OK, haven't posted in a while because I'm pretty lazy. Also haven't bike commuted in a while because first I lost my job, so I had no where to commute to, then I got a better job to which commuting is...problematic. Still, after calling in to The Squirrel Report tonight, many people told me I need to update my blog. So I guess I will. It looks like our side is definitely winning the debate on rights at this point, as even Bloomberg is saying there is very little support for new gun control laws: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-20/gun-control-support-modest-even-after-school-shooting.html Of course, it still includes such gems as

Two-thirds of people polled opposed banning civilian possession of handguns. Fifty-six percent of people surveyed said they’d support a ban on “cop-killer” bullets capable of penetrating bullet-proof vests, and 53 percent said high- capacity ammunition clips should be outlawed.

Wouldn't it be nice if they mentioned that armor piercing ammunition is already illegal, or perhaps learned the difference in a clip and a magazine? They still keep pushing the bogus concept of "assault weapons", so I don't see them correcting any other facts any time soon. It will be interesting to see what tomorrow's NRA news conference brings. I plan to try to update the blog more frequently, but I'm not sure I'll be abler to come up with much content that isn't "Hey! Look what this guy said! He's a genius!" If I can't come up with mostly original stuff, I don't see the point.

Not so much biking...

I haven't been doing a whole lot of bike commuting lately, due to a variety of issues. Hopefully I'll be able to start it up again in the spring, but for now I think I will discuss other awesome hobbies.

My wife and I are both big fans of firearms, and both have our concealed carry permits. My wife, however, doesn't have a gun that is appropriate for concealed carry. She has a 5" .38spl. I wouldn't mind a new carry gun either, since I am rocking a double stack Makarov in 9x18mm--not the best capacity or most potent round.

We have decided that we will get each other guns for Christmas this year, though mine will be a shotgun to help round out my collection. I'm planning on the Mossberg 500 Field/Security combo so it can do double duty as defense and skeet gun (and deer gun if I ever felt like learning to hunt). We haven't decided what we will do for my wife yet, though. Still in the planning stages. I have been trying to give advice and guide her to possible choices without trying to dominate and impose my own will. "Well, I've heard really good things about XDs, M&Ps, and SR9Cs..."

We rented a Springfield XD SubCompact in 9mm that we both liked and put about 100 rounds through it, but that was a few months ago. We attempted to rent a Ruger SR9C, but the compact wasn't available so we just rented the full size. Oddly, my wife found the recoil to be prohibitive on the SR9, but not on the XD SC. I just didn't think I shot it that well, so I think the SR9s might be off the list for now. Sadly, they don't have 9mm M&Ps for rent at the local range so we won't get to try one and she would like to try before we buy. We hav handled Glocks in the store, but neither of us cares for the way they feel in our hand, so they are pretty far down the list as well.

Last time we shot she really liked the feel of my Makarov, so I am thinking we might rent a Bersa Thunder in .380 next time we hit the range since they are very similarly sized guns. I consider 9mm to be a vastly superior round to .380, but the most effective round is the one you will practice with and that you can hit your target with.

Also, hopefully I will be getting a reloading setup soon--just a Lee Hand Press and all the required accessories, so it will be slow going, but in the apartment I don't have a good place to set up a press on a permanent basis so this will be a good compromise. Once we have a house or at least a better spot to mount a press, I should be able to get a turret or progressive press and not have too much other expense since I'll have all the dies. Or such is my hope.

Rough Ride

Gotta say, today's commute was far from the best I have ever experienced. Raining the entire way, which wasn't nearly as fun to ride in as I remember from last year. Add to that the fact that it was a bit cold and for some reason my muscles all being in great pain (along with the bits of my that sito n the bike) and I'm just happy I made it at all. The ride home was only very slightly less bad, I took the shorter way because I didn't feel like adding mileage to the commute from hell, I needed to be home to my wife by 8, and I am pretty sure I would get lost without being able to follow the route on my GPS anyway.

I signed up for the 2010 Terratrike Car-Free Challenge. So far only the commute today counts, for the rather simple reason that I haven't been anywhere since it started until today. A month of no driving is definitely going to be a challenge for me--one that my wife is helping enforce with an iron fist. She threatened to take my keys away from me to force me to bike, but I managed to talk her down. For now.

I just wish I knew why today's ride went sop badly for me--way more painful than it was when I started riding that route afer a few months of being completely off the bike. Maybe it was just a fluke, maybe not. Makes me kind of hesitant about riding tomorrow, but ride I shall. Or at least make a noble effort.

I decided to contact Garmin about the broken GPS (shattered screen). It turns out that they will replace it for $80, which is the same price they charge for replacing the unit due to a dead battery. And my battery was dying. So I guess it really doesn't turn out to be so bad, I'll just have to use my phone for ride tracking for a while, though it's not as accurate.

Some time when the weather is good I need to take a camera along with me and snap some pictures of my current commute, which is 100% road and 0% bike path. I liked the path, it was nice and straight and car free, but it also had no curves or hills and that made it boring to ride.

Hopefully soon I'll get my legs back in shape and my belly to retract a bit more and then I'll start loving the ride more.

100 55 Miles of Nowhere

So yesterday I made my attempt at the 100 Miles of Nowhere. Unfortunately, I had some bike issues at mile 55 or so, so I was not able to complete it. To add insult, my GPS died on me as well, so I wouldn't have been able to track mileage anyway.

It was a .24 mile loop around my office at work.....over and over and over. I lost count of laps at around 105, but I know I did at least twice that many.

Time to give credit where credit is due: My wife is the most awesome person ever. She came out to watch and support me, and made a "Way to Go Tommy" sign to hold up as I went by. She was also in charge of feeding me, refilling my water, and selling water balloons.

Water balloons, you ask? My fundraising idea was to let anyone who made a donation (of any amount) throw a water balloon at me as I went by. I would just like to say that for a fat guy, I am rather hard to hit. Also, it's best to not underfill the balloons, many of them bounced off me instead of properly breaking. Next year if there is a repeat, I will make sure the balloons get thrown while I go UPhill, that way people can be more accurate. Gotta make sure they get their money's worth.

Also, I am incredibly impressed by the generosity of my coworkers. I didn't really expect to get many donations for the ride, and I only told people about it on Thursday, but I managed to raise over $320 for Livestrong. I will have to wait until Monday to get the cash donations in , but $175 was given online. That's pretty awesome.

My wife also took some pics, of which this is one:

And here is what my GPS track looks like:

All told, I'm not happy that I failed to complete the ride....but I am reall impressed with the support I got and highly pleased with the amount of donations my coworkers gave. I can't truly call it a failure when I accomplished this much fundraising. Hopefully my coworkers who donated aren't too disappointed.

...now I need a new bike computer solution. This is especially distressing since I used the one I had for light navigation duties too. Maybe I can find a mount for the phone that I don't think is terrible, but that is not very good for navigating along predetermined paths. Oh well, time for that later.

Alternatives

Well, we can all be reassured that the impostor has been removed and the two posts in a week fiasco won't be happening again. At least, not if I keep missing rides.

I always try to leave the apartment at 9:00....but somehow I never make it out until 9:20, which is pretty much the latest possible time for me to leave and still get changed and clocked in on time at work. I really need to get better about preparing all my clothing and everything the night before. This morning I couldn't find my keys for 15 minutes, and after a long search by my wife and I, I managed to locate them. In the trunk bag on the Long Haul Trucker. Yeah, I had put them there the night before so I didn't forget them. That's just cruel. Go me!

Anyway, I started using an alternate route to get home from work. It has a lot more twists and turns, but it has more climbing and adds about two miles, so it is better for getting me in shape. Plus it removes the absolute worst part of my ride, going up a hill on Feedwire road. It's steep enough that I am geared way down and barely moving forward, while traffic backs up behind me and then zooms by when they get the opportunity (and sometimes when they don't).

Now I continue down Little Sugarcreek road and take a complex series of turns that I would never be able to follow without my GPS--and I still make wrong turns a lot.

Managed to make pretty good time on the ride home since I was trying to make it by 8:00--my wife and I like to watch Community on Thursdays. Best show ever.

Speaking of my wife, she is quickly becoming a famous internet blogger as well. Check out www.suburbanninja.com and say hi.

What I love about riding the road

Two updates in two days? I'd better not make a habit of this. People might start to think I'm an impostor.

Today's ride wasn't too bad--made the morning ride in at an average speed of 14, but I think my ride home averaged closer to 11. It seems hat there was a 30mph headwind the whole way, and that's pretty rough. I know my speed will improve, because as alluded to in the post title, here is What I Love About Riding the Road:

It's easy! Not that it's easy to go out and ride a century when you haven't ridden a bike in three years, but it's this: Keep doing it, and you get better. It's like magic! After years of mountain biking...I still suck. There's a lot of technique to it that I can't figure out how to get right, a lot of balance that I lack, and when I get tired, I tend to ride my bike off the trail and down a cliff.

But on the road? Steering the bike where I want it to go is simple. I have the whole road! ...or at least the bits of the road that aren't full of Car. I don't have to learn to unweight the rear wheel to go smoothly over a log crossing...I just have to keep turning the pedals. It's true that proper gear selection and cadence play a role, but even without those, there are some riders who are pretty amazing on singlespeeds. Turning the pedals magically makes you better.

Keep turning the pedals, people.

Biked in again on Friday. I could definitely feel the exhaustion from the day before though. I left about 10 minutes later than I wanted to, so I had to hurry. I decided to man up and take the road the whole way instead of jumping on the sidewalk to save time (for those in the know, the road in question is Clyo). At 9:20 in the morning there is very little traffic there, so I figured it would be a good move. Seems I was right...I was able to keep the speed up around 17-20 instead of the 10-15 that was manageable on the sidewalk. Overall I made the ride in a good two minutes faster than on Thursday, so we'll count that as a win.

My muscles are not ready for the constant exertion any more though...my legs were killing me all through the wok day, and on the ride home I started to bonk. The last three stops I was sitting at the light, using all my effort to stay upright--arms shaking, hands barely gripping the bar. I may have to start taking it a bit easier on the climbs, though I am really trying to push myself hard to get ready for next month's big ride.

Speaking of pushing myself, I noticed the oddest thing when I started riding again: I began the ride, and I almost immediately felt tired and felt like heading home again. But I decided top keep pushing and see how far I would make it. Oddly, I never started to feel worse. I was feeling bad at .8 miles, but I was not feeling any worse after 8 miles (with large climbs). I guess it's something to do with VO2 max or muscle mass or fast twitch vs slow twitch or whatever the trainers like to go on about. I just know that pushing through pain and discomfort is a vital part of road biking.

More on this topic tomorrow, something I've been thinking about posting for a long time but never remember to. Now I remember, but I want to milk it for another post.

New plan for making sure I bike to work: Run out of money and use all the gas in the car. I think this should tide me over at least until Friday when I get paid again.

Current weight: Uncertain, I haven't been on the scale since Friday. I turned down free ice cream on Sunday though, so I think that's worth spotting myself a couple pounds.