leg extension. In mere seconds I can adjust the saddle to whatever height I want before a ride; problem solved.



Granted, the downside to quick release seatposts is the increased possibility of saddle theft - which means either sticking with an inexpensive saddle on your QR bike, taking the seatpost and saddle with you every time you leave the bike locked up, or using an extra lock to secure the saddle to the bike. The last two are a bother, but still could be worth it for the versatility of footwear the setup affords.



Another possibility is adjusting your saddle height on the go without a QR seatpost. Just carry the appropriate tool with you. Of course this assumes the ability to do it on your own, and a willingness to constantly mess with your saddle height "the hard way." Personally, I kind of enjoy this. But still the quick release is an easier and more reasonable solution.



After several years of wearing mostly flat shoes, I've been getting back to heels and platforms lately and it's been great fun. And being able to adjust my saddle height on the go means my leg extension is always just the way I like it.

The Snowbirds Are Arriving

I've noticed this past week that the park is beginning to really fill in. I joked with Nathan that is must have turned cold everywhere else this past week. While I joked about it, it does tend to work that way. People stay further north until the cold drives them here. We would normally do the same thing. In fact, this is probably the earliest we have arrived in Florida and been able to watch as others trickled in.



The nice part about the park getting fuller, is that there are more pickleball players. I can't play on the mornings I work, and Nathan can't play weekdays. We have tried to play some on our days off.





It has been hot this past week, which means it is hard to play pickleball for very long without being exhausted. So I'm somewhat glad for the excuse of playing in the late afternoon most days. Donna works days, so she has been joining us at night too. Art and Heddy usually join us and they are great fun to play with. Julie joined us when she was here. And today one of my favorite people, Karen, joined us. We have had some great games because of the people that are playing.



Notice the low flying plane in the one picture. I'm not sure why he was flying so low, but I already had my phone out taking pictures so I went ahead and snapped the shot.



Austin and I saw a double rainbow while out and about today, and he tried to capture it with my phone. Can you see it?



Living the life in Sunny and Hot Florida!

Gingerbread House by Austin

Here is Austin's finished product:







Happy Holidays!

Solar Tsunami - Waves in the Sky

From Thursday night's Aurora event, this photo was made at the moment when the Northern lights transitioned from being "so-so" to SPECTACULAR. The colors and movement started on the left side of the frame, and within seconds a line moved very quickly all the way across to the right, then upwards into the sky. Along the bottom edge of the lights was a line of purple and white color, everything above that was green. The bottom edge of the aurora was waving up and down and back and forth. The whole sky was shimmering with waves of light. It is a memory and image that will live in the forefront of my mind for a long time to come!

Rain Clouds

Recently it seems like everytime I look out there are beautiful clouds in the sky. I can't take photos of all of them and this is just a few. The first one shows a curtain of rain as it moves across the desert.

Seminole State Park :: Georgia!

Wednesday March 16, .. - - Because of “Spring Break” I decided to leave Florida. I had looked online and tried to reserve sites at several different State Parks but it seems that just about everything was nearly fully booked. There were sites available for one night at a time in several places but I just didn't think it was worth the hassle to have to move every night!



So, I found this lovely State Park in the southwest corner of Georgia, not far from the Florida and Alabama state lines. Since I was trying to find a place for the night and the next few days through the weekend I gave them a call to make sure they had sites available. Luckily for me, they did.



The campground is on the southside of a lovely lake, which I can see from my campsite, which is quite spacious. You can see your neighbors but they aren't right on top of you as in some places. It is really a very nice place. The temperature today was “unseasonably warm” in the 80s with lots of sunshine. Wonderful after a long, cold winter up north!



A trail winds through the pine forest, follows the boardwalk over the swamp and marsh area then on through the woods for about two and a half miles. The perfect ending to a long day of driving!

Deer Again

Here they are just ready to go over the wall.

Orlingbury - Hardwick - Moonshine Gap - Little Harrowden - Orlingbury

Led by Barry, with Gordon and me. Dry and fine, but muddy underfoot in places. Around 7.5 miles.




Moonshine Gap is a section of the road between Sywell and Wellingborough. We hadn't intended to walk there originally, but once we had, I couldn't resist using the name. A mixture of songs in my head - 'I'm a regular moonshiner, moonshiner am I' competing with 'Cumberland Gap'. The road itself is less poetic, and I couldn't find the origins of the name.



From Rectory Lane in Orlingbury, we headed across The Green, and followed the Northampton Road for a couple of hundred yards to where a footpath went off to the left, heading south. We crossed two fields diagonally, and in the third one went under a row of electricity pylons. Then we followed a hedge (on our right). More fields, and a certain amount of mud, especially around gateways - see the pic below.

One of the worst mud wallows I have had to cross.

We joined a minor road, which took us into the tiny village of Hardwick. After our exertions in the mud, we were easily tempted to use the bench near the church and have an early break.

The church at Hardwick, and a welcome seat for an early break.

We left Hardwick after the Manor House, taking a footpath southwest, then south until we reached the minor road from Sywell to Wellingborough, and the section called Moonshine Gap.We followed the road, past Cheesecake Spinney (no, really), and at Appleby Gate, we left the road for a footpath leading straight ahead (northeast), and past the sports ground.

Past the sports ground just after 'Moonshine Gap'

The path crossed the Hardwick Road, and continued in this direction as far as the B574, just outside Gt Harrowden.

This looks more like pretty countryside - a pleasant change from overgrown crops!

we crossed the road, and walked northwest to Little Harrowden, crossing a footbridge over a stream. In Little Harrowden the path crosses the road again, and goes past the primary school. It continues northwest, downhill , over a stream and gradually climbs back into Orlingbury.

Dovecote in Orlingbury

A doorway for hobbits?

Alas, poor dragonfly.

Jug Balloon

A reminder on crampon fitting....

Just got in two new pairs of boots as I get ready to go to Canada for 10 days of testing,photos and climbing.



I'll take 5 pairs of boots and 5 different crampons to climb in this trip as I attempt to see where I am at physically and mentally.



As I spend the evening fitting crampons this commentcomes to mind,



"Precision crampon technique is impossible without a proper (perfect) fit of boot to crampon."

Jeff Lowe from the WATERFALL ICE video, 2005.









In other words, if your crampons won't stay on the boots first, without latching the binding, likely the crampon doesn't really fit your boot.






Finally some one gets (again) how it is suppose to be. No tricks just a perfect friction fit.

Petzl Lynx on a Scarpa Phantom Ultra and no back binding.

Fixed Gear Mercian, Freed and Re-Tyred

I've had a Mercian Vincitore since last Fall, riding it as a fixed gear fitted with 28mm Panaracer Pasela tires. Those tires are not known for their raciness, but honestly that suited me just fine, since my fixed gear riding style is best described as "pottering about." Still, eventually I got curious what this machine was capable of if fitted with faster road tires. I also wanted to feel what the bike was like to ride non-fixed. Now the Mercian sports 26mm Grand Bois Cerf tires and has temporarily been turned into a freewheel single speed.






The bike rides better than ever. The tires have a lighter feel to them and the ride quality - which I didn't think needed improving at all - is nonetheless improved. I should note that right now I have an old cheap flip-flop hub wheelset installed and not the nice Phil Wood wheelset we originally built it up with. This does not seem to make any difference. The bike feels as if I am riding on narrow balloon tires, with the speed and maneuverability of a fast roadbike.






"Freeing" the drivetrain changed the feel of the bike in several ways. It made me more aware of how responsive it is to pedaling efforts.It made me want to alter my positioning - namely to move the saddle back a bit and lower the handlebars. It also made me wish the bike had gears! I didn't miss them at all in fixed gear mode, but now the bike seems to "want" them. It's probably just because I have never ridden a non-fixed single speed roadbike before. It will be interesting to experience it this way for a bit. After that I will change it back to fixed.






I will also be making some component changes in the coming year. The gearing has been lowered twice already and it's clear that it needs to be even lower to suit my pedaling style. The Campagnolo crankset makes that impossible, since the smallest available ring is 49t. I will replace the drivetrain with something that will afford a categorically lower gear. Also, now that the bike is no longer fixed, I realise that the (Veloce) brake calipers aren't just "a bit weak" as I thought before, but simply do not work here; I must have been compensating with my feet more than I realised. We will try replacing the brake pads, but I doubt that will make enough of a difference. A better solution seems to get a set of plain ol' Tektro medium reach calipers. The initial build was based on the parts that were available to me at the time more than anything, but I like to spin fast and I like brakes that work well, so the components will have to change.






I've enjoyed riding this bike tremendously over the past year and think it was the right choice for me for a fixed gear bike. I like the versatility and can see myself putting fenders and a rack on it in some distant future. In the nearer future, I am curious how a radically lowered gearing will affect my experience of the bike, in particular when I use it for recovery rides. I think it's the right way to go.

Eye to Eye With Nature

As I was editing more pictures of us feeding the elk, I noticed how often we were making eye contact with the animals. I thought to myself that this is probably part of why it touched us so much to interact with them. There is just something so profound about looking animals in the eye and having them return the favor.

Peach Tree

With the weight of peachs and some wind the top of the tree broke. We proped it up with sawhorses and boards. But then the birds started eating on the peaches and the apples. We tried hanging plastic bags in the trees thinking the moving bag would scare off the birds. NOT. They are still taking a good peck out of each one. How do the people that grow them for market keep the birds out. Oh but our little bags look like cute little ghosts in the trees after dark.