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cycling / Indiana / memories / Monday / photo — Comments Off
4
Jul 16

Happy Fourth

On Saturday we took a long ride. We went through downtown, alongside a creek, through a park, on roads that start with the word “Old” and to a town in the next county above us. Also, we went directly by the local driving school which seemed a dodgy proposition after you thought about it a bit. This was a 56-mile ride where we climbed 2,600 feet or 1,800, depending on which app you like.

I’ve grown skeptical of all of them, though. I think I’m going much faster than their speeds would suggest, he said, while elevating his chin and using a sidelong stare to indicate he’s joking and he’s actually quite slow on a bicycle.

We went by this on our ride. You wonder what all has been stored in there over the years, and how many kids climbed over all that stuff, and what they thought about it:

I always loved places like that as a kid. Oh, I could go climb over it now. But I’d hurt myself. And I’d be “trespassing.”

Whatever, lawman.

I think about the most random things when I am riding or running. I tell stories to myself and make up great jokes to write down and I forget all most all of them soon after. Most of them were brilliant, though. Except for my forgetfulness, which is probably just brought on by being out of breath as I ride.

Like this, I took a picture of this sign and car lot for some reason. It was hilarious in my mind. And if I could tell you the joke you’d think it was mildly amusing, too. But that was Saturday and this is Monday and I have forgotten it already:

Just look at all of those bargains!

What do you figure the point of that one part of the fire department is:

If you built that just to have the longest fireman pole slide in three counties … well, that would seem odd. And I didn’t notice it as I pedaled by — it was uphill, mind you — but that looks sort of like a watch platform or a diving board or something on the top. or perhaps it is the world’s most optimistic rain break.

Nothing fancy for the Fourth this year. It just felt like a good day to stay in. We celebrated with a patriotic and colorful dessert:

So that’ll go in the archive, which has grown quite historic. And large:

Bloomington / cycling / Indiana / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
30
Jun 16

Corn! Beautiful corn!

And how was your day? Mine was just fine, thanks. I spent the afternoon yoyoing off and on the back of the front pack of the slow group ride. That sounds like about the right station in life for a couple of hours.

Here we were hammering it by a cornfield. Keeping up is hard!

I love this. A John Deere tractor sitting out on the corner nearest the road. That’s a tool and a display piece. And it is a welcome site.

If I rode more I’d see more.

Bloomington / cycling / Indiana / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
28
Jun 16

My app says I rode my bike 90 mph today (I didn’t)

We found a spooky barn on our bike ride today. How often do you see a barn like this?

That’s probably a little over halfway along in today’s 30-mile route. It was at the top of a long slow climb. You get up there and before you can catch your breath you are wondering about the people that lived there. House on one side of the road, two little barns on this side, all right at the top of a round hill.

Which is better than being at the bottom of the hill, but you go through there thinking, Man, mechanized automobiles are great. Isn’t it great we didn’t have to haul these materials up here by hand?

Or that’s what I’d think, anyway.

Coneflowers we found somewhere else along the way:

We stopped four times on our ride today. And that’s OK. Great day for it. Everything is growing and in the full splendor of summer. It is a sight. You want to see it all, and hold it, and then find a way to keep it for forever, because you know the season and the beauty won’t last forever. But it should. Even when it shouldn’t, it should, even when you know why it can’t.

It’s not yet July, you shouldn’t be thinking about the winter.

I thought I would take a picture of my bicycle tire:

Seemed like a good idea at the time. I’d just mounted the thing, after all. Now I need to swap the other one, so the wheel doesn’t feel bad.

cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
27
Jun 16

The search for the Maltese tuna

We pedaled out to one of the lakes this weekend. Going out there is nice. Getting out of the lakes is a different thing, because there are hills. We thought we knew hills. We didn’t know hills. But here’s the big “everybody goes here” lake:

Allie stayed home, thank you very much. She is enjoying her afternoons on the landing in the sun.

She looks like she’s in a scene of a kitteh noir, doesn’t she?

“He walked through my door like a hooman with no tuna, all slow and clumsy with excuses for hours. No Joe I knew would think to come here without tuna, and he knew the game, so the jig was up. His rap was tired. He had the kind of expression that told me he was a hapless sort. He had bad news written all over his face. At least the pets were pretty good.”

The Yankee made an apple pie.

When that happens you enjoy your apple pie. (It was tasty.)

cycling / photo / Thursday — Comments Off
23
Jun 16

I wanna go fast!

We had a nice little 32-mile ride on our group bike ride this evening. Of course I took pictures of me chasing people. This is is off in the wilds of the farmland:

And here we are on the suburban stretch near the end:

I took a shadow selfie on the last road before our neighborhood:

Look at these speeds:

That’s a new personal best.