Misc

I haven't posted ina while. Sorry about that. I keep thinking up topics that I think I can write something about, but then I forget them by the time I leave work. Oops.

I was going to do Fatty's thing (even though he didn't tag me because he hates me), but I can't think of very clever answers. Especially since the ones I would have come up with were pretty close to what others did. Oh well.

MY employer, Edict Systems, did something pretty awesome today. The company that stocks our vending machine apparently went out of business--they seem to have been running out of candy for a while, as on Monday we had 5 slots of M&Ms, 3 slots of peanut M&Ms, 3 slots of M&M cookies, one slot of dark chocolat peanut M&Ms, and one slot of Hershey's Kissables (aka funny shaped M&Ms). Anyway, the CEO decided to order a giant refrigerator and stock it with healthy snacks, provided to employees at no charge. Fruit juice, apples, bananas, Nutri Grain bars, etc. It's really quite awesome, and meant that I had some grapes and yogurt to go with my lunch instead of the usual Little Debbie snack cake. I deinitely support this decision, as I have rather poor eating habits.

Currently in another long mileage week...28 miles Tuesday, 38 today, somewhere from 26-38 tomorrow depending on whether I have to take care of my brother's pets in the afternoon. You may notice I didn't ride Monday....first time I've driven to work in several weeks. I had a good reason though! I had to go to Cincinnati right after work to see a Weird Al concert. Because Weird Al rocks.

Other than that though, I have the same tank of gas I had in my car that I bought on July 5th--and right after I filled up I drove close to 300 miles, so I am doing very well on the not-driving front.

I need to start writing down my blogging ideas so they don't vanish.

Tour de Whatever

OK, most of the blogs making their Tour de France updates. One of them I read recently had the "Mandatory TdF post".

I guess I'll do one too, then.

I have watched the race before. It's really long and not a lot happens. I think they just throw in the drug scandals to get more attention.

Now, before someone starts saying I just don't understand the strategy or the beauty of the event or whatever....I get some of it, I just don't care.

I don't really watch any other sports either, because watching someone else play a game is not quite so interesting to me as doing something--anything--myself. Actually I might watch some kind of cargo bike competition, just to get tips on how best to carry large loads on my bike.

Now that that's out of the way....I'm not doing a perfect job at the whole car free thing, but I think I'm doing OK so far. I had to drive on Saturday to take the Giant to the bike shop ($100, ouch), and my truck was acting very much not good. Before it warmed up the engine wouldn't idle properly, it just runs slower and slower until it dies. While it did that, the windshield wipers would also stop in random places. I think this just might be an electrical issue, but other than that I can't say.

Short term solution: Ride bike. Long term solution: Win lottery.

Not too much else to write in terms of updates...maybe I'll find some group rides to joun soon, though I haven't done any single rides longer than about 18 miles this year so I don't know that I could handle the distance. Plus I have not been riding for speed, so I'm slow. The current project is to try to make the round trip to work and back in under an hour...so far my record is 1:00:45, so I'm close. Tuesday's time was 1:01:03, but most others are 1:03+. Ah well, after that I'll be trying to make it under 55 minutes I guess.

Sorry this post is dull, I just wanted to get something out there since I haven't written in a while.

Oh Giant, why hast thou forsaken me?

OK, seriously. My Giant TCR1 and I have had our issues in the past, but now I think our relations are straining to the breaking point.


Let's sum up my last two rides before today as kind of an intro:

18 mile ride in to work, rear tire goes flat after 14.5 miles. I have no spare, which is my fault, and I end up walking 3.5 miles to work. This is forgivable.

Last ride, 16 miles round trip, front derailleur drops chain at a traffic light, then the rear tire goes flat. Front tire goes flat after I get home.

Today I rode home from work and decided to repair the flats on the Giant and ride to the grocery store to pick up some butter and cereal. I find both flats, replace one tube and patch the other, put on my almost-too-small-to-be-useful Timbuk2 messenger bag, and head for the store. At first, the ride is rather awkward. The bike is slightly too small for me, it's a Large compact frame when my Long Haul Trucker is a 60cm. The not-broken-in Brooks is slippery under my nylon baggy shorts. Once I get to the rail trail though, it becomes more comfortable. I remember how this bike can fly.

All the way to the grocery store with little incident, swooping around the pot holes like an X-Wing in the death star trench run (in my mind only), I reach the driveway and slow waaaaaaay down because there isn't much room to turn in next to a car coming out, and enter the parking lot.

There's a very slight uphill and I have forgotten to shift down, so I'm still in my 50x12 gear. I decide to mash on the pedals and try to build up some speed to downshift, when CRACKLANG!

Great, I think. I've broken a chain. I thought I was done with that. I broke three or four chains no this bike within the first 200 miles. Don't know why.

I look down and am shocked to see that the chain is not, in fact, broken. It's a little less routine than that:

If you're thinking "Hey, that looks like a broken Ultegra chainring!" then congratulations! You win! You don't win anything specific though. I have nothing to gove.

So I guess it's off to a shop somewhere this weekend to see how much it costs to have a chainring replaced. And have the rest of it given a once-over as well.

And maybe go see a priest about an exorcism.


In closing, I would just like to say....yes, clydesdale riders create a lot of power. And people ask me why I like to ride the heavy touring bike so much...

Emotions

It seems like like is run by emotions and little else.

Two years ago, I lost 50lbs (which was a good thing) in part due to a depression (which was a bad thing). One year ago I gained 40 pounds due to another depression (which was another bad thing).

Nothing more about that, that's just an example of the power emotion can have over one's life.

I experience many different emotions while traveling. When I drive, someone driving slowly or having to go through road construction makes me angry. For a very long time. Unreasonably so (though not uncontrollably, I'm not going to hurt anyone). When cycling, a car can come within inches of killing me due to negligence, and after a minute or two I've fogotten all about it.

Cars isolate us from our environment, make us think of everything outside of our own minds as The Enemy. Bikes allow us to experience the environment face to face, to actually see people as people and not just obstructions. It makes us all human again.

Want another reason I'm trying to go car free? I am done with the anger of driving.

Jesus said "And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away."

I think I should cut off my car and throw it away.

Figuratively speaking.

I'm back!

Well, vacation was pretty good, though it's possible that driving 600 miles to go home and back
for the holiday may be incompatible with the carfree lifestyle I am trying to achieve. I think that long trips should be allowed on widely-spaced occasions, though.

I ate way too much over the weekend. Not just during the festivities, but pretty much every other meal, too. I gained back all the weight I had lost and amc now back to 260. Drat. I just need to figure out how to control my eating. And go on longer rides.

Speaking of longer rides, I decided to take somewhat of a detour on my ride home today and ride to Xenia Station, which is the old railway station in Xenia, Ohio that acts as a hub for several very long rail trails in the area. I hadn't ever been to Xenia, so I wasn't sure exactly how far it would be. Turns out to be a little over 6 miles out of my way to the east, and therefore 12 miles from home--so I basically added 12 miles miles today. It's a pretty good ride, though next time I think I'll try to have a goal in mind for something to do when I get there. I don't know if there's actually anything to do in Xenia, but I guess I'll find out.

Since I'm shooting for a solid month of going car free and I drove yesterday to come home from vacation, I am going to try to go without driving for the next 29 days. It could be interesting.

And as a reward (or punishment) for reading this far, I bring you a story.


My parents and the family next door have always hosted a big 4th of July picnic in our neighborhood. It has expanded from a neighborhood gathering to a huge and unnameable beast of reveling--if by reveling one means playing horseshoes, throwing washers, and participating in the newly popular game of cornholing. Anyway, there are a lot of people that show up. They aren't important right now.

For the first time ever in 28 years of having this party, it was a rainy day. Not constant downpours, but it never went very long without dropping some form of rain on our heads. In many ways we thought this was a favor to us, because wet ground = safer fireworks.

What? Fireworks, you ask? Why yes, we happened to have a bag of those. It was kind of interesting getting them lit since it was lightly raining, but the neighbors had a propane torch that did an excellent job of simultaneously drying and igniting the fuses.

Someone happened to purchase a Large Thing. I don't remember exactly what model it might have been, but it was of this variety. Those are totally the coolest fireworks ever. It is possible that one should think carefully about placement before setting them off, though.

The box was set on the sawhorse we were using as a bas for firework-lighting. The blowtorch was ignited. The fuse was lit. Got got away. We aimed it away from our faces. We cheered as the first shot showed us that it was worth the price of admission.

We watched the second shot fire at a 45 degree angle. Some confusion existed, though I just assumed we had ended up buying the one that had a few shots that fired at angles. It was rather hard to see the box of firework since our eyes were somewhat dazed. It became clear that somethign was amiss though when we saw that the box was in fact facing downward toward the ground, and fired a shell straight in.

"Oh crap, RUN!" shouted a nearby person who apparently was not ready to become a corpse. It was decided that this was good advice, so we followed it as quickly as we could.

Events chose this moment to speed up.

I turned to run, slipping on the wet grass and going to all fours. The shot that had fired into the ground went off, flipping the box just upright enough to fire the next shell at pretty much the location where I was trying to find my feet.

I heard a "thunk" and look to my left to see a 3"...thing. It is emitting orange sparks. It is about three feet from my face. In other circumstances it might be considered quite pretty, though at this time it rather reminded me of a live grenade. After a few more (unsuccessful) attempts to regain my feet, I decide that the best bet is probably to duck and cover. I roll away from it and cover my had with my arms.

BOOOM is what the firecracker has to say about the situation.

At this point the firework seems to have settled on firing into the empty field adjacent to the house, so we watch the last shot or two explode at ground level.

I for one am laughing madly at this point.

That was AWESOME, I state. America is the BEST.

It was all fun and games, because no one lost an eye.

Nighttime adventures

Yesterday it was decided that after work I would meet my brother and his wife for food and a movie.

Last time that happened, getting there was rather miserable, as it involves riding up one of the main roads in town--North Fairfield--for a few miles. At rush hour this is especially not fun. It involves riding the sidewalk. I despise riding the sidewalk. It's jarring, uncomfortable, slow, and unsafe.

After playing with Google Maps a bit, I came up with an alternate plan. I found what seemed to be a mostly-parallel street that would take me to almost exactly where I wanted to go, and it seemed to be the kind of dense residential area where drivers are slow and friendly. Excellent.

When I turned onto the first street, I noticed a green "Bike Route" sign. Looks like a good choice so far.

After a bit less than a mile, I see a green sign with an arrow pointing onto a side street. I decide to follow it, since it will at the very least not be going away from my destination. I keep seeing little green signs and following them, and they seem to keep taking me North and West, toward Fairfield Commons. All good so far.

I am dismayed to see that it dead-ends on North Fairfiel Road about a mile short of where I want to be, and a decent distance from where the rough sidewalk becomes a bike path. Oh well, it's better than riding the whole thing. Have I mentioned, though, that I am quite impressed with the way they have bike routes laid out here?

I arrive at Fox and Hound (a good little pub and grill type place), and begin looking for something to lock the bike to. This is somewhat complicated by the fact that my six foot cable has fallen off the bike where it was bungeed to the rear rack. I have my Kryptonite chain which is always almost long enough to work, and I have my U-lock which is not quite wide enough to go around a pole.

I end up U-locking the front wheel to the main triangle and running the chain around the top tube and a light pole. It leaves the rear wheel unlocked, but nothing's perfect.

We just walk from the restaurant to the movie, so the bike remains there until I'm ready to ride home.

Riding at night is always interesting. In many ways I feel that on busy streets I am more visible than in the daytime, because I've got a lot of red flashing lights going on. It does have a bit of a dampening effect on my appreciation of the scenery, though.

The trip south on North Fairfield to rejoin the bike path is rather pleasant, since at 11:00 most of the traffic is gone so I just take the right lane. It's also downhill for most of the way, and we all know that downhill is better than uphill.

After about three miles of North Fairfield I reach the path. It's completely separated from the roads and has no streetlights or anything, so I'll be depending entirely on my headlight. Luckily it is quite bright (not quite HID brightness, but not far from that either).

Riding down a tree-lined path on a dark night with the only light source on your handlebars is something everyone should experience. Just maybe not too often, since it gets creepy.

I usually prefer a bar mounted light because it shows the contours of the terrain better and keeps me from shining it into the eyes of all the cars I might look toward. It also means, however, that I can't see anything next to me.

My first big scary moment came when I aimed my bars to the left for a quick second to get a look at that side of the path and saw a big shape. I turned the bars back that way real quick for a better look and was face-to-face with a large and very angry deer. ..OK, it likely wasn't angry, but it was probably surprised and annoyed. Suddenly seeing a deer pop up right in front of you at night is pretty surprising, so I may have jumped a bit and sped off. Hey, deer are vicious carriers of rabies. And...anthrax. And err...botulism?

Having survived my enounter with the deer, I continued on my ride home, looking over my shounder every now and then to ensure that there wasn't a cloven-hoofed-ticked-off mother of Bambi pursuing me. Not like I could have seen it anyway, it was dark.

About half a mile from home, I had another wildlife encounter. I saw what seemed to be an adorable little kitten on the side of the path, ready to dart out in front of my wheels, which it of course did soon after. Animals all like to play chicken. I slowed down to avoid hitting it, and it scampered across the path in front of me. I said "Hi kitty!" as it went, because cats are fun sometimes.

It was not a kitty. It was in fact an angry raccoon. I know that it was angry because it looked at me and made a pretty disturbing growling/snarling sound as I rode past. I'm pretty sure its eyes also glowed red and then shot fire at me, but Wikipedia doesn't mention this as being something that raccoons have evolved to do. Maybe I should make an edit. People need to know these things. It could save someone's life one day.

Anyway, I arrived home without being mauled by any cute woodland creatures, so I guess yesterday's ride counts as a victory.

Going back home to Kentucky for the weekend, so no more rides until Monday.

Have a safe holiday, everyone!

Graphing

So I mentioned that I was working toward being carfree. I have definitely been taking steps in that direction, as can be seen by the graphs of my monthly mileage:


I don't expect it to get a whole lot bigger than that from sheer commuting...maybe 70 miles or so, but when I actually start taking time for long weekend rides it might balloon. I don't count non-commuting or shopping rides as gas savings though.

Unfortunately I don't get off work until 7:00, so I don't have as much time for after-work rides as I would like, and whatever club is here probably has their rides start much earlier as well.