Lunicycle - The Bicycle Blog

Rolling rolling rolling

2010-02-08T08:53:00.003-05:00

I rode ten miles yesterday and didn’t get anywhere. That’s probably about par for the course for me.

The temperature outside was a chilly 34 degrees, with the wind chill well down into the twenties. That’s the wind chill if you’re standing still, of course. If you’re a goofball on a bicycle, who knows how cold you’d get. I didn’t want to find out, so I decided to ride in my garage.

No, I’m not loony -

Oh. Wait. Yes I am.

But I’m not loony enough to just ride in tiny circles around the inside of my garage. Instead, I rode the rollers. (This may actually be worse than riding in tiny circles around the inside of my garage, since the second worst accident I ever had occurred while I was on the rollers, but I did it anyway.

I haven’t ridden the rollers in a while, but I hadn’t forgotten that disconcerting tendency the bike has to slide sideways and off the frame, with potentially bad results to various parts of my body. (We won’t even discuss what happened the very first time I ever rode the rollers, but it was particularly painful and would have been equally painful for about half of the population. We’ll leave it at that.)

The first few seconds on the rollers were a bit hectic, but things settled down after that. In fact, they settled down a bit too much and descended into boredom. That’s the problem with any sort of stationary bike. It’s booooooooooooring. Rollers are about the best of the bad lot, because, at least if you ride as clumsily as I do, you always have the specter of impending doom hanging over your head to give the ride a little added spice, but it’s still booooooooooooring,

I rode intervals to add a little interest, and I had a book on tape playing (one of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels just in case you’re wondering), you can only look at the interior of a garage for so long before it begins to get…oh, what’s the word I’m looking for…oh yeah… booooooooooooring.

I stuck it out for ten miles, during which time I discovered that the garage was nowhere near as cold as I had thought it was. After about my second hard turn, it was really rather warm. During my third hard turn the bike considering slipping off of the rollers and dumping me onto the ground but kindly decided at the last instant not to do any of that. I was grateful.

I do plan to climb back onto the rollers this evening for another ten miles. Wish me luck with that. I’m hoping I can make myself do it. It felt better to get some miles than none, and the fact that it was actually a fairly hard workout made it even better, but no matter what I do, riding indoors is still…well…you know…

See you ~~in the garage~~ on the road.

Frozen Spokes

2010-02-04T12:39:00.001-05:00

I am not a good weather forecaster. If there was any doubt about this, I laid it to rest on Friday when my students, all of whom had keenly followed the weather reports, asked what would happen if we didn’t have school on Monday. “Oh, I’m quite sure we’ll have school on Monday,” I assured them. “But, if we don’t, then we’ll have the test on Wednesday instead.”

Of course, as you’ve already guessed, we did not have school on Monday. A winter storm smacked us right in the face over the weekend, leaving a lovely covering of pristine white all over everything. (My Lovely Lovely, trying to drive while the sun reflected with great brilliance off of the snow and ice and shot straight into her eyes like a laser beam, described the snow somewhat differently than I just did, but we have to allow for personal preferences in these things.

After racking up a measly hundred miles (if I round up) in January, I am determined to do considerably better than this in February. I am not off to a good start. However, apparently feeling that I need a kick in the pants to get me going, the fates decreed that I would ride today.

No work on Monday and a two hour delay on both Tuesday and Wednesday, and today, our first day back on our regular schedule, my car decided not to start. (This lack of starting power on my car’s part is not due to a lack of motivation. It’s due to the fact that I didn’t close the back door all the way a day or two ago and therefore the battery, instead of being full of electricity and ready to go, is mostly ornamental at this particular point in time.) When I realized all of this, I sighed and went back into the house for my helmet.

The sigh was largely due to the fact that it is cold out. It is freezing out. Literally. 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Freezing. My work clothes, while quite stylish, are not very good for riding in the cold. (Actually, that’s a lie. My work clothes aren’t stylish at all.)

I filled a bottle (hey, the ride is only a little over six miles, but I always take something to drink anyway), put on my nice warm winter Walzcap with the earflaps (which I have been told makes me look like a German schoolboy – why German? I have no idea), pulled on a sweatshirt, some gloves and my helmet (I would very much like to keep my brains inside my head if anything untoward should happen while I am on the road), pumped up the tires and headed out.

I had been on the road less than two minutes when I began to reconsider the wisdom of riding without a balaclava. I mean, aside from the fact that it makes you look like a ninja of the road, it does keep your face warm. I didn’t feel like heading back home to get it, though, so I just figured my face would go numb eventually and then it wouldn’t bother me anymore.

It’s a bit surreal to me to be riding with piles of snow and ice sitting beside the roads. If I lived somewhere else (like Anchorage), I suppose it wouldn’t be surreal at all. Or, if I lived still somewhere else (say…Tahiti) then it wouldn’t so much be surreal as an indication of a complete mental breakdown on my part. I guess it all just depends.

The ride itself was pretty smooth. My face did eventually stop bothering me, though the wind in my eyes occasionally made tears run. The cars were nearly all extremely polite, giving me lots of space. I have a feeling the drivers felt sorry for me because of the temperature (or because they felt it would be bad luck to hit a crazy person, I don’t know). Either way, I’ll thankfully take it.

I do miss bike commuting and this really inspires me to do more of it. It just feels so darned good. (Okay, I know that, if you read some of what I wrote above it doesn’t sound like it feels good, but it does. I know. I was there. My Lovely Lovely worries that it’s just too dangerous, so she doesn’t want me to do it, but, let’s face it, bike commuting is good for the soul.

See you on the road.

Unwisdom

2010-01-29T08:30:00.003-05:00

I've all my wisdom teeth
Two up top, two beneath
And yet I'll recognise
My mouth says things that aren't so wise
--Brad Roberts

So today I was unwise. (This will not surprise anyone who knows me.) Anyone who has read my recent posts and committed them to memory (a proceeding which is not recommended by any certified mental health professionals, by the way) knows that I haven’t been able to ride very much in 2010. Well aware of this myself, when I finally made some time to ride, I decided I would do about twenty-five miles. Not a long distance, but better than nothing, right?

When I hit the road, it was very windy and my legs felt like useless blocks of wood. With my twenty-five miles firmly in mind, I turned onto a route that I know is about forty miles long. Why did I do this? I don’t know.

The first ten miles of this route are up and down. The second ten miles are quite flat, but the road is surrounded mostly by fields, so there’s nothing to block the wind. The third ten miles are mostly up without a lot of downs. (I always think it’s somehow unfair when you climb a hill and then, at the top, it simply levels off instead of going down again.) The last ten miles are the hilliest of the route. This means that you hit the hardest stretch of road when you’re the tiredest. (My spellchecker does not like the word tiredest by the way, but I don’t care.)

The first ten miles went by pretty well. There were places where it was a tough pull, but that’s okay. I remember hearing Keith’s voice in my ear: “Pedal up and pedal down.” Well, I certainly have to pedal up the hills, but I didn’t feel like pedaling down the hills. Keith was insistent, though. (This insistence is all the more difficult to understand since he wasn’t actually on the ride and I was simply remembering his words from previous rides together.)

The second ten miles went by pretty well. They were harder than the first ten miles. If all you’re contending with are hills, the road will eventually level out, but, if it’s the wind, you don’t get away from it.

The third ten miles, oddly enough, were the best of the bunch. I don’t know why.

It was during this stretch of the route that I played hopscotch with a Highway Patrol officer. I was riding along the shoulder of a two-lane highway, and I noticed his pass me. Several minutes later, I saw blue lights ahead of me, though on the opposite side of the road. When I arrived at that point, I discovered that he had pulled someone over who was heading in the opposite direction.

I went on past and continued on my way. A bit later, the Patrolman went past me again. Several minutes later, I saw the blue lights blossoming in front of me, and he had pulled over someone else, this time heading in the same direction as I was. This was annoying because traffic prevented me from getting around him for a few minutes, and I had to stop.

Do you know what it’s like when you’re going hard and you suddenly have to stop? Then, a few minutes later, while halfway up a hill, you have to get going again? My legs had things to say to me. They were not nice things.

In fact, my legs had suggested on my last ride that, if they had known I was going to let them in for that sort of thing with no warning, they would have stayed home. They let me know that they’d be happy to pedal around for me, just not right now. Not today at all in fact. They suggested we talk about it next week sometime.

A mile or two later I turned and hit the last ten mile stretch. The wind was right in my face, and the hills were all in front of me.

I was tired. I am not ashamed to confess it. I could feel my thighs swimming in lactic acid, my legs were shouting at me, but I was still ten miles from home, and the only way I was going to get there was to stay in the saddle and pedal.

I’m not sure whether the harder part was the pedaling or the staying in the saddle. I had been out of the saddle for too long, and my sit bones had begun to protest shortly after the ride started, and they were still complaining now.

It was at this point, with my body sore and all of me tired that I began to wonder how I could explain to someone else that I do all of this to myself because I enjoy riding a bike.

All I can say is that you have to try it for yourself.

See you on the road.

Still Here

2010-01-27T16:37:00.001-05:00

52+20+37=109

Does that sound like a good number?

It isn’t.

It really works out this way: a temperature of 52 degrees F + a wind speed of 20 mph + only 37 total miles on 2010 = a rider who’s in for a very hard ride. Don’t you think?

That’s what I thought, and I was right.

I engaged first in my usual winter time sport of trying to decide if I was wearing the right stuff to brave the weather. Melanie offered the comment, “You have a lot of clothes on.” I agreed and then hoped that I was wearing enough. (As it turns out, it was just right.)

The wind was atrocious, and it made it seem bitterly cold and my legs were blocks of wood, but at least I was finally out riding again. That counts for something, right?

I would like here to give a shout out to the Grimes family. (Did you ever notice that no one ever actually shouts when they give a shout out?) Hey, Grimes family! I don’t know you, but you had a sign hanging outside your mailbox letting everyone know who you were. Hello!

There were no dogs out chasing me. There were no other cyclists on the road in my area. There were precious few cars out (not counting that really large truck that went screaming past me without giving me very much clearance at all.

Before the ride, I stopped by the bike shop to pay some more on my Lovely Lovely’s bike, which is on lay away. (It’s alright. There’s no chance that she’ll want to go out and ride until the weather warms up, so we still have a couple of months to pay it off.) I ran into Steve, Dave and Chuck at the bike shop, were I was assured that my name was being taken in vain at club rides due to my extended absence.

It was good to see the guys, though I rather see them over a pair of handlebars than standing around a store. I mentioned to them that my Lovely Lovely had told me I needed to get out and ride more. Opinion was divided as to whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. I’ll go with the good thing idea.

(I’ll go with the good thing idea? I’ll bet that’s a sentence you’ve never seen before. It’s surely a sentence I’ve never written before. Many of my sentences are peculiar, but that one might be in a class by itself.)

Well, here’s hoping I actually do get some more rides in. After all, the double century is only a few months away, and I’m determined to do it this year. You read it here first, and now you can hold me to it.

See you on the road.

Honestly.

Coldy Cold Cold Cold

2010-01-05T11:38:00.003-05:00

From an area newspaper:

Two competing weather systems are pouring a blast of cold air on a wide swath of the nation, including the Carolinas. The result is an unusually long bought of very cold weather that has forecasters and other officials warning residents to take safety precautions.

Ahh, man. I knew I shouldn’t have written that blog entry about how it’s usually warm enough to ride here even in the winter.

I’m going to guess that, even though it won’t be on their list, one of the safety precautions is “Don’t go out riding a bicycle.”

By the way, the result is an unusually long bought of cold weather?

Meteorologists have issued a hazardous weather outlook for the region, urging residents to protect exposed water pipes, check heating units, bring pets inside and make other preparations for the cold.

Like not riding your bicycle? Did I already say “ahh, man”?

The region is experiencing the longest cold spell since 2005 and the low temperatures are expected to last into next, according to the National Weather Service.

To last into next? Next what? Next week? Next month? Next eon? You know, somebody really needs to porfreed these things.

Since Saturday, low temperatures have been around 20 degrees, according to data recorded at
Fayetteville Regional Airport. The lowest temperatures have typically come between 6 and 8 in the morning.

Here is something published on this same day: As of noon today, the temperature in Bismarck warmed up to -21 degrees.

Warmed up to -21 degrees?!! Okay, we are officially wimps here who should be grateful that our twenty degrees is above zero instead of below.

Of course, I’m still not going to go out riding…

Scott Sharp, a meteorologist with the Raleigh office of the National Weather Service, said the cold temperatures were the result of arctic air that is being funneled south by pressure systems over parts of Canada and the American west.

Is it just me, or does it seem like they always blame arctic air? Doesn’t this air warm up when it leaves the arctic? Why is it always bringing the cold to us?

Sharp said the cold spell will continue to produce temperatures between 15 and 20 degrees lower than the average for this time of year. "This is very abnormal for this time of year," he said, "to have temperatures this low for this long."

This is not making me feel better. Will I be reduced to riding the rollers out in the garage? Trust me, as lovely as she is, my Lovely Lovely will not let me ride the rollers in the house. And, you know what? It’s still cold in the garage.

My Lovely Lovely was quite strict with me (but still lovely) yesterday when I suggested going out for a ride because she felt that it was just too cold, so I stayed in. Oh, well.

It has to warm up eventually. When it does, I'll see you on the road.

Happy New Year

2010-01-04T11:30:00.005-05:00

Happy New Year to all of my two wheeled friends!

In a recent post, I referred to geocaching. I meant to make the word geocaching a link to a geocaching website so that anyone who didn’t know what geocaching was could visit the geocaching website to learn about geocaching.

But I forgot. Sorry about that. I think I may have rectified that now. And now, back to our blog about cycling.

If your first ride of the year is an omen of things to come, I don’t know if I should be happy or sad, because my first ride went both badly and well.

It went badly because I intended to join the group ride this morning, but circumstances beyond my control (really!) kept me up too late and I didn’t get up and out of the house in time. When I did get out, I headed toward the start point. After all, it was possible that they would ride in my direction. (Hey, there are only 360 degrees on the compass, so it might have happened. It might have, but it didn’t.)

So I ended up riding alone. I don’t know about you, but I find riding alone when you were expecting to ride with a group to be demoralizing, so, demoralized, I still decided to do thirty miles (which was the length of the expected group ride.)

My ride ended up being 37 miles, mostly because I got lost. Just as I was calling my Lovely Lovely to let her know that I had absolutely no idea where I was, I noticed a sign for a school crossing ahead. Figuring that a school was a pretty good landmark, I pedaled over to it and found that it was a school I had heard of. It was also a school that I had never known the location of. Well, I knew the location now – it was where I was, after all – but that knowledge didn’t help me get anywhere that I knew. All of which is a very complicated way of saying that I was still lost.

Then the universe began to play tricks with me.

I saw a sign for a town I knew. Three miles that way. (There was an arrow pointing. The sign didn’t actually have the words “that way” on it.) I followed the sign. A mile later there was a sign saying that the town was now two miles away. Excellent. I kept pedaling. A mile later there was another sign saying that the town was two miles away in the direction I had just come from.

What?

Well, going back didn’t seem to make much sense, and, somehow I didn’t feel like continuing in the same direction, so I took the first turn I came to. About ten minutes later I found a sign for the same town and it was – did you guess it? – two miles away, this time in a totally different direction.

It was at this point that I decided to ignore all the signs and simply ride until I spotted something I knew. The something I knew finally turned up in the form of a church that I had ridden past with Scott on previous rides. I was on firm footing once again (so to speak, since I was still riding my bike) and could actually point my bike toward home.

I called my Lovely Lovely who was relieved to find that I now knew where I was. I didn’t have any idea how I had gotten there, mind you, but I knew where I was. I was rather farther from home than I had intended to be by that time, but that’s life on the bike.

I was pursued by dogs every direction I went. It was definitely a dog day morning, but, since none of them actually caught me, that was okay. There’s nothing like a large slavering dog, by the way, to make you realize that you weren’t as tired as you thought you were. All of sudden, you do indeed have the energy to go faster than you were going.

So, anyway, I got a nice long ride in to start the year, which is always good, even though the ride didn't turn out to be much like I had expected it to be.

I hope we all have a great year and get lots of miles.

See you on the road.

Windy windy windy windy windy

2009-12-31T08:07:00.000-05:00

Another day, another ride. How nice is that?

Before heading out I turned on the TV long enough to check the temperature. It was a balmy 50 degrees out. Not bad. I got kitted out and then headed out to the garage to put air in my tires, got hit by a blast of wind and immediately went back inside to put on more clothes.

It turns out that there is 50 degrees and then there is 50 degrees. I hadn’t checked the wind speed when I had checked the temperature, and, since the wind was blowing at 16 to 24 mph, it made a difference. Change the gloves for heavier ones, change the hat for one with ear flaps, add booties and a vest and then hit the road. It was still cold, but that was okay.

It was one of those days where, in the crosswind, your bike leans heavily to one side, in the headwind you ride like you’re Marley’s ghost wrapped in heavy chains and in the tailwind you fly along at a blistering pace. (There’s my Christmas reference for you.)

(Once, after having ridden in a thirty mile an hour wind – the cables on my bike were singing – I headed to the bike shop and talked about the ride with Steve. It turns out I had averaged nearly 18 mph that day. A customer overheard us talking and expressed amazement. Steve explained that I had probably ridden half the ride at 6 mph and half at 30 mph depending on whether I was headed into the wind or riding with it. That was probably about right, too. Steve knows.)

Most of the cars were really quite polite today. I did see one car – a white sports car begin driven by a young man in an orange hoodie. He was either very short or was slumped down so that nothing below his nose was visible above the steering wheel, and the hood of his sweatshirt was over his head and pulled almost down to his eyes.

That’s not suspicious at all.

I got pursued by a very hopeful brown and white dog, and the dog had reason to be hopeful since the evidence indicates that it could have had me for lunch any time it desired. It bounced at me and ran at me repeatedly, cannily blocking my path as much as possible, undaunted by shouts from me and squirts from my water bottle. I finally got away from it, but I admit to having a handful of rocks as I passed by on my way back home. The dog was chained up at that point. This is more regard than I am used to from dog owners, I have to admit. I can remember one time when a dog owner told him dog, “Get ‘em, boy!”

Here are some ways to tell if it is windy.

If you turn a corner and your speed suddenly drops by eight or ten miles per hour even though the road is still flat, it’s probably windy.

If you coast downhill and find yourself losing speed, it’s probably windy.

If you turn around and suddenly gain five mph with no extra effort, it’s probably windy.

If your vest, which you thought more or less fit you okay, suddenly turns into a drag chute, it’s probably windy.

But, you know what? At least you’re out riding, so good for you.

See you on the road.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-28T17:44:00.000-05:00

So, it turns out that I have a blog. Who knew?

Well, if you’ve been reading this blog…or, rather…not reading this blog, you may know that I keep trying to ride my bike and life keeps getting in the way. (Mind you, I don’t like the sound of “life getting out of way” as that sounds uncommonly like something unpleasant. I have been getting outdoors a bit, though, doing some geocaching.

Lately I have been wondering if the name “Lunicycle” suits me. Not, you understand, because there is any doubt about the first half of the name. It’s the second half. Can you call someone who only longs to ride his bike a cyclist?

I finally did get a ride in (and there was much rejoicing). It was a brisk 50 degrees out, but there was very little wind. I figured my legs would be just so much dead wood, but it turns out they were still legs after all, and they were still up to propelling a bicycle around at a reasonable rate of speed. I figured I should enjoy that while it lasted, but it turned out that it lasted for the whole ride.

I rode hard all the way. Too hard, as it turned out, since I had to pull over and hang over the handle bars while I waited to see if my all to hastily eaten lunch was going to pay me a return visit. (It didn’t.)

When I got back home I was tried and quite surprised to find how fast my average pace was.

Well, maybe I can still call myself Lunicycle after all. What do you know.

Now, if I can just make good use of my vacation time by getting some more miles, life will be good, even if it does get in the way sometimes.

See you on the road.

Maybe I'll even have something to post tomorrow. Wouldn't that be a shock?

It Isn't Over Yet

2009-12-04T13:06:00.008-05:00

I went to the bike shop today. I like going to the bike shop. I like seeming my friends. I like seeing all those rows and rows of gleaming bikes ready to hit the road. I even like the way a bike shop smells – an amalgam of metal, rubber, lube and who knows what else. Sweat, probably.

Despite my (ahem) limited riding schedule of late, I somehow managed to run out of chamois cream. I figured that, while I was there, I would also pick up some carb-boom (apple cinnamon if you really must know) and ogle all the lovely toys I couldn’t possibly afford to get.

Steve and Dave were both there. “Hey, do you remember this guy? Didn’t he used to ride with the club?”

That would be me. Did I mention my limited riding schedule already? I did, right? I thought so.

Looking at the chamois cream I laid on the counter, Steve asked, “Given how much you’ve been riding lately, does this stuff taste as good as everyone says it does?”

In the course of the conversation, the approaching end of the year came up. People are looking at closing out their mileage logs for the year and people (and, by people I mean me) are looking at their rather dismal mileage totals and vowing to do better next year. (Hey, If I can just get in a couple of thousand miles in the next three weeks, my mileage total for the year will look fine.)

So, what about you?

Do you live in one of those unforgivingly cold places, so your bike is already languishing in the garage? Or do you live in one of those luxuriously warm places that earn you the undying enmity of everyone who lives in one of those unforgivingly cold places, so you’re trying to figure what all the fuss is about? Or do you live in one of this in-between places – sure, it’s cold, but you can still ride.

(While we're on this topic, check out Cyclin' Missy's blog.)

Of course, but you can still ride is rather in the eye (legs?) of the beholder. I know people who will cheerfully (or grimly) ride when the temperature is in the thirties and other people who won’t put on lycra if the temperature dips into the sixties.

As for me, well, I just bought all that chamois cream. I guess I’ll have to use it somehow. (No suggestions, please.) I have two weeks off over Christmas, and I intend to see how many miles I can get before the year is over.

Weather permitting, of course. (Jörg says, “Don’t be a weather weenie.”)

Pretty soon it’ll be time to break out the winter cap with the ear flaps. I may look like a goof (and I was forced by circumstances to stop worrying about that a long time ago) but at least my ears won’t fall off.

See you on the road.

Nice Day

2009-12-03T17:03:00.001-05:00

The temperature in Honolulu (motto: Nicer than where ever you are) today is 78 degrees F. I’m not in Honolulu, though. The temperature where I am (motto: We’re not Honolulu) is 61 degrees F with a ten mph wind. Mind you, I’m not complaining. After all, the temperature in Akureyri (motto: We're running short on consonants) is 34 degrees F and the temperature on Pluto (motto: We may not be a planet anymore, but they didn't name Mickey Mouse’s dog after Jupiter, now did they?) is -387 degrees F, so it could be a lot worse.

By the way, and completely off the topic of cycling, is anyone else bothered by the fact that Pluto and Goofy inhabit the same universe? I mean, Goofy is anthropomorphic and (more or less) sapient and Pluto is pretty much just a dog. It’s disturbing, somehow.

Anyway, I got off work a bit early today and had time to squeeze in a ride, so that’s what I did. (I didn’t quite get off early enough to ride with anyone else, unfortunately, but a solo ride is a still a ride.) It was one of those rides that’s great from the start. The first pedal stroke out of the driveway was nice and smooth and my body said, “Oh, I remember this. I like this.” (This was a far cry from my last ride.)

About three miles into the ride, I spotted another cyclist. He was cruising down the hill I was getting ready to climb, but that wasn’t his fault, I guess, so I gave him a wave. (Now, be honest here, do you ever, when you see someone riding toward you, sit up and pedal hard no matter how tired you feel or how windy it is just to make a good impression on a complete stranger? No? Me neither. Really.)

I cruised past a church which I remember well. I paused there once on a blazing hot day to sit in the shade, have a drink, and eat something. I can’t remember what I ate, but I remember that it had more or less melted in my pocket.

A little later I was heard that rustling sound that may indicate a dog on the run. I glanced over, but it was pretty obvious that there was no way a dog that brachycephalic (hey, I’m a biologist. We all talk that way) was going to catch me, so no worries.

This was not the case on my way home, alas. I was riding along and kind of daydreaming when two medium sized dogs came after me shouting threats and indicating a desire to see the color of my insides. I was feeling good, so I hit the gas and then a fist sized knot of pure pain formed in my left gastrocnemius. Okay, calf muscle. Sorry. It’s habit.

In other words, I had a choice between trying to pedal more or less one legged to get away from these dogs or stopping to work out the cramp, thus letting said dogs catch me. I decided to keep pedaling. I may have said one or two things out loud at the time…I don’t quite remember. The dogs gave up and the cramp passed but I could feel little twinges in that muscle all the way home.

I passed a jogger on the way. We gave each other a neutral sort of wave. We’re both out exercising, but each one of us was convinced that the other had the wrong idea about how to exercise. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, right?

I chose a hard road going out – hills and hills, and I rode the same road back home again. Hey, if you’re going to ride, you might as well ride hard. (Steve says, “If you still have breath to talk, you’re not riding hard enough.”)

The ride was short, not much over 20 miles, but it was a lot of fun. Please, sir, I’d like some more.

See you on the road.

You're Welcome...?

2009-12-02T09:41:00.003-05:00

Powering up…zap…crackle…

…all right, Igor…

Throw the Switch!

Sarcasm generator ON

Now, maybe it's the fact that I'm a bit under the weather today (which has nothing to do with the fact that it's very cold and rainy so I won't be riding) or maybe I have just reached my annoyance tolerance level, but...

I have heard from a lot of people who don’t think that bikes should have to share the road with cars. I am beginning to think that this is a good idea. Mind you, my solution and their solution may not be identical.

I remember having a conversation with a woman who said, “I think people should be allowed to ride their bicycles all they want, so long as they don’t do it on the road.”

“Where should they do it, then?” I naively asked.

“I don’t know.” The unspoken finish to that comment was, “And I don’t care.”

Lest you think that I’m being unfair by including an unspoken comment, take my word for it. It was hanging in the air will almost bell-like clarity. Here’s a blog I came across where things are spoken very clearly indeed.

It is often suggested that automobile drivers should learn to share the road with bicyclists. In my opinion, it is foolhardy and dangerous for bicyclists to be on the highways with motorists, period. Bicycles no more belong on roadways than autos belong on bike paths.

Well, you can’t ask for much more clarity than that, can you? So, pray tell, why not? I'm sure the writer will enlighten us.

Bicycles are slow, small and difficult to see; autos may weigh tons, and, with their automatic transmissions, are powerful and fast at a light touch of the foot. There is a question of timing and visibility here; and should a tragedy occur, proof of who is at fault would do nothing to mend bodies.

Now, the interesting thing about this comment is that it shows some understanding of the situation. The last line, especially, is the writer speaking the truth. Good for him. And yet…

Too many cyclists are clueless as to rules of the road — either for automobiles or for bicycles. This complicates matters for motorists, who are required to pass a written examination on rules of the road, and pass a road test to obtain a driver’s license. And young teenagers are required to attend a 30-hour driver-ed course, to boot. This is gross and unfair to motorists, whom we expect to share the road with bicyclists.

Well, hold up there, Tex. Does the guy think that cyclists don’t drive cars? As a matter of fact, nearly every single cyclist that I know has a driver’s license and has thus been through the driver’s ed course and has taken the written exam and road test to get that license. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of cyclist do know the rules of the road.

Mind you, they don’t always obey them, but that isn’t because they don’t know them, but that's a whole other post which I probably won't write.

This unfairness is magnified immensely when contrasting the mandatory costs of having the two types of vehicles use our highways. Registration and license fees, taxes and a sensible insurance package with liability and collision coverage may cost in the thousands of dollars for a responsible car owner but perhaps zero for unwitting cyclists. Should a bicyclist be the cause of an accident, there would be no mandatory liability insurance for any injured parties; in all probability too, in court, the cyclist would walk.

Okay, I was spluttering so hard I had to clean up my keyboard after I read this one. (Don't dwell on that picture for your own sake.) The cyclist would walk???!!!!!!! Everybody has their own opinion…but some of us know the facts.

Even drivers of automobiles say they are afraid to drive on the highways. Yet they have the car’s protection and the stability of four wheels. “Driving is no pleasure,” they say. They will even say, “It’s crazy out there — like a racetrack, a war zone.” No one owns the roads; bicyclists are permitted and certainly welcome on them. Still, it is folly and dangerous for them to be out there.

Bicyclists are certainly welcome on them. Well, isn’t that nice.

*Sigh*

Are we, in fact, welcome on those roads?

Well, regardless, I intend to keep riding on them. I hope you do, too.

My solution to all of this is to get more drivers on bikes. After all, the vast majority of us know what the road is like from behind a windshield, but there are a lot of drivers out there who have no idea what it's like over the handlebars. Now that's a situation that needs to be rectified!

See you on the road.

Tomorrow I shall be happy and light :-)

Bi-sicle

2009-11-30T08:25:00.002-05:00

I found this strange device in my garage. It was all chains and wheels. It seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. The wheels made it seem as if was meant to be pushed or ridden, and it was easily narrow enough to straddle. I tried that, and what I originally took for a seat was so darned uncomfortable that, for a moment, I doubted that it was meant to be a seat at all.

It had these two sticky out bits (not that I want to get too technical on you) but they seemed awfully skinny. Then I found these odd shoes in my closet which, believe it or not, had metal sockets on them that the two skinny sticky out things fit neatly into with a satisfying click.
Deciding after all that this odd but strangely familiar device was some sort of vehicle, I decided to go for a ride on it. The temperature was about thirty two degrees out, but I found all of these odd clothes in my closet. Getting dressed was like getting ready for a deep sea diving adventure. I wonder if the knights of old had so many things to put on.

Shorts. Heavy tights. Under armour. Jersey. Vest. Gloves. Toasti Toes. Balaclava. Wool socks. Shoes. Booties. Helmet.

Whew.

Wait a minute. Tights and booties? Yep, we cyclists are a manly lot.

“Are those your cycling gloves?” my Lovely Lovely asked.

“Nope,” I said. “They’re cross country skier’s gloves, so they don’t have padding everywhere I wish they did, but they’re the warmest gloves I have.”

They are, too.

I thought that it was really cold in the garage. Then I stepped outside and the wind hit me. Oh, my goodness. It was cold with a capital brrrrrrrr.

By the way, I called this bi-sicle because it was like a popsicle. See? It sounds bicycle but it was really cold out and people would get it because they would…um…think of a popsicle…which is…really…cold? No. That didn’t work, did it? Never mind.

I was not the only crazy out on the road in the freezing cold this morning. Quite early on a saw I guy jogging. Now, if I shaved my head totally bald and it was that cold out, I think I would have had a hat on. He obviously disagreed.

What with the heavy clothes and the wind and the cold and my lack of saddle time lately, it was hard going. At one point I started pushing hard and my legs cussed me out and then asked me what on earth I thought I was doing.

Scenes of Star Trek went through my head. The real Star Trek.

“Scotty, give me more power!”

“I canna do it, Captain.”

Then, about twelve miles into the ride, my body suddenly woke up. It was amazing. I could almost hear the click as the machinery kicked in. All of sudden, I was a cyclist again. The pace picked up, I felt my blood pumping. It was great.

There’s a particular stretch of road where I always try to push the pace as hard as I can and maintain it. Today it was a little more difficult, and I had to resort to the “until I reach” trick.
I’m going to keep this pace up until I reach that sign. Okay, now I’m going to keep the pace up until I reach that mail box. No, that mailbox is too far away. I’m going to keep this pace up until I reach that clump of grass. Okay…

I passed a guy riding the wrong way down the road, perilously close to the yellow line. I mentioned him to my Lovely Lovely who asked, “Was it a cyclist of just a bike rider?”

She has learned well.

It was cold and hard and really really fun. I’m still alive after all.

Now all I have to do is get back out for another ride sometime this year. That would be great.

See you on the road.

Science Geekery

2009-11-16T13:41:00.002-05:00

Are you as much of a science geek as I am? (If you are, congratulations. If you are more of a science geek than I am, you have my pity.)

If you are, you might enjoy this website that I stumbled across. Have fun.

Yesterday my Lovely Lovely said the sweetest words a woman can say to her husband: I think you should ride more. (Granted, this could mean that she just wants me out from underfoot, but I think it more likely that it means that I get really grumpy when I don't get to ride.)

See you on the road. Maybe even today.

Music?

2009-11-12T14:46:00.005-05:00

Is there such a thing as good music to ride to?

I ask this question because I have serious doubts about the advisability of having earphones or earbuds on or in whichever particular orifice you choose to use for you listening pleasure while out riding the roads. I have been known to wear an mp3 player while riding around my subdivision, but I don’t ever wear one while riding anywhere else. I like having my ears free to listen for approaching cars, dogs, alien spacecraft, elephants, whatever might happen to wander by, really.

There are, however, many people who disagree with me. They say that having music with you on the ride can be very stimulating. Keith, for example, likes to have some good old fashioned rock and roll, and, if he doesn’t have an mp3 player, is likely to start singing. Lisa says that an mp3 player is great, because that way if Jörg and Dave start talking politics, she can simply reach for the volume control and listen to her music instead.

(Editorial note: having a dyed in the wool republican and a yellow dog democrat on the same ride can make some quite interesting conversation, and other people have been known to toss statements out just to get such conversations started. It can be something of a spectator sport.)

(Editorial note on the editorial note: Jörg and Dave are great friends, so the spectator sport is never in any danger of becoming a contact sport, and I find the conversations they have entertaining to a high degree.)

(Editorial note on the editorial note on the editorial note: this post has too many editorial notes.)

But I digress. I was talking about music, and, while a conversation can have its own music, that wasn’t really what I meant.

Music can certainly stimulate you and get your legs pumping, and it just might help you keep the pace high or make your way up that hill, but it can also take your attention away from the ride. I have heard people listening to music say, “I made it up that hill and never even noticed it was there.” They seemed to think that was a good thing, but I disagree. You’re supposed to notice the hill was there, just as you are supposed to noticed the other people on the ride with you, the wind, the deer than just ran across the road in front of you and the SUV that’s coming up from behind. It’s all part of the ride experience, and I generally don’t want that experience to be submerged in music. I can listen to music at home.

If you’re on a ride with your mp3 player and the other people on the road have to repeat what they said to you more than once because you couldn’t hear them over the music, then you aren’t really on the ride with them at all.

However, if I am on a little recovery ride around the neighborhood on the hybrid, I do tend to listen to music. There are only a few miles of road, and I have to go over them again and again. There are also very few cars, and they tend to be moving very slowly.

So, what is the best music for listening to while riding?

I have to give first place to The Tannahill Weavers. If that doesn’t get your legs moving, nothing will.

Beyond that, the Penetrators, the Torquays, the Diamondheads, the Atomic Mosquitos and groups of that ilk are all excellent listening. And, as always, The Ventures.

If you haven’t heard of some (or any) of these groups, then we don't listen to the same kinds of music, I guess.

If you listen to music on a ride, what do you listen to? Speak up. Now’s your chance.

See you on the road.

Group Ride

2009-11-09T12:21:00.004-05:00

What about a Saturday 9:00 am ride? You can’t possibly have to work then.

Well, as it turns out, Jörg was right. I didn’t have to work then. I did have to play for a wedding that afternoon, but that was another story, and I was sure I could squeeze in a ride in the morning. (My Lovely Lovely was less certain, mind you, since there were things around the house that needed to be done, but we worked that one out all right. She is, after all, lovely lovely.)

There was a nice group there: Jörg, Bobby, Dr. Bob and Bob, Karen, Lisa, Tom, Mike, Keith and Rick. (Bob, not to be confused with either Dr. Bob or Bobby) and Keith took off to do a mountain bike ride. They planned to swing by Wal-Mart to pick up some other riders (wow, they really do have everything you need at Wal-Mart) but the rest of us planned to hit the road. No one in living memory could recall the last time that Rick, Dr. Bob and I had all been on a ride together.

It was what we call a “social ride”. That is, the pace was easy so everybody could just enjoy the morning and chat. I had a great time. (I don’t know about anybody else. After all, I got to chat with them, but they were reduced to having to chat with me.) We took a route that I hadn’t been on for awhile (mind you, lately it feels like I haven’t been on any route for awhile) but which I remembered well. The temperature was in the mid sixties and the wind was certainly present but not brutal, and I got a chance to catch up with some people. (Socially speaking, that is. Even I didn’t have to catch up physically, since the pace was too gentle for anyone to get dropped.)

The weather prediction had been for no rain, and it was almost wrong. We could see the clouds ahead of us as we came in, and the sky spat a little bit, but nothing major.

As we were riding in over the last mile, I recalled a lesson I had once heard someone given on when it was inappropriate to sprint.

If someone tells you they aren’t going to spring, you shouldn’t necessarily believe it. That might merely be a tactic. But, if you’re attentive, you can tell when a (nonverbal) truce has been called and there won’t be a sprint. It is quite gauche to sprint at such times.

This day, of course, there was no question of a sprint. It simply wasn’t that kind of a ride. So, I waited until we were all of three feet from the finish line and, just as pure silliness, nipped ahead. Mind you, I had to get up to nearly 16 miles an hour to do that. Whew. (This was a really social ride. We came in with an average pace of about 14.3 mph.)

The whole ride was great. I wish you could have been there.

See you on the road.

Two Wheel Trouble?

2009-11-05T09:34:00.005-05:00

Two-wheel troublemaking: Have motorists let bicyclist 'rights' go too far?

Everytime this “writer” mentions cyclists rights, the word is always in quotes. I don't think he likes us very much.

For a decade, urban bicyclists have become more brash. In some cities, groups such as Critical Mass organized mass rush-hour bike rides that tied traffic in knots, delaying commuters rides' home by minutes or hours. They are hardly tactics that will win sympathy from drivers.

Well, that’s true. This may be how to influence people, but I don't suppose it's how to win friends.

In the aftermath and as their numbers have increased, cyclists have become emboldened to take over the road. That is, instead of riding to the right or on the shoulder, some are now riding in the center of the lane.

Taking the lane? Horrors!!

Two incidents underscore how they are putting themselves in danger. One incident involved a cyclist hit and killed by accident. The other case is a motorist who is alleged to have tried to make bicyclists crash into his car on purpose:

The writer is very concerned about the poor cyclists. That’s nice, isn’t it?

In the first case, a driver on the way to work struck a St. Mary's County, Md., bicyclist earlier this month and killed him, police told The Washington Post. The driver, a 20-year-old in her Honda Accord, told police she never saw the biker. But the accident might have been prevented if the 47-year-old bicyclist had been riding in the right, not in the dead center, of the lane, a major contributor to the accident.

Or course, the accident might also have been prevented in the 20-year-old driver had been paying attention to what was right in front of her.

In the second case, a Los Angeles doctor is on trial for allegedly slamming the brakes on his car to cause two bikers to run into him. They did, suffering bloody injuries. The doctor, Charles Christopher Thompson, was allegedly peeved over having to slow down for three bikers blocking his path, refusing to pull to the right and flipping him off as he passed. He is on trial for having pulled in front of them and, according to testimony, hitting the brakes so that bikes were sure to hit. One biker needed 90 stitches.

The doctor allegedly slammed on his brakes because he was allegedly peeved, but the cyclists didn’t allegedly refuse to pull to the right and didn’t allegedly flip him off? There’s certainly no bias in this writing, is there? What's the hippocratic oath say? First, do no harm.

By the way, that trial is now over. Thompson was convicted of six felonies: two counts each of assault with a deadly weapon and battery with serious bodily injury as well as reckless driving causing specified injury and mayhem. He was also convicted of misdemeanor reckless driving.

For a little perspective, Drive On sought out Jeff Peel, a program specialist heading the League of American Bicycle's campaign for Bicycle Friendly Communities. His contention is that the road is "not motorist space. It's people space." Bicyclists are road users, too, even if they travel at the fraction of the speed of a car. In fact, he says, that's good.

"The idea is you are slowing traffic, which may be frustrating to some motorists but making the road safer for everyone," Peel says. "Creating safer roadways and right-of-ways for all users sometimes requires taking space away from automobiles."

Taking space away from cars? Ouch.

Allegedly taking space away from cars.

When late to work, it pains a driver to slow down for a bunch of bicyclists hogging the roadway. In the past, you might have tried to steer around them. These days, they are right in front of the car.

Oh, my goodness, the poor driver. And those cyclists are hogging the roadway. Cars would never do that, now would they? Oh, dear, I guess the sarcasm meter is a little high today. Sorry about that.

It will be interesting to see how far this goes, whether bicyclists are allowed to stay in the middle of the highway. As the deaths mount, maybe it will become clear they need ride to the right.

Again, it’s all about the cyclists for this writer.

Okay, so perhaps I’ve been a bit sarcastic here, but is anyone else annoyed by the way this article was written? Or, for that matter, by my comments about this article? Let's be equal opportunity, after all.

You know, most drivers are not cyclists, but most cyclists are drivers. I’ve been in my car and late for work, but that isn’t the fault or the problem of the cyclist out on the road.

Cyclists aren’t always polite to the drivers of cars, which strikes me as unwise. If that driver gets ticked off and buzzes me or hits me, I’m going to feel it more than he will, so I’ll limit myself to a shake of the head at an annoying driver rather than a more emphatic gesture.

Still we can still ride, and that's all to the good.

See you on the road.

The Bike Lane is Where?

2009-11-02T13:29:00.003-05:00

City puts bicycles directly in the path of motorists

In one of the busiest shopping districts in Long Beach, California, bicyclists are kings of the road in an experiment that turns frustrated motorists into serfs.

Well, I guess we can tell the point of view of this article right from the beginning, can’t we?

The seaside city south of Los Angeles is encouraging bikers to get right in front of cars. It painted a five-foot wide green stripe down the middle of one of the two lanes in either direction of the Belmont Shore section of the city. Even though cars were whizzing by at 30 miles an hour yesterday, bikes were free to ride right in their path.

So, there is a bike lane and it runs right down the middle of the car lane. Interesting. I’m not quite sure how I feel about this as a concept. Let’s see how some other people felt about it, shall we? Somehow, I think the guy who wrote this article will tell us.

Some locals are livid about the experiment, which began in June.

That’s how.

"It's stupid. I can't even believe it," said John Cameron, who has lived in the area for 50 years. "To put them out in traffic is just stupid." It's slowing down traffic and putting bikers in harm's way, Cameron said

And it’s all about taking care of the cyclists, right?

adding that he rides a bike himself, but he says he always stays to the right.

Well, of course he does. That makes his opinion unbiased against cyclists, and that’s why he got interviewed for this article.

Long Beach is leading the pack as bikers assert more "rights" around the country:

“Rights?” In quotes? Really? Is that like saying cyclists are “smart” or “courteous” or “really good looking in those funny clothes”?

Drive On came to Long Beach to check out the bike vs. car feud after we reported last week how
more bicyclists are riding directly in the path of cars, instead of on the shoulder or to the right of the road. Bikers say it's sometimes unsafe to ride at the far right side of the road. But it in Maryland recently, center-of-the-road biking led to a death, a bicyclist killed by the car of a driver on the way to work one morning.

Which obviously proves that cyclists should never take the lane. After all, you only need one data point to extrapolate a theory from, right?

By installing the lane and other bike lanes around the city, Long Beach is trying to become a
bike-friendly city. The Press-Telegram, the leading newspaper in the city, reported that the city has won $11 million in federal funds to create bike lanes and other improvements. It has the nation's first Bike Station downtown, where commuters leave their bikes to take public transportation.

Nice. Bike friendly is good in my book. And in my blog, apparently.

One of the city's leading bike advocates, John Case, stands behind the experiment. "The green bike lane basically makes a statement to all car drivers in Long Beach that (the) vision embraced by the city council to be the most bike friendliest urban city in the USA means there will be changes in the urban street scheme to accommodate and encourage urban bike commuting," Case says.

“most bike friendliest?”

But the green stripe through Belmont Shore rankles many. Barber Mike Schafer, whose shop gives him a front-row seat to the bike action in Second Street outside, says the green lane is causing a lot of trouble. Bikers on beach cruisers are meandering along in the center of the lane, disregarding honking horns of the drivers being held up for blocks behind them, he says. One of them "just gave us 'the bird.'" For the bikers, "there should be signs saying 'Keep up with traffic.'"

Sigh. The driver who just got ticked off by another cyclist may be the driver who encounters you while you’re out riding.

Bicycle advocates say bikers in the center of the lane helps slow down traffic. But cars vastly outnumber bikes. Second Street can get 40,000 cars a day, compared to an average of 400 bikes a day when traffic was checked earlier this year, the Press-Telegram reported. About a dozen stoplights are only about 500 feet apart in the area, filled with bars and restaurants that make bikes convenient for getting around. Jeweler Dave Mancia says his customers are divided -- bikers like it and motorists hate it. And for him? "It's good but it can be dangerous," he says. He says he sticks to riding his bike in the alleys that parallel the thoroughfare.

Let's be careful out there, shall we? Bike lanes or not, a 2000 lb beast is an uncomfortable bedfellow.

See you on the road.

Dave

2009-10-30T08:14:00.002-04:00

Well, life is getting in the way of cycling lately, but I wanted to report some good news. Check out Dave's website at http://www.dieseldavegalloway.com/ to check out another stage of his recovery after being hit by a car while out for a ride.

You go, Dave. You're my hero.

Physical

2009-10-21T08:45:00.004-04:00

Do you want to know why I'm not out riding today?

You don't?

Oh. Short post.

Well, what the heck, I'll tell you anyhow, because that's the kind of giving person I am. I give people stuff they don't want.

My Lovely Lovely made me go and get a physical, the results of which demonstrate that riding a bicycle is a good thing, but I got a flu shot and a tetanus booster, one in each arm, and now the idea of supporting any of my weight with those arms on a bike is not one that appeals to me, which is a longwinded way of saying that my arms hurt.

No ride for me just yet.

But, since none of that was very funny and since my physical (don't start singing that Olivia Newton John song or you won't get it out of your head for hours. Ooh. Shouldn't have mentioned it, right? Sorry.) turned out well, here's a nice link for you to click on:

Funny cycling comics here. Check it out.

See you on the road.

Slow and Easy

2009-10-19T15:31:00.001-04:00

Today was supposed to be a day off, which would mean a long ride, but I had a sick sixth grader to deal with. She had what I think of as Student’s Disease. The progression of symptoms runs something like this:

Sunday 8:00 pm: The child does not feel well. The symptoms are vague and could indicate not enough sleep in the last 48 hours, an allergy, a cold, influenza (choose the strain you like best), mononucleosis or possible bubonic plague. Announcement of the symptoms is usually followed by, “Mommy, if I feel this bad in the morning, can I stay home?”

Monday 6:30 am: Symptoms are markedly worse.

Monday 12:00 pm: Symptoms are largely gone and the child is exhibiting symptoms of boredom and the beginnings of cabin fever.

Monday 3:30 pm: Child wants to go to a friend’s house and play

Early Monday afternoon, with symptoms progressing as expected, I decided I could sneak in a short ride. With the temperature at 57 degrees and the wind blowing 10 mph, I decided tights and long sleeves were called for. This was one of those days when I was properly dressed as long as I was in motion and too hot whenever I had to stop.

The cars were generally not bad, except for that guy behind me who suddenly realized that, if he didn’t pass me right now he would have to wait an additional twenty seconds or so for that oncoming car to go by. (Needless to say, the road was empty all the way to the horizon after the oncoming car.) He slammed the accelerator to the floor and roared past me in a whirl of noise, passing me way to close for my comfort but, presumably, not for his.

I reached an intersection and thought about turning to make a big loop, but the cars kept on coming and kept on coming and kept on coming and I finally decided to just turn around and go back the way I had come, which was when I noticed an odd (and annoying) thing about the wind.

Has this ever happened to you?

The wind is at your back, but it is a gentle zephyr which might be adding a tenth of a mile per hour to your speed, then you turn around, and the windspeed picks up until it resembled a force 3 hurricane which is literally blowing you backwards as you try to pedal into it. I don’t know how the wind knows that I have turned around, but it does.

The ride was quite nice.

As I was spinning, I thought of the book French Revolutions by Tim Moore which I mentioned last week. Well, I’m afraid that I’m going to score a DNF on this one. I have abandoned the book because the author annoyed me. (I am sure that, even if he were aware of this, Mr. Moore would be largely untroubled by it, which is as it should be.)

You see, he dedicates the book to Tom Simpson, about whom he natters on almost endlessly. Now, Tom Simpson’s end was probably tragic. Some people find it heroic as well. Read up on it and make up your own mind.

The author, after talking about how much he admires Simpson, decides that he will dope to make sure he can get up Mont Ventoux. He indicates that, if he’d been able to get EPO (and could be certain of living through the experience of using it) or HGH he would have used that, but, since he can’t, he makes do with more easily obtained and less effective means. I’m not interested in reading about this.

His justification is that every successful pro in the history of cycling except Gino Bartali has been a doper, so, even though he is simply riding (part of) the Tour de France route on his own as an amateur, he might as well dope, too. All of this annoyed me sufficiently to make me put the book down with no intention of picking it back up again. It can go back to the library and broom wagon can sweep me up. I’ll find a new book.

Tomorrow, with Student’s Disease well on it’s way to being cured, I’m looking for a nice long ride. I hope it’s as nice as today’s ride was.

See you on the road.

How Not to Go Crazy

2009-10-15T15:51:00.004-04:00

Cyclin’ Missy recently wrote:

It's a long time before spring. It'll be easy to get lazy when I don't want to go outside, let alone drive to the gym. But I'm kind of excited right now to find creative ways to keep myself motivated to exercise over the winter months - spin class, weight lifting, indoor mini-tris...attempts to manufacture variety with the same old gym equipment. Maybe even going outside to ski. I'd love to hear about other people's techniques for keeping yourself moving in the winter.

Now, I don’t have quite the same problem that Missy does, because she lives in a colder place than I do with a lot more snow. (Which makes more sense than if she lived in a warmer place with a lot more snow, I guess.) Where I live, it seldom actually gets too cold to ride (if you’re something of a masochist, that is). You might think it’s too cold to ride, but it almost never really is.

After all, if these people can ride, what do I have to complain about?

The question where I live is not “what do I do to keep myself occupied and in shape indoors?” but “How can I convince myself to go out and ride when the temperature is in the low thirties.” This is not a bad conundrum to have, because I really can ride when the temperature is that low, as long as I have the right clothes, the intestinal fortitude, and some Toasti Toes.

Yes, it’s true, I am, like many cyclists, a fashion plate, obsessing about what I wear.

You see, my problem is, I can’t stand to work out indoors. I don’t care if I’m listening to music, watching a video, listening to an audio book, it doesn’t matter. After about fifteen minutes of indoor riding, I am bored out of my skull.

If you have strategies for not going crazy indoors, head on over to Missy’s site and give them to her, but I’m afraid I don’t have any. I’d rather go out and freeze than try to ride my bike indoors or use gym equipment. I have no objection to being indoors. Give me a book to read and then leave me alone and I’m content, but the indoors was never meant for people who were riding a bike. (And why on earth did I decide in that previous sentence that indoors was plural?)

Yes, I know, that’s easy for me to say because it doesn’t snow much and the temperature doesn’t get much below freezing here most of the time. I’d be singing a different song if I lived in North Dakota or Finland (and then my song would even have to be in Finnish, and then where would we be?) but I’m not.

In fact, just a few days after Missy posted on this topic, the weather around these parts was a balmy 76 degrees. I suppose I should have felt bad for everyone who lives in colder climes, but I have to admit that I was too busy riding to think about it at the time.

So, did Missy ever find any really good tips to keep herself motivated? Don’t let me spoil it for you. Go on over to her site and check it out for yourself.

See you on the road.
Remember: if it's too cold outside, ride harder. That'll warm you up.

See you on the road.

We're Not in Kansas Anymore...

2009-10-14T08:52:00.003-04:00

Having finally taken the time to measure the setback on my saddle and (hopefully) get it put back where it belongs, I clearly had to go for a quick ride to check things out. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to wash my kits…uh-oh

I am not going to wear dirty shorts. Aside from the fact that it’s simply disgusting, it’s also a great way to get saddle sores, so I dug around and came up with an old pair of shorts that had long been retired for having been worn too thin for comfort. (Not for my comfort, you understand, but for the comfort of anyone who happens to be riding behind me. Well, there wouldn’t be anybody riding behind me today, so that was all right.)

Once again the temperature was nice – a balmy 73 degrees, and once again the wind was not so nice – 18 mph. Hooray. When I clipped in and hit the road, my body said, “Ah….” as I settled into the saddle, because it finally felt right again. That was nice.

Almost the first thing I saw was two hawks riding thermals maybe thirty feet up, wings spread, looking all majestic. (This made a nice contrast with me, clad in lycra, not looking majestic at all.)
I was really feeling kind of lazy today, so I kept my pace gentle. (It was just because I was feeling lazy. That screaming wind had nothing to do with it. Really.) I also decided, on a whim, to do some exploring today (because that sounds a lot better than saying I got lost).

Early on I passed another cyclist going in the opposite direction. I always like seeing other cyclists on the road. It gives me hope for the world.

I turned down a road at random and then down several other roads at random. I have a pretty good sense of direction (possibly the only kind of sense I have), so I always knew which direction home was, but I wasn’t quite sure how to get back there for awhile. I cruised past fields of dead corn, fields of cotton, and leaves of tobacco lying along the side of the road (as if Hansel and Gretel had been smokers and had used tobacco leaves instead of bread crumbs to mark their path) and, as the sound of banjos seemed to hang in the air, it occurred to me that it was a good thing that I had a cell phone with me. Then it occurred to me that I wasn’t sure I could tell whoever I called where I was or how to get there, so maybe the cell phone wasn’t so much use after all.

Only a few seconds after that, an old pickup truck passed me going the opposite direction, and they apparently tossed a firecracker at me. I heard the bang very close to me and smelled the powder. For a split second I thought someone might have fired a gun. Good thing I wasn’t wearing a heart rate monitor.

Did the banjos just get louder?

I wandered down several roads while the prospect got more and more rural, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, I found myself on a road I was familiar with. I was pretty sure I knew which direction to turn, and that got me to a road I knew very well indeed. Well, I wasn’t lost anymore, and that was a good thing in my book.

That left me with about six miles to get home and a headwind all the way. Well, I wasn’t in a hurry, so that was okay.

I think maybe I finally got that saddle right, and that’s more than okay.

See you on the road.

Fit

2009-10-13T12:39:00.003-04:00

You can pay a lot of money to get someone to scientifically fit your bike to your body. I have not done this. But, I hear you ask, you have clearly established yourself as a science nerd of the first water, so why have you not done this? I’m glad you asked. Well, I’m glad I asked for you. The answer is, because I don’t want to. Now that we have that settled…

Some years ago when I moved from the trusty Trek 1000 to a new bike, I suffered what could be called some “discomfort.” I realize that this is a vague word which can be used to describe many things, and I have chosen it for that very reason. When I went from toe clips to clipless pedals, I experienced some “discomfort” that I wouldn’t try to describe in a family blog. When I switched bikes, the “discomfort” was a pain in my…um…legs.

So what do you do in such a situation? You ask somebody who knows. I asked several people, and, when I indicated the area of my legs that was trouble me, Jörg asked, “In the adductors?”

Well, now is the time to admit that I am a biologist with a woeful lack of knowledge of the musculature of the human frame. I am not necessarily proud of this lack, but the fact is that I am a molecular biologist by training (which isn’t anywhere near as glamorous as it sounds), and structures much bigger than a cell don’t really interest me that much, so my response was pretty much just to point.

Then Jörg, who was apparently making a habit that day out of asking questions that I had no idea how to answer, asked, “What’s your setback?”

Huh? (Actually, I don’t think my response was actually as coherent as that.)

Jörg kindly explained what “setback” was (and in case your ignorance is as vast as my own, it’s the horizontal distance between the bottom bracket and the front tip of the saddle) and how to measure it. This involved getting a plumb bob (the fact that I actually knew what that was did make me feel a bit better about myself) and a tape measure and getting to work.

Fortunately, the trust Trek was set up correctly for me (not that I had anything to do with that, you understand) so I could simply measure the setback of that saddle and then use that same measurement on the new bike. Simple. Well, it should be simple. For me, nothing like ever is simple, but I got it done in the end.

I mention all of this now because recently I’ve been back on the Trek while my other bike waited for tires. I got the new tires on and discovered that the saddle was waaaaaaaaaaay out of place. I put it back more or less where I thought it should be and went for a ride.

Apparently, more or less where I thought it should be wasn’t quite right, so I finally broke down today and remeasured the setback on the two bikes. It was wrong. (Yes, I know that a smart man would have written the numbers down the first time he measured the setback, but there you are. I didn’t do it. Draw your own conclusions.) I moved the saddle some more, and, pretty soon, I’ll go on a ride to see how it feels.

Wish me luck.

I’ll need it in the end.

See you on the road.

Warm and Windy

2009-10-12T08:04:00.002-04:00

As I took the dogs out this morning, I was troubled by the weather. I was troubled because it was comfortably warm and dead calm. This may sound a little peculiar, but the radio had warned of an approaching cold front this weekend, and, somehow, I felt that good weather was a bad sign. I checked the computer: 76 degrees (yahoo) with winds of 13 to 18 mph (boo!). Oh, well. I got kitted out and hit the road.

If you figure you’ll just find a comfortable pace, get into a rhythm and ride, the wind isn’t such a bad thing. I ended up riding the same route as my last longer ride and once again ended up in the tiny town of Fremont. There is a sign that proudly proclaims Fremont to be “The Daffodil Town.”

The streets of Fremont are, inexplicably, lined with spaces for parallel parking. Inexplicably because there just aren’t that many people there. Even if everybody there own three cars they wouldn’t need that many parking spaces. I like it, though, because it’s like a bike lane. Nice. Of course, since there were pretty much no cars on the streets, I didn’t need a bike lane, but let’s not be picky.

As I was riding through the town, it occurred to me that daffodil’s are seasonal. How, I wondered, is everyone supposed to know that Fremont is the daffodil town? I mean, aside from the big sign that says “Fremont: The Daffodil Town” how is everyone supposed to know that Fremont is the daffodil town?

I got the answer to that one a few minutes later. I was riding at random around the town and turned onto a road because it’s named after the place I live, and then I saw three giant metal daffodil’s each, one five or six feet high. Well, I guess that lets you know where you are, doesn’t it?

I also participated in a tractor race. I saw very few people out on the roads, but at least two of those people were driving tractors. I found myself behind one of them going 18 mph. (I don’t know why tractor’s go 18 mph, but that’s what they do around these parts, anyway). The wind wasn’t being particularly nasty at that point – kind of a head-crosswind, so I decided to go around the tractor and see if I could leave it behind. I like passing a motorized vehicle and leaving it in my dust (turnabout is fair play after all), so I dig in and took off. After several minutes I finally looked behind me, and it was a delight to see how far back the tractor was.

I also discovered a plethora of home-based businesses. Do you need a mason? Some landscaping done? Your dog groomed? Your lawnmower fixed? Your hair done? Some tools sharpened? To buy a dog? I passed houses with signs out front for all of these things and more. (The kennel selling dogs markets poodles and great Danes. This seems like an odd combination to me, even assuming that they mean two different breeds and not some very peculiar hybrid.)

As I was heading back home, with about 15 miles left to go, the sky began to darken precipitously, and the wind picked up. Ahead of me, the sky was blue. Behind me, it was black, adn the darkening clouds seemed to be chasing after me. I got hit with occasional spats of rain. It was actually kind of creepy being chased by the bad weather. I made it back unscatched, if a bit tired.

My saddle still isn't quite right, but it's close. If I ever find out who moved it in the first place, I shall find some suitable way to express my annoyance.

Still, I had a great ride in spite of the weather. Life should always be so good.

See you on the road.

Oops

2009-10-07T12:23:00.001-04:00

Okay, so, to put it technically, I faw down go boom.

Actually, that isn’t the beginning, that’s the end. As Dr. Who once said, “First things first, but not necessarily in that order.”

First of all, someone moved my saddle. This is extremely annoying. I spent I don’t know how long tweaking the saddle position to get it right. As we all know, when someone moves your saddle it’s a real pain in the posterior. Literally and figuratively. I still don’t have it quite right, but that will come eventually.

Now let me go back in time.

I was once knocked down by a beagle while it was on the way somewhere else. A group of us were riding, and Jörg was riding beside me. (Clearly an unwise thing to do.) A beagle decided to go after Jörg and, to do so, had to pass in front of me. My wheel took it right in the short ribs. The dogs was fine. I was a victim of physics.

My bike stopped, I did not. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. As I started to roll irretrievably over the handlebars, I jostled Jörg and actually had the presence of mind (or the absurdity) to apologize. Then I continued my flip, hit the road and did a series of truly acrobatic somersaults down it. The road curved, but I continued on straight and remember thinking “Ah, grass,” as the world continued to rotate around me and then I eventually came to a halt on my back and the world mercifully ceased to spin.

I climbed to my feet to find that my bike was okay and I had acquired some road rash and lost some blood. I took that opportunity to express my dismay to the dog’s owner in tones rather fueled by anger and pain.

After we remounted and road on, Jörg asked, “Haven’t you ever fallen off before?”

“Yes,” I said, still fuming.

“Then, what’s the problem?”

And, there you have it. What was the problem? My bike was fine, I would heal, what was I getting so worked up about?

I tell you this story to explain why, after hitting the deck today, I just don’t feel like it’s that big a deal. Yes, I have some road rash, and, yes, I left some blood on the road, but I’m okay. My body hurts, but it will heal, and no serious damage was done, except perhaps to my self-esteem, but I would hardly be writing this blog is my self-esteem didn’t have a certain flexibility about it.

I had a hard ride, my bike didn’t quite fit, I fell down, it was really windy…and I will hope back in the saddle the first chance I get, so what is there to complain about?

I can still ride. Life is good.

See you on the road.

The way I fall off, maybe I mean that literally.

Maintenance

2009-10-06T07:36:00.001-04:00

I've been waiting for a tire to arrive.

My number one bike has been laid up with an injury for several weeks. I got a flat and, while changing it out on the road, realized that both of my tires needed to be changed. The problem was that the bike shop only had one, and I've been waiting for the second one to arrive. It turned out that there were problems beyond the bike shop's control, but it finally arrived, and this morning I set out to put the new tires on my bike.

Those of you who have read this blog for awhile (with one post a day being the recommended dosage for a healthy adult - don't try more than that unless you've become hardened to it over time) you may know that, mechanically speaking, I am what is technically known as a clutz. Just ask Steve. He is not likely to ever forget the time he saw me spray myself in the face with degreaser. (Try Lunicycle's new acne cure...) When it comes to using tools, I am good for a laugh, if nothing else.

But I can change a tire. I've done it sitting in my living room, and I've done it out on the road. And, if I can change a tire, I can certainly change two, which is what putting new tires on your bike amounts to, after all. With the rear wheel off, I figured I needed to clean the cassette which naturally led to cleaning and lubing the chain which naturally led to cleaning and polishing the whole bike. (Everyone knows that a clean bike goes faster. If you didn't know that, well, now you do, and I can use anything I can get to help me go faster.)

I did manage to make the bike cleaner than it had been when I started, but I seem to have done this by the simple expedient of transferring most of the great and grime from the bike to me. I walked into the house and my Lovely Lovely laughed and asked, "What have you been doing? You look kind of wild." Well, I was a mess, but at least the degreaser had done where it was supposed to instead of in my face, so I counted that as a victory.

Of course, I rode the bike around a bit to make sure that everything was working right. Seemingly it was, but I can't shake the feeling that, when I go out for a real ride, both of the wheels are going to fall off.

Wish me luck.

See you on the road.

Finally, a longer ride

2009-10-05T07:42:00.003-04:00

Thanks to an early morning appointment, I had to hit the road early. It was 63 degrees, so I broke out the arm warmers, but I put them in my pocket instead of putting them on because I’m clever that way. Within two minutes of hitting the road, I stopped and put the arm warmers on.

It was chilly and foggy. The fog, even though it was only present in low lying areas, was decidedly spooky and made me wish that my rear light (affectionately known as the disco inferno) was working. At the moment it isn’t so much a light as a piece of uninspired art that I could have dangling from the back of my bike if I wanted just for the beauty of it.

I decided to keep my pace high for the entire ride, and I did manage to do that, so I’m feeling pretty good about that, but it was a bit lonely out there today. At one point I kept a tally of what I saw:

Trucks – yes
Cars – of course
Motorcycles – yep
Dogs – sure
Large funny looking chicken – check
Possum – uh-huh
Cyclists – no

That turned out to be a bad list.

The route I had taken took me near the school where the group rides start. Because of the aforementioned early morning appointment (look back at the first line if you’ve forgotten) I couldn’t go on the group ride, but I saw people headed that way.

The first cyclist I saw pulled up next to me, looked at me carefully and said, “Hi.”

I didn’t realize it was a cyclist at first, as he was driving a truck. As he pulled past me, I saw his bike in the back. Well, that’s one way of taking your bike for a ride.

I later passed a few people I recognized, and we exchanged waves. Mind you, it’s been so long since I’ve been on a group ride that I’m not prepared to state that they recognized me.

Nothing really peculiar happened today, unless you want to count seeing a large funny looking chicken at the side of the road as being peculiar.

Actually, I guess that is kind of peculiar. It was black and white and foraging at the side of the road. I don’t know where it came from or where it went after I passed. I'm not even entirely certain that it was a chicken, but "chicken" is so much more concise than "domesticated fowl of some sort". We were like ships passing in the night.

Well, not very much like ships passing in the night. After all, I was a cyclist and it was a chicken. Now, if it had been broiled and my ride had been over we might have made a closer acquantaince.

The last ten miles were hard, largely because I made them hard by choosing to keep my pace up as high as I could (and sometimes higher than I thought I could). Chuck says, “Cycling brings character out in you or, if there isn’t any there, it puts it there.”

You don’t know Chuck…well, actually, depending on who you are, maybe you do know Chuck.
The downside of today was that I had to miss out on the group ride. The upside was that I had a good hard ride and pushed myself beyond what my body thought it was capable of today. I’m not sure why that’s a good feeling, but it is. If you’ve done it, you know what I’m talking about. If you’ve never done it, try it. You’ll like it.

Well, maybe you’ll like it. After it’s done. While you’re doing it, it’s kind of tough.

This has been a very good cycling week. Now let’s make next week even better. The cold is coming.

See you on the road.

Oddities

2009-10-02T06:54:00.006-04:00

It was windy and my legs felt heavy and lethargic. So why would I go for a ride when I’m not sure that I feel like going for a ride? Because I’d regret it later if I passed up the opportunity, so I got kitted out in a very snazzy Yellow Submarine jersey and hit the road.

I followed the same route as my last ride except that I went farther. Early on, the wind was trying it’s best to push me backward (and very nearly succeeding) and I could see a flag hanging downward from a bar that was parallel to the ground. I could have sworn the wind was blowing something fierce, but the flag was utterly motionless. I was starting to winder if I was crazy until I got close enough to see that the bottom of the flag was attached to the ground so it couldn’t move.

I am aware, by the way, that this doesn’t prove that I’m not crazy. It just means that this particular incident made sense.

I passed a point where the speed limit went from 45 to 55, and I considered raising my own speed 10 mph to match the signs, but two things stopped me: my legs.

I passed my daughter’s school, and I was keenly aware of the possibilities for embarrassment in this.

Me: “I rode by your school today.”

Her: (horrified) “You what?!”

Me: “There were a bunch of people outside watching a soccer game. I looked for you.”

Her: (even more horrified) “Oh, no! Were you wearing your cycling clothes?!”

Me: “Well, sure. I waved and called your name just in case you were there.”

This would surely be followed by a cry of anguish, don’t you think?

Actually, it’ll be pretty funny is she really was there and saw me ride by.

I passed a building that looked like it was constructed out of several truck trailers. I had seen it before and wondered what it was, but today there were several fans going, and I could smell what was going on – tobacco was being dried or cured or something inside those things. This creates a rather pungent aroma that isn’t good breathing for a guy who’s trying as hard as he can to push into a headwind.

Then I turned a corner and shortly after that found myself in the town of Fremont. Fremont is not a busy town, so I had a lovely stretch of smooth open road. Then I reached what appeared to be the downtown area where, judging by the looks I got, they aren’t too used to seeing guys on bikes.) Mind you, I am keenly aware of the possibility that it was just the way I looked that was garnering all of those bizarre looks. You have to consider all the possibilities.) At one point I heard a very loud laugh: "Ha ha!" I didn't know people actually said "Ha ha" but this person did. I also distinctly smelled something that greatly resembled marijuana. I point no fingers, I make no accusations, I merely report the fact.

I was also reflecting on the fact that I know how to tell if you have a great wife or husband. I know I have a great wife because of this brief conversation:

Me: “There’s a group having a 100K ride next month.”

My Lovely Lovely: “Are you gonna go?”

Yes, I am lucky. Thanks for noticing.

I saw a fellow cyclist on the road (always nice) and I saw a guy on a bike who is probably lucky to be upright. I pulled up to an intersection. Across from me were a bike and two cars. They guy on the bike wanted to turn right, but he was having trouble getting in motion. The reason for this is that, instead of pushing down on a pedal, he had one foot on the ground and was trying to use it to paddle his bike forward. Then, when he got to what he considered a good speed he would pick his foot up and only then would he start to pedal. The car behind him waited very patiently.

I went through the intersection and the wind changed direction. How is this possible? There are nothing but fields all around, nothing to channel the wind, but it’s a crosswind and then, continuing in a straight line, I go through the intersection and it’s a headwind. This does not seem right to me.

(I once rode an out and back route that was uphill both ways. That also does not seem right to me, but I had another rider with me, and he swears the same thing. The world is a strange place.)

Hopefully on Saturday I’ll make it out for a longer ride, bright and early. My daughter is having a birthday sleepover Saturday night with numerous participants, so I’m sure to need a ride in order to de-stress.

Wish me luck.

See you on the road.

Flyball

2009-09-30T15:16:00.002-04:00

This is not a cycling related post. Why would I put a noncycling post in a cycling blog? Because I am a well rounded person. (Actually, if I don’t get some more miles in, I will be a well rounded person, but that’s another post entirely.) This post is about flyball.

Not, by the way, fly ball as in a ball hit up into the air to be fielded but flyball as in a sport for dogs – kind of like doggie drag racing (without the cars, of course – that would just be silly.) If you have six minutes and 24 seconds to spare, this video does a good job of explaining it:

(Actually, even if you don't have six minutes and 24 seconds to spare, this video still does a good job of explaining it:)

I had the chance to watch flyball live recently, and it was a blast. There were several events going on at the fairgrounds, and the flyball tournament was waaaaaaaay away from everything else. I don’t know if that was for the benefit of everyone else there or for the benefit of the dogs.

We walked in, and it was loud. Imagine fifty dogs all happily barking away. There were also whistles from referees and people talking and other people shouting encouragement, all in a building with a concrete floor and walls and a ceiling that might have been designed to magnify noise.

But I forgot all about the noise as I watched the dogs. That was a treat.

I had wondered if it would be boring, watching race after race, but they were all different, thanks to the dogs, each with his or her own personality.

There was the large Jack Russell Terrier who didn’t want to play. He ran last on his team…well, he was supposed to run last on his team, but he simply wasn’t interested. In his first heat he jumped over two hurdles and then wandered off. In his second heat he jumped over four hurdles and then wandered off. They didn’t let him compete in the third heat.

There was a sheltie named Rachel. She got the ball but, as she started back, she dropped it right before jumping over the first hurdle, and then she froze. She simply stood there like a statue. You could almost hear her mind working. “Let’s see…I was supposed to get the ball and run back over the hurdles. I got the ball, but now I don’t have the ball. Where’s the ball? And what am I supposed to do now that I don’t have the ball? If I had the ball I would run back over the hurdles, but without the ball…hm…”

She did finally hear a voice behind her telling her to get the ball. She turned around, saw it, picked up and finished her run.

Rachel’s team lost that heat.

Most of the members on every team were excited. When a team's start dog came in and got ready to go, the other dogs on the team would look at him and then start barking at him, for all the world as if they were encouraging him. Go, dog, go. (I think there might be a children's book in there somewhere.)

It's a pretty high speed sport. Most of the runs took about twenty seconds or a little more, although one team was always under eighteen and usually under seventeen.

There were yorkies, shelties, poodles, boston terriers, German shepherds, labs, feists, salukis, and, of course, Australian shepherds and border collies galore, and every single one of them was friendly and happy. You’d see them between matches, and they were always ready to be petted or to lick someone. They were clearly having a great time.

I have to admit that I most enjoyed the border collies. They were ready to go, and they have a fluidty when they are in motion that is a joy to see. One team had both a border collie, who was a paragon of intense focus, and a springer spaniel who looked about as happy go lucky as a dog could look, leaping over the jumps with his ears flying foolishly about his head and a big grin on his face. They both seemed to have a good time, though perhaps in slightly different ways, and I couldn't help but imagine the conversation they might have had.

Collie: You need to be more focused.

Spaniel: Huh?

Collie: I said, You need to be more focused.

Spaniel: Okey-dokey. Do you think that guy over there will pet me?

Collie: Focus. You're here to get the ball.

Spaniel: Flyball. Yep. Yep. Yep. What's a ball?

I want to play flyball.

Well, I want to have a dog to play flyball. I'd look rather ridiculous doing it myself.

Of course, I'm used to looking ridiculous. You should see me on the bike, after all.

See you on the road.

Windy Windy Windy Windy Windy Windy Windy

2009-09-29T15:38:00.010-04:00

First and foremost, congratulations to Cyclin’ Missy for not only completing a duathlon but for doing well in it. I told her that in honor of her success I would take some time off this afternoon and go for a bike ride, so I did.

When I got kitted out I pulled on my replica of Paolo Bettini’s Italian National Champion jersey, presumably in the hope that someone would actually mistake me for Paolo Bettini. There are several reasons why this did not happen.

1. The odds are pretty good that no one I passed on the road today knows who Paolo Bettini is.

2. Unless someone is Italian, they probably wouldn’t recognize the Italian National Champion's cycling jersey.

(Oddly enough, shortly after leaving home I passed a guy who apparently was Italian. I base this not only on his appearance but on the fact that he was having a cell phone conversation in Italian. He didn’t give me a second glance.)

3. No one in their right mind would mistake me for a champion cyclist.

(The only person verifiably not in their right mind on the road today was me. After all, if I were in my right mind, would I have gone for a bike ride in a twenty mile per hour wind just for fun? I don’t think so.)

The wind was fierce today. Within a couple of miles after leaving home and right after turning into a screaming headwind I came across a mail car. I will confess that, for an instant, the thought of trying to draft crossed my mind, but drafting off of a strange car is, to the least, unwise. Don’t believe me? Read “Heft on Wheels” by Mike Magnusson. You’ll find out. (Actually, drafting off a car supposedly driven by someone who knows what they’re doing can also be dangerous. Just ask Jan Ullrich.

I wandered down some roads that I had never been on before, including one called Forehand Road. I don’t know if that’s someone’s last name or they just really liked tennis. I later wandered into someplace called Pleasant Grove, and I remember thinking that Pleasant Grove isn’t really all that pleasant, what with that wind blowing in my face and all.

Most of the cars were nice, until one of the guys from Deliverance passed me. He was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap done in camo colors. He had a toothpick hanging from his mouth and was driving a bright red pickup truck with a lot of ground clearance, and he laid on his horn and glared at me as he passed me. I have no idea why he did this, because we were on opposite sides of the road going in opposite directions, so I certainly wasn’t in his way at all. Apparently the fact that I was using his road vexed him rather more than a bit. Y'all.

I remember at one point thinks, “This is fun?” as I pushed my way into the wind as hard as I could go. Well, some parts of the ride were definitely fun, but even the hard parts were at least satisfying. I don’t know how to explain that. I guess you either get it or you don’t.

Steve says: You go out for a ride on a really cold winter morning – your face is numb and everything’s freezing, and you get passed by a guy driving a big car. He’s got his heater going and has a coat on and a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and he looks at you like you’re the crazy one, and you know that you know something he never will and that you’re alive.

Steve gets it.

I have to stay late tonight, because I have a meeting that doesn’t even start until 5:30, but while I’m sitting there, I’ll be able to think back on today’s hard, windy ride and that’ll get me through the meeting.

Life is good when you ride a bike.

See you on the road.

Pump Action

2009-09-28T08:29:00.004-04:00

My trusty Wrench Force pump died recently. We will now have a moment of silence. (Of course, this is a blog, so unless you’re reading aloud, you’re already silent, so never mind.)

Of course, I had that pump for six years, and it certainly pumped up a lot of tires, so I shouldn’t complain.

I shouldn’t complain, but I still do, because, in expiring, the pump left my rear tire completely deflated.

A few days later I managed to get a new pump from a large chain department store that is famous primarily for being a large chain department store. They only had one pump that could be of any use to me – it had an air gauge and an adapter that would make it work on a presta valve, so I got it.

Here is how it works: first, you take the adapter and you screw it into the hole where the valve goes, making sure it’s a nice tight fit. Then you fit the nozzle over the valve on your tire and lock it into place. Then you start pumping, at which point that nozzle flies off of the tire leaving the adapter attached to your valve.

Repeat until you are certain that the pump is going to do this every time and your tire is completely defalted.

After you’ve repeated this enough times to realize that this is, in fact, all that this particular pump does, you take it back to large chain department store and get your money back.
This is very useful as an exercise in frustration, but when it comes to going for a ride, it isn’t much help.

After this experience, I waited until I could go to the bike shop and get a good pump.

Me on Friday as I watch sheets of rain falling outside the window: “If I get a pump today, I’m going for a ride tomorrow morning whether it rains or not!”

Me on Saturday morning: “Aw, man, it’s supposed to rain this morning!”

I am nothing if not inconsistent.

But, sitting up before sunrise, I decided to go for a ride anyway. I just made sure my cell phone was in a plastic bag and hit the road.

It was so windy I kept my eyes peeled for Dorothy. I didn’t see her or her little dog, too, flying past, but I did see a couple of friends go by in the opposite direction. (Just to make things clear, they were riding bikes, not being blown by the wind). I thought for a moment about turning around and joining them, but I already had a route mapped out in my head and decided to stick with it.

Since I set out just after sunrise (which isn’t as early as it sounds this time of year) I didn’t see many people on the road other than joggers and cyclists. It was peaceful. Or, it would have been peaceful if I hadn’t decided to go as hard as I could go for the whole ride.

There were some odd little moments. There usually are.

I passed through some cigarette smoke when there were no cars on the road and no people visible at all. I still don’t know where it came from.

I passed a field full of dead corn, the stalks withered and brown with white ears hanging from them. I’m sure there was a good reason for letting it die in the field, but I don’t know what it was.

I had a moment when I recalled what Jörg said about the difference between riding with the guys and riding with the ladies. The ladies notice all the scenery and the guys don’t. I don’t know what made me think of that, as I wasn’t noticing the scenery at the time.

The wind was pretty much a misery, but there isn’t much you can do about that except for keep pushing your way into it and suffer, and I did both of those things, but it was great to be on the bike even so.

As I neared home, I passed the same two riders I had passed on my way out (Hey, Scott!) and then the wind kicked up and I was not aware of much aside from the pain of trying to keep my pace up despite the wind. Who would have guessed that a few air molecules could have so much effect. I mean, they’re so light, right?

As I got back into my subdivision, I passed an elderly lady riding a bike with a basket on the front and what appeared to be a blanket in the basket. I have no idea where she was headed or what the blanket was for.

I made it back home to find that everyone was still asleep and my legs were toast.

It was a great ride, though. Here's hoping I get the next one soon.

See you on the road.

Quotes

2009-09-25T08:37:00.003-04:00

Fabian Cancellara fulfilled everyone’s expectations by winning the world time trial championship in fine form. Nobody else was even close to him. The man who came in second has this to say:

“Cancellara’s still from earth, but he was the best today. I tried what I could, I really happy with my performance.”

I like this quote, and it made me think of some of my other favorite quotes relating to bicycles:

"I thought of that while riding my bike." — Albert Einstein, on the theory of relativity

As a cyclist and confirmed science nerd, I like that one a lot.

" I've read that I flew up the hills and mountains of France. But you don't fly up a hill. You struggle slowly and painfully up a hill, and maybe, if you work very hard, you get to the top ahead of everybody else." — Lance Armstrong

It’s kind of nice to know that it isn’t effortless for anyone. I can remember those days struggling along, gasping for air, sweating and being happy to hear the guy next me start gasping too. It made me feel like I wasn’t doing so hopelessly badly after all.

"I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty—five. Isn't it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailleur? We are getting soft... As for me, give me a fixed gear!" — Henri Desgrange

Said the man who came up with the Tour de France. Ouch.

If you brake, you don't win." Mario Cipollini

Ride lots." — Eddy Merckx

Good advice from two of the greatest ever.

Get a bicycle. You will certainly not regret it, if you live. -Mark Twain

That one just makes me laugh.

Here are quotes from two people I don’t know (of course, they don’t know me, either) who’ve really got something.

The best rides are the ones where you bite off much more than you can chew--and live through it. -Doug Bradbury

Predawn ride, I pass my neighbor on a run. "Why are you riding a bike?" he asks. "Running gets you in shape faster." It's not about that. It's about how riding makes me feel. The speed. Leaning into gentle curves. Charging up hills. How strong my legs feel. Riding gets me fit. But thats just luck. I don't ride to get fit.-R. Todd Barker

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle I no longer despair for the future of the human race.-H.G. Wells

Same here.

Never use your face as a brake pad.-Jake Watson

Sound advice.

"Finishing a ride is mandatory. Finishing a ride fast is optional."- Anonymous

Been there. Done that. That was me at the end of the club’s double century ride. I didn’t finish pretty or strong, but I did finish.

And let’s not forget everybody’s friend, the wind. "

Wind is just a hill in gaseous form."-- Barry McCarty

"You never have the wind with you. It is either against you or you are having a good day."-- Daniel Behrman, The Man Who Loved Bicycles

"Friends Don't Let Friends Drive"

I don’t recall where I got this one, but I have to admit that I like it. I wish I had a T-shirt with that quote and a picture of a bicycle on it.

“Cycling has encountered more enemies than any other form of exercise.”-- 19th-century author Louis Baudry de Saunier

So it’s not just a modern phenomenon!

Well, my Lovely Lovely gets off work early today, and I believe that she’s going to swing by the bike shop and pick up a pump for me. I had a chance to go a nonbike shop and buy a pump that turned out to be a useless piece of junk, so I returned it, crestfallen, to wait out my long period of no air in the tire, but soon I’ll be on two wheels again, and then I’ll be a better person.

See you on the road.

Say What?

2009-09-24T08:16:00.002-04:00

Okay, I know I've shared some crazy stories with you instead of my own experiences lately, but I think this one takes the cake and I just had to share it:

Naked Woman Carjacks Van After Hitting Bicyclist, Say Florida Police

Bicyclist Not Seriously Hurt

Well, at least they thought enough of the cyclst to put that at the top of the story.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Police arrested a woman in Jacksonville, Fla. they said deliberately hit a bike rider and crashed two separate cars, and then ran off naked.

We have seen a few examples lately of first sentences of stories meant to grab the reader. This is a strange one. It pays to know your audience, I guess.

Police said the incident occurred Sunday evening while Holly Highfield, 34, was driving three children, ages 10 to 14.

And let us remember that all persons are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Yeah. One wonders if they were her own children or if she was babysitting someone else’s.

Just after 8 p.m., officers were called to a report of an accident involving a pedestrian and a naked woman in east Jacksonville.

I bet they don’t have one of those numerical codes for that particular type of incident.

The children in Highfield's car told police that she was driving north when she turned to them and said: "Do you think this biker is going to get hit? Do you have faith? Are you afraid?" They said she then steered her SUV across the road and struck 55-year-old Cathy Giury riding a bicycle.

When a couple in a van stopped to see if the bicyclist needed help, Highfield allegedly got out of her vehicle, jumped into the van yelling that she was going to jail, ordering the man behind the wheel to drive her away.

Did she want the guy to driver her to jail or was she trying to get away?

Police were told than when the driver refused, she got out, took off her clothes and began running around.

Well, she was stressed and didn't have any worry beads with her.

According to the police report, when the bystander got out to help the bicyclist, Highfield yelled at the passenger in the van to get out, then attempted to drive off, rammed her own vehicle and struck a fence.

You have to admit that she’s an equal opportunity collider.

When police arrived, Highfield was placed in the back of the patrol car. Officers said she became increasingly violent. When a female officer attempted to cover Highfield with a sheet, she was kicked.

The arrest report indicates Highfield "appeared to be under the influence of some type of drug."

No. Really?

It said she also urinated in the back of the patrol car.

I should have something to say about that, I suppose, but I think some incidents just speak for themselves.

Highfield was arrested and charged with battery, carjacking, DUI while accompanied by a minor and DUI while causing damage to property. She was transported to Shands-Jacksonville Medical Center for observation.

The bicyclist was transported to Beaches Baptist Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries, where she remained in stable condition.

I'm glad to hear that the cyclist is okay, and, since they aren't mentioned again, one assumes that the kids are okay.

Well, I guess you can see why I had to share this one. It was too peculiar to pass up, even though bicycles weren't exactly the main focus.

See you on the road.

More Risks of the Road

2009-09-23T08:41:00.005-04:00

I recently, well…yesterday…that’s recently, wrote an entry about the odd risks that cyclists encounter when they take to the roads. Well, I found some more and couldn’t resist sharing them.

2 Seattle bicyclists shot with darts in Ballard neighborhood
By Jennifer Sullivan Seattle Times staff reporter

Avram Dolen was riding his bike across the Ballard Bridge when he felt a strange sensation in his left buttock.

Now, how can you not read more of an article that starts with a sentence like that one?

He looked down and was startled to see a 4-inch steel dart sticking out of his rear end.

I bet he was startled. Who wouldn’t be?

Dolen, 29, and a 39-year-old woman told officers that they were cycling on or near the bridge Monday evening when they each were shot with a dart in separate incidents. Neither cyclist saw who shot them.

"I heard a little pop sound, which was followed by a stinging sensation afterward," said Dolen, of Ballard. "My first thought was I got hit by a rock but then it kept stinging. I went down to feel what it was and there was a 4-inch dart sticking out of my left buttock."

4 inches. This man is very precise.

The female bicyclist, whose name was not released, was shot in her right thigh while cycling in the 5000 block of Eighth Avenue Northwest, according to a police report.

Police spokesman Mark Jamieson said that it appears both bicyclists were shot with a blowgun. He said there have been no reports of additional attacks.

Blowguns are tubular weapons, which are used to fire darts or other projectiles propelled by breath.

And there you have it. You even get a definition of what a blowgun is. Now, I don’t quite remember this sort of thing happening in any of the Tarzan movies, but maybe that’s just because there are no bike paths in the jungle, I don’t know.

But, in the interests of fair play, let it shown that it isn’t just that things happen to people on bikes. Sometimes people on bikes make their own difficulties.

Cyclist arrested for giving alligator a shoulder ride
Thu, 13 Aug 2009 1:14p.m.

The meter-long alligator on a bicyclist's shoulders was a real attention-getter.

Not as good a first sentence as in the previous story, but still good, and, you have to admit, accurate. That would certainly get my attention.

St Charles Parish, Louisiana sheriff's deputies stopped the cyclist. He allegedly ran, leaving both wheels and his toothy little rider. Capt Pat Yoes, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said deputies booked 38-year-old Terron D Ingram on Friday with resisting arrest, possessing drug paraphernalia, and cruelty to animals by abandonment.

You mean drugs may have been involved in the man’s decision to wear an alligator and go for a bike ride? !!

Alligator Control Officer Kenny Schmill said he released the gator into the marsh near Bayou Gauche. Ingram remained jailed in lieu of US$15,000 bond Wednesday, five days after his arrest. Yoes said he didn't know where Ingram got the gator or what he had planned to do with it.

And do we really want to know what he planned to do with it?

But surely, I hear you ask, this is not the only alligator involved cyclist incident…

GATOR LUNGES FOR YOUTH AFTER BICYCLE COLLISION

Merritt Island – Phillip Barrett, 15, was riding his 10-speed bike on a dirt road when a five foot alligator darted from the shrubs toward a pond. Barrett’s bike had no brakes, and he collided with the gator and flipped over, the young boy said. Barrett said he landed on bike and then slipped and fell again when he tried to get up and run.

See why you need brakes on your bike? Everyone out there who is riding a fixed-gear bike on the road, beware of alligators.

He said the alligator was on the other side of the bike “making a hissing kind of sound with his mouth open.”

When he got up the second time, Barrett said, he turned around to find the alligator “heading right for me. He lunged for me and almost got my foot. I didn’t stop running until I was well out of range.”

“If I had slipped again I wouldn’t be around to tell about it,” he said. “He was coming after me, but I don’t know why."

Hmm. Let's see if we can figure it out.

"Maybe he didn’t like me running over him.”

And....there you go.

Those bicycles can be a menace to wildlife, and have been for a long time:

SNAKE UPSET WOMAN CYCLIST – Massapequa, Long Island – July 28, 1899.

Yes, that did say 1899. In the interests of finding ludicrous stuff, I have delved deep into the archives here.

So, the snake upset the cyclist. Does this mean that he knocked her down or that he ruffled her emotionally? As it turns out, both.

Mrs. George Lathrop of Brooklyn was coasting down a hill here yesterday when a snake darted out of the weeds and attempted to cross the road. Mrs. Lathrop was unable to stop and ran into the snake. The reptile became tangled up in the spokes of the wheel and Mrs. Lathrop was thrown off. She fainted but was unhurt and beyond the bending of a few spokes in the wheel her bicycle was uninjured.

I bet the snake was pretty darned upset, too. I can't get the image of the snake becoming tangled up in the spokes out of my head. I think I saw something like that in a cartoon once.

I guess I'll just have to keep a sharp eye out for wildlife on my next ride. That and people with tubular weapons, which are used to fire darts or other projectiles propelled by breath.

It's a weird world out there.

See you on the road.

Risks of the Road?

2009-09-22T08:00:00.007-04:00

And I thought it was bad enough that we had to watch out for cars. While meandering around cyberspace I encountered this story:

Colo., Sept. 10 (UPI) -- A freak bolt of lightning struck a 56-year-old cyclist in Englewood, Colo., even though no electrical storms were reported in the area, authorities say.

Perry Schellpfeffer, an Englewood police spokesman, told The Denver Post the unidentified victim was hit by the lightning Wednesday afternoon. His injuries were not considered life-threatening. "There were some clouds and it was thundering a little, but there wasn't any kind of lightning storm," Schellpfeffer said.

Wow. You’re riding along minding your own business and lightning hits you. Of course, it wasn’t out of a clear blue sky. After all, if it’s thundering, even a little, there must be some lightning somewhere, but I still wouldn’t have been expecting it.

Now, seeing something like this, I wondered what other kinds of things have happened to poor souls on bikes.

Dateline: JACKSON, Wyo. - A mountain biker on Togwotee Pass fought off a grizzly bear that repeatedly charged him until a companion drove the animal off with pepper spray. Kirk Speckhals escaped his encounter without a scratch; he had only four dirt marks from the bear's claws on his forearm, a punctured bicycle tire and a bent rim. He said he hopes others learn from the mistakes he made during his ride around Pinnacle Buttes including not making enough noise to warn bears, not riding together and not carrying pepper spray.

Not making enough noise to warn bears…not a safety precaution I normally take, I have to admit. Another store about a bear attacking a cyclist included this line:

The girl was lucky she was wearing a bike helmet because the bear had bitten her head.

Now, I am not making fun of someone who got attacked by a bear, but I have to admit that I found the last sentence kind of odd. I am all in favor of bike helmets, but I never considered them useful in case of bear attacks. Perhaps that should be part of a campaign to get people to wear them.

It turns out that the whole bear-cyclist thing (and who would have imagined that there was a bear-cyclist thing?) goes both ways.

Bear vs. Bike: Cyclist Hits 300-Pound Black Bear

57-year-old Jim Litz, a science teacher in Missoula, Montana, t-boned a black bear while riding his bike to work.

He was traveling about 25 mph when he came upon a rise and spotted a black bear about 10 feet in front of him. “I didn't have time to respond. I never even hit my brakes,” Litz said.
He tumbled over his handlebars, planting his helmeted head on the bruin's back, and man and beast went cartwheeling down the road. The bear rolled over Litz's head, and its mass cracked his helmet. As the duo toppled over one another, the bear clawed at Litz's cycling jacket, scratching his flesh from shoulder to buttocks before scampering up a hill above the road, where it stopped and whined.

I would have stopped and whined, too, if I was minding my own business and got hit by a guy going 25 mph. Clearly that guy wasn't making enough noise to warn bears, either.

Well, after finding all of this, I decided to be utterly silly and typed “Cyclist hit by fruit” into a search engine, certain that nothing could possibly come up. Shows how much I know.

A cyclist is in hospital with eye injuries after he was hit in the face by a tangerine thrown from a passing car in Oxford.

Pc Chris Reilly, based at Cowley police station, said: “This may not seem too serious an incident, but the piece of fruit was travelling at high speed and it has left the cyclist in a lot of pain.

Okay, I’ve been hit by a bottle thrown at me by someone in a car, so I know how something like that feels, but the phrase “the piece of fruit was travelling at high speed” just sounds funny.

What else? How about:

Kangaroo breaks cyclist's arm

A RAMPAGING roo has knocked a beach-bound cyclist off his bike and left him with a broken arm.

Yes, indeed, I couldn't make this stuff up.

Well, it’s a crazy world out there, gang. We have to worry about cars and lightning and fruit and bears (although the bears also apparently have to worry about us) and kangaroos and who knows what else.

Well, I’m still going for a ride.

If you have any stories or comes across anything else this odd, feel free to share.

See you on the road.

Pump Up The...

2009-09-21T08:11:00.001-04:00

An angry blogger is…

Well, in this world, I guess an angry blogger is about par for the course. There are a lot of blogs out there which are impelled by anger.

This isn’t one of them.

Until today. Now I am, if not angry, at least miffed and possibly even vexed.

I have managed to do something today that I haven’t managed to do in a very long time – scrape out enough time for a really good afternoon ride. So picture me if you will getting kitted out (actually, don’t picture that, just take it for granted), filling up my bottles, grabbing my RoadId and my phone and taking a couple of salt tablets because it’s warm out there.

I had a sort of presentiment of disaster, so I double checked my bag to make sure I had a spare tube and any other little necessaries and then pumped up my tires.

Actually, what I ended up doing was letting all of the air out of my rear tire. My pump was not so much something that inflates as something that sucks.

What the…?

Now, you have to picture me in my kit, helmet, gloves, everything, waddling around the garage looking for another pump. There isn’t one. Then I think that maybe I’ve ridden so little that I’ve forgotten how to use the pump.

How the heck can you forget how to use a pump? It isn’t that difficult, Looney.

Well, I gave the pump a try on a different tire. I let all the air out of that one, too.

What can I say? It’s a gift?

I experimented with the pump. I could feel air blowing out of it. I tried it on another tire. I did not let the air out of that tire. Of course, I didn’t put any air into it, either. Well, that’s an accomplishment of some sort, I suppose. I’ll have to take what I can get today.

I can tell you what I’m not going to get today – A RIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And I can tell you what I am going to get today – a new pump.

Once I get it home, I’m sure I’ll discover that the old pump was fine, I’m just doing something wrong.

Am I bummed out? Yes. Yes, I am. Thanks for asking.

Well, see you on the road.

I might not have any air in my tires, though, so watch out for me.

What's a Cyclist?

2009-09-15T08:00:00.004-04:00

cy-clist - n. – one that rides a bicycle.

That definition is not sufficient. I know it’s not sufficient because I’ve seen quite a few people riding bicycles the last couple of days, and none of them were cyclists. I don’t say this in a superior fashion. I’m not saying that a cyclist is better than a guy who rides a bike, I’m saying a cyclist is different from a guy who rides a bike.

Perhaps this does not make sense to you. Well, you should be used to what I write not making sense by now. Isn't that how this work?

Yesterday I was driving the 2000 pound beast down the road and saw a guy riding a bicycle. All I can figure from watching him is that he was trying to commit suicide, but you can judge for yourself.

Imagine an intersection where two busy roads meet. Now imagine that a lot of cars are turning right from one road onto the other. Now imagine that a guy on a bike who is in the midst of all of these cars is also making that turn but is doing so by taking an irregular and serpentine path so you can’t actually tell where he’ll be from one second to the next.

Is this a cyclist?

Or how about the two guys who were riding along the shoulder of a busy two lane road wearing dark clothing near dusk? (Yes, that’s a sentence fragment. My high school English teacher would not be happy.) In true ninja fashion, these two guys had taken all of the reflectors off of their bikes and had no lights. Or helmets. Deciding to change sides of the road (and apparently believing themselves invulnerable) they suddenly swerved into traffic and shot across two lanes of impending doom. Fortunately for everyone concerned, these two guys were endowed with more than their fair share of luck.

Are these cyclists?

And let us not forget the guy who cut through a parking lot allowing hiM to squirt out into the road (apparently without looking) directly in the path of several rapidly moving vehicles that had to swerve to avoid making him the object of a physics experiment.

Is this a cyclist?

How the guy I saw on my way back to work after lunch? He was riding along the side of a busy two lane road. He was wearing brightly colored clothing and a helmet and was riding hard in a straight line and in a very predictable manner.

Is this a cyclist?

Well, that guy, yeah. He's was a cyclist.

I don’t disparage anyone for simply riding a bike. If you don’t want to buy a pair of shorts that shows off your every asset or a jersey that looks like it was painted by Salvador Dali with a hangover, then don’t. If you don’t way to drink Endurox or chew on Cliff Bars or suck down Carboom, then don’t. You don’t have to wear a heart rate monitor or have a computer on your bike or buy fancy shows that work great when you’re pedaling but which make you walk like a duck on ice skates when you're off the bike. You can just get a bike and ride, and that's great. (I know, it isn't as if you needed my permission anyway. I'm just trying to make the point that, just because you don't shave your legs and talk about gear ratios doesn't make you a bad person. You can just get out there and ride, and more power to you.)

Well, buy a helmet. That would be good. And wear it, of course.

But don’t ride like you have a death wish. You know why? Well, aside from the obvious fact that, if you ride like that, someone may grant your wish…don't do it because most people who drive cars don’t make a distinction between people on bikes and cyclists, and a driver who sees one person riding a bike poorly will assume that all people who ride are just the same.

And, yes, I do know that you can have all the fancy gear and still ride like you don't know what you're doing.

Don’t be that guy who makes it harder for the rest of us.

Please.

Thank you.

See you on the road.

I'm Back

2009-09-14T11:22:00.003-04:00

You see, the thing about new year’s resolutions...bear with me here, I know it’s not new year’s…unless of course you’re reading this long after I wrote it…which you might be, I suppose…let me start again.

You see, the thing about resolutions is that 83.12% of them don’t get kept.¹ (I can hear someone now: What? Footnotes in a blog? Really? I don’t do footnotes.²) So that will be last foot note in this blog.³

This is precisely what happened to my recent resolution to ride more. It didn’t get kept. Well, not until today. I got up bright and early…well, early anyway. It was a little chilly out, so I put on my snazzy new Seyboro Cyclist vest.

It’s not new.

I put on my snazzy-

It’s not-

What?

It’s not new. You’ve have that vest since the summer.

Okay, so technically it’s not new, but this is the first time I’ve worn it on a ride, so it’s kind of like new. I hadn’t been on the road more than a minute when I decided that the vest had been a good idea.

It was a little windy. The windy season here is from January to December, so of course it was a little windy.

There were a lot of dogs out this morning, but since they were all behind fences, I was not trouble. That said some things to me as I passed that sounded rather rude, but I’ll let that go.

I also encountered some road kill. First was a raccoon. Then I spotted a container of McDonald’s french fries. While the raccoon (not that I subjected it to a close inspection you understand) appeared to be intact, the french fries had clearly met with a car. I also spotted a grapefruit. The grapefruit actually didn’t look so much like road kill as it did someone waiting for a bus. It was just sitting at the side of the road minding it’s own business. I had an image of a truck full of grapefruit pulling by and this one hopping on board.

It was a strange morning.

I passed a small cemetery which was being mowed. There was a gray truck sitting there with an empty trailer behind it. A man on a riding mower was circling the graves.

Now, I know that somebody has to mow graveyard’s but it still struck me as a little creepy. I wondered if odd things ever happened to him. Ten seconds after I passed the graveyard, what appeared to be the same truck with riding mower now on the back of the trailer, sped past me.

Not that it’s possible, of course. I’m just telling you what I saw.

I passed a group of people setting up a yard sale. Well, it was more of a portable flea market in a parking lot. One woman was leaning up against her SUV watching everyone else work. The she saw me. Her head slowly turned to follow me as I rode past, as if she had never seen anything like me before and was trying to figure out what I was. I have seen exactly the same look on the face of a curious cow.

This is not intended as an insult to the woman who may, for all I know, be quite personable. She just had that same look on her face.

Everyone was still asleep when I left, and everyone was still asleep when I got back home. I think it’s going to be a quiet morning.

See you on the road.

Notes :

The accuracy of this statistic may be somewhat doubtful in view of the fact that I simply made it up.
Neither do I.
Except for this one.
This is the Will Cuppy Memorial Footnote. If you’ve never read Will Cuppy’s work, then you don’t know what you’ve been missing. Of course, if you don’t know what you’ve been missing, it probably doesn’t trouble you much. Oh, what the heck, look him up anyway. You’ll thank me later.

I made it

2009-09-04T08:42:00.004-04:00

The good news is that I did manage to carve some time out of my day for a ride. The bad news is that it was a bit less than an hour. Still, at least it’s a ride.

As I stood in the garage pumping up the tires, I heard the ululating threnody of the wind and I thought to myself, “It’s windy.” I can pick up on subtle clues, you see.

Since I had such a small amount of time, I decided I would simply go as hard as I could go for the entire ride, and I had a great time. I was quick out of the blocks and set up a hard pace right from the beginning, even up the two hills I have to climb before I get out onto the main road.

About a mile in, a very large man watched me sedately as I passed him. He had a look of puzzlement on his face, but it wasn’t the full blown freakshow look – the one made by the person who says “What the…” as their head slowly turns to track you as you ride by. I got that look later.

It was definitely windy, but I was pushing hard all the time. I hit a moderately steep hill and stood up to go harder. It was at that point that I got the real freakshow look from a guy who was loading a truck. Getting that look again made me feel right at home on the bike.

People are looking at me like I’m weird! I must still be a cyclist! Yaaaaaaaaah!

The route I took had a lot of turns in it, so the wind was constantly changing, but, somehow, it also seemed to be pushing against me. Funny how that works. As I neared my turn around point, I saw what appeared to be a father with his young child, both of them on bikes. The father was teaching the child some important points about riding a bike: don’t wear a helmet, ride against traffic instead of with traffic and, when a car approaches you, make a big swerve to the other side of the road to get out of the way and then swerve back to where you were after the car goes by.

*Sigh*

I did not offer any advice as I swept past them. After all, they don’t know that I’m a blogger with hundreds of…scores…dozens...some readers. I did not feel that my advice would be welcomed.

I hit my turnaround point and came back, but they were gone by the time I got back to where I had seen them.

I heard a dog barking at me, but, when I looked, all I could see was a big corn field. Hm. Dogs of the Corn. No. I don’t think there’s a market for that kind of movie these days.

I’ll be honest with you – by the time I got back to within three miles of home, my legs were tired. I was having so much fun, though, that I didn’t listen to any complaints my legs might have had (and, believe me, they had some) and kept the pace up as high as I could. Go as hard as I can go. That’s the goal today.

I stopped at a stoplight and I could feel my heart beating in my face. Well, I was almost home.
I turned for the last mile right into the teeth of the wind. Push hard. Push hard. Okay, so my pace is dropping. All I want to do now is to keep it up above ninetee…um…eighteen…seven….sixteen. Yeah. Let’s keep it up above fifteen in spite of the headwind. No, that’s too silly. Push harder.

I had a giant rubber band attached to my back. As I rode, it stretched tighter and tighter and tighter and then, all of a sudden, it was at full length and contracted and I went backwards. That was what it felt like. All of sudden, I popped, and my speed plummeted. It was kind of depressing, really, but I did have the satisfaction of knowing that I had gone as hard as I could go for nearly the whole time.

After a moment of rest, I picked the pace back up some and cruised home, tired and happy.
I turned into my subdivision and a child on a bike turned onto the road ahead of me. She looked back and saw me and then proceeded to turn in wide circles, taking up the entire road. I managed to get past her without incident and then came upon a car taking up nearly the entire road. The driver had stopped to check her mail and, instead of pulling into her driveway, had simply stopped across the road.

Well, if you’re going to have problems, I suppose it’s better to have them there than out on the road where people are going 45 or 55 mph, right?

I got back home tired and happy and hungry for me, and today’s another day.

See you on the road.

A what?

2009-09-03T09:01:00.002-04:00

A bicycle? What's that? I know I have one around here somewhere...oh, yeah, that thing.

Hm.

I wonder what you're supposed to do with that thing. I have this vague memory...

Do you sit on it or something?

You know, between life and work and the ever shortening days, the bicycle has been gathering cobwebs in the garage.

No more, I say!

Of course, I can say it all I want. Now I have to do it. Well, today is Thursday, and I am going to go for a ride this afternoon. I don't know how I'm going to work it, but I am going to work it. You just wait and see.

Actually, do wait and see. If I don't post anything on Friday, you'll know I was wrong.

See you on the road.

Promise.

Random Encounters

2009-08-25T09:42:00.003-04:00

My Lovely Lovely and our daughter and I were out shopping for back to school supplies (I can still hear my daughter screaming at the thought that school is once again immanent) when, in the parking lot, I noticed a car with a “share the road” bumper sticker. It also said, “Same road. Same rules. Same rights.” I liked it. To top it off, the car had a bike rack on the roof. (I should probably apologize for that one, but I won't.) “Ah…” I thought, “A fellow cyclist.”

Well, no. Actually what I thought was, “That’s a cool bumper sticker. I want it.”

At that moment the car’s owner, an older gentleman, walked up. “I like your bumper sticker,” I told him. I’m not normally one to strike up conversations with strangers, but I really liked that bumper sticker. I’ve seen several versions of it here and there, but none qute as snazzy as that one.

Yes, I did just use the word snazzy.

Alas. I have bumper sticker envy.

He nodded at me. “Are you a cyclist?”

“Yes.” (Hey, even though I haven’t been on the bike in a while, I finally managed to go for a ride the other day, so I’m a cyclist. I can still say that.)

“I just moved here. Is there a club in town?”

“Why, yes there is.”

I got his e-mail address and then e-mailed him a link to the club’s website and sent an e-mail to President Dave to get him put on the club’s e-mail list. We pride ourselves on snappy service.

Later that evening, I was talking to the guy who lives across the street from me, and, apropos of nothing, he said, “You’re a brave man.”

I blinked at him. I couldn’t really think of anything to say in response to that. I mean, what do you say to that, especially when you have absolutely no idea what the other person is talking about?

“Because,” he explained, “You ride on that road out there. I’ve driven past you and thought, uh-uh. I wouldn’t do that.”

Well, it’s either ride that road or don’t ride, since that’s the only way out of the subdivision I live in, and I’m not going to toss my bike into the belly of the two thousand pound beast and drive somewhere in order to ride. Also, contrary to the opinion of my neighbor (and my Lovely Lovely and my mother and several random friends…hmm…I’m a bit outnumbered here, but that doesn’t make me wrong) the road isn’t that bad. Well, most of the time. Just stay away from it during the morning drive to work and the evening drive home (unless of course you’re bike commuting, in which case you just have to be visible and predictable and careful, right?).

He then proceeded to tell me some random stories of crazy drivers, apparently in order to show me just how brave I am. I did not enjoy this. I don’t really want to hear stories of crazy drivers on the road. I know they’re out there. I just don’t want to dwell on it.

The fact is, Sir Isaac Newton has explained to us in detail how bad things can happen to us out on the roads. (That wasn’t precisely his focus while he was formulating the laws of motion, but it works out to be the same thing.) Physics is not your friend when you are on a bicycle and have an encounter with someone in a car. We all know that, but how many of us really think about it?

I don’t.

I don’t intend to stop riding, so I think about the risks enough to wear my helmet and my RoadID and carry a cell phone and be conscious of what’s going on around me, but I don't obsess about it.

My Lovely Lovely, who doesn’t ride (yet) gives it a bit more thought where I am concerned, and we sometimes have to discuss it. She comes up with all kinds of reasons about why I’m not to commute on any given day – it’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s too dark, it might rain, it’s too windy…but the last one is always it’s too dangerous. If I deflect all of the other objections, that's the one she brings up in the end.

The fact it, I’m a better, healthier, happier and probably nicer person when I get a chance to ride. Riding is my anti-depressant, and all the side effects are good.

All the non-car related ones, anyway.

So I still ride.

See you on the road.

Time is Time is Time

2009-08-24T08:28:00.001-04:00

If you have read this blog with any sort of regularity (a task which would either show great dedication or great intestinal fortitude) you may have noticed that I haven’t posted much lately. (Then again, you may have found this something of a relief.) A combination of circumstances beyond my control have kept me off of the bike. Finally, I had a chance to get in a ride, and I went about it in the unwisest way possible. (I don’t know that unwise is a word, but, then again, I don’t know that it isn’t a word.)

On my first ride back after a couple of weeks I did a time trial. (In case you don’t know, a time trial is a race against the clock. Well, not in some literal Alice in Wonderland crazy kind of way. You go out all by your lonesome self and ride the route as hard and fast as you can.)

Now, a pro cyclist who is going to do a time trial prepares for it. He wakes up on time, she eats a nourishing breakfast prepared by a professional chef, he gets kitted out, she climbs onto a trainer and rides hard until the sweat runs and her body is loose and ready to ride. (Do we need a new pronoun here?) Then climbs into the saddle while his bike is held in place and, when the timer goes off, she takes off down the ramp and rides.

This is not quite how I did it.

First of all, I got up a bit early after a sleepless night. I didn’t because my dog insisted that she had to go outdoors right now. Then I went back to bed for an hour or two. Eventually, I dragged myself upright, had a bowl of cold cereal, got kitted out and hit the road. I’m not sure that this is the way to win. Fortunately, I wasn't racing anyone but the aforementioned clock.

I was not feeling ambitious. I had a route mapped out in my head and had set myself a minimum time I would allow myself to ride it in. It would make me set a pace that would take some effort but wouldn’t cause me to rupture anything.

I don’t know why I decided to ignore it.

On the leg out, I was pushing into the wind, but I was keeping up a pace that would let me meet my goal, and I was content. At least, I thought I was. Then my legs, which had started the ride as if they had never been astride a bicycle before, began to wake up.

“Oh,” they said. “You’re serious about doing this. We thought you were kidding.”

The pace began to pick up. So did my heart rate. I hit my turnaround point going well and then started back. The wind was helping me out now, but, for some peculiar reason, I wasn’t content with that, and I decided to ride the route back as hard as I could go.

And I did.

It was actually a lot of fun. When I got back home, I found that I had cut over ten percent off of my anticipated time.

I got back into the house panting like a bellows. My Lovely Lovely took one look and asked, “Are you okay?” Not quite able to talk, I nodded and may possibly have grunted something at her in passing. After I got showered and changed, I knew it was going to be a better day.

Life is good on the bike, don’t you think?

See you on the road.

The Family Y Triathlon

2009-08-12T09:42:00.002-04:00

Let me correct your first possible misapprehension.

I did not participate in the triathlon. That is not to say that I have anything against triathlons in general. I just hate running unless I’m being chased by a bear. My job was directing traffic.

I was originally going to call this event The Y Tri, but then I realized that sounded a bit negative. After all, why not try, right?

My usual post is at an intersection where the riders have to make a left turn. A short distance down the road is the turn-around point, then they come back through the intersection again.

I got there a bit early, parked and pulled out a book to read. (In case you’re wondering, it was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – the Jane Austen classic updated to include zombies and martial arts mayhem. I recommend it, if you like that sort of thing.)

Suddenly, an unmarked police car driven by a highway patrol officer pulls up. Okay. Then, suddenly, three highway patrol cars rush in and pull up, all of them pointing at me. It was like a scene from a movie, except that it wasn’t followed by the officers leaping out, pointing their weapons at me and arresting me. It was still a little unnerving, though.

It turns out that, unlike previous years, we were to have a fairly heavy police presence on the bike route of the triathlon. I was, of course, wondering why. Had something unusual and violent happened the previous year? Well, no. When asked directly, one of the officers explained: “They asked for help and it was a slow day.”

My partner at the intersection was Jörg, and he is ideal company for an event like this. His running commentary ranged from the ribald to the profane but was uniformly entertaining. There was a case of mistaken identity that was nearly hysterical but probably not suitable for this particular page.

The riders ranged from the intensely competitive (aerobars, disk rear wheel, aero helmet)
to those who were just hoping to survive to the end (mountain bike, no shirt, tattoos, beer belly). They were young and old, focused and not so focused at all. There were several Seyboros in the bunch, too. Jorg seemed to know most of the competitors. He called out to one rider that she should be able to catch the guy ahead of her because he was so slow, and she came out of the saddle and had a go. She didn’t catch him.

We saw a truck from the volunteer fire department, lights going, edging down the street toward us, following that last rider. Now, I don’t know about you, but an emergency vehicle with lights flashing and riding my rear wheel wouldn’t make me particularly comfortable. We watched them make the turn and waited for them to come back, ready to pack up and leave. Then a highway patrol officer pulled up and told us that there was, in fact, another rider still out on the course. When the volunteer fire fighters came back, he told them, too.

We all waited, and there she came, pushing gamely along. She made the turn and came back, and everyone followed her out. First her, then the fire fighters, then a string of cars from each location on the course where someone had been directing traffic, then the highway patrol. It was quite a parade, really.

Jörg had ridden in, and I watched him make his way through the caravan of cars. As he rode past, I asked him if he wanted to take my traffic cone and vest for me, but, surprisingly, he didn’t. He rode up to the last rider and stayed beside her, keeping her company and giving her encouragement. Eventually, they turned off. I dropped off my gear and headed home with my pay beside me – a snazzy new T-shirt.

I have never competed in a triathlon, and, to be honest, I never expect to – it involves running, after all – but congratulations to all the competitors.

See you on the road.

Freedom

2009-08-11T08:11:00.000-04:00

I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t looking forward to the ride very much. I know that’s practically sacrilegious, but there it is nonetheless.

It was my day off, but I was at work. This is a bad start to any day, isn’t it? My Lovely Lovely had dropped me off, bike in hand, and headed off to work herself. At noon, they had turned off the air conditioning in the building. Now, at nearly 1:30, the building was hot and stuffy and humid. Outdoors was hot and windy and humid. I just wasn’t in the mood.

Still, there’s no such thing as a bad ride. Today I was going to cling to that thought, climb in the saddle, and head out. As a plus, I had access to an ice machine, so the water in my bottle was nice and cold. My office is on the second floor, and I don’t like trying to carry my bike downstairs (urban cyclocross) so I took the elevator down and hit the road.

Well, actually, I hit the sidewalk. Then I hit the road. I can now sum up my ride in two words.

Tailwind! Woohoo!

(Of course this assumed that “Whoohoo” actually counts as a word.)

The computer on my hybrid isn’t working right now, so I don’t actually know how fast I was going (which makes a change from my usual thought of “how slow I am going”) but I do know what gear I was in, and I was moving well.

You know, after a long day at work, with your legs not feeling good, trapped in an office, a ride with a tailwind is a lovely thing. Not a lot happened on this ride – just the sun and the air and wind and the sheer pleasure of feeling your muscles working and your blood moving.

Actually, I guess quite a lot did actually happen.

Nice.

See you on the road.

2009-08-08T09:47:00.001-04:00

Well, it was a busy week, but next week is looking better. New posts will start on Monday.

Drinking Problem

2009-07-29T11:41:00.002-04:00

One day the Seyboro Cyclists decided to ride to the beach. This is a regular occurrence – you ride about eighty miles (or a hundred if you want to start from a more distant location), you eat a big meal, you get driven back home, and a good time is had by all.

A beach ride was scheduled, but there were a few of us unfortunate souls who couldn’t give up the entire day to a bike ride, no matter how fun it would have been, so we decided to ride part way with the group and then turn around and head back home. We’d get a lot of miles, we’d get to ride with friends, it would be great.

There was one teensy little problem: it was hot.

No, let me rephrase that. It was scorchingly blisteringly hot.

The heat is not really my friend, but I was doing fine when we set out. (Of course I was. It was early in the morning, so it wasn’t hot yet.) My problem came at the turnaround point. By this time I was starting to feel a little bit cooked, and my bottles were empty. That’s when I made the mistake.

Since we’d be driving back, that meant we had a nice little convoy of vehicles with us, so they sagged the ride, carrying food and drinks for the rest of us. I needed to get my bottles refilled, and, as I wasn’t paying attention, they were refilled with a sports drink that I will call CrocodileAde instead of using its real name because I’m subtle that way.

Now, being a biologist by training, I understand about hydration and electrolyte replacement and natremia and borborygmus and defenestration. (Okay, so those last two aren’t, strictly speaking, related to drinking, but the next to last one is certainly related to many cyclists I have known and the last one would be a form of exercise.)

What was I talking about?

Oh, yeah.

Being a biologist by training, I understand about hydration and electrolyte replacement, but most sports drinks are just too thick and too sweet for my taste. I’d rather take an electrolyte replacement capsule and just drink water. I took my first sip of CrocodileAde, and it just sort of coated my mouth with sticky sweetness. This was not what I wanted while trying to ride in 90 degree plus temperatures. Gradually, without realizing it, I began to drink less and less.
By the time we got back onto home roads, I was dehydrated and fried.

We hit a road that I had ridden scores of times, and I figured I could do the ten or twelve miles home on that road under any conditions. After all, I had ridden that road in the wind, in the rain, in the group, after having been dropped…this was my territory, and I was comfortable. I was also wrong.

I was, however, not capable of doing more than about twelve miles and hour. We had a pick-up truck with us, and I could certainly have allowed them to pick me up, but I didn’t. I got some water from them and dropped some ice down my back, but the water was too little and too late. I tried to get the other riders to go on because I was afraid I was spoiling their ride, but they wouldn’t leave me.

So why didn’t I get in the truck? Well, it starts with st…

Stupidity? Stubbornness? Stupendousness?

Something like that, anyway.

Well, we slogged back home.

Slowly.

In fact, I think we gradually slowed down.

Well, I gradually slowed down out of necessity and they gradually slowed down so as to not leave me.

About two miles from the parking lot they left me. Finally. They wanted to sprint for home. I just wanted to crawl slowly. In fact, I think I was limping and crawling while riding my bike. I am a multi-tasker.

The driver of the truck decided to autopace me. This let me get my pace up to about twelve miles and hour, I think. I had never autopaced before. It might have been fun if I hadn’t been parboiled. I kept wanting to go faster, but all the driver had to do in order to speed up was press down on the accelerator, while I had to press on the pedals, and I just couldn’t press anymore. My path down the street was so wobbly that any passing police officer would have stopped me for a chat.

I finally dragged my sorry self back to the parking lot and pulled into the shade and stayed there.

Of course, I didn’t have my car and I lived three miles away from the parking lot…

No, I had my cell phone. I could call for pickup, and I did.

Finally.

A few days later, with a camelback strapped on, I went for a sixty-five mile solo ride just to prove to myself that my problems had been due to poor hydration and not to just being me.

That was good.

Drink drink drink. Water, that is. That’s the thing.

See you on the road.

Fresh As A...Flounder?

2009-07-27T08:07:00.003-04:00

It was 85 degrees out with a heat index of 95 and 59% humidity. Is that the most boring beginning to a blog post ever, or do I need to try harder? I thought I’d do a little exploring but wouldn’t push myself too hard because of the heat. It was like trying to ride while wearing a warm, wet blanket.

Yech.

I decided to explore a little bit, which usually means that I’m going to get lost, and that is, in fact, what happened. The road I started out on has a few hills and a couple of dogs. Following some excellent advice left in a comment, I had a pocket full of rocks ready, but the two most troublesome dogs were penned up. They barked with deep regret as I passed, but other than vocally they were no-shows.

The county I live in has no signed bike routes, but I wandered into the next county and took bike route seven just to see where I ended up.

It was shortly after that I got lost for a time.

I had on a cap underneath my helmet, but, after a while, every time I had to stop for a stoplight or sign (What?! You stop at stop signs?!!! – Yes, especially when not stopping is likely to end up with me decorating someone’s front grille) the sweat would run down into my eyes.

I passed – and let us remember the temperature here – some people selling seafood out of a trailer on a corner, and not a refrigerated trailer, either. They had an umbrella over it, but that was pretty much it. I'm not sure how effective that was at keeping the fish fresh. Several items on their sign had been crossed off, either because they had sold out of it or it had gone so far bad that no one would possible buy it. I’m not going to try and figure out which.

The cars were especially bad at passing me. I don’t know why. Something in the air, maybe, like the smell of seafood that’s been baking in the sun all morning…

A guy on a motorcycle got behind me and honked at me. A guy in a flatbed truck got behind me and laid on the horn. Then someone screamed me in my ear and my heart rate went through the roof. It turned out that no one had screamed. I was being passed by a small truck, and the screaming sound was coming from it’s engine. I’m no mechanic or anything (in fact, I’m pretty much the complete opposite of a mechanic) but I don’t think it was supposed to sound like that.
I passed a school bus that had been converted into a flatbed truck. There are a lot of converted school buses around here. They must sell those things cheap.

I passed a road with a name I recognized (how do you forget a name like Titus Mewborn?) and turned on to it. A couple of miles later I was at an intersection that I knew well and, just like that, I wasn’t lost anymore. Nice.

After a nice thirty mile ride I was nearly back home when someone screamed in my ear again, and my heart rate shot up just like before. It turned out that the same truck was passing me again. Boy. I wish they’d get that thing fixed.

It was something of an eventful day, I guess. It was still a good ride, though I admit that I was kind of done in by the end of it, mostly due to the heat. And I hungry. I wonder if those guys selling the fish have any...no, never mind.

See you on the road.

Tour de France

2009-07-24T08:22:00.004-04:00

Do you like what is, in your household, town, state or county an obscure sport which seems simple to you but which nobody around you seems to understand despite its apparent simplicity?

Is the sport you like less complicated than the previous sentence?

Congratulations, you must be a cycling fan. Cyclin' Missy got me thinking about the TdF.

During most of the year, of course, many of the people I know have absolutely no interest in cycling at all (unless it is to wonder why I am so crazy as to do it), but then the magical month of July arrives…and they still have no interest in cycling at all. Unless, of course, Lance Armstrong has come out of retirement.

On the face of it, the Tour de France seems pretty simple: the guy who gets from the starting line (where ever it may be on any given year) to the finish line in Paris in the shortest amount of time wins the yellow jersey. What could be easier to understand?

Unless, of course there are time bonuses (which there aren’t this year, but – you never know – there may be again next year). And why are there teams if only one person can win? And what’s with those other jerseys?

I happened to have the race on yesterday, and my Lovely Lovely took a look at the TV and had an important series question for me:

“Did you see that guy?! What he wearing polka-dots? Why is that guy wearing polka-dots?!”

Well, he’s ahead in the King of the Mountains competition.

“So he wears polka-dots? Does he know how silly he looks? Even his pants and his helmet have polka-dots on them!”

I think he thinks he looks great in those polka-dots. I think he’s pretty proud to be wearing them.

"Well, it looks silly."

If it seems that my Lovely Lovely is more interested in the clothes than in the actual race, that’s only because it’s true. She is the light of my life, and I love her dearly, but professional cycling bores her. She isn’t really all that interested in clothes, but it’s more interesting to her than the actual race is.

Now, as a public service, I am going to answer the questions I get asked most commonly about the Tour de France. (Please note than none of these answers should be considered authoritative, because I am just some guy with a keyboard and not an expert on cycling.)

Is Lance Armstrong going to win the Tour de France this year?

No.

Will Lance Armstrong be back to race the Tour de France next year?

He says he will. My magic 8-ball says he will. I haven’t called Tele-Psychic and asked them, though.

What’s with the controversy involving Lance Armstrong, Johann Bruyneel and Alexandre Vinokourov?

Okay, I just made that one up. None of the people who ask me about cycling have any idea who Johann Bruyneel and Alexandre Vinokourov are.

Is Lance Armstrong going to win the Tour de France this year?

You already asked me that. The answer is still no.

What’s that thing where all the guys on the same team ride together?

A team time trial.

Did Lance Armstrong win that?

Well, technically, the team wins or loses that, not just one guy.

Okay, so did Lance Armstrong’s team -

Yes. Yes they did. Yes.

How come so many guys in the race have unusual names? Why can’t they have simple and easy to pronounce names like –

Don’t say it. You seem to have something of a narrow focus here.

Speaking of which, Is Lance Armstrong going to win the Tour de France this year?

Oh, dear. Watch and see.

Did they even have a Tour de France last year?

Yes.

Did Lance Armstrong –

No, that was Carlos Sastre.

Oh. He beat Lance?

No, Lance wasn’t in it last year. They decided to have the race anyway.

Why?

I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.

Can I ask one more question?

Is it about Lance Armstrong?

Um…yes…

Then, no. No you can’t.

I think I’ll go for a ride now.

Where Am I?

2009-07-23T06:56:00.002-04:00

Wow. Fried by the sun and beaten to death by the wind all in the same day. Is this a great sport or what?! It was hot today. Everything was hot. Even the wind was hot.

At first I was going to say that it was like wind from Death Valley, but I suppose that a Death Valley wind would be dry, so, on second thought, this was more like a swamp wind. The wind blowing in your face (and it blew in my fact a lot today) was like having someone put a hot wet blanket on you. It was unpleasant is what I’m trying to convey.

Of course, where I ride isn’t actually swampy at all. You don’t hear the distant sound of a whippoorwill or the roar of an alligator. Around here, surrounded by corn and tobacco, by old shacks on the verge of collapse, apparently held together only by the kudzu, you’re more likely to hear the sound of a distant banjo being pluck by a young boy.

Ding-a-ding ding ding ding ding ding ding

Ride fast. Ride very fast.

I set myself a minimum pace to ride at, and I did finish the ride above that pace, but it was tough.

I passed a man who was all in brown – brown pants, brown shirt, brown hat, even his skin was brown. He was wearing green tinted sunglasses and had a big plastic tank on his back with a hose coming from it. As I passed him, he was vigorously pumping a handle attached to the tank. We each looked at the other curiously. It was a little weird.

I passed a subdivision which was clearly the place to find your thrill. If you’re old enough or your taste in music is varied enough, you now know the name of the place. If not, you’re probably confused by what you just read.

I got chased by a medium sized black dog. I was doing about twenty when the dog spotted me. Without even a second of hesitation, and paying no heed to the voice calling him, the dog took off after me. He was at a distant corner of the yard, so I wasn’t worried. The advantage was all mine.

Or so I thought.

From his first kick that dog started gaining on me., and I really had to lift the pace to leave him behind. I barely made it. The dog came out into the street after me, put his head down, and ran. I went up through the gears and pedaled as hard as I could, and I just managed to gap him. Once I got a gap, I was able to extend it and then the dog gave up, which is good, but I wasn’t going to be able to keep that pace up for any time at all.

And I got lost. Did I mention that?

I wanted to get at least thirty miles in, so I decided to explore a bit. I ended up exploring a lot and got well and truly lost. I had a vague idea which direction home was, so I started picking roads that looked like they might go in the direction I wanted, and I was eventually right, but only after an solid hour of wandering around with no clear ideas about where I was.

Why is it that riding roads you don’t know is harder than riding roads you do know?

I was tired by the time I finally got back home, but I felt great for having gotten some miles in.

Maybe I’ll manage to get some more tomorrow.

See you on the road.

How Do You...

2009-07-22T08:16:00.002-04:00

This is a tender and delicate subject, but I’m going to broach it anyway, because the Tour de France is going on at the moment, and the Tour de France always makes me think of this. (Some people just enjoy the sport. I think of things like this. Oh, well.) It is what Phil Liggett would call a “nature break.” You can always tell when a nature break is occurring because dozens of riders all pull off to the side of the road at the same time to…um…attend to their business. I don’t imagine that this is the sort of event the discerning fan particularly wants to witness, but there it is. When you get two hundred guys on the road for several hours at a time, there are things that need to be done.

Bob Roll tells a story (which I will not repeat here in all of it’s hilarious and intimate detail) about surprising some fans during the Tour de France when as urgent need overtook him suddenly on the road. (Just for the record, my mother was appalled, but my aunt almost hurt herself from laughing so hard, so I can’t say how you would react if you read the story, but get a copy of Bobke II: The Continuing Misadventures of Bob Roll and read it for yourself if you want to find out. (This is one of my two favorite cycling books, and you get an undiluted dose of Bob Roll’s personality in the bargain.)

The fact is, when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go, and this is, oddly enough, one of the things that people ask me about the most – what do you do when you’ve got to go during the middle of a ride.

I did meet a guy on the road once who’s solution to this was to ride home as hard and as fast as he could. This was a guy I had seen once or twice on the road. I caught up with him and he immediately explained the situation. Apparently it was pressing on his mind. I passed him, let him draft off me (from which you may conclude that he couldn’t have been going all that fast after all) and then watched him nearly get splatted by a car because I, not having his clearly urgent need, stopped at the red light and he didn’t.

The obvious answer to “what do you do” is that you find a convenience store and make convenient use of it. This is the optimal solution. But what if you can’t find a store? What if you’re out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and nothing else? Well, you’ll just have to find your own solution. I wouldn’t have any idea at all how to deal with a situation like that.

Sometimes, at a pro race, you can find a guy who really needs to do something but just doesn’t want to stop. Such a rider will sometimes call on a teammate to put a hand on his back and hold him up while he deals with the situation in motion. Sometimes, on a casual ride, you can find a guy who wants to do the same thing, but he isn’t usually able to find anybody willing to help him stay upright at such a moment, so he has to attempt the feat singlehanded. We do not recommend this.

First of all, wrecking at a time like this would probably be an exceedingly bad thing. I will not elaborate on this, but my imagination is vivid enough to paint an unpleasant picture, and I bet yours is, too. I now offer a formal apology to anyone who might still be reading at this point for putting pictures into your head. Sorry about that.

I do know of a case where someone did attempt this feat on a ride. (Let us be perfectly clear here – I am not talking about me. I have more sense than that.) He managed to perform his task and to stay upright, but he did suffer a slight problem. His water bottles were apparently…um…in the line of fire, so to speak, so he didn’t want to drink from them for the rest of the ride.

Now, when I started riding, this topic was not discussed in any of the books I read, and nobody I talked to mentioned anything about it. This is not surprising to me. Only a very strange person would write about this stuff.

Wait a minute. That didn’t come out right.

For reasons beyond my control I didn’t get a ride in this weekend, and it rained all day yesterday, so, though I could have ridden, I admit that I chose not to. That’s why posts like this happen. This just goes to show that the world is a better place when I get a chance to ride, doesn’t it?

I’m sure that I haven’t exhausted this particular topic, but I’ve probably said more about it than you ever thought you’d read, so I think I’m done for the time being.

See you on the road.

Leg Stretch

2009-07-21T07:02:00.001-04:00

Sofa ride time.

I really just needed to go out and stretch my legs, so I climbed onto the hybrid and set out to pedal the neighborhood. The computer on the hybrid doesn’t work, so I couldn’t worry about things like pace or cadence even if I wanted to, and sometimes that’s a good thing.

As I set out, I passed a red headed guy out for a walk. I only saw him from the rear, since the idea of staring at him as I passed him seemed rude, but he turned his head slightly as I approached, and I thought that I saw a bushy red moustache to go with the read hair.

I was ducking into and out of every cul-de-sac in the place, not raising my heart rate and barely breaking a sweat despite the heat and humidity. I saw the red headed guy in the distance at another point, and then, after a couple of loops and swoops we ended up facing each other. As I got closer to him, I realized that “he” was, in fact, a “she” and there was nothing even vaguely resembling a moustache. I don’t know what made me think there was.

Offering a silent apology, I moved on.

I decided to go across the road and on into faerie land – a magical place that I only visited once before.

To get there, you travel down a road that is in positively terrible condition, filled with cracks, ruts and potholes. Then you see a sign that says, “State Maintenance Ends” and the road immediately becomes wonderful – smooth and easy to ride on. Make of that what you will. You then pass a sign that says, “Private Property”. If you are brave enough to continue on, you go over three speed bumps and you have arrived where the sun shines brighter but isn’t so hot and the air is sweeter and more refreshing.

As I approached the entrance to faerie land I saw a man on a bike ahead of me. He was not wearing a helmet, and he had what appeared to be a baby seat attached behind his saddle. Just as I had this thought he hit the first of the speed bumps, and the bundle behind his saddle bounced up and almost out like that stuntman in the chariot scene from Ben Hur. Not a baby then. Perhaps a bag of groceries.

I took a little turn to pass by the swimming pool. The last time I had seen it, it had resembled nothing so much as a science experiment, but now the water was blue, clear, cool and inviting. Nice.

I headed back to the road and pedaled on. Ahead of me, I saw the man on the bike go to the right, so I went left. I didn’t want him to think I was following him, after all.

At the end of the road I came to a spot I had seen once before: it was a cul-de-sac surrounded by trees. There were more houses on the other side of the trees. The ground sloped downward at the point and there was a narrow wooden bridge over a ditch. I went down the slope and over the bridge, and I was not in faerie land anymore. I know this because the first thing I saw was a rusted out pickup truck, and the first thing I smelled was cigarette smoke hanging in the air. There was a sharp downturn in the condition of the houses and of the road. (I suspected that State Maintenance hadn’t ended here.) I rode around until I found myself at a road I knew, and then I turned around.

As I headed back toward faerie land, I passed the guy on the bike. He did, in fact, have a baby in the seat behind his saddle. The child was wearing a helmet and was strapped in, but when he went over the speed bump, either the kid wasn’t strapped in or the straps were made of elastic, because the child went six inches up into the air at that point.

From this side, the slope down to the bridge was steeper and there was a raised lip on the bridge. It was harder to get back into faerie land than it had been to get out of it. As I headed down the slope and over a root, I thought about all the mountain bike riders who wouldn’t even have deigned to call this an obstacle. I am not of their number, but I made it back across with nothing more than a little spike in my heart rate.

I cruised the smooth roads and headed back out the way I had originally come in. A sheriff’s car passed me, and, a few minutes later, passed me again headed the other way. Interesting. Perhaps there can even be trouble in faerie land?

I headed back home after that. What else could compare, after all? It was a nice ride, if a little bit strange in spots.

See you on the road.

A Quick Ride

2009-07-16T08:17:00.004-04:00

I didn’t have much time – just enough for ten or twelve miles, but a little ride is a lot better than no ride at all, even if you have to start the ride downtown in a heavy traffic area.
I dropped the car off at my Lovely Lovely’s workplace with my bike in the back. I wandered inside to drop off the keys with the receptionist.

“You went in there in your bike clothes?” my Lovely Lovely asked me later. “Well, yeah.” That just netted me a strange look. Well, the first few times I wore a kit I felt like I must look like nothing in this world, but now I just wear them without thinking much about it. I’m quite sure whether or not I embarrassed her by walking in there dressed like that.

The main road was far too busy for me to want to tackle it on two wheels, but there was a labyrinth of small roads winding around all of these little office buildings. As I was finding my way through the maze, I was passed by a car with almost no clearance at all. I thought a few choice thoughts to myself. Ahead of me was a pickup truck stopped in the middle of the road. The car that had just passed me passed the truck, again with almost no clearance. Apparently it’s habitual with that fellow.

I went around the truck. It had three people, one large and two small, sitting in it. A quick turn put me next to the main road for a hundred yards or less. While I was there, I heard voices behind me arguing. I could only understand the occasional word – generally obscene, and the tone made it clear that unhappiness was in the air. The arguing voices got louder, and then the pickup truck passed me. Someone inside it was extremely unhappy and wanted to make sure that everyone, no matter how far away they might be, was aware of that fact.

The noise faded into the distance, and a quick cut through parking lot finally got me onto the road I wanted to be on, where I was stopped by cars turning off of the main road. I was too lazy to want to pull my feet out of the toe clips, so I did attractive little circles around the parking lot while several cars went down the road and then I pulled out after them.

My original idea had been to saunter the six miles back home, but, somehow, it just didn’t happen that way. It was really hot. The temperature was around 1,875 degrees F
(1,023.9 degrees C)*

*Rather than checking the weather report, I have chosen to estimate the temperature based on how I felt, so there may be a slight error in these numbers.

The wind was whistling down the road, and my legs didn’t feel great, but, somehow, I just kept going hard and picking up speed. I would sometimes decide to just cruise at the current speed, but my legs would assure me that we could go a bit faster, so we did. It was a hard ride, but a good one. I guess that one of the advantages of a short ride is that you can go as hard as you can. I was going so well that I took a longer route home and turned the six miles into twelve
miles – still short, but nice just the same.

There are people who will tell you that, if you only have a short time to ride, it isn't worth it. Don't you believe them. Ride when you can and your life will be better.*

*Not a guarantee. Void where prohibited. Offer good only between the hours of 12:01 am and 12:20 am on alternate Thursday in January during years with a full solar eclipse. Tax, tags and license fee extra. What's up Doc? Go, Speed Racer, Go.

See you on the road.

More Flats For You

2009-07-14T07:12:00.000-04:00

As I was driving in to work today, the radio announced that the torrential downpours moving across the state would miss us, unless something changed. Well, something apparently changed, so no ride for me today. This left me wondering what to write about, but Cyclin' Missy came to my rescue by leaving a nice long comment about her experiences with flats.

So, without further ado, here's Missy (with a few interpolations from me.

My first flat was out on a trail alone on my mountain bike.

Well, see, there’s your first problem – riding on a trail. They have a habit of not going out and paving those things, so you have that whole nature thing going on out there – thorns, prickers…um…thorns…bear teeth, maybe, all kinds of things, any one of which can puncture a tire. I don't actually own a mountain bike, so I don't actually ride trails, so I don't really know what's out there, so I'm just guessing, but I might be right. Stranger things have happened.

I had already ridden it quite a bit, so changing the tube wasn't too hard. It was also the rear tire, so I spent the majority of my first time changing a bike tube trying to get the darned wheel back on the bike. I eventually made it...after about a half hour.

I feel your pain. I know plenty of people who can whip that back wheel back into place with that seems to be no effort at all. After quite a bit of practice, I am still not one of those people. I can get the back wheel back on, but it takes me a few minutes. The first time I ever tried it, of course, it took me infinity minutes. That is, I was never able to do it and finally have to have someone do it for me. It’s good thing I wasn't out riding a trail alone or I’d probably still be there.

The second time I changed a tube, I was really just putting a new rear tire on my road bike.

Rear tire again. Why isn’t it ever the front tire?

Um…this is not to be taken to mean that I want my front tire to go flat. I’m just saying that, if I’m going to have a flat anyway, why shouldn’t it be in the front rather than the back.

The tire was worn from the previous owner's time on a trainer.

Trainers. That’s a whole post in itself, since the second worst wreck I ever had was actually on a trainer. Don’t try to figure it out. Actually, from the standpoint of what happened to the bike, it was the worst crash ever. From the standpoint of what happened to me, it wasn’t too bad.

I thought that after doing the mountain bike tire with little trouble, I could do the road bike tire in maybe 10 or 15 minutes. All went well until I tried to get the new tire itself on. I've since learned that a brand new tire isn't very "stretched out" yet, so I eventually sucked up my pride and threw the wheel in the car for a trip to the bike shop.

Welcome to my world.

The guys there were nice enough not to charge me to finish pulling the tire over the rim.

It’s like I said once before, every bike shop needs to have a Steve. It sounds like yours does.

I'm a little nervous about getting a flat out on my road bike now.

You can’t think about it. Just ride and let the flats take care of themselves. This is a good philosophy as long as you never get a flat.

I also have some CO2 cartridges now, but I've never used them. I've heard stories about blowing a stem right off the tube with one of those.

I, too, have heard scary stories about them, but I’ve used them twice now and never had any problems whatsoever. And if I can do something with no problem, then anybody can. Trust me on this.

But I always take my cell phone along with me on a ride, so if I fail, I guess can hope that my hubby will have his ringer on. Ha!

I feel your pain there, too. My Lovely Lovely often has her phone on silent. I hope that this will not ended up causing me to walk a great distance pushing a limping bike someday.

I know people who don't ride alone very far out of concern that something might happen. Of course, they're right, something might happen. I can't prevent it, so I'll just take what precautions I can (such as carrying a spare tube) and then go out and ride. So far, many things have happened - flats, dropped chains, shifter problems, close calls with cars or dogs, road rash, getting well and truly lost, and so on, but none of them have been too bad. If you thing about that sort of thing too much, you'll just drive yourself crazy.

And what do I do when I'm driving myself crazy? I got for a ride, of course, and so should you.

See you on the road.

Early Morning Onwards

2009-07-13T14:34:00.003-04:00

Sunday morning, bright and early. Well, it was definitely early, but I was not exactly bright. Despite the fact that I was running on way too little sleep, my body decided that I would be awake now. I disagreed, but my body won. I figured that, since I was up while everyone else was asleep, I might as well go for a ride.

The last ride I was on, I had a GGRRRREEATTTTTT! legs. That ride got cut short by a flat, and I remember expressing the hope that I would have GGRRRREEATTTTTT! legs on my next ride.

We now pause for derisive laughter.

Done?

Good. Let’s move on, shall we?

While changing the aforementioned flat, I noticed that my tires were in rather sad shape. A quick trip to the bike shop revealed that they only had one tire in stock, and I was clearly in need of two. I bought one and placed one on order, all of which meant that my trusty bike wouldn’t be heading out of the stable for the next few days. Fortunately, I have my trusty Trek 1000 still handy. It has toe clips on it now instead of clipless pedals (I still have the scars from making the change) but that’s okay.

The Trek is occasionally ridden by someone who sometimes disagrees with the computer about how many miles he’s gone. (“How far did you go?” - “About ten miles.” It’s always ten miles, though a glance at the computer will show anything from 3.5 miles to 9.5 miles. Must be a hole in the space-time continuum. )

I climbed into the saddle and hit the road where I promptly got pounded into submission by the wind. It was unrelenting and just about beat me to death. I rode for about 36 miles, and there was one glorious 4 mile stretch when the wind was pushing me in the direction I wanted to go. Other than that…well, it was tough.

The wind is my friend.

This is what we tell ourselves, and today the wind was my friend by making sure that I got stronger.

It was a dog intensive day. The three sisters were out and ready to run, but I fooled them. I did this by going so slowly that it was utterly uninteresting to chase me, so they left me alone. A miniature dachshund came after me, its little legs churning like mad, but it didn’t come anywhere near me. A little while later I got chased by a dog that shouldn’t have existed outside of a cartoon. I have no idea what it was. It looked like a mouse on steroids, but it was definitely barking. It didn’t actually leave its yard and couldn’t run over five miles per hour anyway, so I didn’t get a very good look at it.

There were several other loose dogs, but, fortunately for me, none of them raised my heart rate for me.

There was also the fact that I deviated from my planned route – I don’t know why – and I got lost. I had a vague idea that home was over that way somewhere, or possible over this way but I eventually got back there, so it all worked out.

It was just a really hard ride.

Still, every ride is a good ride.

P.S. The title of this post is a reference to one of my favorite musical groups. Anybody out there get it?

See you on the road.

Flat as Flat Can Be

2009-07-09T13:02:00.008-04:00

It took some effort, but I managed to tweak my day to make time for a ride. As I figured it, I had an hour and twelve minutes. A odd number…well, an even number, actually, but you know what I mean – an unusual number, perhaps, but that was what I had. I hit got kitted out and hit the road. It was hot, it was windy, and my legs felt great. I don’t just mean “really good” either, I mean great, and not just great but Tony the Tiger “GGRRRREEATTTTTT!”

I was just flying right from the start. The heat didn’t matter. The wind didn’t matter. This was apparently my day. I don’t know what I hit. I didn’t see it when I hit it, and I didn’t find it when I went back to look for it. I know that I felt it and I heard the “whump” of the impact and I heard a noise like “Brppphhffffffewwwwww” (I think that's how you spell it) and three second later my tire was out of air. I stopped. It was a rear wheel flat, darn it.

My History With Flats

I haven’t had that many flats, so I can recall each one.

1. My first flat was on a group ride. Or, rather, right before a group ride was supposed to start. That was the time Jörg looked up at me and asked, “Why am I changing this for you?” “Because you don’t want to wait twenty minutes to leave and are too nice to leave without me?” I guessed. That must have been it, because he continued to fix the tire for me.

2. I discovered my second flat when I was getting ready to go out on a solo ride, so I got out my handy-dandy bike repair book, studied a bit and then changed the tire while sitting on my couch. It was a rear wheel flat, and, after I got the tube changed and inflated, I discovered that I couldn’t get the wheel back on.

What to do, what to do…

At the time I had a little two door hatch back car. I took the front wheel off the bike (I knew I could get that one back on) and discovered that there was just room for the frame in the back of my car if I shoved my seat about as far forward as I could get it. This was clearly unsafe, with the steering wheel making indentations on my rib cage, so I was glad the bike shop wasn’t far away.

I got to the bike shop and dragged my back in and explained to Steve what had happened. He didn’t laugh very hard. He then showed me the trick to getting the back wheel back on (it turns out it matters which gear you’re in. Who knew? Well, Steve did, for one. I didn’t. I then had to get the bike back into my car and get us both back home. I made it before I ran out of breath. (It’s really hard to breathe with a steering wheel kissing your sternum.)

3. My third flat happened on the road as I was returning from a group ride. I was less than half a mile from home, so I just walked the bike home and changed the flat there. (Yes, I know that I should probably be ashamed to admit that, but there it is. I just didn't want to have a go at changing the flat on the road. What can I say? At least I'm honest about it.)

4. 5. My fourth (and now fifth) flats happened out on the road while I was on solo rides, and I changed them successfully. (I didn't really have a whole lot of choice in either case. I wasn't going to walk my bike that far.) These two times were the first times I ever used CO2 cartridges to refill the tire, and I somehow managed that. (Even though I’ve done it twice, I still don’t actually know how I did it. I’ll figure it out one day.)

If you've read much of this blog, you may have gathered by now that I am not mechanically inclined. I am, in fact, mechanically declined, I'm sure.

Anyway, getting a flat certainly put a damper on my great ride, although, while I was in the process of changing it (and seeing how many body parts I could get grease on at the same time, apparently) a nice gentleman in a pickup truck stopped to ask if I needed any help. I said "no" which, for a few minutes, I though may have been overly ambitious, but I made out. I headed back home and used what had been my precious ride time to head to the bike shop and pick up a new tube. Also, while I was changing the tube, I noted that my tires are not in any too good a shape, either, so I needed a couple of those as well.

Still, the ride was GGRRRREEATTTTTT! while it lasted.

Tomorrow a ride is probably out of the question, but I can always hope. Maybe next time I climb into the saddle my legs will feel the same way they did today.

Wish me luck.

See you on the road.

No Ride For You?

2009-07-08T06:59:00.006-04:00

“I’m sorry you’re having a bad day,” my Lovely Lovely said.

“I’m not having a bad day,” I told her. “I’m have a stupid day.”

It started off with a discussion of whether I was going to ride to work or I was going to toss my back into the belly of the 2000 pound beast, let my Lovely Lovely drop me off on her way to work and merely ride back home again at the end of the work day. I was in favor of option number one, for reasons that I felt were cogent and sound. She was in favor of option number two for the reason that she didn’t want me to ride to work.

So, after being driven to work…

Well, actually, after being driven to where my Lovely Lovely works, I pulled the bike out to ride over to where I work (a distance of possibly a mile if I stretch it) only to discover that I had left my water bottle, carefully filled, sitting at home. (This was what prompted the exchange I started out with.) Granted, I didn't need to bottle on my way to work, but I might miss it on the way home.

As I pedaled away, I suddenly wondered if I had brought my book with me. A quick dig through the messenger bag showed that my book, too, was sitting at home.

I pulled up at a stoplight to turn left onto a busy road. Of course, you never know about traffic lights…how sensitive is the sensor? After a few minutes, I looked up at the light and said, “This light is not gonna change for me.” An instant later I heard a roaring sound behind me. “But it will change for a truck!” The truck pulled up next to me and then roared again. “But not if the truck turns right on red instead of staying put.” Oh, well.

It’s gonna be one of those days…

Fortunately for me, it turned out that the truck stayed just long enough to trip the sensor, so the light changed and let me through. (For those of you (not the egotistical use of the plural form showing my hope that more than one person might actually be reading this…) who are wondering why I didn’t just go on through the light (which is perfectly legal if the light won’t change for you*) it’s because the darned road was so busy that I would have been splatted if I had tried such a hare-brained move.

*Please note that this is not legal advice, and, if it turns out to be wrong, the police officer giving you the ticket will not be impressed if you tell him someone called lunicycle said it would be okay.

*Also please note that this is not safety advice, and you run the risk of ecountering hostile traffic and having an unpleasant demonstration of the truth of some of the basic laws of physics, and the doctor taking care of you will not be impressed if you tell him someone called lunicycle said it would be okay.

*And, finally, please note that, since these notes are in the middle of the text, they clearly can’t be footnotes, and I have no idea what they should be called. Thank you.

After I left work I had to run by my mom's to do some errands for her, and she finished by asking, "Don't you want me to drive you home?"

Nobody wants me to ride today, apparently.

As I finally headed home, I was passed by a guy on a small motor scooter. I felt a little kinship with him. True, he had a motor, but he was also small, traveled under the speed limit and was unprotected out on the road should a passing 2000 pound beast decided to swat him. He must have felt a kinship with me, because, after he passed, he held up his hand in a wave and left it there until I responded.

I watched him turn off ahead of me, but about ten minutes later he passed me again. I remember thinking, "Oh. It's him again," and then wondering if he had the same thought.

I also got passed by two vans with big bold letters on their sides proclaiming that they contained "inmate workers." Each van was pulling a trailer holding a port-a-potty, a pile of traffic cones and a metal cabinet. I guess you never know where you'll be working, so it's good to be prepared.

I also saw an Archie Bunker couch and a big console TV sitting outside on someone's lawn. I didn't stop to ask why.

The things you see on the road, eh?

Despite the way the day started, and despite a bit of opposition from people who mean well, I did finally get a little ride in. I wish it could have been longer, but it was still good. I just want more.

See you on the road.

Slow and Easy

2009-07-07T16:37:00.000-04:00

I went on a sofa ride today, mostly just to stretch my legs and wash out the lactic acid from yesterday’s effort. It was kind of windy, but I didn’t care because I was pretty much committed to not much effort today, so all I did was slow down. It takes away a lot of the push when you really don’t care how fast (or, more to the point) how slow you go.

I was just cruising, heading anywhere I took into my pointy little head to go, wandering through neighborhoods and subdivisions as the whim struck me.

I noticed that there are a lot of personalized mailboxes out there. Polka dots are the most popular, both black and white and multi-colored, but I saw a mailbox with a little metal horse on top of it, rainbows, a pennant festooned with the letter “J”, (yes, I did say festooned) and, best of all, a giant fish. It was an iridescent green, and its wide open mouth held the mailbox door. This is kind of kitschy cool. I wouldn’t want one, mind you, but it was kitschy cool all the same.

Unlike most days, I was kind of glad not to run into any other cyclists on the road today, because I was so clearly slacking off…I mean, on a recovery ride. Yeah, that’s it. It was a recovery ride.

Perhaps the most interesting thing that I saw was a snakeless skin. That is, an empty snake skin which had apparently been shed by its previous owner, which is not to say that there is a skinless snake out there somewhere.

Talk about a lazy no pressure ride…I just sort of oozed my way up hills, ignored the wind by simply slowing down if it blew harder and generally just had a nice pleasant time. Every car that passed me (and they were few and far between) did so with courtesy and kindness. That was the icing on the cake.

Sometimes this is exactly the kind of ride I’m in the mood for.

Tomorrow, it’ll probably be different.

See you on the road.

Free to Ride

2009-07-04T20:51:00.003-04:00

I woke up at 6:40 am. I didn’t want to wake up at 6:40 am, but there it was whether I wanted it or not. So, what do you do on your day off when you wake up way early and can’t get back to sleep? You get up and go for a ride, of course. I picked out a nice forty mile route full of hills, and I was actually looking forward to it for some strange reason. Glutton for punishment, I guess..

When I hit the road, my legs did not actually feel very good. I rode through my neighborhood, which includes a couple of leisurely hills. I blamed my poor legs on the wind (and on the fact that my legs are just poor) and then, as I got out of the neighborhood I happened to look down and ask this rather pertinent question: “What the heck am I doing riding in such a high gear?” Huh. It turns out my legs were better than I thought, but my brain was apparently not so good. Perhaps it was still asleep.

Actually, I ended up feeling really good, wind or no wind (and there was definitely wind) and I was largely able to keep my pace up where I wanted it, though there did come a point about thirty miles in, when it began to occur to me that some people have the gift of pushing themselves even when they ride alone, and some don’t. It’s easier for me to push myself if someone else is going hard and I’m trying to keep up with them, but I was determined to keep the pace up today, and I did it.

I encountered various things on this ride: Yard sales. Lots of yard sales, some of them even in yards, and some of them in parking lots, making them, I suppose, parking lot sales. I even saw a sign that said, “Free Yard Sale. Everything must go.” Free yard sale? I didn’t even try to figure that one out.

I did notice that most of these yard sales featured a variety of bicycles. Where do these bicycles come from and why aren’t people riding them?

I came perilously close to encountering an eighteen wheeler that was apparently driven by a man who didn’t know the meaning of that double yellow line down the middle of the road.

I encountered a couple of loose dogs, but they were relatively polite, chasing but not barking, chasing but never coming into the street. The two dogs who chased me last time weren’t ready for me. They didn’t see me until I was past their yard, and I was moving well, so they barked but didn’t bother to chase much.

I encountered another cyclist coming toward me. It always makes me happy to see other cyclists out riding the roads, and I always wondered if it was just me. That question was answered, because the approaching rider grinned and waved at me. I warned him of the loose dogs that he was headed toward.

Aside from the aforementioned semi and one van, the vehicles passed me politely, which was greatly appreciated. I started out gently, not killing myself on the first hills, but there is one hill at about the fifteen mile mark on this route that really used to take the starch out of my legs, and the last time I rode this route, I resolved to hit that hill hard, and I did. I determined to do the same thing, and I fairly flew up it, but I ended up slowing down at the top because the road was really rough and because I trying to catch my breath and my breath was going too fast for me to catch it.

All in all, I hit the entire route hard and did really well. I was feeling it by the end, mind you, but that’s okay. That’s rather a nice feeling because it lets you know you did something. I’m hoping to squeeze in another ride tomorrow morning.

See you on the road.

Half and Half

2009-07-03T10:54:00.001-04:00

Today I took a newbie on a ride. He is…how shall I put it…athletically inclined. (I, on the other hand, am not. I am, in fact, a card carrying geek who lived as a couch potato (well, computer desk potato) until the bright idea of buying a bicycle occurred to me and I found an athletic practice that didin’t require depth perception, coordination or grace.) Because he is athletically inclined, he wants to be good on the bike. Because he is a teenager, he doesn’t want to be shown up by someone who his nearly thirty years older than he is. Both of these things are perfectly understandable.

He’s ridden a few times – one or two miles around the neighborhood and then a reported twenty miles out by himself one day. We headed out bright and early while it was still cool and there wasn’t much traffic.

I did all the things that one does with a new rider – I sprayed instructions and advice like a fount of wisdom, which is probably just as annoying as it sounds, though he, in fact, followed most of the advice. (The one piece he ignored was to shift up and trying spinning at something less than 125. Apparently he likes to keep his legs moving.)

I also chose a flat route, kept the pace low, reminded him to drink, let his draft off of me nearly all of the time, that sort of thing. When we arrived at the volunteer fire station which is five miles from the house (comfortingly close, don’t you think?) I told him we had gone five miles. His quads were hurting him, so we pulled over and let him stretch, checked his saddle height, talked about riding posture and then turned around to ride the five miles back to our starting point.

He still had some fire at the end of the ride, because he pushed himself to go hard up one last hill. Nicely done. I dropped him off and then headed out to get some more miles on my own – hard ones with hills because I’m a glutton for punishment. (Actually, it’s because I know I need to ride stronger than I do, so I might as well push myself.)

That ride was hard but good until the two dogs came out after me, one of them baying like the hound of the Baskervilles and apparently out for blood. I was heading up a (fortunately for me!) not very steep hill and I had to hit thirty mph before I dropped them. (Only one of them came out into the street after me and ran at my heels, but one was enough.) The really bad thing was that I had to go back that way to get home again, and there was quite a steep hill not far past their house in that direction.

Going back that way meant risking life, limb and skin, but I had no choice.

I pulled over and picked up some rocks to put in my pocket.

On the way back I had some rocks ready to hand and then here they came, both of them running out into the street this time. I tossed a rock at the first one, and I missed, but apparently it was enough to make him remember an appointment that he had somewhere else, so he left.

The vicious one – the one that made me think he wanted to see the color of my insides – came hard after me. I threw a rock at him. Missed again. It apparently scared him, though, because he moved over to the other side of my bike. I threw another rock. Missed again. (I did mention that sports are not my strong suit, didn’t I?) but apparently the fact that rocks could come at him no matter which side of my bike he was one was enough to make him change his mind about the chase and go find something else to do, and they left me in peace rather than in pieces.

The rest of the ride was uneventful but fun, and I am definitely ready for me.

See you on the road.

Pedals

2009-07-02T10:21:00.000-04:00

Today I did something not merely dangerous but absolutely foolhardy. I attempted to use my tool kit to perform a mechanical task. As I have noted before, if you hand me a tool kit you might as well go ahead and hand me a box of gauze, some bandages and a phone with 911 on speed dial. I proved the truth of that sentiment today.

The mechanical task in question was a simple one – swapping out the pedals on a bike.

I have a 16 year old who has decided he wants to try riding. I’m letting him use my trek 1000, and I had two options – spend 200 bucks for him to get a pair of shoes and cleats to use the clipless pedals that are already on there or spend 25 bucks for a pair of pedals with toe clips.

Guess which one I chose.

I went to my friendly local bike shop and talked to Steve, wrench extraordinaire. Steve showed me how to put the pedals on.

(Once, after I got my handy dandy and (till now unused) toolkit, Steve asked, “You’re just dying to use that toolkit, aren’t you?” I admitted it, and he said, “Don’t be in such a hurry.” It was good advice, and, for once, I had the wisdom to follow someone’s good advice.)

“Now, this is the left pedal,” Steve said, pointing.

“How do you know?”

“These ridges right here,” he said, pointing them out. Then he flipped the pedal over to show me that part the he didn’t need to use but that I did, “And also because it says ‘L’ right here. But we use the ridges.” I know he did, because he hadn’t even glanced at the label, but the label was just about my speed.

Steve then explained that the pedals are opposite threaded. They both loosen toward the back of the bike and tighten toward the front, which, as Steve pointed out, makes perfect sense. If you’re pedaling, you don’t want that action to loosen one of the pedals.

I got home, and my Lovely Lovely, busy cleaning out a hamster cage, saw what I was doing and said, “I thought it was lefty loosey and righty tighty.”

“Don’t go there,” I said. “Not with pedals.” I really gave the impression that I knew what I was talking about and, for once, I actually did, thanks to Steve.

Anyway, at the cost one smashed finger, I did get the pedals changed out, which is pretty good for me. I handled tools and didn’t need a trip to the emergency room afterwards. Excellent.
I tried the bike out just to make sure that I hadn’t somehow damaged something, and it worked find, although I did discover that, after several years of using clipless pedals, I have lost the knack of getting my feet into the toe clips. I can do the first one all right, then I get rolling and try to get the second foot in, but the toe clip makes the pedal want to hang upside down so you have to flip it over and jam your foot in there without either falling over or hitting something…I was pretty good at it once upon a time, but those days are gone. Pretty soon we’ll see how good a new rider is at it.

I’m busy rehearsing all the things I’ll need to tell him, starting with the fact that, contrary to the opinion held by nearly all teenagers, he is neither invulnerable nor immortal. Also, there are rules of the road. Wish me luck. At least I’m not having to teach anyone how to drive. That’s a plus.

See you on the road.

241

2009-07-01T08:48:00.004-04:00

I had a two for one sale today.

My Lovely Lovely drove me to work with my bike in the belly of the beast. I parked it in one of the classrooms because, well, I had to park it somewhere, and I don’t think the bike racks outside look particularly solid, somehow.

Seeing it, one of the students asked me how far away I lived. “Oh, just six miles is all.” The student was impressed by the idea of riding a bike six miles, while I was thinking that it was barely a ride at all. Same language, different worlds.

When it was finally time to head home, it was 92 degrees out. The sky was nearly cloudless, and the wind could have been unpleasant. Fortunately, however, it was blowing in the right direction.

I got stopped at road construction. There was the guy holding the sign that ordered us all to stop, there was the one car in front of me, there were the various cars lining up behind me. The guy finally turned the sign to the side that says, “Slow.” As I pedaled past him, I said, “Slow is the only speed I’ve got in this heat.”

“I heard that,” he said. I assume that was agreement and not merely acknowledgement that I was audible, but I could be wrong.

I took it easy all the way home, but the water in my bottle, filled up from the fountain but with no ice, tasted warm and flat. I cruised into the garage and then decided to go for a real ride. Since I had skipped lunch, I went for some instafood.

In-sta-food /ɪn-stə-füd/ - any substance sold in can which is designed to be plopped into a bowl, microwaved and eaten (not the can, the substance in the can). While it is marketed for human consumption, this should not be taken to indicated that it is either (A) palatable or (B) actually edible. Common ingredients include pasta, rice, a meat-like substance and (presumably) styrofoam, rubber bands, and wood caulk.

I followed this up with a couple of precautionary antacids, got kitted out and hit the road, covered in sunscreen. I figured I had less than an hour before my Lovely Lovely would get home from work, and I didn’t want to fry my brain in the heat, so I went for an easy fifteen miles.
The wind had other ideas about how easy my ride would be, but voicing my complaints, which I did, didn’t seem to have much effect on it.

I passed a giant farm machine spraying a mysterious fluid onto dirt. When I later passed that same spot again, the farm machine was gone, but it had left a cloying odor in it’s wake that make me wonder how much good breathing it in was doing my lungs. Hooray for the great outdoors.

The rest of the ride was quite pleasant, really, except for the heat. I'm not sure how much of my water I drank and how much of it I poured down the back of my neck. I do remember emptying my first bottle and grabbing the second, which was insulated. That water was still ice cold when it hit my back, and it was pleasant agony as it rolled down my back. I also cheated and took a break for a moment in the shade of a building.

I managed to make it home and get showered just in time to greet my Lovely Lovely as she got home from work. This was what I call a good day. Two rides. Not bad at all.

See you on the road.

Saturday Commute

2009-06-29T07:06:00.004-04:00

This was a day of ups and downs, even though there weren’t a lot of hills on my commute.

It was Saturday and I had to work

But

I could go in whenever I felt like it

But

They had turned off the air condition in the building, so it was hotter and more humid (humidor?) inside than it was outside

But

Nobody else was there so I could crank up my music while I worked

But

My Lovely Lovely was going to be out of town all day with our only working vehicle

But

I would get to commute on my bike

But

Well, you get the picture. For every down there was an up and for every up there was a down. Which reminds me – don’t you hate it when you struggle your way up to the top of a hill only to find that the road levels out and there isn’t any down after all of that up.

No down after an up in life is good, but on hills, not so much.

My Lovely Lovely drove me to work on her way out of town. I pulled my bike out of the back and pedaled down the sidewalk toward my building, and that’s where I spotted another bike sitting near the elevator – a hybrid with panniers no less.

“I’m not the only one,” I said. I may have said it out loud. I can only imagine how that remark, coming out of the blue, might have struck anyone who happened to overhear me saying it to myself.

Unlike the mysterious stranger, I was not prepared to leave my bike outdoors unsecured. Unfortunately, the elevator wasn’t working, so I did my own version of cyclocross up the stairs. A hybrid is not made for cyclocross. It’s heavy, for one thing.

I had to carry my bike upstairs

But

I would get to ride it home again

See? Ups and downs…

As I noted earlier (down) they turn off the air on the weekends, so it was actually hotter and more humid inside than it was outside, and that’s going some. When I was finally ready to leave, I was glad to be out in the burning sun instead of locked up in the sweat lodge.

Because the campus was empty (the students have more sense than to be there on a Saturday) I took an unusual short cut across the middle of campus. As soon as I got out of the shelter of the buildings, it was made abundantly clear to me that I would have the company of a headwind all the way home.

It was really windy

But

Hm…

But

Um…nope. I’ve got nothing for that one. It was just really windy.

I don’t listen to music while riding out on the road – I like to use my ears to hear cars approaching from behind me, but I sometimes have a song in my head to keep me company anyway. It seems quite appropriate that today’s song was Burning Mirage by The Madeira.

I was determined today to take it quite easy. It was way too hot for anything else.

There was less traffic (hooray for Saturday) and a new stretch of road, as smooth as silk and a lot of fun to ride on. My computer wasn’t working, so I couldn’t have worried about the numbers even if I’d been inclined to. It was really quite peaceful – if you exclude the big furry dog who may only have wanted to play but who caused my heart rate to shoot up dramatically.

It was a very laid back ride, and a very pleasant one to boot. If I have to go in to work on a Saturday, that’s a great way to finish off the workday.

See you on the road.

A Bad Song

2009-06-25T12:30:00.003-04:00

I'm still on vacation spending time with my Lovely Lovely this week, but I thought I'd inflict this on you. With apologies to Gene Autry and also to everyone else who reads this, but I was really bored one day and just couldn’t resist the temptation. So, without further ado, here is my version of Back in the Saddle Again. Everybody sing.

I’m back in the saddle again
Out with those lycra clad men
Where the hairless legs spin fast
As the cars and trucks race past
Back in the saddle again

Ridin’ the road once more
and now my backside is sore
Where the finish line’s in sight
and the leadout is just right
Back in the saddle again

Whoopi-ty-aye-oh
Sprintin’ to and fro
Back in the saddle again
Whoopi-ty-aye-yay
I go my way
Back in the saddle again

I’m back in the saddle again
Out with my spandex wrapped friends
With a titanium frame
And that lactic acid pain
Back in the saddle again

Ridin’ the road once more
watch out for opening doors
With Phil Liggett in my ears
as I wish I had more gears
Back in the saddle again

Whoopi-ty-aye-oh
Sprintin’ to and fro
Back in the saddle again
Whoopi-ty-aye-yayI go my way
Back in the saddle again

Still Here

2009-06-23T12:47:00.003-04:00

I haven't vanished off the face of the earth. The kids are out of town visiting relatives, so my wife and I are getting some quality time together, and going for long bike rides without here doesn't fall under that heading.

More soon.

Pushing It

2009-06-17T07:36:00.003-04:00

This was a day when the skies wept. It rained nonstop from before sunrise until after I got off work. It was also a day that is a viable candidate for “must frustrating day of the year” award, not just because of the rain, and that was before the 2000 lb beast decided to eat part of its own engine. Oh, boy.

My Lovely Lovely and I were finally headed home after running some necessary errands. There were still two hours until sunset, but the sky was gray and it almost looked like twilight out. We passed a cyclist who was waiting to turn onto the road we were on, and my head perked up like a dog on a scent.

“What is it?” my Lovely Lovely asked.

“I want to see if it’s anyone I know.”

Am I the only that does this? The sight of someone else out riding makes me happy. Of course, it also makes me jealous, so I am a study in contradiction.

We made it home, and I asked how long before dinner would be ready. When asked why I wanted to know, I said that, if was going to be a while, I might head out for a short ride.

“Go ahead,” my Lovely Lovely said. May all cyclists be blessed with a wife who has the same attitude as mine does.

I got the trusty old Trek 1000 out and took it for a quick spin. I hadn’t been on it in a while, but it’s nice to let it stretch its wheels every now and again. I picked a nice loop with several hills and hit the road. It was a short loop, and I decided to go as hard has I could go.

How do you make yourself go as hard as you can go? I have a friend who can practically grind himself down into the dust with his own effort. I have another friend who never pushes herself on the bike unless someone else makes her. If she’s riding alone, she won’t break a sweat.

I was pushing myself hard today but, as I was going up hill number…ah, heck, I don’t know…I found myself starting to flag. That’s the moment of truth, right? Can you make yourself kick it back up a notch at that moment or not? In this case, the answer turned out to be “yes,” and I found myself wondering why some people seem to be able to do that sort of thing all the time and others don't seem to be able to do it at all.

It’s much easier for me to push myself to my limit if I’m trying to catch up with someone who’s ahead of me or keep up with someone. It’s harder if I’m alone and have to dig up the strength from nowhere except my own motivation to get better.

Chuck says, “Cycling brings out the character that’s in you, or, if it isn’t in you, it puts it there.”

As I was going down a hill near the end of the route with another hill waiting just in front of me, I found myself coasting to catch my breath before having to go up again, and I heard Keith’s voice in my ear. “Pedal up, pedal down.” I didn’t want to pedal down the hill. I wanted to catch my breath.

Still, I had set myself a somewhat ambitious minimum pace for the route and I managed to make it, so I was pleased. I got some miles, I got the blood pumping, I let off some stress, life is good.

See you on the road.

Here's another video of the Ventures featuring Bob Bogle on lead guitar.

Bob Bogle

2009-06-16T12:22:00.004-04:00

For today's cycling blog, read the next post. This is not cycling related, but I'm posting it anyway.

Rest In Peace Bob Bogle (1934-2009)

If you don't know who Bob is, now's your chance to rectify that.

Finally!

2009-06-16T07:13:00.000-04:00

So, having ridden an unexpectedly shortened loop yesterday, today I was determined to get a good thirty-five miles (or possible a bad thirty-five miles or even a mediocre thirty-five miles, for that matter.) I had a route picked out that I knew would make the distance, and I was determined to stick with it.

Now, for some strange reason, I had the idea that it wasn’t windy out there. I don’t know where I would get such a crazy idea. After all, when I got home yesterday, I told my Lovely Lovely, “It’s windy out there.”

“It’s always windy, here,” she replied. (Did you notice the lack of sympathy there? Before we got married, she lived in a wind deprived state.)

After a few miles I passed some people having a garage sale. Well, if we name it for where it was, it was actually a flat bed truck sale. The only thing that I noticed in the pile of merchandise was a pair of giant teddy bears. The people who were having the sale looked quite comfortable in a couple of canvas chairs. Their head swiveled slowly as they watched me pedal past, and the fact that they remained totally silent the entire time made it all seem a bit surreal.

I was making a real effort on this ride – having set myself a minimum pace I would allow myself to ride at on the flat, wind or no wind, and I was pushing hard to maintain it. This particular route has a long hill that usually takes the starch out of my legs, but I forced myself to push up it hard and maintain my pace. That was where I discovered that the mad road writer was back.

You remember him, right? He had written “Will U Be Mine Again?” on the road at one point. Here he had written a couple of messages to his someone:

Good morning beautiful

smile

I am here

You know, somehow this one made me wonder if the guy was some kind of stalker.

It was followed up by a message of apology and a promise of future bliss.

I wondered who this guy was and who he was writing to and how she had responded to these messages. Somehow, I don’t ever expect to find out. It’s likely to remain just one of life’s little mysteries.

I passed between two fields of corn. There are plenty of wheatfields and cornfields around here, and I suddenly found myself wondering what is it about cornfields? Everything from “Field of Dreams” to “Children of the Corn.” Why are we always waiting for things to come out of the corn? Nothing ever seems to come out of the soybeans or the strawberries, after all. Nobody cuts mazes into the rutabaga fields for people to walk through. It’s always corn.

(Yes, I know that corn is taller than all of those other plants, but I’m trying to get some quality musing done here. Don’t spoil it be getting all prosaic on me.)

I had a moment of bliss on the bike as the road crossed a county line and went from being incredibly rough and bumpy to being smooth and pleasant. That’s always a very nice moment, especially if you’ve been on the bumpy road for several miles.

There were people out there on all kinds of vehicles. I either passed or was passed by, at different points during the ride, 18 wheelers, SUVs, pick up trucks, cars, motorcycles, a tractor and a lawn mower. I remember wondering if there were any other cyclists out on the road. In finally got the answer to that one.

Shortly before I get back home I hit a road that is a little tough when you’re tired. It has several hills in a row, including one that seems to go on forever. I decided to push down that road hard. I got to the end and had to wait for several minutes at an intersection. At that point another cyclist pedaled up behind me and stopped. He said some very sweet words: “I could see you, but I couldn’t catch you.”

Hooray for me.

He was definitely ahead of me in one way, though. He had already gotten a metric century in. Nice. I was jealous of that.

I was only a mile from home, though, and I was expected, so I headed in. This time I got the miles I was looking for, but I am ready for more.

See you on the road.

Wheeeeeeeewww

2009-06-15T07:49:00.003-04:00

I annoyed myself this morning. (This will surely not surprise the many other people who are annoyed by me. After all, if I can annoy others so effectively, why shouldn’t I be able to annoy myself just as well?)

I had a ride of a specific length in mind, and I knew exactly where to ride to in order to get those miles in. Or, at least, I thought I did…

Even before I left, I knew it was going to be a hard ride. While I was still in the house I could see the trees dancing in the wind, and it’s always worse out on the open road. Oh, well.

I rode the first mile through the neighborhood and then turned onto the main road. Whew! This was not just any wind, this was the sort of wind that might carry you to Oz if you aren’t careful, and me without a little dog along for the ride. Well, that’ll teach me to hit the road unprepared.

It really was tough out there. It was the sort of day when you just put your head down and pedal, then you look up after a few minutes and find out that you haven’t actually gone anywhere.

After a little while I turned and had a crosswind instead of a headwind. That’s always a bit of relief. It was about three miles later that I realized that I had turned down wrong road to get to where I wanted to go. I considered turning around for about a half a second but decided that I had done too much work to get where I was and didn't want to go back.

That was okay. I've learned my way around this part of the county by now, and I knew that I could go this way and then go that way and make a big loop over here and end up at my goal. It would take me way out of my way, of course, and make the ride longer, but I was okay with that.

Or so I thought.

When I finally to my designated turn around point, I was actually feeling pretty good. I remembering being surprised how quickly I had gotten there. (My idea of quickness, mind you, was not actually based on looking at a clock. It was just based on how I felt.)

I turned around and was suddenly going twelve miles per hour faster without doing any more work. (That’s how you can tell it’s windy.) With the wind finally at my back, the trip home went in record time. As I was nearing the end of the ride, I remember being surprised at how great my legs felt.

That was when finally checked my computer and discovered that “the long way” was actually a little over four miles shorter than the way I had intended to go. That’s four miles shorter one way, so the totally ride was a good eight miles shorter than I was expecting. Well, no wonder my leg felt so good!

Well, it ended up being a good ride, anyway, just short.

I resolved to do better the next day. And I will, too.

See you on the road.

My First Century

2009-06-08T11:44:00.000-04:00

CONGRATULATION TO CYCLIN' MISSY ON COMPLETING HER FIRST CENTURY!!!!!

Every year the Seyboro Cyclists have the Double Century – two hundred miles in a single day. It’s actually four rides one after the other, so, while some hardy souls will ride the entire two hundred miles, others will join in only for one or more loops. (In the last two loops, the addition of fresh legs to take some pulls is welcomed.) To establish my own credentials – I have ridden the double twice. The first time my goal was to complete my first century. I did so. The second time my goal was to complete the entire double, and I made it. I didn’t finish pretty and I didn’t finish strong, but I did finish.

My First Century

I approached my first century nervously, but feeling okay. I decided to start with the first two loops of the double. That way, if I still felt strong, I could continue to ride the entire ride. The first loop was 65 miles, and the second loop was 55. I finished the 65 mile route feeling really good and set off on the 55 mile route in a good form. The temperature began to rise. There’s a reason they call if the Sizzling Summer Mileage Marathon, after all. I made my hundred miles, and just a couple of miles later I realized that I was done. My legs just refused to turn the pedals anymore.

We were passing a convenience store as this realization came to me, and I said good-bye to the group and pulled off. I was done, and I knew it. That’s when things began to get a bit tricky.

I called my wife to come and pick me up, only to find that she wasn’t at home. She was out running errands and would go to the point where the loop was due to finish. I wouldn’t be there. Oh, well. I called a friend who turned out to be occupied and couldn’t help me. All right. That was okay. I could ride back to town. It couldn’t be more than twenty or twenty-five miles.

I climbed into the saddle and took off. Well, I climbed into the saddle and turned the pedals, anyway. I figure I was doing about eight miles an hour, and I didn’t figure I could keep that up for more than a couple of miles. I got to another convenience store a few miles away and just stopped. I parked myself and my bike next to a phone and started calling home at regular intervals with no result.

I had just enough money for one soda, so I got that and drank it and continued my futile use of the phone. I had been sitting there for maybe half an hour when my wife drove past the store where I was sitting. I saw her clearly. Obviously, someone on the ride had told her where I had stopped, so she was headed there. Well, that was okay. She would have to come back right past where I was, so I took my bike and stood right at the side of the road with it. A little while later, she came back and drove right past me without seeing me. I waved and yelled and even jumped up and down a little, but she never noticed me at all. I cannot tell you how tired I was or how it felt to watch that car disappear into the distance.

It would take her twenty minutes at least to get home, so I sat down to wait. Then I started calling again and finally got an answer. She eventually got back and picked me up and took me home. I was a little annoyed, I must admit, but I was happy to have completed my first century. I figured I’d try the double again next year. More on that later.

Until then, I’ll see you on the road.

Epic Ride

2009-06-04T08:11:00.002-04:00

With the Seyboro Cyclist annual double century ride looming (and Cyclin' Missy's first century coming up) I've decided to post some tips on how to finish an epic ride. These tips were actually collected by Jorg. (The double century takes place in four loops of decreasing length. Knowing that fact might make some of the comments easier to comprehend.) Here they are, complete with Jorg's intro:

C-bros,
As you know, we have quite a few riders in the club who have finished the Double Century ride. I thought this might be a good time to ask them to reveal the one thing that made the biggest difference to them. As you will see, some things are deeply psychological, while others are just a little weird.

The proof, as always, is in the pudding: All of these tips have worked for the tipper...

Neil starts us off with a not-so-subliminal-after-all message:
Plan your "BUTT CREME" hydration and nutrition by approaching each loop "BUTT CREME" as four individual rides with "BUTT CREME" recovery fuel after each in the form of solid food you are used to "BUTT CREME" consuming.

I do remember that, after I completed the double century for the first and (so far) only time, I wasn't interested in sitting down again for three days afterwards. Over 11 hours in the saddle...sheesh...

President Dave, ever the pragmatist, continues with 4 ideas:
-Drink at least one bottle every hour, even if you don't feel thirsty.
-Keep some high-energy snacks in your car for the breaks at the school.
-Change into clean, dry clothes after the second loop.
-Maintain 18 mph!!! While it may seem easy on the first loop, it will feel very difficult on looop 3.

President Dave has completed the double more than once. As far as maintaining 18 mph seeming easy, that works as long as everyone else is maintaining 18 mph too instead of 20+!

Scott's tips to finishing the double century twice:
-Most important Hydration: Start Hydrating by Wednesday three days prior to the ride. Take the water bottle to bed if you have to. Your body needs to be saturated long before the ride.

If you aren't getting up several times during the night, you aren't hydrating enough!

-This is a big one: Come to the ride with your mind set that you will finish the Double Century. It's not an easy feat so any doubt may cause you to quit.

One of the most useful things about riding that anyone ever said to me came from Scott: "You have to start by knowing that you can do it." This helped me a lot near the end of the double century when I still felt like I could complete the ride, just as long as no one expected me to go over 12 mph. That's a story for a post in itself.

-I bring 4 Sandwiches, 2 with Turkey, Cheese and Tomato and 2 Peanut Butter and Jelly. I eat a sandwich after each loop and have one for recovery when the ride is over. With those sandwiches I will wash them down with a Yoo-Hoo or a Gatorade. I do take Tums to settle my stomach as well.

Bobby first introduced me to the idea of a Yoo-hoo after a ride. It didn't sound like a good idea at the time, but he was right. That's about the best stuff to drink after a hard ride that I've ever run into.

Dave Peacefoot takes a more philosophical approach:
Pain is temporary. It will subside and it will return.

Well, there you go. I can't argue with that one. I'm not entirely certain what to do with it, but I certainly can't argue with it.

Bobby has a practical angle:
Use your gears wisely, spin on the hills and use your big chain ring on the flats. Spinning will give your legs a rest and mashing will rest your lungs and heart.

I wish I had something either clever of witty to say here. Mind you, I haven't said anything either clever or witty yet, so why should this be any different.

Mike meanders back to a ride famously shrouded in Seyboro lore:
The "Double Century" is an endurance event so you need to make preparations of what to wear; eat; drink; sunscreen; resting on breaks and that sort of thing. It's an all day event and over the years many good riders have been left in the parking lot. So..prepare, prepare and prepare and if all else fails, call Velvie for the secret weapon...Justin.

Chuck managed to complete the double one year because his son Justin cussed him and got him back on his bike again after he had decided he had enough. That's what family is for, right?

I'll go with something a little more personal, but effective for me:
-Take a shower after every loop. The breaks are long enough and changing into a fresh kit will make the whole event seem much shorter than it is.
-In between the loops, eat something real. Forget the sweet stuff - I had ham and cheese bagels from Five Star.

After I finished the double, I also didn't want anything even remotely sweet for at least a week. I was so sick of candy bars and gels and everything of the sort that I didn't even want to look at anything sweet. I definitely made some bad food choices there. Well, I'll go ahead and add my own tip. Here's what did it for me:

If it's really hot, drink and drink and drink and don't be afraid to drop ice down your jersey to cool yourself off.

Yes, that's probably the most peculiar tip of them all, but it helped me out. Of course, I'd much rather ride in the cold than in the heat. Here's my other tip:

Ride in the middle of the group.

If you take too many pulls at the front, or if your pulls are too long, you'll wear yourself out.

If you hang out at the back of the group, you'll get the yo-yo effect. When you hit a corner, the people in front won't slow down too much, but the people in the back will end up having to slow down and lot and will then burn energy trying to catch back on. I know. I've been there. Don't be that person.

Well, if you've got an epic ride coming up, good luck.

See you on the road.

A Passing Thing

2009-06-03T08:33:00.007-04:00

When I got home Monday, almost the first words I heard when I walked in the door were, "Mom doesn't want you to ride to work anymore."

Hm.

The my Lovely Lovely said, "You're not doing this anymore." Since I was in the process of taking off my helmet, gloves and RoadId (not to mention having heard the previous comment - it's amazing how I can pick up on subtle clues like that) I gather that she was talking about riding to work.

"Why not?" I naively asked.

"It's too hot."

That one stopped me. I was prepared for "it's not safe," but I wasn't ready for that one.

Fortunately, a clever reply leaped immediately into my mind.

"No it's not."

Okay, so apparently it wasn't that clever, but it was all I had.

"Yes it is. And it isn't safe." Well, I rode in the belly of the 2000 lb beast yesterday, but we talked some more and I was able to ride into work today without any hard feelings.

It felt pretty warm this morning, though the weather report said it was only 73. I have a feeling the humidity is was through the roof. I took it easy since I didn't want to offend anybody at work. Of course, a good sweaty odor keeps people away so you can get your work done...

And I decided to count how many cars passed me and how many of them passed me safely. To be fair (in other words, to make sure I wasn't being overly sensitive) I only counted it as unsafe if it made say, "Yikes!" or some other expletive. If all I said was "Well...." I counted it as safe.

The tally - 63 of 84 cars passed me safely. I wheeled my bike into my office this morning and found this on my door:

I'm going to leave it there. It made me laugh out loud. (In case you don't recognize the strip, it's Pearls Before Swine.) Well, now I'm at work, so I'd better do some.

See you on the road.

Monday, Monday

2009-06-02T08:33:00.002-04:00

What is it about Mondays?

Last Monday, we were on a group ride when a car pulled up beside us and a lady within said, “Y’all are gonna get killed.”

Now, I don’t know if the was a threat, a prediction or a friendly warning, but as the car pulled away it was followed by waves and cries of “Thank you! Have a nice day!” (A 2000 lb beast is much bigger than a bicycle and, as a consequence, inertia is not on our side, so let’s be nice out there.”

Now it is true that the road is not a place where never is heard a discouraging word, and all of the “Have a nice day’s” were followed by a single discouraging word, but I think the car was too far away by that time for the word to have been heard.

Today, I commuted in to work. I had some errands to run on my lunch break, which I was in the process of doing – climbing a long hill with the temperature in the mideighties and the humidity unpleasantly high when I saw a pedestrian ahead of me. We were both obeying the law, so we were on the same side of the road headed in opposite directions. I glance behind me – clear, so I pulled out to go around him. I nodded at him, and he said, “You’re about to get hit bro’.”

Now, the look on his face and the tone of his voice indicated to me that he was merely giving me a friendly warning. There was no car behind me, so he clearly didn’t mean “right now,” though.
Is this sort of thing going to happen to me every Monday?

A little ahead, still recovering from the hill, I saw a sign that said, “Begin 35 1000 feet ahead.”
My comment?

“I hope that’s not a command.”

Well, it’s hard to be clever when you’re as hot as I was and have just climbed a hill.

Actually, despite nearly being plastered by a pickup truck and being told I was about to get hit, today has been a pretty good riding day. If I hadn’t commuted, I wouldn’t have gotten any saddle time at all, and here I got six miles to work, three miles to where my errands were, three miles back to work, and I’ll get six miles back home later on today.

Thinking about this, I was struck with how differently cyclists view the road from other people. A friend was aghast that I was riding my bike to work because it was “such a long way.” I explained that I viewed six miles as a short way, but I think we had to agree to disagree on that one.

There’s a spot on the road I was riding where the shoulder shrinks from two feet wide to less than two inches wide. I remember approaching that spot in the 2000 lb beast and spotting a cyclist ahead of me. There was enough room to pass, but I knew from personal experience how unpleasant it is when a car passes you at that point, so I waited and passed at a better spot. I knew the road and did it without thinking about it much.

It occurs to me that the road would be a nicer place if drivers were forced to ride the roads on a bike for awhile so that they would have the right perspective on things.

Anyway, later in the day I met the cyclist who turned out to be someone I knew and who had recognized my car. She thanked me for what I had done.

There’s a moral in there somewhere.

See you on the road.

Close Call

2009-06-01T08:33:00.003-04:00

I decided that, on my commute to work this morning I would count how many cars passed me. I did this because it makes my Lovely Lovely nervous when I commute, and I wanted to show her that the traffic wasn’t as heavy as she was afraid it was. Then, since I was counting anyway, I decided to count not only how many cars passed me, but how many passed me safely. I got up to 9 of 11 when I lost count.

You may think that this either means that I can’t count very high or that I have a very poor memory, but the numbers were wiped out of my mind by a burst of adrenalin as a woman in a silver pickup truck apparently decided to kill me. She was in a driveway waiting to come up, so I did what I usually do – I made eye contact with her. I’m quite sure that she saw me. She just decided that she was in a hurry, that’s all.

What’s the life of a cyclist worth? Well, to this lady it is apparently worth about five seconds of saved time.

As I was approaching her, she gunned her engine and shot out in an attempt to cut me off. I didn’t know that I could slam on my breaks hard enough to make my tires squeal. It turns out that I can. The driver of the truck swerved around me and then took off down the road without bothering to say “Sorry” or even slow down to make sure that I was okay.

Another car came up behind me a few seconds later. After that, there was absolutely nothing. The driver of the truck would have been scant seconds slower had she decided to wait and do things safely, but, hey, it’s just a guy on bike, right?

Aside from that, it was a pretty nice ride. As I was filling my bottle this morning, my daughter asked, “You’re going to ride?!” (Only an eleven year old can sound quite that incredulous.)

“Yes.”

Then she decided to be nice and warn me. “It’s sixty something out.”

“That’s okay.”

Out the driveway and up that first hill. I hate that first hill. It starts about fifty feet after I leave the driveway, and my body is seldom ready for it. A short way down the road is the yard with the three dogs (only two of whom were out today.) The large dog barked at me, then the small dog chimed in.

It sounded for all the world like a big guy talking and the little weasely guy who hangs around with him repeating the key words because he can’t think of anything of his own to say.

Aside from that, there was no excitement at all on the ride, and I was okay with that. My friend in the pickup truck has given me quite enough excitement for one day, thank you very much.

The great part about being able to ride in this morning is that I have an errand to run at lunch time, so that’s more time on the bike. It’s a great day – 71 degrees out, not a lot of wind, although both of those things may well have changed by the time lunch rolls around.

My day has started well. I hope yours has, too.

See you on the road.

Safety

2009-05-28T08:42:00.001-04:00

I stumbled across a website called “How not to get hit by cars” which I thought I’d check out. After all, I’d like to know how not to get hit by cars, wouldn’t you? I thought the website had a lot of good information, but I have to admit that I got distracted from it by the Great Cycling Safety Controversy.

Apparently, not everyone can agree on how not to get hit by cars.

This is different from the controversy about whether you should wear a helmet or not when you ride. (You should, by the way. See how effectively I dealt with that controversy?)

The controversy seems to involve two schools of thought, one fostered by a man by the name of Bluejay and the other fostered by a man by the name of (appropriately enough) Foster who adds

M.S., P.E.
Cycling Transportation Engineer Consulting Engineer,
Expert Witness & Educator in Effective Cycling,
Bicycles, Highways & Bikeways, Traffic Laws

after his name, all of which sounds very impressive.

Mr. Bluejay (I’m sorry, that just sounds like someone out of a book by Beatrix Potter) doesn’t offer us any of his qualifications for dispensing safety information, he just dispenses the information and leaves it up to the reader to decide on its value.

So, what’s the difference?

Here is the crux of Mr. Foster’s philosophy:

Cyclists fare best when they act and are treated as drivers of vehicles.

That is the guiding principle that cyclists should recognize and government and society should obey. But government does its best to prevent cyclists from recognizing this principle.

He goes on to add:

Bikeways neither make cycling much safer nor reduce the skill required. They probably do the reverse.

Government knows that bikeways don't make cycling safer, but it uses the public superstition that they do.

Well, I will admit to you that I know that a bicycle is classified as a vehicle with all of the rights and privileges and responsibilities appertaining thereunto. (If you aren’t a lawyer, how often do you get to use a phrase like appertaining thereunto?) I also have to admit that I like Bikeways (by which I am assuming the author means bike lanes). We don’t have many of them around these parts, but I like them.

Well, actually, we have one bike lane around here. It's about two miles long. Oh, and it isn't continuous. It reaches a corner and then disappears. Half a mile later, at another corner, it reappears. What you're supposed to do between those two corners, I don't know. Teleport, probably.

Mr. Bluejay’s method can be summed up like this:

Ride as if you were invisible.

It's often helpful to ride in such a way that motorists won't hit you even if they don't see you. You're not trying to BE invisible, you're trying to make it irrelevant whether cars see you or not.

In other words, wear bright colors and lights and anything else that will make you stand out, but assume that the driver of that car doesn’t see you and act accordingly.

I like this advice. I like this advice very much.

Mr. Bluejay also says that sometimes obeying the law may be hazardous to your health.

Here’s a question for you –

You are a law abiding cyclist on a two lane road. You want to turn left, but you have to wait for oncoming traffic to get out of the way. Do you:

stay in the middle of the lane with your arm stuck out indicating your upcoming turn while hoping that no car is going to come up from behind you and plaster you across the pavement
pull your bike off the road and wait for traffic to clear and then move across to where you want to be
decide that you didn’t really need to make that left hand turn right there and maybe you’ll just keep going straight for awhile

A vehicle would certainly chose 1., right? But is it safe? You tell me.

On a group ride a couple of days ago there were about twenty of us. We came up to a stop light which changed to red on us before the entire group got across. Some riders ran the light, others hit the brakes and waited.

Everyone has different ideas, and thinking about them all is making my head hurt. I think I'll go for a ride. If I can figure what to do, that is.

See you on the road.

Say What?

2009-05-27T08:43:00.001-04:00

Lunicycle’s recipe for success:

A couple of days of so-so nutrition and inadequate hydration topped off by an evening filled with stress and very little sleep. Then you go for a ride.

I tried this recipe for success myself just this morning, and it was absolutely successful if you want to ride like me. If you don’t want to ride like me (a thing which, by the way, I don’t recommend) then you might want to try someone else’s recipe for success.

I fooled the dogs and the wind this morning by dragging myself out of bed later than usual and thus hitting the road later than usual. I can imagine the wind having woken up and checked, finding me still in bed and rolling over for just that little bit of extra sleep that makes all the difference. Then, happy and comfortable, the wind wakes up and finds me out on the road. “Hey,” says the wind. “What do you think you’re doing out there without me?!” and the wind then comes to join me on the road.

Having learned (so I thought) something about this area of the county, I finally constructed a route for myself that wasn’t just out and back again, only to find that I don’t know this part of the county half so well as I thought. The route I had chosen was about ten miles shorter than I thought it was, so I had to tack on a randomly chosen loop to get the extra miles.

I spotted a guy being taken for a drag by his dogs. The man was standing on a skateboard holding the lashes of two good sized dogs who were jogging along nicely and pulling him behind them. This is the easy way to take your dogs for a walk, I suppose.

I also spotted a dead snake by the side of the road that was over three and a half feet long at the very least. This was a little startling. It was so startling that I kind of jumped (not a thing I recommend doing while riding a bicycle, by the way) a bit later when I saw what turned out to be a garden snake.

Okay, it was a garden hose but it might have been a snake.

I passed three other cyclists. I prefer to phrase it this way for my own self-esteem, but the fact is that we were headed in opposite directions. I don’t think I knew any of them, but I hope they were near the end of their ride, because one of them was covered in sweat.

Well, I don’t suppose I know for a fact that it was sweat, but he was certainly covered in something, and if it wasn’t sweat, I don’t want to speculate about what it was. It was good to see other riders on the road, even if they were headed away from me and I couldn’t draft off them.

I got back to the neighborhood a mile short of the distance I wanted with some very tired legs indeed, and I forced myself to ride around the neighborhood as hard as I could go. I actually passed my Lovely Lovely sitting on the porch and didn’t see her. I was too busy acting as my own coach, which basically means fussing at myself to keep the pedals spinning around at a reasonable rate of speed. I don’t know why I did this, but it seemed to help.

Today’s ride end up being harder than I anticipated (or possibly I was weaker than I anticipated – it pays to think of all the possibilities) but even a hard ride is a good ride. (Sometimes a hard ride is an especially good ride.) I ended up with a good distance and a good pace.

Now I’m going to get some rest.

See you on the road.

Group Ride!

2009-05-26T10:16:00.003-04:00

Has it been awhile since I’ve been on a group ride with my fellow Seyboros?

This is a rhetorical question, which in this case means "a question I already know the answer to."

Well, I guess it has been awhile, because when I let it be known that I was going to go on the Memorial Day ride, I was counseled by Jörg to wear a name tag and was greeted with shouts of “Hey! New guy!” after I arrived.

I pulled my bike out of the back of the 2000 pound beast, only to notice that my computer sensor had fallen to the ground and my chain had come off. How appropriate.

It was nice to be greeted by people, even if they couldn’t believe their eyes.

Once we got moving, we had a great time, if a bit peculiar in spots. For example, I’m used to hearing shouts of “Dog left!” or “Car up!” but “Cow right?”

That’s a new one on me, and I thought it was a joke, but, no. There was a small cow trotting along beside the road. It was following the fenceline and sticking its nose into every crack in the fence, apparently trying to get back in where it hadn’t gotten out from and unable to figure out how to do so. (When we rode back by at the end of the ride, it had apparently found the way.)

I could hear snatches of conversation all around me. Triatheletes were trading battle stories. Roadies were talking of dogs of the past. Work stories, cycling stories, family stories, laughter, they were floating all around me, and I thought back to my first ride with the club. Somehow, I hadn’t known that cycling would be so social. I had this idea in my mind of everyone riding along, together, but each in his or her own world, and the nonstop conversation surprised me.

How do you tell if a hill is hard or if the pace is difficult? The conversation stops. But let the road level out or the pace slacken a bit and it’s back again.

We have a good time together out on the road. I eventually found myself riding next to Lisa. While we were on terrain unknown to me, we were practically in Lisa’s backyard, and she had more than a passing familiarity with every dog on the route.

“Okay,” she’d say, “There are four dogs who live just on the other side of that bend, and they will run at you.” She was right, too. Dogs must like Lisa a lot. They chase after her everywhere she goes.

There was one dog that got encouragement. It was a very small puppy, but it exploded into barks as we went by, and people began calling out, “Come on, dog!” This may, in future days when this dog is no longer so small, prove to have been a tactical error.

We passed a field full of cows, stately matrons all, who watched us go by, heads swiveling slowly to keep us on view. (I later passed these same cows in the 2000 pound beast, and they ignored me completely. Apparently they are only interested in cyclists.)

I was treated to the sight of a rider I didn’t know playing with her helmet as she rode. This seemed odd to me, and then a wasp flew out from underneath it! Apparently it had flown in through one of the air vents and she had been trying to get it out again. I'm sure both the wasp and the rider were happy that it succeeded.

We rode twenty miles out to the Bentonville Battlefield, which turned out to be closed on Memorial Day, go figure, hung out there for a bit and then pedaled twenty miles back home. The talk ranged from theology to cloning to turkey nutrition to dogs I have known to what it’s like to work in a prison to cows to home life to…well…pretty much everything really.

I can’t guarantee that everyone had a great time, but I think they did. Even the rider with the (fortunately painless) wasp in the helmet, allergy rash, bug bites and, to top it all off, a bloody knee from a classic clip related slow motion fall in a parking lot. Hey, most of us have done it, and you guys who haven’t, there’s still time. Just wait.

It was great to do a group ride again. I was urged to do another one before next memorial day, and I think that’s good advice.

At the end of the ride, Jörg asked, “How are the legs?” The legs are fine. I’m ready to go again.

See you on the road.

No Harm, No Foul

2009-05-22T08:01:00.009-04:00

This is the design on my favorite T-shirt. I found it at threadless which may possibly have the coolest T-shirts on the planet. I thought of this T-shirt because:

A) I was wearing it yesterday

B) I went on a ride this morning

C) Someone I know came perilously close to running out of gas this morning.

(I would like to point out that I was sympathetic and not at all smug about this.)

The wind must have stayed up late last night, perhaps watching The Weather Channel or reading a book by Margaret Mitchell. Anyway, the wind surely slept last this morning. I can just see it all snuggled up under the covers while I quietly climbed out of bed and hit the road for an easy ride bright and early. At some point out on the road I must have made a noise or something, and the wind rolled over, opened it's eyes, blinked a bit at the alarm clock (which apparently hadn't gone off) and the leaped out of bed with a yell and a realization of being late.
Well, it made up for lost time, flying out with a rush and joining me out on the road.

I should have guessed that, having been a faithful companion on so many rides of late, the wind would not abandon me this morning.

I also apparently left the house in a rush this morning. I had a vague idea that I was forgetting something, and that something turned out to be my phone. I don't really like being out on the road alone without a phone, and a parade of past problems danced in my head.

For some reason my brain was especially fixated on times when I had been dropped on a ride. The most spectacular one involved a whole group of us, twenty miles in and going hard. We came to a lovely long downhill and then everybody opened up - big gears and high cadence. We flew down the hill, then we rounded a corner and the road flattened out and nobody slowed down.

Well, almost nobody.

I watched the group streak away over the horizon while I pedaled as hard as my little feet would go. Then I just settled in to ride the fifteen miles back alone.

Now, why I should be worried about getting dropped this morning, given that I was all alone, I don't know. I have never dropped myself on a ride. In fact, I always wait for myself if I'm having problems.

I got chased by a single dog, but this dog had a rough sounding voice and no wind. Perhaps this dog smokes too much. In any case, knowing it's own limitations, it waited until I was quite close before it leaped out of hiding, barking and darting toward me (like a poor imitation of the stealth dog), but all it took was a slight increase in speed to leave it behind.

Other than that, the ride was nice and calm. I did pick a very bumpy road to travel down, so there was a long period during which I had to listen to my water bottle rattling in the cage as if I were riding my own Paris-Roubaix. I got passed by a school bus and had the slightly surreal experience of having to stop for a stopped bus while on my bike. Hey, the law is the law, right?

All in all it was a pleasant ride, and I didn't need the phone I didn't have. I wasn't motivated to get up early, but I did it anyway, and now I'm glad I did.

Another day, another ride.

That's the life.

See you on the road.

And I'll bring my phone.

Just in case.

I Got Passed by a What?

2009-05-21T20:09:00.001-04:00

Ahead of me was a curve. Fortunately for me, it was still some distance ahead of me, because I watched a bright yellow sports car streak around the curve, crossing the yellow line to occupy the space where I would be in a few minutes. This did not comfort me. I was even less comforted when I watched a pickup truck do the same thing on another curve. This sort of thing gives me that little prickly feeling in the small of my back.

I also watched a man drive a port-a-potty around. It was a school bus, one of the short ones, with most of the sides removed to turn it into a mutant flat bed vehicle, and, strapped to the back, was port-a-potty and something mysterious under a tarp. (Given that they had no problem showing everyone the port-a-potty, I was curious to know what was under the tarp.) I was headed on way and the port-a-potty was headed the other, just two ships that pass in the night, or so I thought, but, about fifteen miles later, we passed again. (I’ll grant you, I can’t guarantee that it was the same vehicle with the same port-a-potty, but I’m willing to bet that it was.) I don’t know where the port-a-potty was going, but I do hope that no one was waiting impatiently for it to arrive.

Later on, while in the belly of the 2000 pound beast, I was passed by the port-a-potty man again. I was struck with the idea that he was driving his port-a-potty all around the county. I imagined crews of construction workers getting excited because, at last, the port-a-potty man had arrived. Perhaps he should have had music like the ice cream man does. Well, maybe not.

I dressed in layers this morning because it was fifty degrees out when I hit the road. Thanks to the majesty of the wind, it wasn’t long before I was working up a sweat. Off came the vest. Down went the arm warmers. The lovely cap with the ear flaps was replaced with a lighter weight cap. (By the time I got to that point, I didn’t have anything else I could safely take off, so I left it at that. You’re welcome.)

I had another good ride, and I’m hoping to hit the road bright and early tomorrow morning for another one.

This is the way to spend your time off.

See you on the road.

Oh My Goodness

2009-05-20T13:37:00.003-04:00

I believe that the wind was blowing approximately 527 miles per hours (848.124 kilometers per hour) this morning. I grant you that I didn’t actually measure the wind speed, having carelessly left my anemometer at home, but I estimated the wind speed based on how hard the ride was.

I decided to go exploring this morning and to find a particular school. (There was no reason for this decision other than to give my ride a turnaround point.) I had only been to this school once, and that was in the 2000 pound beast and by a different route, but I was confident of my ability to find my way there on my own.

My confidence was entirely misplaced.

I never did find the school, but I did find the airport, and I had long wondered where that was, so I suppose that counts for something. (I shall claim it as a victory.) My first clue that I was on my way to the airport was when I found myself on Airport Road. This was eventually followed by a sign pointing the way to the airport, and that was followed by the realization that the airport isn’t actually on Airport Road. Silly me to have expected such a thing.

I discovered a variety of interesting signs, though. I saw a sign that was about two stories tall and had a very nice spiral staircase leading up to it. It turned out to be a sign for a metal fabrication company. This same company had three driveways, each one labeled by a very stylish sign decorated with the company’s logo and name. Two of them then had the words “no entrance” while the third said “entrance.” What struck me about these lovely signs is that the three driveways were only about five feet apart and all led to the same tiny parking lot. It seemed like a bit of overkill. I also saw lots and lots of signs for people who didn’t want other people trespassing on their property. These signs seem to be quite popular.

I saw a sign for a subdivision where there was nothing but trees and grass. (Near my home is a sign for a subdivision, and they actually had laid out roads and put in streetlights. There are no houses there, but the roads and the sign have been there for five years. It's a bit ghostly, somehow.) The sign I saw today was apparently not even for a phantom subdivision, because there was nothing there but wilderness, and the sign is quite weathered. Perhaps it's a sign of sheer optimism.

At one point two dogs came out into the road after me while I was riding uphill into a headwind. (It really felt like most of the ride was into a headwind.) Nice, eh? Fortunately for me, these were tiny little dogs with tiny little legs whose top speed was apparently about five miles per hour, and I even I can beat that.

On the whole, the ride was dominated by two things: the smell of manure (I was riding past a lot of farmland – always a plus when you’re pushing yourself hard and trying to suck down a lot of air) and the wind. By the time I was done, my legs were toast, but it was a nice long ride, and I’m ready for more. Well, I'm not ready for more just yet, but I will be soon.

How about tomorrow?

See you on the road.

Walk and Ride

2009-05-14T08:22:00.003-04:00

In honor of bike to work week, I ended up walking to work. I suppose that’s a bit messed up, but that’s how it is. Work, by the way, is about six miles away from home, so it’s a bit of a hike. The problem was that circumstances beyond my control (or at least beyond my awareness) meant that I had to leave my bike at work a while bike, and a good opportunity for getting it back home again was slow in coming. Today turned out to be the day.

The six miles are practically all on the same road – two lanes, with the speed limit ranging from 45 to 55 mph and no shoulder. It actually isn’t a bad ride (assuming the traffic is right) but it’s a bit difficult to walk. This is largely due to one two mile section during which the road is bordered by corn fields and wheat fields and then a bunch of trees.

There is a ditch that runs along the road maybe 18 inches away. It is generally filled with black water and a variety of plants. The ground between the road and the ditch slopes downward toward the ditch, so the footing is a bit uncertain, and the thought that, if you stumble one way you get smacked by a car and if you stumble the other way you end up standing in the black water is a bit disconcerting.

The most beautiful section, where woods border the road on both sides, is the worst for walking, since it’s unmowed and the grass before the trees is lush, thick and very high. At one point, I was standing there as a truck towing a very large farm vehicle (large, in fact, than the lane it was occupying) came toward me. I wanted to move farther away from the road, but something that seemed quite large was scuttling around under the plants just there. Nice.

I finally got to work where a few little details had to be taken care of, then I climbed in the saddle and headed back home. Unfortunately, my bike had been here for rather longer than I realized, so the tires were a bit soft. Well, it was only six miles. I could live with that.

(My first group ride was also my first 20 miles ride. It was hard, but I enjoyed it. My bike was still so new that it was due for a free servicing the next day. I went in an told Steve about the ride, and he said, “You might have enjoyed it more if you have more than 20 pounds of pressure in your tires.” That was how I learned you have to check the air in your tires a lot more often than I thought you did.)

The ride home was more fun than the walk to work, but, as you can imagine, I didn’t push the pace at all. I just cruised gently along on my soft tires. I don’t know what kind of picture I present all kitted out and riding my road bike. I probably look like nothing on this earth, but I was struck at that moment with how I must have looked just then sitting up on the hybrid and wafting my way along in comparison to how I look pushing the pace into a headwind. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ride bicycles.

I was also a bit concerned, as I rode back along the route I had just walked, to notice how many dead snakes there were right at the edge of the road. Hmm. So how many live snakes were there hidden in the grass I had walked through earlier? Best not to think about that.

Steve says, “Any walk over a quarter mile sucks. That’s why I always carry a spare tube.” Well, all I can say is that riding back over that road was sweet. My legs were tired and my feet were tired and I was glad to be pedaling instead of walking.

I’m ready for a real ride now, though, and the weather and my work schedule may combine to allow me to get it. I hope so.

See you on the road.

An Apology to the Wind

2009-05-12T09:13:00.000-04:00

It is possible that something in my last post may have been construed as complaining about the wind. What I wrote was, "The wind sucks." Now, I can see how, taken out of context, this might sound like an insult, so let's put that quote in context. The entire quote was:

Lactic acid burning
Muscles push the pedals hard
Today the wind sucks

Hm. Even taken in context, that sounds like an insult, doesn't it? Well, then I was clearly misquoted. (Yes, I know that I was the one quoting myself, but that's just being picky.)

So why all this concern on my part? Have you ever heard a parent say, "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about?" Well, the wind decided to accompany me for my entire ride today, and it was made abundantly clear to me that it was not actually windy on my last ride. Yes, there may have been a slight breeze blowing, a gentle zephyr barely disturbing the air, if you will. I know this because today is was windy.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I would like to make that abundantly clear, just in case the wind has an internet connection and decides to check out the blog.

The other interesting occurrence today was that I saw the following message painted on the road:

Will
U
Be
Mine
Again
?

Well, this was obviously quite flattering. Do I have a secret admirer? Mind you, the "again" would make one think that I should know who wrote the message.

Then I began to consider it a bit more. Will "U" be mine...this sounds like sheer laziness. Am I not worth the extra effort of actually spelling out the word "you"? Or did the individual in question not know who to spell the word "you"? Either way, this did not seem promising.

Then it occurred to me that, since there was no name attached to either end of this message, just possible it wasn't intended for me. Well, that could be confusing. Again, was this just laziness? Or does the writer have such a colossal ego as to think that the person for whom the message was intended would automatically know it?

Perhaps this person has done a lot of good, though. Who knows how many people saw this message, thought it was for them and made up with someone they had become estranged from. Perhaps this message writer had done this on purpose with the intention of reuniting couples who had quarreled over some silly thing or other. Why, this was noble of the message writer, don't you think?

See what you see when you get up early and go for a ride?

Although I have to confess that my legs are a bit tired this morning.

Not because of the wind, though. I'd like to make that perfectly clear. The wind is my friend, and I am definitely not complaining about it.

See you on the road.