March 05, 2015

The Pedalshift Project 015: Gearing for dummies and critter protection

33 minutes

Breaking news in the bike touring world... no really, there was breaking news... learning to protect your food from raccoons and other critters, a brief overview on gearing ratios and how to make your bike more (or less) climby, plus catching up on a backlog of connections with listeners like you!

Reach out to the show via email, Facebook, Twitter or even Instagram. Yeah, I'm calling you out again Instagram. Don't forget to join the newsletter too.

Followup

Good news for C+O tours for the near future - the NPS will almost assuredly NOT be charging for camping anytime soon FOTS @simpletouring will be happy to hear that! Read more from WABA.

Maybe good news on roll-aboard service on all Amtrak trains? The Lipinski Amendment passed today in the House and would standardize roll-on service for bicycles on rail. Read more from League of American Bicyclists.

The Journal

Updating the Lake Ontario tour

Bell Canada and their 30-day pass for tablets

The Lab

Protecting your food from critters

Panniers in tent (fail)

Panniers and smell proof bags

Use bear boxes at campsites when they're available!

How to elevate your bags "PCT style"

Gear Talk

Hope you got a chance to read part 1, part 2, and part 3 of my favorite touring bikes series. If not, check 'em out!

Use this calculator and compare what you have with a swapped out crankset or cassette. I like using gear inches.

The higher the gear inches the “higher” the gear (i.e. the biggest chainring on the smallest cassette gear means you’re at your fastest, harder to pedal into, for speed on flats gear)

The lower the “lower” the gear (i.e. your smallest chainring on the biggest cassette gear is your climbing or granny gear)

Learn more from this very smart math guy:

Connections

The United Nations delegation checks in: Hugo is at cyclelover.net.

FOTS Johnny K - all over the 3 part series on touring bikes

New listener Tony from MD: read Jesse’s CGOAB journal and did the TransAm back in ’91… looking to do the C+O with his family

New listener Eric Iverson: Binge-listening to @pedalshift eps 1-007 while on @Amtrak staring at my @BromptonBicycle wondering where to take it next.

FOTS Scott Morgan liked the 90s era Bill O’Reilly DOING IT LIVE!

FOTS Tony (from NY) shared an article When President’s Day was Bicycle Day from The Atlantic about the commercialization of Pres Day in the States and how that meant bikes back in the day rather than autos today.

Music

The Pedalshift Project theme is America courtesy of Jason Kent off his self-titled solo album. Check out his band Sunfields' new release, Habitat, wherever cool music resides. And hey, new video for Ghost!

...more

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By Tim Mooney

4.7

177177 ratings