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From: Radey Shouman <shouman@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: Riding through the years.
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2025 13:26:07 -0500
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Roger Merriman <roger@sarlet.com> writes:

> Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>> On 1/5/2025 11:01 AM, AMuzi wrote:
>>> On 1/4/2025 6:12 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
>>>> I ride almost 4 times a week and until recently with a fair sized group.
>>>> Now there are about 6 of us that ride together on and off. But a lot 
>>>> of my
>>>> riding now is solo. This largely because the group is aging and losing 
>>>> the
>>>> ability to do the rides that I still do. Saturday rides are easy rides 
>>>> but
>>>> on the way out to the coffee stop, they ride harder than I care to, and
>>>> then on the return trips they are riding a lot slower having burned
>>>> themselve out.
>>>> 
>>>> Perhaps one of them is capable of doing my North Palomares route but 
>>>> if he
>>>> did he would drop me like a stone since he is 20 years younger than me.
>>>> And he would freeze to death at the top waiting for me. So the group id
>>>> sging out from under me. Or too young snd too fast to ride at my speed.
>>> 
>>> Four degrees at dawn today. I skipped; too damned cold.
>> 
>> Warmer than that today, but still too cold for me. I took a walk in the 
>> forest preserve instead.
>> 
>> I saw someone had ridden a bike through there, based on tracks in the 
>> packed-down snow on one gravel roadway. His tires weren't wider than 32mm.
>> 
>> It got me thinking about the old puzzle of trying to determine the 
>> direction a bike was going from its tracks. It's not easy! I could tell 
>> the front tire track from the rear because the front track has a sharper 
>> radius of curvature. But which direction? (Arthur Conan Doyle got this 
>> puzzle wrong in one Sherlock story.)
>> 
>> I'm pretty sure I was able to work it out eventually, but from extra 
>> information. The tracks were straight on one short steep hill, which 
>> seemed to be a clue that he descended it instead of climbing it. (In 
>> addition to wobbling a bit on a climb, I think his rear tire might have 
>> spun a bit climbing it.) I was also looking for an obstacle that he 
>> would have swerved a bit to clear, which would have given another clue, 
>> but didn't spot one.
>> 
>
> Some MTB and gravel treads are directional so if the snow is crisp enough
> to work out the tire pattern that is one potential clue.

On the other hand, a Sherlockian villain would likely put them on
backwards, just to confuse the issue.  I doubt that performance would be
much reduced.
--