cycling

cycling / Friday / IU / video — Comments Off on Progressive video and circumstance
18
Dec 20

Progressive video and circumstance

We had a graduation today. This is what that looked like.

It was a live production and went off without a hitch, owing to the good work of some talented people, and also me. It’s probably a dry run for the spring commencement. While some 100 people became graduates today, we’ll have 600 students moving the virtual tassel from one side of the mortar board to the other.

If anything, I said, we should do all the future commencement ceremonies like this. It went faster. After, you could just come in for the cookies and punch and socializing, which is where the real fun is, anyway.

Came home to spend about 75 minutes with this view.

And a few more miles were ticked off on the trainer, glancing through the blinds, listening to old music and feeling the burn. It’s an interesting series of experiences. You go in there in a light jacket, get ready to ride, climb on the bike and take the jacket off. Once your heart rate gets up a bit you are, of course, comfortable. It doesn’t take long at all, because the chill is only just barely a chill. It’s the buffer between the inside world and the outside world, the temperature re-configuration chamber. What, you’re not thinking of your house in these terms this year?

When you really get your trainer-mounted bike going you get the flush cheeks and the other familiar precursors to sweating. And suddenly there’s a drip, and you begin reminding yourself this doesn’t happen on the road because of the evaporative qualities of nature and the wind wicking away your perspiration. Which it is most decidedly not doing here.

Before long, you’re no longer just sweating, you are now actively hot and that first chill is a far-off memory. There’s a ceiling fan, and turning that on makes some magical atmospherics happen. Your heart rate is up, you are wondering whether you should question these decisions, and the fan is circulating just enough cold air to null this whole thing out. So long as you keep going.

As soon as you stop, being soaked through and under a fan in a chilled room, you have to leave, leave now or never get control of your core temperature again.

This is that time of year where I’m always concerned about the temperature getting into my bones. There are no amount of blankets or hot beverages, no appropriate number of layers of socks, to get warm again. There are some particular experiences, like time itself, which you can never escape. Especially when the bike isn’t going anywhere.

We can outrun this semester, though. Another one, thankfully, in the books.

cycling / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off on A most heated debate
16
Dec 20

A most heated debate

We’ve come to the end of the unseasonably nice weather. Now we are down to the seasonably, inexorably normal weather. It isn’t all bad, you get about 15 minutes of sunlight a day, most days. And the tree nearest the back door is still holding on to some of it’s leaves, for some reason. They’re still green, even. The tree doesn’t know what to make of all of this, either.

Anyway, the outdoor riding is probably done until March or April, cruel a notion as that is. Forty degrees seems to be my threshold, and we won’t see a lot of that for a while. So, it’s inside we go, to the bike room!

It is the room with my bike in it. I will pedal furious circles and go nowhere, slowly.

But the windows will get a nice foggy appearance over the course of an hour or so.

There has erupted a minor controversy around here — meaning in the house, meaning only myself — about whether miles on the trainer count as miles. And, finally, after protests and demonstrations and heated debate — meaning I talked about it out loud and my lovely wife had to hear me utter three sentences on the subject — it was agreed that those miles do count.

So 20 miles today, and the annual tally can continue. We’re just setting all sorts of records this year. (Why, yes, there’s a spreadsheet charting these things.)

And these are the sort of updates you can expect for the next few weeks, I hope.

cycling / Friday / photo — Comments Off on The last decent weather day, I fear
11
Dec 20

The last decent weather day, I fear

In April or so, when everyone was shut down, we went out to one of the local flat courses to do a few time trials. It’s essentially a loop and it runs 6.5 miles, with a long headwind at the end. On our first visit we did four loops, and marveled at how quiet the roads were.

We went this evening, with just enough light for three loops, and marveled at how noisy the roads are. What health crisis?

The first lap felt fine, until that headwind, and I got well and truly dropped.

Later I caught back up and tried to give her something to attack, and she caught me on the second trip through the headwind. And on our third trip we soft-pedaled in for pictures. Soft pedaling, at 21 miles per hour, into the wind. It’s a weird year on bikes all the way around.

And now, as I shut things down for the evening, I was struck by the play of a solar light I have in the kitchen window. It’s a cheap yard light, and I thought having a few of them around would be a good idea if the power went out, which thankfully, is a rarity in our neighborhood. The light shining through the plastic globe and playing on the ceiling looks like a static kaleidoscope, or a fancy, giant jellyfish.

Have a great weekend! Catch you on Monday! And, until then, more on Twitter, check me out on Instagram and did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account.

cycling / photo / site / Thursday / video — Comments Off on I got in a ride today
10
Dec 20

I got in a ride today

It was a spectacularly beautiful day today. The rarity, the miracle, which that can be here this time of year. It was sunny and clear and almost warm. I’m not used to the cold being the norm, but it is the norm for here. I’m used to this being the norm here. It was in the 50s. You could see the sun, and the blue. That’s the way it should be. It’s an unexpected gift here. That’s just sad.

But you take advantage of it. And I did with a late afternoon bike ride.

I rode in shorts! With no gloves! Sigh.

Here’s a clip from a neighborhood part of my route, and the trail I added on at the end just to tick up the odometer a bit.

Kmart closed their two stores here in 2016 and 2017. I don’t know where motorists have been getting their licenses updated since then, but they’re all due a new road test. They were brutal today, so, in that way, it was usual.

This is from a different ride. It took place two or three years ago, and also it was during a different season. Everything was so green! And warm!

Anyway, we’re now essentially caught up with the county’s historic marker series. I ride around and take pictures of the signs and what they’re commemorating. One new marker has been installed recently, and another has been re-installed since I went by it last. So I have two more weeks of this we can still look forward to in this county. And then, perhaps next year, I’ll start riding to the markers in the neighboring counties.

Anyway, click this image to see this post.

Ferry Bridge

Two things: I hate taggers. There’s not enough community service in the world to deliver on taggers. Second, have you ever noticed how every bridge is always the biggest or longest or highest or heaviest? Why must every bridge be superlative? Can’t we just acknowledge the brilliance of the engineering and what they mean, rather than an assessment of their constituent materials?

Anyway, to see all of the markers, just click here.

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off on If you could be here you could have some
7
Dec 20

If you could be here you could have some

This is not a food blog. This is not a food blog because I am not a good food photographer. I am not a good food photographer because, sometimes, the things you see aren’t even food, but other times food photography requires extra lights and settings that I don’t want to employ and, ultimately, food photographers are some of your more talented photographers. I suppose I could improve my rather poor food photography abilities, but, ultimately, I’d rather eat the food.

Nevertheless, occasionally we try something new and tasty, and I want to brag on the delicious meal my lovely bride made. Recently I happened on a new recipe for red beans and rice and she decided to make it and we enjoyed that this weekend and it was quite tasty.

And I’m going to get a couple of lunches out of the leftovers, too!

The other thing about food photography is that sometimes what looks great on a plate might not always look great in a picture. But sometimes the shapes and textures work out. Because, also, she made sizzling cornbread and it’s pretty great.

If you get a Pac-Man shape in your day, you should document it.

If you’d been here for it we would have shared, but these are the times we live in, where we enjoyed that delicious meal just off camera of a video chat. But we could at least tell people about how good it tasted, and how she did a great job with the preparation and I did a pretty decent job clicking that link and exploring the recipe anyway.

All of it was delicious.

We also had a nice chilly bike ride this weekend.

That’s toward the end, where I notice from some great distance behind that she’s reaching for her phone and I have to try really hard to catch up. It’s a big ask, most rides. She’s very fast, even when’s soft-pedaling for a photo, as she was there.

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