cycling « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

cycling

The record setting ride

After some time working on them today, the fig tree is now covered in two parts. I used a lot of twine, a few utterances, and two buckets, just to add some personality.

After I stepped back to take that photo I added a bit more twine, created some tension tiedowns and pronounced, to the surrounding shrubs, that there was no way wind is getting under there now. Soon I’ll fill in the base with leaves to help keep the cold and frost away. After that, I’ll be satisfied that I’ve done everything I can do, and the tree will need to look after itself for a few months.

“Kudos to you, dude,” said the crossing guard as I went by.

Hey, you’re out here, too …, I replied.

“Yeah, but I have to be out here. You want to be.”

Why am I out here, anyway. It felt like 25 degrees. And, yes, that is ice in the field.

I have a page on my cycling spreadsheet, tracking my highest mileage, by month. Recently, I noticed that this month had the potential to make it onto that chart. On Nov. 20th, this month sat in 12th place overall on that list. Two good rides that week put it in the top 10 with a bullet. And so, these last few days, I’ve been riding with the goal of trying to make November 2023 my best month of all time.

It made since. The leader on the board was January 2023, but all of that was indoor riding. Wouldn’t you rather have your best number be on open roads?

The only problem is that these last few days it has been windy, or bitterly cold, or both. Tomorrow will be nicer, but I’ll be in class. And so today was my shot.

My shot. This is why I’m out here. First of all, it is, of course, a meaningless record or goal. No accolades or money. Nothing monumentous beyond the personal. So it’s just that, a personal best. It’s not a real accomplishment, not an achievement, not really. It’s an endurance effort. Put a few more miles in the legs, learn some cold lessons about layering in cold weather, trying to time it all out with limited daylight.

So there I was, measuring out rides these last few days, and it all came down to today. Should I ride enough? It wasn’t a question of could or would. I had the time and two jackets and long pants and gloves and so on. It’s not a race, and no one was trying to stop me, or slow me down, not that I can go much slower. So, did I want to try to find the time to ride tomorrow, in the morning, or tomorrow night after class. Or should I just do it today.

And by how much should I best the old mark?

This is what I did, I started out planning to ride a combination of our regular two routes, but started a bit later than I should have, meaning daylight was going to be a question. So I did one of those routes, added an extra road just to see where it went, and then modified the tail end of the course to add a few more miles. All told, that was 31 miles in the cold air, by little ice puddles and through a lot of open fields exposed to the wind. When I got closer to home I added all of the neighborhood roads to bolster the total. I figured all of this would give me about 30 miles for the day. I decided I’d let that be enough and there’s always tomorrow if I really, really need it.

I finished today’s ride at 31 miles. And that meant, when I got back to my spreadsheet, that I set a new best for miles in a month. By one mile.

Kudos to me, I guess.

My best December ever is in ninth place on the all-time list of months, by mileage. That was 2020. If I am to best that mark, I’ll be starting from behind: I’m taking tomorrow off. Maybe Friday, too.

We’ve been talking about going on a ride with a friend on Saturday. After that, we may be close to retreating to indoor rides, depending on what the prevailing weather patterns.

This is the 18th installment of We Learn Wednesdays, where I ride my bike across the county to find the local historical markers. Including today’s installment we’ll have seen, I believe, 36 of the 115 markers found in the Historical Marker Database. (This marker was not found on today’s ride, just so you know.)

Today’s marker is about a church.

Their website is … unfinished. The name of the congregation is altogether too common to stand out in web searches. The erstwhile local paper only has about 20 years of archives digitized and uploaded — the wrong 20 years to pick up a lot of history — to any database I have access to.

It hasn’t been digitized on the National Register or the National Archives Catalog. Do they expect me to talk to actual people?

I love that the old walls were made a part of the new building. Now, all of it is old, and they’re still making good use of it.

Mt. Hope UMC offers a traditional worship service every Sunday, supports youth and children’s ministries, the Neighborhood Center and Cornerstone Women’s Center. The children’s ministry supplies cold weather wear to the children and they also cook meals for the community and maintain a food pantry.

In next week’s installment of We Learn Wednesday, we’ll see another church. If you’ve missed any markers so far, you can find them all right here.

cycling / errands / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
28
Nov 23

Perhaps the most wind, non-storm related, I’ve experienced

We covered the fig tree in the backyard. This was a process. It took several days. First, you have to find out this is necessary. Then you have to make some attempts to find out how to cover it. Everyone has an opinion. None of them are authoritative. Some seem excessive — insulation! plastic! whale blubber! — and some some very casual. So who knows, really.

Anyway, get some burlap. Burlap does the trick. Burlap, you can’t find in stores. Oh you can find some useless burlap netting, which is meant to get in the way of your gardening, I guess, but it has no practical application. So finding burlap is the second step. We found some coverings. We put it on the fig tree. It was not big enough.

So we ordered a second burlap covering. That was step three. It arrived last Wednesday, and we put them on the fig tree on Thursday. One cover on the left half of the tree, the other cover on the right. It took the two of us and, there was a moment when a third set of hands might have been helpful. That was step four, I guess. One of the covers blew off last night, so today, step five.

And I got the fig tree, the part on the right, covered once again. All by my lonesome. And, oh, the details I could tell you about that. Only it was very windy today, so this was done in vain. The cover stayed on for … about two, three, hours. It was very windy.

This is how windy it was today. I went out for my bike ride and I went down this road. The map shows about six tenths of a mile, and if you go from right to left you’re on a slight, a very slight, downhill. You lose about 15 feet of elevation in that time. It’s nothing. But then there was the wind, blowing from the left to the right, gusting at 36 miles per hour.

I was in my hardest gear, pedaling as well as I could, and my Garmin said I was doing 8 mph. I was afraid I would just fall over from lack of progress. At the end of that image there’s a road that makes a big circle. Our neighbor, also a cyclist, says he’ll go ride that loop to hide from the wind. He says he’ll do 15 laps in there. It is almost 1.7 miles of a lovely wooded neighborhood, and it does keep a lot of the wind off of you. But that seems like a lot of repetition to me. Plus, three buses came in there during the short time I was there today, and I passed the same landscapers six times. They were beginning to get curious, and my feet were beginning to get cold.

The weather app said it felt like 25 degrees. And there were also flurries. Which is funny, because, before I consulted the app at the end of my ride, I thought I saw two or three suspicious things falling from the sky.

I’ve never ridden in flurries or snow before — because I used to have more sense, I guess, but we’ll get into that tomorrow — and I still haven’t, not really. I thought something was falling out of the trees. I thought I wanted to be inside, which is where I went, after I discovered that the second cover, on the right-hand-side of the fig tree, had blown off again.

Well tomorrow for that, then. This evening I had to make a run to the hardware store. I picked up some electrical tape for another project-in-vain, some more of that twine for same. And, also, a short length of garden hose. Like extension cords, you can never have enough garden hose. It’s been a while since I’ve purchased any hose. You have many options these days, and I have no idea which is the most appropriate for the particular planned drain duty. I chose the heavy duty version. It’ll probably last longer than any of the other ongoing outdoors projects.

And, now, to the grading! So much to grade! But a lot of it is fun stuff. So much fun stuff to grade!

cycling / history / music / photo / Re-Listening / video / We Learn Wednesdays / Wednesday — Comments Off
22
Nov 23

We have company, we also have a bike ride, markers, music

My in-laws came in last night, right on time and as expected. We were waiting for them in the garage, to hustle in all of their stuff from the rain. Rained the whole drive, they said. But, other than precipitation, reduced visibility and traffic, it was a good drive. They’ll be spending a few days with us over the holiday, and we’re happy to have the company.

So happy that we spent a little time with them last night before going to bed. And a little time with them this morning and early this afternoon, before going on a bike ride.

We offered for them to go along with us. We have the bikes; we could make it work. But they politely declined.

So we set out for a quick 20. My lovely bride invited me to go longer, if I want to, which I did. I did the first eight miles or so in this nice windbreaker that I’ve had for several years now. It was, if I recall correctly, a present from the in-laws. But, today, I started to think that this technical windbreaker might actually be technically functioning as a parachute. It was a headwind, but still, I could not turn my legs over.

And, too, we were right on the cusp, today, of needing a light jacket, which means that, after some time at flailing about on the bike, it didn’t seem like I needed a jacket. The opposite condition, in fact, seemed to be the case. So I took that off because, by then, I was losing a lot of ground. (Jacket as parachute.) I spent the next 12 miles yo-yoing off The Yankee’s back wheel. But feeling stronger because I wasn’t pedaling against my clothing. So, occasionally, I would take a pull off the front.

So we did one of our usual 21-mile routes. She went back to the house and I continued on. I wanted to do that first leg of the route again, into the headwind, to see if it felt different. (It did.) Also, I wanted to turn around at the other end to ride with the wind at my back. I wanted to see how fast it would push me. (It did.)

Over the course of the ride I set four PRs on Strava segments, all of them with the wind to my back, or in a crosswind. Some of them are impressive compared to the previous bests, but none of them overly impressive compared to the rest of the people on Strava. Some of my splits were actually impressive. And it wasn’t until mile 37 or so, when I was already plotting out the easiest way to get to 40 and get back inside, that I remembered: tomorrow, we have to go run.

So I finished with 41 miles on a cold, damp day, and felt my quads all evening. They’re only just beginning to explain how they’ll complain tomorrow.

This is the 17th installment of We Learn Wednesdays, where I ride my bike across the county to find the local historical markers. Including today’s installment we’ll have seen, I believe, 35 of the 115 markers found in the Historical Marker Database.

And, today, we visit the home of Abigail and Elizabeth Goodwin. They were Quakers, daughters of William Goodwin, a farmer who manumitted all his slaves during the American Revolution. Abigail and Elizabeth were founding members of a local Female Benevolent Society, dedicated to aiding the poor, infirm and elderly.

Historians know more about Abigail (1793-1867) than Elizabeth (1789-1860). More of her letters have survived. Abigail was written about in a book published by one of her contemporaries, a railroad conductor. Also, they had a nephew who wrote about them in his diary, which has also made it into the archives. They lived here. Their home was the first site in the state to be included in the National Park Service’s National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program.

This house joined the Underground Railroad in 1838. Here’s a part of one of her letters, writing to William Still:

I have read the President’s proclamation of emancipation, with thankfulness and rejoicing; but upon a little reflection, I did not feel quite satisfied with it; three months seems a long time to be in the power of their angry and cruel masters, who, no doubt, will wreak all their fury and vengeance upon them, killing and abusing them in every way they can – and sell them to Cuba if they can. It makes me sad to think of it. Slavery, I fear, will be a long time in dying, after receiving the fatal stroke. What do abolitionists think of it? and what is thy opinion? I feel quite anxious to know something more about it. The “Daily Press” says, it will end the war and its cause. How can we be thankful enough if it should, and soon too. “Oh, praise and tanks,” what a blessing for our country. I never expected to see the happy day. If thee answers this, thee will please tell me all about it, and what is thought of it by the wise ones; but I ought not to intrude on thy time, thee has so much on thy hands, nor ask thee to write. I shall know in time, if I can be patient to wait.

Still was a businessman, a writer, historian and civil rights activist. His own records show that he helped 800 or more slaves in their quest for freedom. Abigail and Elizabeth had a hand in some of those, as well.

If those walls could talk, their tales would have listeners. Still today, the home of Abigail and Elizabeth Goodwin, a key stop on the eastern route of the Underground Railroad, is a private residence.

Let’s drop in on the Re-Listening project. You’ll recall this is where I’m listening to all of my old CDs in the order in which I acquired them. And, today, we are firmly back in 2004, with “All That We Let In,” the ninth studio album by the Indigo Girls. It climbed to a respectable 35 on the Billboard 200.

Generally well received by critics, this record was their third in a row that settled in the 30s. They’re 19 or 20 years into their career, here, and there’s all of the earnestness and activism that people that knew them came to expect. A lot of reviews point this out, but those are reviewers and, I’d argue, not people who spend a lot of time thinking about any one given band. You just can’t take that part away from this duo, even if you wanted to. It wouldn’t be them if you did. So people noted or complained about that, but

There’s a CD+DVD version of this record, the DVD has six live songs. I think I’ve played it twice. But the CD gets a lot of spins.

I think I bought this without knowing what anything on it would sound like. In my mushy memory, it was nighttime when I put this CD in the player and heard the first notes from track one.

I was already in love with every musical thing Amy Ray did by then, and this record didn’t hurt. Track two was hers.

“Tether” is on this record. And here’s a performance we saw at the mother church, The Ryman, this summer.

One of my favorite songs in the catalog, and this is no easy call, is “Dairy Queen.” It’s the string action, the stuttering percussion, all of the accentuating instrumentation and, oh, I dunno, pretty much every word they wrote down and sang into microphones here.

And then there was “Cordova,” just so starkly beautiful. I knew someone who lived in a small town named Cordova. This was not about her, of course, but it’s easy to put people into songs when you have flimsy excuses like that.

Carol Isaacs is all over this song on the record. She’s playing the piano, the B-3, the penny whistle and, I think, the ocarina.

They brought the energy way up to finish the CD, it’s a full band effort: Isaacs, Clare Kenny, Brady Blade and some other guests, like John Holmes and Joan Osborne, appear on “Rise Up.”

I didn’t see the Indigo Girls in 2004, but we will see them again soon, and we’re excited about that.

And I’m almost as excited about the next installment of the Re-Listening project. We’re going Tex-Mex, and we’ll do that Friday, or Monday. Care to guess who it might be?

cycling / memories / Monday / photo — Comments Off
20
Nov 23

Don’t let this fool you, it was a full, productive, day

I saw a lot of birds on Saturday. They are flying southwest here. So cliché.

It’s like they know something I do not. (There’s a lot I don’t know, so this is likely.) These geese are going a little more to the south, but only by a matter of a few degrees. It probably works out in the wind. One good breeze, one turn of a shoulder and they probably all landed in the same pond at the end of the day.

I once had a philosophical assignment about the dynamics of bird flight. Some of the people in the group were in biology-minded people and approached the question from that direction. Others looked at it more akin to a leadership, inter-personal question. There was also the issue of rotation. No bird stays at the front the whole way, right? Now, I look at the geese in the flying V and think …

That’s a lot of trust.

After Friday’s 27-mile bike ride, I had a quick 15-miler on that bright, beautiful Saturday you saw in the bird photos above. On Sunday afternoon, just before it got dark, I got out for a 21-mile ride. There is, of course, another photo of another barn. But this one also features a shadow selfie.

On my cycling spreadsheet — because of course there’s a spreadsheet for that sort of thing — I this weekend compiled a list of the most prolific bike riding month of each calendar year. Which January had the most miles, what February was the most productive, one March or another I spent more time in the saddle, and so on. So far, six of the months of 2023 are the highest volume. Makes sense: I’ve ridden more this year than any other. And in another ride, perhaps two, November 2023 will make it on that list.

There’s also a list of the best months of riding, in terms of mileage, overall. This month is about to sneak into 12th place. There’s every reason to think this month could become a top five month, overall, if the weather holds. But there will likely be no ride tomorrow, because of the weather. And there was no ride today because of real life.

This morning I had to iron. And also, there was the cleaning up of things. And then this guy arrived. Something we didn’t have the opportunity to do before we moved in, and neglected to do since then.

Talk about your flashbacks. Every so often I get the carpet cleaned, and it’s always like this. I worked at Stanley Steemer … too many decades ago, I am startled to say. It was a decent job in high school. Meet a lot of interesting people, do some useful work. And while the job was the job, no two days were ever the same. And the stories you heard …

When the bright yellow truck shows up, I’m ready to talk shop and haggle. They sent out a solo guy, which was perfect. I just ordered the two-room minimum. He gets commission, and I’d rather the cleaner get that than someone in the office. My conversation went like this.

Do you still get a commission if you upsell me?

“Yes sir.”

Great, upsell me.

“Well — ”

I’m sold.

The prices are a bit high — but what ain’t? — and part of that, I think is so that the guy can cut something off, allowing you to think you’ve struck a good deal. But I did get a good deal, relatively speaking, because I tried to make all of this easier on him. Moved all of the furniture, kept the pets away, stayed out of his way and watched his hoses for him.

He was still relatively new to working solo, I get the impression that it happens more in his shop than it did way back when. He knew what he was doing, and you could tell, or at least I could tell, that he was right on the cusp of becoming incredibly proficient with the whole thing. It isn’t rocket science, of course, but mastering anything to your maximum ability takes time, figuring out the ruthless efficiency of your every move is an art of a sort in a largely repetitive process. And he was close.

We were his fifth job of the day, and he’d worked six days straight. Everyone needs their carpet looking good for the holidays.

We kept the cats in separate bathrooms during all of this. They didn’t seem to be bothered by all of this, which surprises me. Cats can be nervous, and here was a strange dude with all of these noises and smells and … they could not be bothered to care, not really. Damp carpet underfoot was an experience, but they adapted to that quicker than people will. Maybe it’s the two extra sensory inputs.

Anyway, Poseidon, last night, celebrated the beginning of space heater season.

He’s hanging out on furniture and the other floors today, though. Who wants to relax on wet, fresh smelling carpet?

Phoebe, meanwhile, has taken a different approach to the day.

We keep a couple of small boxes for them to sit in. Sometimes a box with an unconventional shape comes through and we’ll let them try that for a time, too, to see if it takes. But, in general, they don’t have big boxes, except for around the move we did this summer. You wonder if that lodges in the cat mind somewhere: this larger shape may have a meaning, I’ll sit on it, to prevent whatever they are thinking.

Sound strategy.

adventures / cycling / Friday / New Jersey / photo — Comments Off
17
Nov 23

Sometimes, you get lucky

We have a well. And all of the well apparatus is located in our basement. I have never had a well before, but both sets of my grandparents had them once upon a time and both of them had the well guts in a little outbuilding and, basically as far as I knew until we looked at our new house, that was how it was done.

In the course of puttering around the basement — it’s a pretty awesome space, and not just because we went without a basement for 13 years — I noticed that there are some stickers affixed to the well guts. Fine, let’s be technical: the machinery. The tank and filter and the piping that connects everything. Hereafter referred to as the well’s guts. On the sticker for both the tank and filter, you can detect a pattern emerging. This one gets serviced every year. That one every two years. And in the fall! So make a mental note of that, and when late October rolled around I called the well people and said, come on out and meet the new neighbors, why don’t ya? Also, give me a well education.

The well guys are booked pretty solid these days, it turns out. Even the manager of the joint seemed impressed by the volume he was dealing with. So it took a while to get them out. And, since we’re talking about it here, you can safely surmise that today was that day.

And not a minute too soon, it turns out.

The guy goes down to the basement with his two crewmates and looks it over. I was not sure, at first, if he was passing a stone or reacting to what he saw. It was the latter. He described the problems he saw, forecast what they would turn in to and then said “I have this on the truck, or you can wait … ” but there’s really no waiting.

Do your thing, well surgeon.

His crew gets to work, quietly, efficiently and solve the problem. Out came the entire old tank.

In went a new tank. At first, there was some worry about the new tank because they couldn’t find the o-rings. (They found them.) I said “I grew up a Challenger kid; I know o-rings are a big deal.”

The head guy misheard me, and asked if I said I worked on the Challenger. (No. I was in the third grade. Also, not a rocket scientist. He doesn’t know the last part, couldn’t know that, but how old does he think I am?) One of his assistants didn’t know what the Challenger was. So I started explaining the space shuttle, all the while thinking Make this short. He doesn’t care. And that’s how I got into a conversation about o-rings.

This was about the time the old tank was brought up from the basement. Here’s the underside.

The guy pointed to some particular points, used some technical terms. Rust was one of them. He said we had a few days, maybe a week or so, before this exploded. And then a flooded basement, aggravation, insurance claims, etc. Sometimes, you get lucky.

I had a lovely 27-mile ride this evening. This afternoon, really, but it goes from light to dark in the blink of an eye. I pedaled over to one of the neighboring towns. We drive through there, but hadn’t ridden to it yet. And it was no big deal. Nice empty roads for the most part. In the town, they were decorating the museum with Christmas lights and going about the beginning of their festivities. They do it up big, for a small place, or so I gather. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Because I knew time and light were working against me, I took a slightly different and more familiar route back to the house. And, just before I got there, I was rewarded with this view.

I got inside at about 4:38, and this matters. Into the garage. Off come the bike shoes and helmet and jacket. Stop the apps, turn off the taillight, shed my gloves, all of it one smooth practiced sequence. I looked at the time, glanced at the GPS and thought, I can make it.

It being the inconvenience center, which closes at 5 p.m. It’s only about seven miles away and through town and I have to load the car. But if I make it today, I don’t have to do it tomorrow. So I shed the cycling kit and put on an old shirt and shorts and, still sweating, load up the car with the garbage cans and recycling. I drive. The GPS says I’ll get there at 4:57. And what do you know, I got there at 4:57.

The guy that mans the place is serious about time. It’s Friday and he’s got dinner on, I’m sure, but he’d already pulled his pickup down to the gate and was preparing to close it when I pulled in.

Got time for one more quick drop off?

“I close at 5,” he said. He held his out, fingers wide. almost pointing with his palm, making the emphatic point about time.

He let me in, and I understood I was supposed to feel bad about it. There was another guy dropping off his rubbish, too, though, so I stopped pretending to feel bad. But I did hustle. It was 4:57 when I got there. It was 5:01 when I again saw the guy that worked there, waiting to lock up behind me.

Sometimes, you get lucky.

I would like to apologize to him and his wife for making dinner one minute later than necessary. But he was a gentleman and I was grateful for the gesture. It won’t happen again. I hope.

On the drive back, I saw this view, to my left.

The photo is timestamped 5:10 p.m.

Back to the beach! Which is where we were Sunday afternoon! And I’ve been rationing out photos to keep this space busy looking during a busy week! Exclamation point!

While the photos I shared from Cape May yesterday included both an accidental and intentional overexposure, here is a deliberate underexposure. Sometimes you need a dancing silhouette.

Here’s one more shot of the Cape May light house. Built in 1859, automated in 1946 and still in service. It is the third lighthouse to announce this part of the coast. The remnants of the first two are now underwater. Going to the top will cost you a climb of 217 steps, and a small fee. They say you can see 10 miles away on a clear day like this one.

This is all part of a coastal heritage trail route. “A park in the making,” the sign says. You can check out maritime history — fishing villages, light houses, forts and more — coastal habitats, wildlife and historic settlements. It’s a lovely area. And, this time of year, no tourists. We’ll surely go back for another visit soon.

We had a mid-afternoon snack at a local shop, one of the few places that was open on Beach Avenue, the main drag. My favorite New Englander ordered a lobster roll and talked me into a shrimp roll. It was a good choice.

Texas toast, basically, stuffed with shrimp and drizzled with a cocktail sauce. Hard to go wrong.

So we sat there, just over the dune from the shoreline, and had some seafood and counted ourselves lucky for the experience.

Sometimes, you get lucky.