Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

So I'm gonna be doing my first long distance bike ride. its only 25 miles but its long distance to me 'cause I've never ridden that far. It'll be on Sunday and I have no idea what to expect.

I run my bike regularly but no more than 10 miles... what should I expect? I'm taking a couple bottles of 'rade and some protein bars.. and of course comfortable sneaks! Any other suggestions?

nothing huh... do any of you even have a bike? :confused:

I'm assuming you're talkin about a road ride/race?

I'm not a roadie, I'm a trail rider. However...
I'd ditch the Gatorade unless it's massively watered down or the new stuff (G2). I go with the good ‘ol fashion stuff –water. Which speaking of, if you're wearin a Camelbak, you can pack a few extra things in there. On the hotter summer days, I freeze some of my protein bars the night before an epic ride. That way, by the time I want them they are not mush in my Camelbak.

Of course, not too many roadies wear Camelbaks. I think it's because it distracts from all that flashy lycra. :rolleyes:

I'm assuming you're talkin about a road ride/race?

I'm not a roadie, I'm a trail rider. However...
I'd ditch the Gatorade unless it's massively watered down or the new stuff (G2). I go with the good ‘ol fashion stuff –water. Which speaking of, if you're wearin a Camelbak, you can pack a few extra things in there. On the hotter summer days, I freeze some of my protein bars the night before an epic ride. That way, by the time I want them they are not mush in my Camelbak.

Of course, not too many roadies wear Camelbaks. I think it's because it distracts from all that flashy lycra. :rolleyes:

Yep, it'll be road... I usually have water but I thought since it was a longer distance I'd need the calories in gatorade. Good idea on freezing the protein bars. I dont have or want a camelbak and I don't wear lycra lol I guess I'm not a typical roadie :P

It should be fun, I'm looking forward to it.

Roadies, ick! j/k ;) :p

You're out there turning the crank and that's what counts! :D But I do not blame you on the lycra, I keep to baggies. No lycra for me!

I'd save the Gatorade for afterwards, maybe. I usually stick to water while riding and for a bit afterwards. Mind you, that doesn't count when I go on a group ride and we hit a local pub afterwards.

Which thanks! :p I haven't had a ride in a week and I was already startin to twitch, I'm aiming to get one in this weekend provided the sever thunderstorms clear up. Every try mountain biking?

Roadies, ick! j/k ;) :p

You're out there turning the crank and that's what counts! :D But I do not blame you on the lycra, I keep to baggies. No lycra for me!

I'd save the Gatorade for afterwards, maybe. I usually stick to water while riding and for a bit afterwards. Mind you, that doesn't count when I go on a group ride and we hit a local pub afterwards.

Which thanks! :p I haven't had a ride in a week and I was already startin to twitch, I'm aiming to get one in this weekend provided the sever thunderstorms clear up. Every try mountain biking?

I haven't had the chance to go Mountain Biking mainly 'cause the trails that are within reach are few and far between. I'm hoping that when I move to Cali there will be more available.

You should get out there! I've been waiting all winter to get back to this and now I have no excuse, it's been steadily in the high 60s and mid 70s lately. :)

It was 75 yesterday and 80 today. I've been riding some-what regularly since mid April when the weather finally broke. It's just being on mids, I tote my bike to work with me. Which can be a moderate pain in the arse...

There are a ton of trails in New England! I use to live in CT, rode a few of them. As for Cali, oh yea... tons and tons of stuff out there. If your intersted, pm me and I'll send you a few things.

PM'ing you

I've done one hundred mile bike tours through NY city and the five boroughs. Mix the Gatorade with water. It has A LOT of sugar that might make you cramp up. Also, invest 30 bucks in padded bike shorts. Your rump will thank you after.:D

I've done one hundred mile bike tours through NY city and the five boroughs. Mix the Gatorade with water. It has A LOT of sugar that might make you cramp up. Also, invest 30 bucks in padded bike shorts. Your rump will thank you after.:D

I'd do the padded shorts if I could wear them under normal shorts and if the didnt make it seem like I was wearing diapers :p

So I think I'll have my water and an 'ade and will just add water.

lol You can do that with the shorts. Or you could get a gel pad for the seat.

lol You can do that with the shorts. Or you could get a gel pad for the seat.

I actually have a pretty good seat, but sometimes it just doesnt do its job. I'll have to check but I'm pretty sure that it has some sort of gel in it.. the seat that is.

I'd do the padded shorts if I could wear them under normal shorts and if the didnt make it seem like I was wearing diapers :p

I agree with MrTee805. The padded shorts will save your rump. Since you don't like lycra (like me) you might want to check out the mountain biker shorts, aka baggies. They look for the most part like swim trunks but have a pair of chamois inside. Most are removable; some are only attached by two pieces of string. If you are willing to spend a pretty penny Fox Racing has some killer lookin ones. Other wise, I just bought a pair of Trek (men's baggies) and I love them.

Great, now I feel the urge to buy a mountain bike and start exploring my city's trail system. :o

Let's see, I need a bike, helmet, an Amateur Radio HT with headset, antenna, GPS (via cell phone?), bags, bottle basket, holster for my Kel-Tec (SmartCarry?), OC canister... :eek:

Just drink water continuously the day or a few days before hand. My first mistake when I got into serious biking was dehydration. I thought if I just drank water while riding I would be fine, but I started feeling very tired and slow and had to quit.

Water is the best thing for dehydration. If you want to recharge yourself after, then you can have some Gatorade after. I would hydrate a few days or a day before with water and hydrate with water during the ride.

Oh and I would suggest bike shorts with built in cushions and padded half finger bike gloves.

Most of my long distance biking so far has been on trails with the police department. So I'm technically only patrolling like a 10 mile trail with some detours around neighborhoods and private trails, but after about four hours I go about 30 miles total.

The longest I've been on a bike was for 6 hours. It was the last day of the bike patrol "season". The lots of water, bike shorts, padded gloves, and the gel seat really helped a lot.

Oh and one last thing, wear a helmet!

If you can ride 10 miles...you can ride 25 miles.....

In 25 miles you should be OK with a couple of water bottles. Now the padded bike shorts are a necessary item. Just wear regular shorts over them.


During my IPMBA class we rode well over 20 miles a day with a 30+ miler on one day.

Alright so far it would seem that weall agreee water is the best thing. I purposely drink a gallon of water daily so I should be OK on that front. I'll have to see about the padded shorts though.

Thanks all for the advice.

Ok... Where do I start?

I got up, had breakfast (eggs) and prepared to head out. I was going to be riding with a group of people (about 50 people) and we were scheduled to meet at a location that was about 5 miles to my house. I rode my bike to the location and waited for everyone to arrive, then we were off.

It was a Scenic/Outdoor Fitness bike ride.. the first thing I noticed is how frigging fast the people on road bikes were going versus me and others on my mountain bike. To make along story short it was a beautiful day, the people were nice and we were not racing but rather riding at a comfortable pace and making sure everyone was OK along the way. Besides my ride to the meetup location and back home I probably rode 35 miles, it was supposed to be 25 but we got SOOO lost a couple of times.

Needless to say I'm beat, but I had a great time and hope to do it again sometime soon. Towards the end it was horrible, I ran out of gas about 6 miles from the "finish line".. it was funny because looking back I think the only ones that were out of gas around the same time I was were the people on Mountain Bikes.

Oh and yeah, I should have taken your advice and bought the padded shorts.. I just can't bring myself to wear lycra! Now I'm going to go pass out, hopefully I'll remember more details tomorrow.

Thanks again for your help ladies/gents!

35 miles and no padded shorts???? :eek:

Tomorrow will be nice and sore.

35 miles and no padded shorts???? :eek:

Tomorrow will be nice and sore.

Can you say "CHAFED"?? :p

lol - Surprisingly I'm not feeling to bad. My legs and thighs are feeling umm.. just tired. I have no pain I think partly because I soaked them in cold water and rubbed them down to break out the lactic acid.

When I got home thought it was just weird, I dont think I've ever felt like this before. Just completely tired, no pain or nothing but just tired. Last night I turned one of my legs a certain way and my muscle spazzed up and that was painful, but other than that it's been OK.

Eat a banana or drink OJ for potassium. That will fix those muscle spasms. I'm glad to hear you are still in one piece without padded shorts. YIKES. As far as getting tired with your mountain bike versus the road bike riders, depending on the brand and model of bike, you make be able to fit it with road tires. Or you could buy a hybrid for the purpose of switching back and forth. Something to look into for later rides.

Oh and I would suggest bike shorts with built in cushions and padded half finger bike gloves.

I prefer full-fingered gloves, so do most the mountain bikers I know; but you will find what works best for you. Gloves are a good idea thou.


Oh and one last thing, wear a helmet!

As for the helmet, I can not stress that enough. ALWAYS wear your helmet.

Between Saturday and Sunday I put in about 25 trail miles. Sunday I crashed. It wasn't an extremely technique section. Nice s-curves going down hill; the inside of the curves had rocks staggered so you had to take it a little wide. Well, the rain Friday night into Saturday morning made this a bit more treacherous. I took the second curve wider than I should and the third I ended up in loose dirt. Rear tire lost traction and I went down hard.

I knocked my head off the trail three times before the bike and I came to a blurry stop. Needless to say I knocked myself silly for a few moments. The first time my head hit the ground I heard a loud crack. You know that noise plastic makes when it snaps in half... yea. After the nauseous passed, I checked over the bike, myself and my gear. The trail was a tad torn from me going down so hard... but nothing was broken.

End result -The purchase of 1 new helmet (rule of thumb - 1 good crash and you replace your helmet) and a new set of gloves. My left shin has four large pretty blue, green, and yellow with hints of purple swollen bruises. My right leg has trail rash, a few good scratches and a few minor bruises. A slightly swollen right wrist and tender right elbow. Two decent sized swollen bruises on the right side of my skull (which could have been a lot worse, if I had not been wearing a helmet). My right shoulder is achy and my neck is sore as... well, we'll just edit the adjectives out. ;)

Mind you, this happened about halfway into Sunday's ride. Once the want-to-vomit passed, I brushed off the dirt; checked for anything broken and finished out my ride. All in all a good weekend for riding. :D :cool: :D

Blue! I gotta say that read like a lot of fun.. in a very strange way. I'm glad nothing's broken, that would most certainly suck!

Yeah I never go out without my helmet, 'sides it helps hold in my earphones :)

But in all truthfullness it looks like my ride pales in comparison to yours but I'm glad you were able to go out and can still smile(?) about it!

Hope you feel better! But I highly doubt it.. I'm sure it'll take a little bit for your bruises to heal.

normal,
I seriously doubt that if it wasn't for the "fear of getting hurt" and the pure adrenaline rush on some of these downhill sections; I wouldn't keep going back, :D and you can bet your bum I’m still smiling. Later that day after I limped myself home ;) and got cleaned up; I took my mom out to dinner. She just tells me she better not have to retrieve me from some emergency room because I’m in traction.

I would of been out riding a third day (today) but I needed to get a new helmet and some sleep... now pending possible rain tomorrow is whether I make it out before shift or not.

hehehe after my 30+ miles on Sunday I took my wife and kid to dinner but really did not have much of an appetite.. I was just extremely tired. Today my entire lower half of my body is tired, I'm guessing it's par for the course for a first timer?

hehehe after my 30+ miles on Sunday I took my wife and kid to dinner but really did not have much of an appetite.. I was just extremely tired. Today my entire lower half of my body is tired, I'm guessing it's par for the course for a first timer?

Like MrTee said:

Eat a banana or drink OJ for potassium. That will fix those muscle spasms.

It will help with more than just spasms. One constant thing you will always find in my kitchen; bananas on the counter and Orange Juice in the fridge, minimum of one glass of OJ a day and 1 banana. Now hard ride days, I'll double up. Other wise make sure you are taking your vitamins along with getting the proper nutrition and restful sleep. It's amazing the difference they will make; but they will not take away the season's first soreness. That is something that only comes with time in the saddle.

Well I do the half fingered gloves because my only long distance mountain biking so far has been with the police, and it's kinda hard to key up our radios with gloves or turn a flashlight on.

My only bad crash was when I was like 6 or 7.... I had this ridiculous fear of dogs. It was ridiculous because this crash happened to be caused by two little Dachshund weiner dogs. Somehow my entire back got scraped and bloody and my knees scraped the the bone. But it wasn't too bad and I got "rescued" by Ken Dilger.

A few weeks ago I rode 10 miles without any gear just for exercise and I wish I had remembered at least my bike shorts! My personal bike doesn't have any extra gel padding on the seat so it was not the most comfortable ride.

I rode probably nearly a hundred miles last year using a ten year old helmet and I've heard that age can also affect them, so don't use an old helmet either. I recently bought a cheap but sturdy Shwinn helmet (with a nerdy flashing/still LED that double functions as a dial adjuster).