cycling « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

cycling

Words everywhere today

It snowed a lot this weekend, but never amounted to much. Which is to say snow fell, and snow melted. Then more fell, and it, too, failed to cause much of a stir. Then more of its precipitory brethren swirled and twirled and danced and fell to the ground and made it just a little more soggy. Eventually, the ground started to catch on.

Oh, we’re supposed to let this stuff stay?

Those mounds beneath the trees held the snow first. I suppose it is always that way. So much mulch, so little insulation.

The second thing to catch the snow was this door mat. This is a mat with a warm greeting. But, just now, and since Saturday afternoon, it is neither warm, nor greeting.

By then, the snow was slowing.

When it stopped, or at least paused for a few hours, I thought I should get out and make use of the time. There was recycling to be done, earth to be save, habits to be fulfilled. So I loaded up the car. A big bin in the trunk, and a garbage can in the back seat. Both were filled with the mixed items, glass, aluminum, plastic. And in the front seat, and the rest of the back, cardboard.

The inconvenience center is on the other side of town, but late Saturday afternoon might be the time to make this trip. Two stop signs, and a red light. My memory of it is already unremarkable. But the inconvenience center was remarkable. The huge container for the cardboard sits in one spot, but the guy that runs the place had put some sort of netting over the top, which is their out of order signal. He was off down the hill in his loader, doing light machinery work, and, from that great distance, he read the confusion on my face. From inside the cab he gestured broadly — and he needed to, because he was far enough away I could barely see him. I had to walk all of this cardboard from over here to all the way over there.

We go to some lengths to save the earth around here.

This was the view from the road.

I went a town or two over and met an older couple. The man had some sort of light stroke, he said, so he had to move some of his tools that he can’t use well anymore. We were out in his oversized shed and I told him I was jealous. He has this whole place to work and if I want to turn wood into sawdust I have to rearrange the entire garage. I spend more time moving equipment around than cutting things up. He laughed, but didn’t offer me his whole shed.

He did sell me this wonderful little router table.

It’s obviously handmade, and done perfectly well for shop duty. There are a few joints in there that are more elaborate than necessary. I asked him if he made it. He said no. He named the man who did, as if I would know the name, but I do not. That man gave it to his friend, who gave it to this guy. And now he’s sold it to me. I’m the fourth owner of the table. Mounted to it is a Craftsman router.

I got it home, put the top back on the legs, tinkered with the router for a minute and put a piece of scrap wood through it, and it works. You can see the sawdust!

Pretty good deal, for $30.

And then, just as I said, I spent several minutes finding a way to fit it in the garage, and cleaning up a bit of sawdust. It was ridiculously cold, but when it warms up, some weeks from now, I’ll go out and experiment with it some more.

We were forecast for snow through the early afternoon on Sunday, and it snowed all day and into the night. When I took out the garbage last night, we had about two inches on the ground.

Or, as I put it on Bluesky …

I think I’m due a series of long hot steamy nights where the stars twinkle in time with the crickets and the bullfrogs. The sort of night that begins at about 10 p.m. and runs into the tomorrow after forever.

Anyway, I had to put on a coat and some light gloves and boots to take out the garbage.

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— Kenny Smith (@kennysmith.bsky.social) January 18, 2026 at 11:28 PM

All day today I spent on the work stuff, wrapping up the pre-term emotional roller coaster. The creative process for course development is just about as intense as anything else you can make. There’s curious excitement, then some real enthusiasm and joy, and then the self-doubt sneaks in as you continue on. This is a weeks- and months-long process. But all of that is behind us, because class is before us.

This weekend, then, I prepared my first message for the online class, where I will be teaching about the structures of social media. Yesterday I locked down the changes I am making to my criticism in sports media class. I am working in a bit of e-sports and trying to find a place to slip in some social media. I am changing up some of the assignment structures. It was an easy series of changes, but I find myself staring at calendars and lists and counting weeks and items over and over and over. You want to get the small things right.

So you can imagine how many times I reworked the smallest things, trying to comb out every error today. And, somehow, the more of that the did, the more of the roller coaster changed direction. Today, as I locked up the brand new Rituals and Traditions course I found myself very intrigued again by what this class might become. I added the last details of the assignment structure last week. Today I spend a good chunk of the morning and pretty much all of the afternoon building the page where all of this will reside.

Which is where the worry comes back in. Will it land with students? Will it work? Is it enough if I like the class? Will they learn as much as I will? Will they like it if they do?

Can I get this in a regular rotation?

Anyway, I need one more important thing to click into place for that class, and then we’re set. Starting tomorrow, we’ll ease into all of these classes. They’ll be off and running next week. A few days after that, this little break will be forgotten, we’ll be in the regular rhythm, and focusing on all of this fun learning until May.

It’s a lot of fun, even when it is a lot.

And this evening I got in a little ride. I chose an 18-mile ride around part of the island of Cozumel. We’ve been there, in real life, three times. I know this road well.

But I’ve never been on that side of the island. Never been on a bike there, with the ocean off my shoulder. It is difficult to imagine the desert island air, the stiff breeze, and the crashing waves in my coolish little basement setup. At least I had a fan in my face. I wonder where I’ll ride tomorrow, after three hours of dancing in front of classes. It’s funny how simply being underway frees the mind and opportunity.

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13
Jan 26

Nine! And three-quarters

I had a meeting today. It involved four of six people and took a week to get to. It resolved that we are resolved. At the end, a full 50 minutes of background and resolution, I thanked everyone for the time and interest and their care.

I did not thank them for the impetus to move a piece of furniture in my home office, which I did before the meeting.

My home office has two windows. In between those windows, and against the wall, is where I have placed my desk. Out of one window I can see the driveway. Out of the other, another neighbor’s yard, or a sunset, if I have the blinds open on that side. To the immediate right of my desk sits an old newspaper honor box. On top of that is my podcasting and voiceover setup, which I really should use more. Inside the newspaper box is where all of my dozens of pocket squares live. That was not the intention, and I do need a better place for them. Maybe one day. But the newspaper box, itself, has for more than two years now just jutted out at an odd angle. from the desk. This morning, I pushed it back nine inches toward the corner. Nine and three-quarters, actually.

It changed the whole room.

Just wait until, later this week, I move my monitor more toward the center of my desk.

Sometime in early May, when I put all of these textbooks and notes and notebooks away.

Also, today, I purchased a new pair of shoes. I’ve been eyeing these since late last spring. These are my first new pair of shoes since November of 2022, which explains why I feel extravagant at ordering such a thing.

And now my back hurts. Early in the day, it was my lower back. This evening, the pain had moved around a bit. And now, at the end of the day, it is back to my lower back. It’ll be gone tomorrow. It’s probably from stress. Or that meeting. Or feeling guilty about shoes. Or pushing a lightweight metal box nine inches. Nine and three-quarters, actually.

I made a new banner for indoor rides, since we are now using Rouvy. After years and years of wintering in Watopia on the Zwift platform, we are making the jump, and I am starting the process of riding myself back into shape. It’s a slow and utterly futile process, at this point. But it’s fun to ride.

If you had asked me before this evening’s ride I would have said I was only passingly familiar with the idea of Zone 6. Even the Cleveland Clinic only writes about Z1 through Z5 here. And I’d say that it had never occurred to me to use Zone 6 as a recovery from Zone 7. But there I was, on this evening’s short workout, in Zone 7 24 percent of the time.

(All of that Z1 is coasting.)

Training Peaks, which is clearly better at medical stuff than The Cleveland Clinic, breaks it down thusly: Z1 is active recovery, Z2 is endurance, Z3 is tempo, Z4 is lactate Threshold, Z5 is VO2 Max, Z6 is anaerobic Capacity, and Z7 is neuromuscular Power. This has to do with the wattage output. Zone 6, says Training Peaks is when you are working at greater than 121 percent of your power output. There is no nuber by Zone 7. All of which is to say, Rouvy hasn’t figured out my output yet. Which is obvious. I’m brand new on the platform. And not in the best fitness.

But look at those views! This is a video in Bolivia’s Pampas. A featureless stretch of road, comparatively speaking, but better than the video game feel from Zwift. And while there’s the occasional vehicle, or animal or person on the side of the road, I can turn the other rider avatars off.

I also did a little lap around a neighborhood in Sri Lanka, just to feel a few extra minutes. I feel so worldly.

The best part of this platform, I think, is that you can upload your own routes. You don’t get the video experience, as above, until someone goes out with a GoPro or some such, but you can get the distance and the terrain. If, that is, you can get the import feature to work. I’m still struggling with that part. But the routes just fill the imagination. I mentioned, yesterday, that I’ve been daydreaming about a 50 mile route up toward Mount St Helens for 15 years. I want to layout routes in my childhood neighborhood, just to feel what the hills are like there. I want to go over big bridges, for the same reason. I want to put in the course for the Race Across America and do that, even if it is from my basement. There are so many possibilities. I hope to get to them all, one day.

But first I need to straighten up some of the paper in my office. And move my monitor. Maybe about seven inches to the left.

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off
12
Jan 26

Tried a new app, ready to ditch an old one

On Saturday night we were invited to a hockey game. Some friends had extra tickets, and so sure we could go. If we could get there. Somehow, we missed an exit. The re-route was not drive-able, despite passing right in front of the venue, there were several cut-throughs that were blocked off. I am sure there are reasons, but they all hampered us. So we had to continue on, up and past the venue, now the venue is behind us. Now it is well behind us. Now, and only now, we can turn left, a leap of faith despite running two maps to plot our course.

Lewis and Clark would be so proud. The explorers, I mean, not the defensemen.

Let’s assume there are two players skating named Lewis and Clark. They’d be proud, too, but not as proud as the explorers. For with the bright glowing lights of two sports venues to guide us, traffic to follow, and who knows how many satellites connected to two separate maps, we managed to park across the street.

Not where we’d reserved parking, but where we could pay anew.

The walk was easy. We got in. Had to walk halfway around the joint to get to our seats to see friends. It was dollar pretzel night. I sprung for pretzels and mustard for everyone. Let’s do a little algebra.

On dollar pretzel night, I purchased four pretzels. I purchased two waters. The bill was $18 and change.

And so you see why the water wars to come will be brutal.

But not as bad as the hockey we saw tonight. The home team would, from time-to-time, put on an impressive display of holding the puck in front of their opponent’s net. The opposing team refused to do that, however. They just shot the thing at the home goalie.

And, friends and puck fans, he was not up to the task tonight. On our way out of the venue, when it was 6-1 and they were still skating, people in the concourse had some thoughts about the local netminder. They weren’t shy or polite about it, either. The final score was 7-2. (They played again this evening. It was not much better.)

But, hey, free hockey!

I enjoy all of the things they do in between periods. The light show is a lot of fun, though it might need to be refreshed. Also, if you mistime it, you can make the pyrotechnic show look like a calamity!

We were parked under this sign. On Sunday, that team did no better. Glad we weren’t there for that.

But I’ll probably never go to a game there. The prices are outrageous. I just couldn’t enjoy myself knowing what was spent on this ticket, especially when I every angle possible on the television, and climate controlled conditions, just a few miles away. It got into the 20s last night when they were suffering through that playoff game. I was sitting next to a blanket on my sofa.

The sky had a full day of it, yesterday, too. It was one of those indecisive days. I am a blue sky! Now I am moody! Now I am purple! But what if I embrace the gray and dark! Oh, I’m in my bright blue era again! And so on.

Worked on a class again today. Got in some of the email. I have made a list of notes for a meeting tomorrow. After tomorrow, I will have to do a lot more work. So, this evening, then, I am getting on the bike.

I haven’t ridden a lot in a long while. Just didn’t feel the need to. Or the motivation. One or the other. Maybe both. I could feel what little bit of fitness i had slipping away, though, so there’s that. That’ll happen when you ride for just a few minutes a week. It’s mental, as much as anything, but now I feel, mentally, that I want to ride some more.

Also, we are trying a new service. Our indoor riding has been on Zwift for years. In the winter time, that’s what you’ve seen here. It looks like a video game, and it is. It is useful for training, but it’s an intricate series of animations, basically. My lovely bride unilaterally decided she wanted to try Rouvy, which is funny, because I have been meaning to mention that same platform to her.

On Rouvy, you ride through real places. So, to the extent that the visuals matter, you’ve got that going for you. The first route I tried, just for the name, was Death Road, or Yungas in Bolivia. The road itself is 40-mile long highwire act. It has been replaced by a better route, and is now largely for tourists. And it kills an absurd number of people a year. No way in the world I’d get on this gravel in the real world, on any sort of vehicle. But I can’t fall off my smart trainer!

Yungas Road looks, in part, like this.

And then, just to round out a little time, I rode through Safari Park Dvur, a zoo in Czech Republic. I saw some deer, some varieties of other antlered wildlife, something perhaps related to an antelope. There was the flank of some huge animal that I could not identify, for it came and went quickly. I passed by a giraffe which was walking on the side of the road. For a few moment, two tiger cubs trotted alongside me.

This is done by cameras. Someone has strapped recording equipment to themselves, to their bikes or mopeds or cars and given me this predetermined route. The next time I visit that zoo, those tiger cubs should still be there. (Though it’ll blow my mind if they aren’t. Maybe I should ride it again tomorrow and see?)

There’s some other great data you get from the rides, and cyclists love their data. I was spending a lot of time in Zone 3 today, because see the self-criticism about my fitness. And since that’s lacking at the moment, the hills felt even more real. What’s a 7 percent gradient when you have no legs?

My lovely bride tried Rouvy for the first time yesterday. When she came back upstairs I asked her how it was. She liked it so much she canceled Zwift before she was finished riding. Today, I rode under and was slightly splashed by a small waterfall on Yungas Road. They say they have routes in 71 countries available to ride. They say I can import my own routes — there’s a road I’ve wanted to ride since 2011 or so. It was absolutely the first thing I checked when I downloaded the Rouvy app.

We drove that road, a 51 mile route from the highway to a mountain opposite Mount St Helens, ages ago. It’s just been sitting here, waiting for me to ride in some way or another. And now I have an app that will let me do it, if I can figure out some problem with the GPX import issue.

Of course this means I will need to make a Rouvy banner for the site. And ride a lot more. Tomorrow is going to be a great day to ride.

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1
Dec 25

Happy December

Here we are, at the beginning of the month that’s the end. We’re all full up on food and feeling winter. Tired and exhilarated. Probably some other contradictory things, too.

The in-laws came down for a brief visit for Thanksgiving. We had a little prime rib. They stayed the night and we had a pizza Friday before they had to head for home. We had a fine time.

This weekend I put my bike on the trainer. I’m not especially excited for that. I’d much rather be riding outside. But, ya know, December and all. So I did a few miles to get the thing warmed up.

I wonder how long it’ll be before I can do it again. We’ll be back in class tomorrow. We’ll have two weeks left in which to tie the bow on all of the classwork before finals. That’s two busy weeks. And then finals. And then the holidays.

Tired and exhilarated.

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18
Nov 25

Just class stuff today

In my criticism class today we discussed this story. College sports’ racial, gender hiring practices getting worse instead of improving:

College sports received a C for racial hiring practices when it decreased slightly from 75.1% in 2021 to 73.3% in 2022. College sports also received a C for gender hiring, with 74.1%, which was a slight increase from 2021 when it was 72.8%. The combined grade was a C with 73.7%. That was down from 74.0% in 2021. In other words, overall, equal opportunity hiring practices are getting worse instead of improving.

As we look at the sidelines in the tournament, we see the best record for hiring of people of color and women as head coaches. But the coaches of color represent a fraction of the student-athletes on their teams. In 2021-22, Division I men’s basketball Black student-athletes made up 52.4% of the total, compared to the 24.8% of Black head coaches. We have a smaller percentage of Black head basketball coaches now than we had 17 years ago, when 25.2% of the Division I head basketball coaches were Black.

This is a project Professor Lapchick and his team at UCF undertake every year. They grade out the big professional sports leagues in the U.S., and also collegiate sports. The students picked this little story to read, and so we talked about the grading system a bit, Lapchick’s work, and also some of the math involved here, which was hilarious. A few of those students are in my organizational communication class, and they don’t know it yet, but we’ll be discussing Lapchick on Thursday, too.

We also considered this CNN piece. This injury has plagued MLB for most of the last century, but a new phenomenon is emerging:

It is an injury which has plagued Major League Baseball for the best part of the last century. The ligament in your elbow which connects the bone in your upper arm to the one in your forearm – and is only about as strong as “a piece of celery” – tears, leaving you unable to throw and facing a very lengthy spell on the sidelines.

This season, the likes of Gerrit Cole, Corbin Burnes and Shane Bieber have all had Tommy John surgery – the most popular procedure to repair a torn UCL – while Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani made his long-awaited return to the mound after almost 22 months away following the second elbow surgery of his career.

Dr. Christopher Ahmad, Tommy John expert and head team physician for the New York Yankees, has performed the surgery on some of the biggest names in baseball. But he has also been privy to the other side of the story.

“The alarms are going off on how devastating this problem is to the youngest players,” he says in an interview with CNN Sports.

One of the series of questions I try to get the students to answer is who is a story for, and who is the disadvantaged person, or group, in the story. Sometimes that’s subtle. Sometimes obvious. Wouldn’t you know it, at least two people in the room say they knew someone that had already damaged or ruined their UCL by high school.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to get the “piece of celery” imagery out of my mind when watching people throw a baseball.

We also discussed the Slaying the Badger documentary, which we watched last Thursday. I showed it because we watched a football-center documentary just before, and we’ll watch a basketball-themed documentary just after. There’s something to be said about watching something you nothing about. Plus, it’s a dramatic story.

I was impressed, they seemed to like it more than I would have expected. It is a trick and a challenge to try to explain a sport to an audience who may have no understanding of the sport, while also reaching an audience that knows a great deal about it, while also telling a riveting story. For the most part, the filmmakers here did that. (The book is better. Yes, the documentary was inspired by a book.)

I was proud of myself. I did not get too far into the weeds on the cycling minutiae while trying to answer their questions. That would have been easy to do.

Why was he wearing this jersey and now wearing that jersey? What’s the deal with stages?

You don’t need to know the sport to follow the story, but knowing the sport heightens your awareness of a film.

In org comm we had a great negotiation activity today. I was nervous about it, but it worked out well. I had one student play a quarterback who is about to become a free agent. I specifically chose a student who can be loud and opinionated and, often, correct, to be the player. That kept him out of the back-and-forth. I had two others play his agents. One of them a super smooth charmer, and another who is quite the thoughtful analytic type. They did their work with their client in the hall, and then they would come in and meet the team leadership for the negotiations.

The rest of the class I broke into groups representing his team. I wanted one person to be the GM, a student who also seems worldly and practical. The rest of the class broke up into various VP offices and so on. There was some designed conflict between those franchise groups, and every group had a certain series of motivations and criteria I gave them.

It took exactly one round for them all to get into the exercise. It took them five rounds of offers and counter-offers for them to reach a deal.

The most fascinating thing happened. though. Two of the team groups were supposed to be resistant to making a deal for budget and other considerations. So they had conflict with the boss group, my three-headed GM hydra. The GM(s), though, wanted to make the deal. So they had to go back and forth, which became incredibly animated. One group convinced themselves they were absolutely opposed to the signing. But when they finally reached a deal, franchise GM(s) and player-agents, everyone was so happy, and the various groups, even the ones that had been opposition just moments before, were “Welcome home!” and “Welcome to the team!”

The actual player will be a free agent soon. I’m curious to see how close, or how far off, our mock negotiation was.

I’m also wondering how we can take this org comm class and do more things like this, which are marginally practically and a lot of fun.