Author Archives: ombrandt

Taking the boys out on a ride

Posted on by
476

Well, since the boys aren’t allowed on the computers (including xbox) before 12:00 I get to take them out on bike rides!
Today was Järva with kids (or as I like to call it ~1 hour of whining)


The route we took, from home past the motorcross place, over the forest to naturskolan, then up to säbysjön, översjön and down by IKEA and home

20130624_103233 20130624_103256
Viljami racing ahead, Mathias coming after, this was basically where we started 🙂

20130624_103742 20130624_103732
Mathias going “no hands” and Viljami taking the opportunity to race past him..

20130624_104237 20130624_104233
The boys leading the bikes up the hill before our first and only “real” forest track, around 2.5 km in to the ride on the map (this was the most fun part, downhill, a little turns and stuff.

20130624_10551520130624_105539
A quick break, for photos and resting, but mostly photos, we didn’t stop for more then 5 min, the ants got annoying after that.

From here it was gravel roads home, lets see how tired the kids will be tonight!

(I went for another 30 km ride to meet my Wife in central Stockholm after this)

Summer vaccation, cross tires on again!

Posted on by
79

Last night I swapped my touring tires for a pair of Conti CX Race tires and today it was time to go out and explore some forest paths in Järva!


I’ll start by adding a map, I went from home and up by the arch saying Hansta skogen/naturreservat or something and followed the paths around there (orange triangle I think)

Well I got my first “stop”
20130623_155052 20130623_155747
Some random tree in the roads, no biggie, just jump of and keep going on the other side! and me somewhere close to Bögs gård I think
20130623_161203 20130623_163522
Had to go over a field with some cows, thankfully they where a little to the side, on the right side is me at one of my “dead” ends.

20130623_165130 20130623_165615
Somewhere around 18 km’s I got to what looked like a prepared skiing place, nice packed gravel and lots of hills up and down, eventually got off it and ended in the forest again, with more fallen trees!

20130623_171504
Finally the last little hill before I was home!

All in all a fun day, I found lots of single tracks, some wide forest paths, alot of dirt roads, some horse roads and the skiing thing, not bad, but I consider it a lesson learned, I know why people enjoy the dampeners on bikes, it got bumpy!

 

 

Bike still on service, Garmin in the house.

Posted on by
141

I ordered my Garmin Edge 800 bundle last week and it came yesterday, nifty little thing by the look of it, but I haven’t been able to test it yet due to my bike being in for a little service.

So about that, service thing, I’we had the bike for two months or so now, and I noticed the wheels being untrue, some squeaky noises from the hub areas back and forth and my derailleurs are a little off, time for service.

The closest place to me is Sportson, so I went there to have them give it a full service (roughly 700 SEK).
The service should include fixing my untrue wheels, checking all the bearings, adjusting brakes and gears.
That’s what it says on the homepage of Sportson atleast..
sportson
http://sportson.se/newsite/?sectionid=butiker&contentid=verkstad&catid=stockholmbarkarby

Well, that seems to be untrue, just like my wheel (if I should believe the sales person at least).
Turns out that the part about truing the wheel in this service is a “simple tightening of spokes” and I would have to pay another 250-500 SEK to fix both wheels if they need a proper truing, I’m not sure how to deal with it, but I’ll at least question them about it when I go to pick up the bike, and probably do a proper walk trough with the mechanic to see what they’we done during the service.

Anyhow, here is some pictures of my gps (and the rather large box it came in (the box the box with the gps was in..

IMG_9545 IMG_9525
Child’s hand and baby for scale!

June halfway-ish report and a “blast from the past”

Posted on by
86

It’s been two weeks of June biking, and some tired legs, a cold and probably some other excuses I cant think of now aside, the amount of kilometers I’we managed has been at a low.
318.6 km in two weeks to be exact, that’s just a little more then I did in one week during may.

That aside, today I took a different route to work, through Kista and then over to Haga, and Vallhallavägen towards work.

Also, I kinda ordered a bike gps, the Garmin Edge 800 CAD/HR bundle, on sale at elgiganten!

Burley Encore kid carrier

Posted on by
52

Sales, sales, sales…
We where just going to get the “cheaper” Burley Honeybee but ended up with the 500 crown more expensive Encore.

Well today was the first day of quick testing, Siiri being the test subject:

IMG_9460 IMG_9451

 

IMG_9466 IMG_9462

 

Success, at least when you look at the happy face, but I gotta say it felt easy to pull around, even with my tired legs from yesterday.
The only downside, it doesn’t really fit on my bike, I need to get a adapter for the quick release on the back wheel, right now it’s just washers and it’s not “safe”.

 

Saturday biking with Leffe

Posted on by
43

What a day!
Started out from home around 11:45 and went to Barkarby to meet Leffe, from there we rode to Kungsängen, Bro, Sigtuna, Märsta, Sollentuna(Hägvik) and back to Barkarby.

It’s been sunshine, warm and not to windy, perfect biking weather 🙂
Had a pause in Sigtuna for some refueling (burgers and fries) and a coffee break once we where back in Barkarby.

CIMG3434CIMG3411
Two selfies of me riding in the warm weather

CIMG3437CIMG3433
My shadow to the left, Leffe to the right


Here is a Google map for the ride, decent distance for our first long trip of the year (our first   long trip at all really, the last one was a bit over 40 km)

More information from the trip can be found on my runkeeper page: http://runkeeper.com/user/ombirons/activity/191909499

Now lets see how our legs will feel come Monday and regular commuting again 😀

May is over..

Posted on by
52

… At least the biking month of May.

It’s been a long and pretty tiresome affair, never before biked as much as this month, probably wont bike this much until after summer again either, probably…

Here’s some numbers from the last week:

Shortest commute to work and home: 57.7 km
Longest  commute to work and home: 63.1 km
Average commute to work and home: 59,8 km
Total distance commuted this week: 299 km

Some records this month to:

Distance
1,209.4 km
Month of May 2013		 Duration
49:53:47
Month of May 2013
Calories Burned
48,957
Month of May 2013
 Average Speed
24.5 km/h
Month of May 2013
Elevation Climb
14,718 m
Month of May 2013

Activities
43
Month of May 2013

Well that’s about it, or well there is the need for a new back tire, the Continental Cyclocross Race don’t like 1200 km of gravel and asphalt with a big fatty on the bike 🙁
Thinking about maybe going over to 32 mm Schwalbe Marathon touring tires…

Enjoy your weekend!

Week two of my 50 km a day challenge.

Posted on by
55

And soon heading for the last week of May!
Been tired this week, last week I might have pushed a little to hard, guess I’m paying for that now, anyway, it’s Friday!
So this week in few words: Tired, rain, tired, punctures.

And now for some number:

Shortest commute to work and home: 52.1 km
Longest  commute to work and home: 68.2 km
Average commute to work and home: 55,8 km
Total distance commuted this week: 279,2 km

We’ll see what next week brings, I’m aiming for the same distance or more then too.

Week of May 12th summary

Posted on by
29

It’s Friday, I just got home from work, which means this weeks biking is done!
Today I went alone to work, it was a pain, my legs are showing signs of total failure (in the whole sense that they are sore, numb and they really don’t want to pedal).

Anyway, I got company on the way home with my co-worker Rikard, A nice extra round, the legs got some extra energy at least (competitive much,not me!)

friday_home_17thmay
The ride home with Rikard, the pauses are when I was waiting to meet up and while we chatted before riding our separate ways.

So, some “fun” numbers from this week:
Shortest commute to work and home: 51.7 km
Longest  commute to work and home: 68.8 km
Average commute to work and home: 57,9 km

All in all I’m happy with the week, the goal was to push my limits a little and it sort of worked, I might pay for it during the weekend, but that’s the price for success I guess.

Also, some records recorded by runkeeper:

Distance
302.5 km
Week of May 12, 2013		 Duration
12:44:38
Week of May 12, 2013
Calories Burned
12,214
Week of May 12, 2013
 Elevation Climb
3,773 m
Week of May 12, 2013 
Activities
11
Week of May 12, 2013