I recently checked out my old post about routes for unicycling/bicycling and made a few modifications. Planned routes are like gourmet recipes; they don’t mean much unless they’ve actually been experienced, so I decided to try a 22 km ride, by choosing this route. This is the ride that I rode:

There were a few things that I realized while on the ride, and that forced me to abandon the planned ride and return along the same way I’d ridden.

Realizations from the ride on March 20 2025

• It was almost 6 PM by the time I started my ride, and at this time of the year, it meant that it was going to get dark pretty quickly. Having reached Beatelund, I realized that it was already quite dark, and my lights were only good enough to be seen, and not to actually illuminate the road.
• The tarmac surface is heavily worn in the center portion while the periphery is by contrast almost convex, forcing me to compensate quite aggressively for the camber.
• The knobby 29x2.6 Schwalbe Smart Sam tire on my 29-er isn’t particularly camber-friendly. On roads with camber, I either have to get better with compensating for the camber, or switch to a tire with a flatter sidewall.
• Since the darkness was near total by the time I reached Beatelund, and the street lighting non-existent, I decided that it wouldn’t be safe to continue the ride, and decided to return.
• The bike path along Linghemsvägen is both wide and very well illuminated, making it a very safe segment to ride.

Ride on March 28 2025

Like the last time, it was pretty late by the time I started out, so I decided to eschew the longer ride along the poorly lit sections, and instead decided to ride along Linghemsvägen, take the turnoff at Talboda Centrum, ride along Gränsliden, on the bridge across E4, and turn back towards Linköping via Ekägenvägen. That would then give me the option of continuing towards Ekängen for a bit and returning, or directly swinging back home, the latter ride netting around 12 km, while the former could get me a 15+ km ride. The ride along Linghemsvägen was very pleasant and I made the turnoff at Talboda Centrum. After rejoining Ekängenvägen though, I decided to ride back home, but I’d love to do the longer ride at an earlier time of the day, when the natural light is better. This was the ride that I rode.

Post ride notes

• I’ve improved my fine control and ability to make micro-corrections.
• I suffered two UPDs when I became uncomfortable with the speed while going downhill; I need to work on my use of the brakes.
• I so rarely use the brakes, so end up not using them when I need to, and also probably applying more back-pressure than needed, to prevent me from having to use brakes! This is a cyclic problem, and the solution is to practice braking more.
• Since I’m not comfortable with braking currently, I’m still very uncomfortable with riding downward grades. I need to practice both braking and descents again, to get more comfortable.