Terry Peloton

Tag: women’s cycling

  • HEADING FOR THE HILLS.

     

    I have always preferred the certainty of road riding to mountain- relatively well paved roads, intuitive turns with an occasional pothole or cow pie as the only obstacles to a meditative ride.

    Trying my luck on the Cliffs of Insanity.
    Trying my luck on the Cliffs of Insanity.

    However, with insane winds getting in the way of a couple of long bike days I decided to dust off Wednesday, my beloved Surly Pugsley, and head for the hills.

    Fortunately, in Burlington we have some incredible mountain trails for all skill levels within our reach. My choice? Catamount Outdoor Family Center. They have over 20 miles of trails and also offer trail running, cross country skiing and winter fat biking access during cooler months.

    After about two hours I was sweaty, covered in mud, and totally in love with the trails.
    After about two hours I was sweaty, covered in mud, and totally in love with the trails.

    Within ten minutes of going on the green route, I B-lined towards tougher trails. Now–you have to laugh with me while watching the video below. I thought I was shredding some seriously technical routes and watching it after it looks like a dirt filled sidewalk–albeit a VERY fun dirt sidewalk.

     

     

     

     

     

  • GEAR GUIDE: BIKING TO WORK

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    Getting geared up for Bike to work week? Don’t forget these top 10 items for your ride. From an athletic friendly work top to bike cages and lights, these gadgets will make your commute the best part of your day.

    Click on the slide to find out more about any of these items. Also, if there is anything that you cannot commute without, let us know in the comment section below!

    Wishing you happy trails and a beautiful Bike Month,

    Whitney McKiddy

  • SPRING CLASSIC: THE MUDDY ONION.

    It’s officially mud season in Vermont – an incredibly fitting name for this dreary phenomenon. With bare trees and sloppy, frigid mud covering every surface imaginable, one bike ride stands as a beaming ray of joy, inviting riders to revel in this unlikely cycling paradise. That ride is the Muddy Onion hosted by Onion River Sports in Montpelier, VT.

    Over 200 riders lined up to grind 34 miles of gravel roads around Vermont's capitol of Montpelier.
    Over 200 riders lined up to grind 34 miles of gravel roads around Montpelier, VT. Photo credit: Bill Merrylees

    Terry Graphic Designer, Erika Boyce, joined in the action for the third year in a row saying, “this is my favorite ride to kick my butt into shape”. This year, her goal was to ride all of the hills (this course happens to be one giant gravel hill with over 4500′ of elevation gain) and she succeeded!

    Erika is all smiles at the first rest stop after enjoying some pickles and chocolate dipped bacon.
    Erika (right) is all smiles at the first rest stop after enjoying some pickles and chocolate dipped bacon.

    One often imagines the picturesque hillsides of Vermont covered in golden leaves and happy dairy cows, but even when those hillsides are brown and covered in mud, this is a pretty great place to grab your bike and embrace the joy of gravel.

    A typical April day in Vermont-- 40 degrees, no leaves and plenty of cows!
    A typical April day in Vermont– 40 degrees, no leaves and plenty of cows! Photo credit: Bill Merrylees

    If you’d like to join us in getting muddy next year, visit www.onionriver.com/muddy-onion/ for more details!

    Tailwinds,

    Whitney McKiddy

  • SPRING FIT CHICK PICKS.

    My Spring Picks for Terry Bicycles Gear.

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    The ultimate spring commuter ensemble: Urban Hoodie, a thermal base layer and Metro Skort.

    This is Brooklyn Fit Chick and I am a Terry Brand Ambassador who loves to spend as much time on my bike as possible. Now, being based in Brooklyn means that my winters are pretty darn harsh and this one in particular has made me yearn so much for the open road once again. (Too much snow! I am serious—my bike is literally gathering dust in my apartment…)

    However, you know what they say “March—it comes in like a lion and out like a lamb” so when the spring “lamb” weather comes back I am planning on taking these Terry items with me:

    Terry Urban Hoodie

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    The Urban Hoodie from Terry achieves that cool balance of being close fitting and flattering (which is always my conundrum). It fights the wind and water and also has front pockets to keep your emergency lip gloss and hankie (that’s what I always need them for!) Plus—there is a reflective stripe in the back and a fabulous hood to keep your head warm and protect the hairdo. LOVE.

    Metro Skort

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    OMG—this skort is the cutest thing in the world! It comes in black and olive and includes a universal liner that is padded that you can also wear under just about any of your clothes. The skort itself has a v-shaped elastic gusset which means it will be more comfortable when you ride and won’t bunch up in the seat. Definitely the item I plan to wear when I’m just riding around on a weekend afternoon. Score!

    That’s all from me this month. I will be back in a few weeks to talk about more of my favorite gear from Terry Bikes. Thank you so much for your time and be sure to follow me on twitter @BrooklynFitChik (note the spelling!)

    Until next month…

    Brooklyn Fit Chick

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  • TERRY AROUND THE WORLD.

    Meet Mary Bowker. She is 5 months and 4000 miles into an extended world bike tour, starting in her hometown of Bend, Oregon. Her next destination is Turkey to ride the Silk Road to China and she plans to do it all in our Terry Touring Shorts. If her pictures don’t give you wanderlust, we don’t know what will!

    Hoping this is the top, third time crossing the trans-mexican volcanic belt.
    Mary’s third time crossing the Transvolcanic Belt in Mexico.
    Downhill to Tuxtepec!
    It’s all downhill to Tuxtepec in Oaxaca, Mexico!

     

    You can follow her on her journey here: www.freetwowheel.com

     

  • A TWO-WHEELED TALE OF DC.

    Exploring our nation’s Capitol by bike.IMG_2370

    DC is, in my opinion, America’s best biking city; with great downtown lanes and Capitol Bike Share, all to take you on a self-guided tour of the monuments and other sites. It also links together a great variety of well maintained bike trails that take you into the suburbs and beyond into horse country.

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    The Mt. Vernon trail runs between the river and Memorial Parkway, right past Reagan National Airport (you can practically reach out and touch the airplanes at the gate from the trail skyway) and is a great ride into DC from National Harbor or Alexandria. The P Street Bridge which crosses over the river to the Jefferson Memorial connects with many great bike lanes that take you into the heart of DC. Ten minutes further north you can cross over the Key Bridge from Georgetown to the Lincoln Memorial.

     

    Did I say spring was LATE this year? Good thing they plow and salt the commuter trails!

     

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    You can ride a century round trip on the Washington and Old Dominion Trail. I rode a half century out to Herndon, through Arlington, Falls Church, Vienna and Reston. The Capitol Crescent Trail is a really scenic route that takes you along the upper Potomac and into Bethesda and Chevy Chase. The Curtis Trail links from the Washington and Old Dominion Trail into Arlington.

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    With the convenience of intercity bike lanes and the option for some serious miles, DC has everything a two-wheeled traveler is looking for. Do you agree? What’s your favorite city to bike in?

    Until next time,

    Tailwinds!

    Elisabeth Robert

  • Ride2Recovery is Our October RIF Winner

    Verna Bell submitted the story of her daughter, Sara, who volunteers for Ride2Recovery. We couldn’t think of a more deserving cause and we’re thrilled to present a Symmetry bicycle to Verna and a Susan B. bicycle to Ride2Recovery. Here’s Verna’s entry:

    Ride2Recovery is a not-for-profit organization that promotes rehab for those heroes who have been injured while serving our country. This group helps all wounded veterans and features cycling as the core recovery activity. My inspiration for supporting this cause is in part to my daughter, Sara’s, participation and involvement in R2R. She rides along and assists riders that need help. R2R provides bikes, lodging, meals and transportation to those veterans who want to participate. Much effort and creativity goes into the preparation of the bikes for those who are missing arms and legs or both, so they can participate.

  • The New Rider: I Love Cycling!

    Cycling in Vermont
    Riding in Northern Vermont is so beautiful!

    I have come to love cycling. Really! I am not just saying that because I work at Terry Bicycles. My husband and I have gone out on some really great rides together. It’s something that we can do together on our days off or when we find the time. He is new to cycling as well, so it’s a no-judgement type of thing that we can share while we get better at it and improve our overall health.

    Cycling is good for my brain in so many ways. When I was younger I was an Equestrian (Dressage specifically), so I was very fit and active riding every day. Making a large animal do movements that don’t necessarily come easily to them is a challenge, but it’s a challenge that I loved. I really miss riding horses and now that I don’t have much time and have a family it has become more difficult to find time for myself. Cycling has gotten me back into the mindset of achieving personal goals. I really love Dressage because it suits my perfectionist personality. I found while riding yesterday that cycling gives me that same feeling of accomplishment that I got from Dressage. There are certain tweaks I was making while riding and seeing immediate results. My mph speed yesterday was quite good for me and I felt great after the ride. I wasn’t sore and I felt that my position was good. All of your suggestions about sitting back in the saddle when going up hills and staying out of my drops when I get wobbly helped so much. I felt like you all were there in my head while I was riding. It’s great to feel such a connection to the cycling community already! Thank you so much for your support.

    I am almost ready to try clipping into some pedals!

  • Hey Mister, your tires need air!

    I make rubbings of tire sidewalls and I like to doodle — hence this very stylized tracing of the Schwalbe Durano tire used on my Valkyrie Tour. You can see from this that the maximum recommended inflation pressure for this tire is 115 psi and the minimum is 85 psi.

    Do you think it’s always easiest to pedal your bicycle when the tires are pumped up to the maximum inflation pressure? That’s not necessarily correct. What?!? Well, unless you’re riding on a road as smooth as glass or you weigh quite a bit, a lower pressure might actually make you a faster rider.

    There’s a “magic land” somewhere between tires that are so hard that they jump all over the road and tires that are soft and deform too much, losing the ability to “push back” on the road, helping move the bicycle forward. The idea behind the perfect pressure is that the tire is allowed to become a shock absorber — sucking up the irregularities of the road before they get to the rider and tire her out. A recent article in Bicycle Quarterly estimated that even on smooth roads, you exert 10% of your power just overcoming these “suspension losses”.

    So what’s the optimum pressure? Well, some use the 15% “tire drop” formula. Very simply, the height of the tire is measured without the rider on the bike. With the rider on the bike, the tire pressure is reduced until the height drops by 15%. Voila! Uh, except for the fact that you really do want to stay within the recommended max and min pressures and this might not be possible… unless you want to play around with tires of varying widths.

    Vittoria Tires has another method that relies on rider “feel”. Using a chart, the rider starts with the recommended inflation pressure and then reduces it by 5 psi at a time until the tire “wallows”. This is the least amount of pressure for this rider. Next, the rider increases the pressure by 5psi until the bike bounces. This is the maximum pressure for this rider. Back down we go, 5 psi at a time until things feel just right.

    The long and short of it is that rarely does the maximum tire pressure provide the best ride. It may sound really fast, as you go humming down the road, but the power meter will show that it’s usually not as efficient as a lower tire pressure.

    “Hey Mister. Your tires need some air.” That’s what someone standing by the side of the road might have said to cyclist Jan Heine. Indeed, Jan was running low pressures in these 41mm tires during a tour of gravel roads in the Cascades. The result was an efficient but comfortable ride. Looks can be deceiving.

    So — go forth and let some air out of your tires!

    Tailwinds,

    Georgena

    Sources:

    http://www.vittoria.com/tech/recom-tyre-pressure/

    PSI RX by Jan Heine, Adventure Cyclist, March 2009, pp 34 – 35.

    Comfort Equals Speed by Jan Heine and Mark Vande Kamp, Bicycle Quarterly, Autumn 2009

  • Amy Petty’s Inspiring Story

    Those of you who follow Terry know we recently instituted “Ride It Forward”, an opportunity to reward a woman who encourages other women to ride through her own inspiring story.  Our very first, and very deserving winner of a Terry Symmetry bicycle is Amy Petty.  She was nominated by her friend, Laura Holt.  I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to Amy and I can’t say enough great things about her. Read Laura’s story about Amy and you’ll understand why:

    This is someone I am very lucky to call a friend, Amy Petty. I met her last year on a group bike ride in Oklahoma City. I fell in behind her and immediately could tell that she once had considerable weight, judging from the excess skin on her legs and arms. I didn’t know her name yet, but I was curious. I ended up speaking to another woman that night, who is one of Amy’s coworkers. I found out she is a survivor of the Oklahoma City Bombing.

    I was even more curious after that, thinking perhaps she had gained weight after the fact from depression or being bedridden from an injury. The next week during the group ride I made some small talk, which didn’t last long, before we hit 5 miles she was trying to convince me to do a charity ride the next weekend and join her for her first triathlon… in 3 weeks. “I can’t swim either, I just started lessons this week.” She said. By the end of the month, I learned she was 350 pounds when she was buried for over 6 hours, her leg pinned beneath 10 feet of rubble. The remarkable scar on her leg makes it unbelievable she has no permanent injury. She speaks publicly every month, many times, about being a survivor.

    This last month her hour-long speech was delivered from a stationary bike. An idea she was so excited about she couldn’t contain herself. I found myself joining spin classes in December for her prep. It was all she talked about, she would speak about taking on life challenges like a hill climb and she hoped people would be inspired by her love of the bike. While over all nutrition and fitness has made a difference in her physical appearance. The bike has given her such joy. It has been a great source of happiness for her and she strives to share that gift with others. She recently invited an overweight woman to join a group ride.

    Amy’s joy was contagious; I’ve seen this new woman on two more group rides grinning ear to ear. Amy has an awesome story. She biked across the state, she completed two sprint triathlons, a half marathon, and she bikes to work daily during the spring, summer and fall. She advocates for cyclists, having a close relationship some state government officials, most recently involving a very important bike route bridge that is being resurfaced. If there was ever a woman worthy of recognition for her efforts in cycling, you couldn’t find a better candidate than Amy Petty.

    Congratulations, Amy, from all of us at Terry!

    Tailwinds,

    Georgena