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cycling

In like a lion

Things are fine here, weatherwise, but everyone else had it rough. That is one impressive map.

Samford, and a lot schools across the state, closed early. That means more time on the bike for me. I felt defeated by headwinds, probably the latent energy that couldn’t make it up into the storms. There were 10 miles out on familiar roads, one of our base routes, and then 10 brand new miles, mostly uphill. On the first half of the return, downhill through those 10 new miles, I was actually moving slower than the ride out. Headwinds are tough like that. Especially when there aren’t any tailwinds.

So I perfected the art of steering at an angle to aim through crosswinds and tried in vain, like every other cyclist, to make myself as small as possible to keep my cross section low. I hit breezes that would drop me four miles per hour instantly. And this wasn’t really even a windy day.

And since we have the informal Where Were You When You Heard Party in the U.S.A. rule around here:

Hey, it is a catchy tune and I needed something to round out the 11 hours on my iPod. Every five or six rides it rolls back around and I stop and take this picture. I have no idea why, really, but it always seems to come along at a time when I need the break.

A blooming tree nearby:

The church at today’s turnaround point:

That place will show up again on the site next week as part of the new Lee County Historic Markers section of the site.

Caught most of the baseball game — they’d moved up the first pitch to avoid the evening’s rain — Purdue and Auburn see-sawed back and forth, but the Boilermakers held on 9-8 after fighting off a late rally. Auburn stranded eight in the game, which seems a fairly low number for the team so far this year.

Hit the grocery store, bought things, boiled pasta and grilled chicken. I’d intended to make some to leave for tomorrow but, what do you know, it all looked appetizing, it all had to be eaten. Hey, I’d burned several thousand calories today. Headwinds.

Alabama / Auburn / cycling / memories / overwriting / Tuesday / video — Comments Off
28
Feb 12

Bo Bikes Bama

Bo Jackson, that Bo Jackson, will ride across Alabama in April, east to west, as a fund raiser for tornado relief.

The man is intense even in promotional videos. I want to ride along. At least for a little bit, if not an entire leg. (I’d prefer the Bessemer to Tuscaloosa day obviously, since we both grew up there.)

You can ride with him.

If I were able to ride with him the only problem would be figuring out to get ahead of him several times so he can pass me and I can describe the sound. So I can write things like this:

Bo riding a bike is an angry mashing of steel gears. Gritting carbon fiber against melting alumnium. He flings acidic drops of sweat behind him, furious that he has to stop and replace his pedals every 45 minutes or so. He’s riding a Trek because it is built like a tank, but he still grinds them into dust. I bet he could ride the 300 miles in the better part of an afternoon if he catches the red lights right. But since he has to wait so often for wheel rebuilds it stretches this thing out over a week. I bet the turbulence behind him helps clean up the tornado debris on some of those central Alabama roadsides.

And not one man will sneer at him when he coasts into Tuscaloosa, because they know.

I told a friend that I was trying to explain Bo to my lovely bride, who was busy being a little girl in another part of the country during Bo’s prime while we were busy agog at what the man could do. A few years later and superlatives can ring hollow. He suggested the uninitiated watch this:

If I rode with Bo I would not act like a fanboy, but I would ask him about coming home to raise money. And I would ask him about his VOX2 Max. And I’d playfully suggest we sprint to the next road sign, just so I could say I’ve been beaten by the best.

Auburn / cycling / football / links / memories / Monday / Samford / video — Comments Off
27
Feb 12

Monday already

I wanted to ride this morning, but Monday mornings race by and this morning needed to linger a bit. Besides, it had rained and … OK, maybe I didn’t want to ride this morning. I was a bit sore last night, actually, aching in places I haven’t in a good long while. And that’s probably the perfect reason to clip in.

Also I need to find out where the guy in the neon yellow jacket went yesterday. I turned onto one road behind him, met a cyclist heading the other direction and decided to overtake the guy in the loud jacket.

What if the cyclist going the other way turned around? He should see me put this guy between us so he can, naturally, destroy me with ease, I thought.

And then I realized where I was.

I could pace and pass this guy, but I struggle on the next hill and he’ll get me back there. That would be embarrassing.

So I decided to close the distance, but not force the issue. At the next intersection, from about 40 yards back, I watched him turn left. When I made the intersection — going straight — I glanced after him but he was gone. That was impressive. Or he might be missing out there somewhere.

That was yesterday’s 32 mile ride. Today damp asphalt and things to do kept me inside.

Class today. The conversation was led by a group discussing online media. One of the guys was controlling every computer in the room and a low-orbit satellite from his iPad. He was a good choice for this topic and, as usual, it was a great job. I have very sharp students.

I’m also buried in a spreadsheet. And I have a stack of things to grade, a few more phone calls to make. I have plenty of school work to do. So this is brief.

Things to read: Sustainability consultant tours good and bad of Birmingham:

Hopping aboard a bike, former Bogota, Colombia, Mayor Enrique Penalosa took a six-mile ride through the good, the bad and the ugly of Birmingham in advance of today’s Sustainable Smart Cities Conference.

After biking through depopulated portions of Titusville and Elyton, marred with abandoned and burned-out houses and grim housing developments, Penalosa was aghast.

“What I saw today was one of the most depressed areas I have ever seen,” he said.

He suggested that residents in the sparsely populated areas be bought out to make way for a “crazy” project

When a mayor of Bogota is telling you your business …

Mitt Romney Remembers Things That Happened Before He Was Born!:

Romney recalled he was “probably 4 or something like that” the day of the Golden Jubilee, when three-quarters of a million people gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American automobile.

“My dad had a job being the grandmaster. They painted Woodward Ave. with gold paint,” Romney told a rapt Tea Party audience in the village of Milford Thursday night, reliving a moment of American industrial glory.

The Golden Jubilee described so vividly by Romney was indeed an epic moment in automotive lore. The parade included one of the last public appearances by an elderly Henry Ford.

And it took place June 1, 1946 — fully nine months before Romney was born.

I love false memory stories, and only partly because the earliest memory I can muster (and that’s a good word) is, when I describe it to my mother, something that can’t possibly have happened.

If Romney isn’t cynically pandering with the idea that no one would bother to cross-reference the dates, this is a simple mistake. Of course no mistake on the campaign trail is simple. And this story, which is far more likely Romney’s re-telling of a story he heard in his family his entire life, is probably just a planted memory. Sometimes you can’t win for losing.

Jeff Jarvis at his best, Leave our net alone:

The internet’s not broken.

So then why are there so many attempts to regulate it? Under the guises of piracy, privacy, pornography, predators, indecency, and security, not to mention censorship, tyranny, and civilization, governments from the U.S. to France to Germany to China to Iran to Canada — as well as the European Union and the United Nations — are trying to exert control over the internet.

Why? Is it not working? Is it presenting some new danger to society? Is it fundamentally operating any differently today than it was five or ten years ago? No, no, and no.

So why are governments so eager to claim authority over it? Why would legacy corporations, industries, and institutions egg them on? Because the net is working better than ever. Because they finally recognize how powerful it is and how disruptive it is to their power.

Jarvis was the president of Advance Internet during much of my time with the company.

Friends of local Auburn legend Johnny “Mr. Penny” Richmond hold impromptu vigil:

Cards and flowers were left and candles were lit at the corner of Dean Road and Samford Ave. tonight in honor of a hero.

Johnny Richmond, affectionately known as Mr. Penny by students at Dean Road Elementary School where he worked for 37 years as a custodian and crossing guard, suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound Monday morning, according to Auburn police. News outlets have backed off earlier reports that Richmond later died from his injuries, and as of 9 p.m. Monday list him as being on life support.

I wrote the next piece, the short, just-in-case bit of copy that you hope never has to run. Right now he’s hanging on. He’s seemingly one of those people that you can’t find anyone that has anything remotely to say about him. This is Mr. Penny:

Jeremy did that interview in 2011, after the community rallied to raise money to send him and his wife to the BCS National Championship game. We live in a great place.

adventures / Auburn / cycling / hobby / photo / weekend — Comments Off
26
Feb 12

Catching up

The Sunday feature where we just flip through a few pictures that haven’t otherwise earned our attention this week. (Hey, it’s either this or another long essay on another bike ride. The short version: I did not fall as I did yesterday. My feet felt 80 percent better. I did 32 miles at a 15 mile per pace. It was a terrific afternoon for it.)

I wonder if the bird on the right ever gets picked on by the other birds. “Your beak is SO orange. And your PLUMAGE … ”

The cardinal came back. I slow walked to the end of the patio, about 25 yards from him and I do believe he posed for this. I took one more step out and he flew away:

Crows are incredible birds. They have memories, language, currency and some of them have a better grasp of contemporaneous socioeconomic situations than the political party of which you most disapprove. Crows hold grudges and recognize human faces. They know what boomsticks are, though they sometimes confuse them with broomsticks. And they knew a guy inside the house was taking pictures of them out in the yard. (All but two of the above are true. And I think we’ll soon discover they have a currency.)

This last shot is in the Louise Kreher Forest Ecology Preserve, an outreach program of the Auburn School of Forestry & Wildlife Sciences. We walked around there a bit this evening and I can’t wait to see everything in there explode into more shades of green than crows knew exist. (Crows also have a nearly full, adaptive RGB palette perception, just 17 shades of green short of the technical 16,777,216 different possible colors of truecolor.)

OK, that’s not true. The crows know every shade of green and three the human spectrum doesn’t receive.

Anyway, I’m excited to see every possible bud on every possible tree. Spring is 15 minutes away. I can feel it. I love it:

cycling / hobby / photo / weekend — 1 Comment
25
Feb 12

I blame the fire fighters

Beautiful, sunny, crisp, windy day. It was in the 50s and a I pedaled out in sleeves. Wheeling the bikes into the street, we did a few turns in the back of the neighborhood, going up and down the smallest hill we can find around us, dodging gravel on the right side down by the cul-de-sac.

I’m still trying to relax my feet in the new shoes and pedals. Today is just my third ride with them, and I’m having a hard time convincing myself I can make it to the prescribed six rides before assessing the problem, especially when the problem starts creeping in at mile four. The idea of foot pain for the next several dozen miles thereafter is no fun.

I did the first two of four laps into the cul-de-sac, generally mashing the pedals and trying to warm up. The Yankee breezed up and down the road, from a distance a picture of relaxed composure. She really just wants to go ride and this is just her tolerating my cold legs. After two turns she cranked her head to the side and heads out through the shorter exit from the neighborhood.

My last two laps into the bottom of that road gives me my first three miles or so, after which I cruise through the slightly more fun exit out of the neighborhood, stretching things out into a whirling, assuredly ugly and almost respectably speedy form before the creek bed, and the slow incline that follows it. From there it is up one of the more popular stretches of cycling road in town, the red light and the second half of the five mile climb. Oh, sure, that sounds impressive, but I won’t tell you the elevation, because it isn’t.

I’m maybe seven miles in and getting more out of the stroke, just like the expert said I would, but my feet hurt. I have this deal with myself though: I will not stop riding for any reason that can be in any way tolerated or ignored if the odometer is under 15 miles. The feet, though, and the simultaneous crunching and pulling apart that seems to be happening in my arches, is making a powerful argument otherwise.

I started tinkering with my stroke, more lifting than pressing. This helped a bit. Too self-aware of my foot pain I began to notice other things. My entire bike feels out of fit, somehow. I am too big for it all of a sudden. The geometry, not that it is ever good, is noticeably awkward. I noticed every little thing. The arms aren’t right, I’m too far back. I need a custom-built bike. Everything.

I stopped at almost the midpoint of today’s mini-route to take off my jacket, have a banana and rest my feet. I hadn’t seen The Yankee yet. She must be having a good ride, and if so there’s no crossing that gap. There’s even a switchback on this route and I didn’t see her going down the second overpass as I went up the first one.

Settling back in I notice my feet stopped hurting. I’ve adjusted! Or damaged the nerves! Something has changed, and maybe not just my stroke. Having zoned out for the past few moments I glanced down and realized I’m cruising over slow rolling hills, gaining speed as I go. This is unlike me. It must be the banana. (I will carry one tomorrow to test this theory.)

I made the hard right for home at 20 miles. There’s a car dealership there, and an out of the way transmitter across the street. We’ll soon pass the fishing pond. And then three stop signs, one little hill I hate and another I’m trying to convince myself I don’t mind too much …

Oh, there are fireman at one of those stop signs. They have the boot out. Great: a fund raiser and me with no bills.
Only this is a rural, volunteer fire department in the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. This crew might have answered a call for someone in that SUV, and that chitchat may be what is making their conversation going on so long. I can’t trackstand for-

That’s about how long I can trackstand, about as long as it takes to think that paragraph. Suddenly I’m over. Crash, scrape, pow.

They say earning your first fall in clips is something like a badge of honor, a rite of ascension. You aren’t stepping off of pedals or pulling your shoe out of a vinyl toe cage. You have to pivot the ball of your foot and turn your ankle. It comes out quickly, if you’re ready to do it. If you feel your bike turn and instinct takes over — well, my ancestors didn’t have clips, so that instinct isn’t there.

Somehow I stayed up, but my bike fell. And there was a terrible scratching noise on the asphalt, though I can’t find anything damaged. I stood there stretching for a bit, muttering for a bit, trying to convince myself I hadn’t strained anything. This all went on a little too long, apparently. The firemen started walking over to offer help. Self-conscious, I thanked them, told a joke and tried to clip back in to pedal on. Because I was self-conscious I almost fell off the bike and into the laps of the two people holding the fund raising boot.

I stood up in the pedals and sprinted off as quickly as I could, hoping the swaying of the bike frame from right to left at least suggested some competence.

A few minutes later I saw The Yankee a half mile ahead. I slowly reeled her in, ducked inside to pass her and gave a glance. And in a way you get maybe just from knowing someone a good long while I could tell in that peripheral half second that something was wrong. We stopped. She shared. Turns out she’d actually crashed right by that car dealership and transmitter. A truck got to close, she thinks the wind sucked her in, and it turns out her ancestors didn’t have clips either.

She was on the ground and bounced once. Someone coming the other direction stopped to help.

She said “Could you help me get out of my bike?”

Her feet stayed clipped through the fall. She’s an artist.

Because we are in a part of the world where everyone knows almost everyone and you can get a ride anywhere, the guy offered to take her home. She declined, “My husband should be just a few miles behind me.”

“Next time tell him to keep up!” he said.

It takes all I have, stranger.

So we both sort of limped home. She had the slight owie. I’d hurt my pride.

I attacked the longest, largest hill in town at the end of my ride for the first time ever. It isn’t especially long or high, but it’s more than enough for the likes of me. It ascends in two stages and in that first part I was a fury. In the second I looked as if I was pedaling in soup.

This was the longest ride I’ve had in some time and it wasn’t even long, just 30 miles. I have to build back up once again.

The birds are back. We’ve improved the anti-squirrel theft technology — taller pole, and yes squirrels can climb, but they can’t leap high enough over this conical baffle thing — and now only the feathered set are getting the goodies.

I hadn’t realized cardinals were especially territorial, until we met this guy. He’s also very aware of you from a distance:

And then some of the smaller snackers:

I’m sure we will see more birds tomorrow.