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cycling / photo / Twitter / weekend — Comments Off
27
Jan 13

Not catching up

It seems I did not take the first picture this week. I took quite a few, actually, but they’re earmarked for later display on the site, so I don’t have any pictures for this space.

So I’ll just look at the stats and pull the most popular images that you’ve viewed this month. In order of popularity, then:

Playing in the yard on a beautiful January afternoon:

Catching the light just right — not bad for the phone, riding in a moving car:

The Cateye on my bicycle:

The least viewed shot I’ve uploaded this month:

Not missing much there, are you?

We went on a great ride this afternoon. The sun was out, the air was just on this side of being warm and everything was perfect. I took The Yankee out of town and into the next community over, through their downtown and then out the back into the countryside.

We rode on a road that absolutely had an uphill gradient, but it felt like I was going downhill with legs and speed to spare in my highest gear. At the end of that road we were almost at the halfway point. It felt like that halfway point of the roller coaster too, because after that stop sign you drop about a 150 feet in three tenths of a mile. Again, these aren’t real ascents and descents we have here. But I may have been speeding, so they’re real enough.

Anyway, by the time I’d meandered my way home on a not-so-direct route I’d accumulated 36.5 miles on the day. As I said on Twitter I looked, once again, like a guy pretending to be a poor cyclist rather than a guy with a bike. So top form! It all felt great, right until the end. I guess I can start putting a few more miles back into the routine, then.

Had Italian for dinner at a place called Ma Fia’s. So clever! The way they made that play on words! Good stuff for small town Italian, though. We’ve been there twice now and have enjoyed both trips.

Finished up a few projects after dinner. Got everything together for tomorrow’s first day back in class. And now I’m going to go ignore the protests of my dead legs.

Still just a guy being pulled around by a bike, then. Heh.

Auburn / cycling / history / markers / photo / site / Thursday — Comments Off
24
Jan 13

A few photographs

Here is a panorama of the historic Auburn train station. Click to embiggen in another tab:

Lot of history in that joint. Jefferson Davis reviewed the Auburn Guard there as he was on his way to his inauguration at Montgomery. That was, apparently, the first presidential review in the Confederacy. This is also the place where students sabotaged Georgia Tech’s football team in 1896:

The Wreck Tech parade, and the pajamas, date back to their first football meeting in 1896 where legend has it that the A.P.I. students snuck to the train station under cover of darkness and greased the tracks. The train couldn’t get stopped at the station and the Tech players had to walk some five miles back to Auburn to get their 45-0 beating.

The last train passenger was called aboard in 1970. Empty for almost a decade now, the last tenant was a real estate agency. The old building needs a lot of TLC.

Here’s a door handle at the train station:

And by the rails, a self portrait at the first sign passengers would have seen getting off the train:

A closer view of a font you’ll never see again:

These shots were part of a brief ride today. I got other pictures today, so the marker series will return next week. That’s progress.

Nothing about the ride felt very good today, though. Nothing about me felt very confident of myself. Just a lousy ride. But I also found an incredible curve I had to slow down through, lest I wind up in the trees. And then I had to ride through a big neighborhood disagreement that involved at least five police officers, two of which I almost hit on my bike because they didn’t look both ways before crossing the street. One of those days.

Here’s a sunset over Agricultural Heritage Park, with the intramural field in the background to the right:

Even “those days” are beautiful.

adventures / cycling / friends / photo / Samford / Tuesday / Tumblr / Twitter — Comments Off
22
Jan 13

Dropping off, if only

I am going to stop following my lovely bride as she moves her bicycle about town. She wants to do challenging things like “Hills.”

So we did an hour of that this afternoon. Take two of the biggest hills in town — “Big” being relative, of course, we live at the place where geographers would say the upland begins to give way to the coastal plain. So the hills are small, but we are in the sweet spot: be on the beach in a few hours, be far enough away from the water to be safe … from the water — and ride them. Get to the top, turn around and drift down. Turn around and ride up them.

Did this for an hour, uttering things in different languages that I didn’t realize I could say. Several more weeks of this and I might be able to do something better than just drag myself over a hill.

Drag is a great word for riding a bicycle. Sometimes the bike drags you along. Sometimes you’re doing everything you can to get from here to there, or emptying your mind so that nothing in it prohibits you from getting from here to there. Drag is a great word. But it wasn’t the proper word to describe my third trip up the second hill. It really needs a full phrase rather than a simple word.

“Avoiding falling over from the combined effects of gravity, friction and inertial mass” would have been more appropriate.

But a lovely, sunny, slightly coolish day to ride for an hour. Sadly the total elevation gained was nothing to brag about, and I’ve already spent four paragraphs on this.

Did work. I wrote things. Emailed people, solved problems, caused other ones. I fleshed out lesson plans, assignments and a few readings. I have some more of those to do.

I did research. I held the cat.

I wrote a letter of recommendation. I like these; the students that ask for them manage to be great students and I’m happy to say “He is a young man of fine character” or “I give her my full recommendation.” Great students deserve the kudos.

Also wrote a letter, an honest to goodness piece of correspondence. I typed it, because I like the recipient and I wouldn’t wish my handwriting upon her. She is an elderly lady that my mother semi-adopted, one of those sweet grandmotherly types you’d like to hug up and squeeze and she wouldn’t complain about the pressure because, you know, hugs. Figured I’d send her a little note, realized I don’t have much to say — but you knew that already, right? — made a resolution to do interesting things and then just summed up January. Play with the font and size for longer than necessary — as is my right — printed it and folded it up in an envelope.

Now, stamps. They still make those, right? He said in that coy way that suggests his habits and patterns have yielded to an ignorance which surpasses the need for understanding an ancient device thereby rendering it culturally irrelevant. There are stamps around here somewhere. At least you don’t have to lick them anymore, and for that I say the USPS should get whatever subsidy they want. The downside is that you can’t buy stamps at many post offices anymore, we get ours at the grocery store of all places, so I say we take away every subsidy the USPS has ever been granted.

I think I’ve just taken a step toward solving the nation’s financial problems.

I dropped off a prescription in the drop off line at the pharmacy. They have two lanes for cars. “Full service” and “Drop off only.” There was one car in the drop off lane and three on the full service side. No brainer. Four cars passed through the full service line while I waited for the one to finish in the drop off only lane.

But there was a nice lady on the other end of the magical speaker when I finally made it there. Put your date of birth and phone number on the script. Drop it in the magical drug provider tube, press send. (Note to self, the pharmacy tube system does not have the plastic container like banks use. Also, they do not hand out suckers.) The pleasant voice said she had the doctor’s note.

Would you like to wait?

No.

Would you like me to text you at this number when your prescription is filled?

Yes, that would be great.

OK, will do and thanks.

Ninety minutes later my phone buzzed. Someone in a pharmacy 1.5 miles away had counted out pills and put them in a plastic bottle and placed that in a paper bag and stapled on a little page of information and directions and it was all ready for me to pick up any time. And I haven’t seen anyone.

What a world we live in.

Visited the grocery store for potato salad purposes. We made ribs tonight, had a guest and I had to pick up a side item. I wandered around looking at cans of things, bags of things and boxes of things.

For no reason other than that I was standing there, here is a picture of the tea section:

On the top left there is a Candy Cane Lane tea, which sounds far better than the green tea it actually is. There’s Black Cherry Berry and Country Peach Passion (The neighbors WILL talk about that one.) There are samplers and the regional and national brands. They show off the tea, delicious and mouth-watering in those carefully focus grouped and air brushed photos of tea pitchers.

Some of those generics are steeping in pots, so you can’t see their shame.

I love tea. We have a cabinet full of the stuff. We just accumulate it somehow. Really, the store should visit us to keep their tea aisle stocked. I even used it once in a science experiment in high school, dropping an egg from great height. Tea leaves, if you didn’t know, are a great insulator. Arthur C. Clarke taught me that in Ghost from the Grand Banks, a story which should have culminated in 2012. (We’re now out-pacing near-future science fiction, think about that.) My egg survived the drop, by the way. Seems tea leaves can do other things, too. Tea leaves, they are multipurpose.

Anyway. Potato salad, babyback ribs for dinner, company for the evening, seconds because of the hills. Had a great time just sitting around the dining room table telling stories. Lovely way to end a day. Helped rest the legs, too.

There’s a new picture on the Tumblr today, and more on Twitter. Do check them out, if you like. Now, to go read.

adventures / cycling / Friday / iPhone — 2 Comments
18
Jan 13

“I want to ride it where I like”

Barbecue House for breakfast, where they know our names and pretty much have the orders committed to memory, too. So naturally there were new people working there this morning. Now they have to be taught about “The Usual.”

That is about as bad as it gets: This young lady does not know what I want for breakfast. And she will make me say my name out loud before caffeine. Also, she will spell it wrong on the order.

It is a tough life, you know.

Love Barbecue House. Professors, students, athletes, old people, folks passing through and people who built the city, all under one roof. One of the former football coaches was in this morning and told Mr. Price, who owns the place, that he’d see him at church on Sunday. We learned later today that that coach just got a new job at another school, and so we won’t see him or his family any more, which is a shame.

There is always some news at Price’s Barbecue House.

Took a ride this afternoon, a slightly challenging 20 mile route, my best ride as I build back up. I passed this pond:

Lovely day for a ride, no?

I went out 10 miles, found a school and tried to turn around there. This was about the time that the school was dismissing for the day, and so every high school student with a car was lining up to begin their weekend. One guy serenaded me with a bit of Bicycle Race. A 21st century high schooler knowing a mildly successful 34-year-old Queen song seems an odd thing. I credit your parents, kid, and also the Internet.

High schoolers with cars and trucks while acting like high schools versus one guy on a 17-pound bike seemed a losing deal, so I waited them out. There wasn’t a cloud in the deep, dark blue sky. Just a beautiful afternoon.

It was a good ride, too, except for the two hills on that particular route which always get the better of me.

Right around that halfway point I also saw this old shack:

I love places like this. I used to climb around them. I still might, but not this one in particular. Looks like a good cross wind would topple it. So I just glanced in through the openings. Hard to tell what used to go on here, but someone spent a lot of time inside. Maybe raised a little family, and probably the cattle in the pasture across the road.

Once upon a time this house was the only thing around for a few miles. The person who built that place probably liked it that way. Probably buried in a cramped city cemetery today, but we’ll never know for sure. Whatever history is in there is probably just left to the family, and that always has a peculiar way of becoming opaque.

Dinner tonight was at Laredo’s, one of the better Mexican restaurant in town. (Try the enchiladas.) It is a big place, and busy, so I don’t have any cute little anecdotes about town. They turn the place over in a hurry, though. We had to park in an overflow lot and there must have been 30 people waiting to be seated, but we got a table within 10 minutes or so.

Our salsa had every pepper in the place.

And then we had ice cream. Because it was in the low 40s, after all.

cycling / photo / Wednesday — 3 Comments
16
Jan 13

I love everything about riding in the rain

I love everything about riding in the rain, so the hour I spent outside today was a delight. It started out just cool and overcast, but before I got halfway to the second turn I was in a drizzle. And then came the plet, plink, blet of the raindrops as I cut through town.

My jacket kept me warm as I watched the drops get ready to fall from the bike frame. I love dodging little puddles standing in improbable places and the little patches of grease and oil that stand out on the road in the fresh coating of water.

I love how that one drop of water forms on the bottom of my helmet and hangs on for the longest time, intent on finally hitting the ground somewhere else. How my glasses get rain on the inside and out, and how the rain is cold enough to keep them from fogging up, but still makes them almost useless, so you wind up peering through the space between glasses and helmet.

My gloves are soaked, but warm, and the cold feeling of the soles of my shoes pushing off the ground when a red light flips to green. I like how the little Cateye computer is apparently waterproof, and how the little tool bag under my saddle gets wet from probably every direction.

When the rain gets into my shoes, and my socks are full of the stuff I imagine that it makes me ride stronger, because of the extra weight pushing down into the little circular stroke on the pedals. It probably doesn’t, but I like to imagine it does when I lean over the handlebars and imagine this little roller is the biggest hill that’s ever been topped.

And then, on the downhill side, I felt like I was riding a bicycle again. Maybe that means I’m mostly recovered from my spill last summer. I didn’t think about my shoulder or the sound or that long and still-somewhat ongoing recovery, just the ride. (And how all of my fitness is gone.)

I love the sounds, the whizzing of the tires through a thin film of water and the trickling of runoff into the drainage system. When you pass by them on both sides, you get that rumbling drainage sound in stereo.

Something about the rain and the gunmetal skies and the water on the road changes the nature of noise. There is one brief moment, somewhere around 21 miles per hour, when the wind sounds like a car beginning to track you down. In the rain that is muted, and amplified. You have to go a little bit faster to get that sound. So when I came down the last two little hills when I turned toward home I got to dive into four little turns to build a little more speed the reward is even louder.

And then, having circled the town and the ride is nearing its end, the rain does too. It was with me the whole time, and so there I am, imagining through my foot over the top tube, giving my legs a break and lungs a rest. Passing underneath the beautiful, bare oaks in the bottom of the neighborhood, I get the gravity shower. Everything but my back is wet, because I’ve opened my jacket.

I love everything about riding in the rain. Except the cleanup. Now it is sprinkling again and I have to get the helmet and the jacket and the shoes off so I can grab a towel to dry the frame and components on my bike.

And I’m getting grease and dirt and grim everywhere. My wheels are covered in the stuff for reasons I can’t explain. And the back of my jacket is dirty, from back wheel spray I guess. I towel off the big parts and wipe down the rest with paper towels. Then I can finish my water, of which there is plenty because I found myself just inhaling the fresh stuff on the ride. And then a chocolate milk and a shower and finally I can be dry again. But I love everything about riding in the rain.