Let's see if I understand...

Remember: the NRA with its millions of members is a special interest group.  The anti-gun lobby, almost exclusively funded by one person, is representative of the will of the people.

Weekend Activities!

So I've been actually doing a bit more recently. Now that the long, long Ohio winter is finally coming to a close, I have been able to get outside more. As part of my new job, I get to go and periodically check a computer system in a different building, and I've been walking there instead of driving now that the air doesn't cause my lungs to instantly freeze into solid blocks incapable of processing oxygen. I take the long way, so it's been helping me get a bit more into shape.
  My birthday happened over the weekend, and as a treat my wife took me down to Kentucky for the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot.  That was great fun.  I got to meat Daddy Bear and daughter Girlie Bear, who are great people.

I don't know that I really have much to add that wasn't already covered in their posts, but I guess I can throw a few pictures out there.  Suburban Ninja took most of the pics though, since I just had my phone and she had at least a dedicated point and shoot camera.  Since I didn't have a zoom, details are a bit too hard to pick out in most of mine, so they will not be included.

This boat may have seen better days.

 Good way to save your brass.

View from down range.  I believe this is about 400 yards.  You can just make out the Huey that was circling the area most of the day.

Neither the truck nor the bulldozer were enjoying the show at all.

I feel that water cooling is acceptable for machine guns and computers.

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.

I'm baaaa-aaaack!

Biked in to work today, and it felt great. Painful, but great. The new route consists 80% of 2 lane roads and 20% 4 lane divided road w/sidewalk---so fr now while I am incredibly slow, I am taking the sidewalk, then I can move into the road as I get in better shape (it's not an urban area sidewalk, it's very light suburban-style with almost no people).

The weather was absolutely fantastic today. Around 60 degrees when I left, and around 78 on the ride home. Who would have thoughht that at this time of year my problem would be getting too hot while on the bike? Anyway, the trafic on my route is indeed quite light, as I had predicted, and the hills were....let's call them "manageable". I was absolutely wiped out when I got home, but then I realized that not only am I out of shape from not riding in a while, but this route has 3x the climbing of the old one--around 900 feet round trip. That'll get me in shape faster.

I have to spend all the time I can riding and putting in miles so that I can be sure and complete the 100 Miles of Nowhere. The CEO at work pledged $1/mile, so I have already been able to contribute more than expected. That started me brainstorming ideas for how to raise more money for Livestrong. I decided to do the ride at work during work hours because I thought making a spectacle of myself would improve awareness, but my current thought it to expand on that: For a donation, I allow (and encourage) my coworkers to periodically come outside and throw water balloons at me as I ride by. Should help keep me from overheating as well as raise a decent chunk of change (hopefully).

I was planning to do a round-trip ride to Young's Dairy (about 60 miles) in preparation, but that won't be able to happen for a couple of weeks. Someone has a route up on Bikely that starts relatively close to where I live now, so hopefully he chooses good routes.

If anyone in the Dayton area happens to glance at this and wants to meet up for a ride, let me know. I plan to do the Young's ride April 24th. Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong.

Current weight: 280. Sigh. It's not as high as it was, but it's still up there. Sad irony of the day: My Fat Cyclist jersey is now too small. If that's not motivation I don't know what is.

A failure is me?

OK, once again the exercise plan hasn't been working out exactly as planned. Haven't been biking much either....but I got married! That's something. Rather happy about that part.

We have been very busy lately moving into a new apartment--my tiny one bedroom was way too small for two people, two cats, and four bikes (three of which are mine).

I won't be using the separated bike path to get to work any more--the new apartment is far away from it. I have, however, scouted out a new bike route that seems like it will be pretty good. It's also been my preferred driving route to get to work every day since I like driving back roads and hate driving on the interstate.

In order to test the bike route before actually having to use it to get to work, I biked to work on Sunday. The going was pretty slow on the way there, and I was pretty worn out when I arrived, but I made it. The mileage is about the same as what I'm used to, but there are a lot more hills. That's OK, it will help me drop weight. I rested a bit and started to ride back when I noticed a noise from the rear wheel. A noise much like a flat tire is known to make.

Doh!

Apparently my tire had a slow leak in it and had been losing air throughout the ride--no wonder it was harder than expected! I opened my trunk bag to grab my spare tube....and found a small road tube (700x23) with a presta valve and a large road tube (700x28-35) with a schrader valve. My tires are 700x32 and my rims are drilled for presta--the schrader tube is one I carried for when I ride with my wife. I decided to just stretch the small tube, since that's OK in a pinch.

Turns out a small rock had punched through the center of the rear tire--it's tiue to replace them, they have around 6,000 miles on them. I'll have to shop around and see what the local shops have in the way of good and affordable commuting tires.

Anyway, back to the story: I then discovered that I had no tire levers with me. I am not very god at mounting tires, so I always end up using levers, at least to get them off the rim. I dug around in my trunk bag and came up with a Brooke saddle tension wrench. Slipped the non-wrench end under the bead and levered it back, but I couldn't slide it around the edge of the rim like a regular lever. Too much friction and the bead was too tight. I remembered something I saw in Mountain Bike Action about using a quick release as a tire lever in an emergency, so I removed the rear skewer, slipped the QR lever under the bead, and had two functional tire levers. Then I was able to remove the tire without much issue and change the tube after removing the rock). The tire luckily remounted without the need for improvised levers.

The ride back was going much more easily and smoothly than the ride to work, proobably because bikes are meant to have air in both tires. Unfortunately when I got to a downhill and shifted from the middle ring to the big ring, I instead hear a loud pop and the front derailleur dumped me into the granny ring. Turns out my cables also had about 6,000 miles worth of riding on them over about three years, and one of them decided to break. I ended up riding much more slowly for the next four miles, since I couldn't go much faster than 9mph without being in a gear high enough to severely rub the derailleur cage and I didn't want that to be damaged.

I'm prety happy with the route though, minus the disasters. Unfortunately it will be another week before I get to use it to ride to work, because I took the bike to a shop to be fixed during the busiest time of the year. I should have kept it to change the cables myself, but here's a secret: I hate cables. I will do any maintenance on a bike except tuning cantilever brakes, trimming derailleurs, and putting n bar tape.I'll put on a crankset, change a bottom bracket, replace a cassette, or build a freakin' wheel, but those cables are my sworn enemies.

So next week I will have my beloved Long Haul Trucker back, with new cables and new rubber, and I will begin commuting in earnest. I have to step up the riding bigtime since today I registered for the Fat Cyclist's "100 Miles of Nowhere". I am thinking about doing the ride at work, circling around the building. As far as I can tell, 435 laps should put me just over the hundred miles. That's a lot of laps. I might take a ay off work and do it on a Friday so everyone can watch and cheer me on/make fun of me. Heck, maybe I'll set up something so they can donate. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Day...2?

OK, Body Weight Workout day two!

I'm sure some of you with a basic knowledge of how calculators operate are mentally calling me out right now. Well, call out, because you've got me. Right after my first workout, I took a trip down to my parents' house for Christmas. Also, the mysterious back pain previously mentioned made a return. I actually don't think that it was caused by the exercise, but I would be really unsurprised if the exercise didn't make it worse. So I passed on the exercise. I am a losing loser who loses.

But! I came back. Since my slightly-less-than-half-full kitty litter container didn't give me quite the arm workout I had wanted, I filled it the rest of the way up with water, giving a total weight of 28.8 pounds. Initially. It dsidn't take lonog into the actual dumbbell rows to learn that while the containers look watertight, and may be good at keeping water out, they don't actually keep water in with 100% effectiveness. I don't think I lost all that much though, but the carpet is now wet. Awww.

Tomorrow was going to be a combination bike-to-work and save-my-transmission day, but there is an awful lot of slipperiness on the bike path, and I just don't feel up to putting the studded tires back on right now. I might be able to wake up extra early in the morning and do it. Time will tell. Ideally I think I would also change my pedals so I can wear boots. It's a little cold out there for my cycling shoes now. Eventually maybe I'll work out some intervals that I can do on my commute. Probably could get some decent hill training in on the mile and a half slope I have to ride up. Somehow actaully training on the bike takes all the fun out of riding. And I like fun.

Anyway, I should probably work on sleeping soon.

Thanks for the support everyone! I'll post my weight in the morning. Spoiler alert: I bet it went up.

I did the Beginner Body Weight Workout this morning. Only managed two sets, but that's two more than I did yesterday, so there's hope for me yet. They are even harder to do than I thought they would be--which is good. Trying to emulate the milk jug full of water they use, I filled an empty liter box bucket halfway up with water, which ended up being 12.2lbs or so--I think next time I will fill it all the way up, because the dumbbell rows were what I had the least trouble with.

The back didn't bother me the whole time, which is good. Hopefully it will stay quiet.

After I finish my breakfast Slim-Fast, it will be time to hit the shower and get ready to head to work.

Today's weight: 282.6 (ugh).

What happened?

OK, so I slipped. Rather a lot. I lost my motivation and I made excuses, and I stopped biking. Haven't ridden to work in weeks, and last year I would go two weeks without driving my car at all.

I seem to have gained some weight. OK, a lot of weight. I think am currently around 285, which is the heaviest I have been in my life. I was at 225 two years ago, which was still overweight, but I wasn't too unhappy about it--I could be pretty speedy on the road when I put my mind to it. Right now I am very....not.

I did go for a ride on Friday, though. I think I did around 15 miles (bike computer was dead) and it was more work than it used to be, but atl east I still enjoyed it.

My plan now is to treat this blog something like the Fat Cyclist started out doing. Report on weight, exercises done, maybe even food consumption, and see if throwing it all out for the internet to see will help motivate me to improve.

In the morning I plan to weigh myself to get a starting baseline, then I may do a short workout--it depends on my shoulder, I did something to it last week and it's been giving painful spasms for the past 6 days. For exercise, I will either go with EA Sports Active for the Wii (which, unlike Wii Fit, actually gives you a good workout), or the Beginner Body Weight Workout from Nerd Fitness. I have a feeling they would both be of fairly similar impact, but the EA would be more cardio oriented and the Nerd Fitness would be more muscular, which makes it tempting. Having a virtual coach yell at me to do things is good for the motivation, though.

Soon I will have to try a ride to work to see how long it takes me--the last thing I need is to be late to work due to being too out of shape. Another fun thing: Reintegrating riding into my life when the high temperature for the day doesn't exceed freezing. I have ridden when it's in the mid teens and it's quite doable, but if I succeed at riding I may need some new gloves. My fingers get chilly around 20 degrees.

So, if anyone happens to read this, do me a favor and call me fat every now and then to keep me going. We'll see where this ends up.

Updates

Not too much to report recently. Still being encouraged to bike to work every day since my truck is in need of new tires and begins to vibrate madly at 40mph. Those will come Saturday, with any luck. Interesting event to report from this morning though...

They have been repaving along part of my commute. For those in the know, I am speking of Indian Ripple Rd, specifically near the North Alpha Bellbrook intersection. I come up N Alpha every day and then turn left to get to work. It is both lower in traffic and a less steep grade (though higher elevation change) than taking Factory to Indian Ripple and turning left.

Anyway, Wednesday's commute had me waiting for a little while at a four way stop while they worked on a bit of paving. The far side of the road where I would be riding had been done for a while, and thankfully I got through before they put the tar down on the near lane....I think riding through that would be challenging at best. I made my left turn and then hammered as hard as I could up the hill because I wanted to get through as quickly as possible and not delay other people too much--not only could no one pass me on the single lane, but traffic was stopped the other way as well becase only one lane could go at a time. So I arrived at work quite tired and sore. I need to work on exerting myself more on rides, right nw I just kinda cruise at a comfortable speed. Pushing myself is the only way I'll improve. But I digrress.

Fast forward to Thursday's ride. I get to the same point at the top of the hill, wait way longer, and then when traffic goes through....I sink. Apparently a big guy on a bike has higher pressure on asphalt than a big car with 4 wide tires on the ground. It was like riding into a patch of mud. When I turned the handlebars left, the front wheel washed out and left a big divot in the asphalt, like a big black sticky snowdrift. It was like sudedenly itting 3 inches of mud. I didn't go down since I got my foot down (I was probably only going 5mph or so at the time), but I ended up getting asphalt stuck to the end of my shoe as well. Thankfully it didn't stick in the cleat area so I was able to clip in with no problems. I ended up riding the .7 miles or so to the office with asphalt-encrusted tires, listening to the crunch of them on the pavement, hoping that there wasn't sticky tar and rocks all over my braking surface.

I wore my cycling shoes all day at the office, and whenever my right hand was free it was feeling asphalt off my left shoe. So there is a little pile of it next to my desk. It looks like the bike didn't come out of it too bad, just the tires got asphalted and the center tread is clear now after running on pavement for a few miles. There's still some on the sidewalls, but I am just going to leave it. It looks like there was just a little bit that got on the braking surface as well, but it scraped off pretty much immediately when I stopped the bike next, so that's not a worry either. Guess I came out of it all pretty well, considering. Maybe now I will finally treat myself to some new bike shoes. And brake pads, since mine are pretty much worn out.

Summary:

Funny. I had nothing to post for a long time, but now I have stuff to post but I keep missing chances to post it!

Saturday waqs the day to take my truck to the mechanic to investigate the mysterious squeaking noise. This means throwing the bike in the truck, driving to the mechanic, and biking home, since it's about a 1.3 mile ride and I really don't relish the idea of spending a few hours sitting in the lobby there.

A bit after arriving back home, I got the call that they had discovered the source of the mysterious squeaking noise: $375. Carrier shaft bearing. I like my driveshaft to spin.

I am never going to get to invest in more bikes if I keep pouring money into the truck. And now I'm at the point where I can't afford a new truck but I also can't afford to keep fixing this one. It will remain parked for all purposes except visiting the girlfriend, I think. This is the perfect time to go car free.

Sunday was a much happier occasion. Went to look at accessories for the girlfriend's bike (I already got her a water bottle, bottle cage, and computer, but she needs lights and fenders), then we went to the park for a picnic.

We actually got pics, something that this blog is sorely lacking most of the time!

Here's me cruising down the trail. Note the fat. Note lack of helmet. Almost always wear a helmet when I ride, but this particular path is completely free of cars. Plus Erin doesn't have one yet.


Here are the bikes at our picnic spot. Erin's brand new Cypress in the foreground, my travel-weary Long Haul Trucker in the background. Pannier contains blanket and KFC. Trunk bag contains an extra water bottle, a cable lock, some rain pants, pump, spare tube, tire levers, multitool, kitchen sink...


Another view of the bikes, this time with me holding one up.


We rode about a mile down the Mad River trail. There's downtown Dayton.


And there's the river. Grrr, mad.



All told, we did just shy of 11 miles Sunday, which is great for someone who just got a good bike and has barely ridden this year. I predict a happy summer full of more rides for us.

Yesterday was an extra long commute that took me to my brother's house for cat-feeding in the morning...that extended my full commute to 26 miles. It was nice in the afternoon though, a nice retiree rode up next to me and we talked for a while. I ride much faster when I'm with someone else, even if we're side by side. I think my speed went from about 14 to 18, and I wasn't straining much. It's just hard to convince myself to work very much harder when I'm riding alone.

And that's it for this update, hopefully I'll have more to write about soon, and not just end up doing a batch entry. Keep the rubber side down!

Who's a failure? I'm a failure!

So today is National Bike to Work Day!  And here I sit in Panera, after a refreshing....drive.

I tried hard though!  I did!  I got up later than I had originally intended, but I was on the road by 8--over an hour before my normal  departure time.  Why so early?  Free pancakes for cyclists at the 2nd Street Market downtown.

Upside:  Aweseom, free food!

Downside:  Where the heck is this place?

I knew the general location, so I headed off, opposite the location of my workplace.  After about 8 miles, 2 wrong turns, and questioning two people, I found it.  It was actually not hard to find for someone with rudimentary navigational skills.

The setup they had was pretty sweet.  Tons of (giant) free pancakes, lots of information booths, and a surprising number of people there at that time (around 8:45 I suppose).  I ate my pancake as quickly as I could, and was back on mybike at 9:00.  I was iffy as to whether I could make the 8 mile ride to work on time considering I also had to ride 8 miles to my apartment first.  Hmmm.  If I averaged 16mph and changed in under 5 minutes, I'd just manage it.  I was pushing into the wind on the wayback though, and my pancake-filled stomach and out-of-shape legs didn't like pushing me any more than 14 or 15.  Sadder yet, when I turned south on Creekside my left knee starting giving some pretty serious pain--I'm not sure what it was, but it was not good, and I cut my speed down to about 10mph, resigning myself to driving.

Oddly enough, Bike to Work Day was one of the only days I didn't ride last Spring as well.  I may have a problem.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures as my camera died before I could even take one shot.  Hopefully it just wants new batteries.

...I've been away

Been away from posting for far too long. After my deep snow commute I burned out on cycling for a while, and it's hard to start it up again after stopping for very long.

I think I've finally gotten back into the groove though, since I have been seriously enjoying the wonderful weather we've been having, and my girlfriend also just bought a Giant Cypress so we can go on rides together. That means more biking and more biking with someone else, which are both good things. Unfortunately she lives about 45 miles away so we can't see each other and ride every day, but we should be doing lots of riding on the weekends. I just have to make sure I find the right balance between taking it too easy on her and wearing her out so much she decides that she hates bikes and hates me.

I'll follow the advice I saw in Mountain Bike Action about taking new riders to the trail....I'll just ride behind her so she will set the pace she is comfortable with.

Today's commute was extra long. After work I jumped off the bike path and rode to the Performance store, which I reached at about 7:50. It turns out they close at 7:00. And open at 10:00. Coincidentally, I work from 10 to 7, so I guess I won't be going there on weekdays. I rode across the street to an outdoor mall called The Greene though, and visited a shop called roll: (the silly puctuation is all them). It's a pretty sweet shop, and I grabbed the GF (let's call her "Erin") a few accessories for her new steed. These will be picturd in a later post.

I think it's definitely time to update my mileage log, it looks like I haven't ridden at all this year.

Argh

Once again a long delay.

Quick update: I followed through on my plan to ride the Heckler for my commute the next day. It wasn't really as great of an idea as I had hoped. The tires did get plenty of grip everywhere....but it was really slow. And actually rather painful. My legs kept hurting in the way that they do when my saddle is too low, but the seat height seemed right. I guess I don't have the fit dialed in as well as I thought. Mountain biking offers many fewer opportunities to stay in the saddle, so I guess seat height issues are less noticeable.

As of now it's been a week since I've biked in. Last Tuesday we had snow falling in the morning, and I threw the bike in the back of the truck, drove the truck to the mechanic that didn't fix it right, declined a loaner vehicle, and rode in to work. (I'm not going to drive a loaner van in the snow when I only have liability coverage)

The ride in wasn't too bad. There was maybe an inch of snow on the ground, and I got the pleasure of putting down first tracks. Eventually I saw some other tracks, but they were from feet. I caught up to and passed the guy who was walking and continued to work.

They let us out of work early due to snow concerns, and there were about 4 inches of snow on the ground when I left for home. The roads were clear, which was a plus, so I didn't have anything to worry about there.

The bike path was....not clear. I didn't know exactly how it would feel to ride 6 miles through that much powdery snow, but I can now conclude that I don't like it. Even my knobby tires had trouble finding a good path through the snow since it was full of footprints and van tracks from where they are doing work in a park alongside the trail. I thought riding in the van's tire tracks would simplify things--it very much did not. Getting caught in the rut was very bumpy and slippery, and I would ride fresh snow any chance I got.

I passed a jogger going the other way, we greeted each other. I kept chugging along (slowly), and a couple of miles later, he passed me. I got passed by a jogger. That was definitely the low point of the ride.

Continuing on, I saw another set of tire tracks in the snow. Someone else had actually biked in that day, which surprised me. I even saw the rider a mile or two later, getting on to the trail. We exchanged greetings in passing (Him: How's it going? Me: I want summer!), and continued on. For the rest of the ride, there was nothing to see on the path except my own faded tire tracks rom that morning.

Oh, did I mention that it was sleeting/freezing rain the whole ride? I think that's worth mentioning. All told, we got: 4" of snow, sleet and freezing rain all night (maybe 1/2" of ice), then another 4" of snow on top the next day. I wasn't about to try to bike through that mess, and even if I could have driven my car was still in the shop, so I just worked from home on Wednesday. Computer people can do that. Actually, no one in my department went in to the office.

The snow never melted off much until the weekend and while I have wanted to ride the past couple of days, it's been 9 degrees in the morning (for our European visitors, that's approximately -1,000C).

I believe tomorrow should be up at least into the mid teens in the morning, so hopefully I'll get one day of biking in, at least.

A reason to ride

OK, so it's really cold outside, but I will be commuting more often in the coming days.

Why? The clutch went out in my truck. Drat.

I would have definitely driven today if they truck had been functional, but I could either spend a day not at work, or bike in--and when there are expensive truck repairs coming, I would much rather have money coming in.

Anyway, on to the ride! It was about 14 degrees when I left home today, and the pace was slow. The primary factor slowing me down was the fact that the bike path was covered in snow. The snow was full of footprints. The footprints were frozen fairly solid. Lovely.

This experience was much like riding across very rough gravel--slow and bumpy, though unlike most gravel the bike would sometimes start to wander (I guess this can sometimes happen with skinny tires and narrow gravel). Here is what I rode through for six miles this morning:



Surprisingly, I got a bit warm on the ride in, so I pulled my balaclava down so it didn't cover my mouth after the first 2-3 miles. By the time I got to work my mustache had ice in it from my condensed breath. That's definitely different.

It takes forever to change clothes at work when you are wearing 3 pairs of socks, 1 pair of wool thermal underwear, 1 pair of wool semi tights, 1 pair of fleece sweatpants, 1 wool base layer, one fleece jersey, one lightweight wool jersey, one medium wool jersey, and a wind shell. On the other hand, my hands didn't get very cold, and I think it was due to keeping my core temperature up. I can't keep my hands any warmer than they are without a big investment in very nice gloves, but the ones I have are probably good for another 5 degrees if I am careful. Not sure I want to test that, though.

The ride home looked a little different than the ride in. It's pretty difficult to take good snow trail pictures at night, so I decided to not take good ones and see where that got me:





You can tell that a few other dedicated (or des[perate?) souls have ridden recently as well, though the most definted set of tracks in the left side of the pictures is probably mine.

Tomorrow I am planning to ride my full suspension mountain bike in and see how it does. I think that it will handle the snow better than the Long Haul Trucker, since I put the 2.35" Nevegal/Blue Groove combo back on. Wide tires should be good for snow. Not as good on ice as the studded tires, but there was very little ice on the trail today.

Here's a little tire comparison for what I like for different conditions:



On the left is the front wheel for my road bike, sporting a 700x23 Vredestein Fortezza. Good only for smooth paved surfaces, and I only use that bike when it isn't raining--not due to the tires though, but due to a lack of fenders on that bike.

In the middle we have a 700x35 Nokian Hakkapellita. Performs well on ice, but is very heavy and very slow on clean dry pavement--about 30% slower than usual when running this tire.

On the right is a 2.35" Kenda Nevegal (26"). Grips dirt like nothing else, not too horrible on the rolling resistance, and hopefully does a better job of floating over snow than the Nokians. We shall see tomorrow. Later today, technically.

Get out and ride!