cycling

cycling / photo / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Snow video and cats, what the web was made for
19
Jan 21

Snow video and cats, what the web was made for

I said it would snow, because the meteorologists said it would snow. And so it snowed, light flurries pretty much all weekend. We got maybe two inches out of the deal. Here’s some video proof:

And here’s some slow-mo snow, ponderous precipitation, facile flurries:

It was melting away in the early afternoon, yesterday, but more flakes fell, amounting to little of nothing and that will be the last of it for a while. Sun and clouds for the next few days. And Thursday we might hit 46 degrees! A delightfully mild week seems like just the thing, doesn’t it?

Let’s check in with the cats, who are a handful and just fine, thanks.

Phoebe is checking out something on that first sunny day we enjoyed after a long stretch of bleh.

Fortunately she was able to work in a bit of sunbathing into her busy schedule.

Poseidon spends a lot of his mornings contemplating the deeper things in life, like ‘What is spotted ball?’

He, too, enjoys the sun. Sitting on the cat tree lets him be taller than you, and he can really fill the frame.

Sometimes I think he understands the idea behind camera sense. Sometimes I think he’s a philosopher cat. Usually, he’s just … we call him high spirited.

Had a great bike ride, going up the Alpe du Zwift. I am so very slow, and it takes me forever. But I did hold off a couple of people the whole way up the mountain. They were the other slow climbers, like me.

Scroll around and look at this climb:

The map looks reminiscent of my Alpe D’Huez shirt, which I am wearing this evening in honor of my massive video game accomplishment. I found the photo function on Zwift, because on a long slow climb, you can discover new things. This is right after the summit:

This was on the descent:

That’s my second hors categorie, or beyond categorization, climb. I am so slow. It actually snowed on the climb. The app showed little drifts of snow scurrying across the road as I huffed and puffed. It has a lot of detail to it.

Twelve mile climb, 3,753 feet of elevation, and an average gradient of 8.5 percent yesterday, and a punchy little workout today, means I will feel them both tomorrow, too.

cycling / Twitter / Wednesday — Comments Off on Achterbahn is German for rollercoaster
13
Jan 21

Achterbahn is German for rollercoaster

Meetings this morning. Bike ride this evening. Odd bookends for the day, really.

We tried Innsbruck, on Zwift today. I hadn’t been on that course before. Innsbruck, in Austria, hosted the UCI World Championships in 2018 and now its big climb, a 4.5 mile long category 2 hill, is hosting me. There is a certain course here that’s called Achterbahn. And I don’t know if I’ve ever ridden a German rollercoaster, but you have to admit: now that we’re here talking about it, you’re curious.

This climb averages out as a 5.4 percent incline. It gains 1,311 up to the top. It’s steady. You just put your head down and grind it out. It looks like this. And the larger route I rode today looks like this:

I am, predictably, slow, going up this hill. Delightfully slow. I touched 58 miles per hour on the descent though.

It’s going to be a useful January of base miles. Zwift was a gift, and helps keep me from being miffed about the winter. I don’t have to ride through snow drifts. Also, I can’t ride off any cliffs. When the month is done I may have more January miles in the saddle than I’ve ever recorded for the first month of a year. Wouldn’t that be something?

Some things going on back home. This is one of those Have Nots kind of stories:

That’s just 50 miles from the biggest city in the state, and it’s world class medical system. And from another Haves part of the world, just 129 miles to the north:

Several cities were up to host the Space Force, as you might imagine. And Huntsville makes all the sense in the world. You also can’t help but wondering how deeply Mo Brooks has been involved in this lately.

Speaking of Congress, one of the new members.

His replies are something else. It’s one of those times I wish there was a sorting function. I’d like to see what his constituents were saying his stream. You can imagine the rest, and they don’t matter to a junior member of congress anyway Which is why he won’t reply to this, because I’m genuinely curious.

Sometimes I wonder about the value of ignorance as a positive attribute. Anyone working on that foundation always comes with some combination of self-righteousness, historical illiteracy, contempt, and the utter confidence of perpetual adolescence.

One wonders how people ever trafficking in this stuff ever get elected. A former newspaper publisher friend of mine had the best idea about that. Essentially, he said if you beat down an electorate enough over a long period of time, they figure this is the best they can do. This is what they deserve. Ignorant representatives.

It is its own sort of rollercoaster, but with fewer thrills.

cycling / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off on It’s only a day away
11
Jan 21

It’s only a day away

Dreary day. Dreary weekend. Winter is here. We’re low on snow, but that’s just fine. I’m pretty sure it has snowed more, so far, on family in Alabama than it has here. So they’ve had their fill of snow, and maybe we can just go without this year.

Of course, the year when you don’t go much of anywhere, it might be nice to sit and watch it fall and not have to worry too much about it.

I am looking forward to seeing the sun and blue skies, which may return as soon as … tomorrow? Tomorrow! If so it would be the first sunny day since … January 4th. That was the only day that had nice atmospheric conditions this year. That is, in fact, as nice as it has been since the day after Christmas.

If you were here you could have seen a blue sky and the sun for the better part of six hours, since Dec. 26, 2020. In the last 17 days you could have seen the blue sky, or the sun, for 1.4 percent of the time. Which explains a lot, I’m sure.

I think the cats can tell. Phoebe is sleeping a lot more like this lately:

This photo of her hints at some sun, and it was taken on … January the 4th (see above):

Poseidon has lately found a new interest. He is a keen observer of car chases.

That one shows a helicopter pulling away after a pursuit ended when the driver jumped out of his car and ran into Los Angeles’ storm drain system. We can all agree that if part of your night has found you in the storm system, you’ve likely made some unconventional decisions. This, I said as the helicopter moved away to its next assignment before they killed the web feed, is the problem with car chases. Often, you don’t get a resolution. Maybe the next one! Maybe tomorrow!

Take this one, for example. Poe was watching here a guy who worked his way into a Motel 6, where the standoff began. They didn’t stick with that one, either. “It was not immediately clear if the driver was located and arrested,” says the station’s website. Which, if you’re going to write it, stick with it. Maybe the next one! Maybe tomorrow! On the other hand, it’s better than watching a dramatic accident unfold in front of you.

And it’s an influence thing, too. He’s klutzy enough on his own. Let’s not give him ideas.

This evening we went for a walk and saw the pond out back was starting to freeze in layers:

Of course we tested it out:

And after our little walk, which was only about three miles because it was 24 degrees, I pedaled on the bike for an hour.

Got in a nice 20 miles before dinner. That’s the world course from the UCI Championship in 2015, which I’ve mentioned here before. I wonder where I might ride the next time. Maybe tomorrow!

cycling / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on A-ha!
5
Jan 21

A-ha!

This is a lightbulb. I saw it in a bulk mail advertisement and thought I would give them a try. So we got a few for stocking stuffers this year. They are called fireworks lights. They don’t move or make big sounds or change shape or color or anything. They do throw a nice, colorful, half light around the small space of a half bath. So I got a few more and put them in the stairwell. You can still see the stairs, it’s better than a standard yellow light. Now it feels like you are in a movie theater, and so far this week I haven’t stumped a toe. Yet.

Lightbulbs are symbols of brilliant ideas. And so today, having photographed a lightbulb, it seemed important to have an idea.

This evening I did the first stage of something called the Tour de Zwift. I think it’s simply a come-see-the-place kind of gimmick. Ride in many of our venues! Try different styles and distances! That sort of thing. Mostly it’s just a good way to see how slow I am compared to everyone else.

Anyway, the first round of stages are the shorter parts of the Zwift environment. Makes sense. But that’s not long enough for a day’s ride. So after seven quick miles, I figured that was a warmup, and why not do something else.

So I went up.

Which, if you’ll see on the road markings, is the only way. I’ve only had a smart trainer and a Zwift setup for a couple of weeks. And this weekend I went a third of the way up the biggest climb on Zwift, a faithful recreation of Mont Ventoux’s Bedoin ascent, which is universally regarded as one of the more challenging mountain climbs in road cycling.

Which is where I should say a few things. I’m no climber. Also, as noted, I’m slow. And especially so when going uphill. Furthermore, Zwift is fun and probably helpful to the overall cause, but in a few important ways it’s not exactly the same as riding on a road. For the purposes of this discussion, I never feel like I’m about to fall over when slowly trying to go uphill.

So riding up Mount Ventoux wasn’t easy, but most assuredly easier than most assuredly easier than doing it in real life.

Finally, after a long time, because I’m slow, I saw the weather station at the famed summit up close.

It’s just 13 miles up, a little over 22 kilometers, but it’s a long and steady up, up and farther up. These are the average inclines.

KM     Avg gradient        KM     Avg gradient
1     1.9%        12     10.1%
2     2.8%        13     9.2%
3     3.8%        14     9.4%
4     5.8%        15     8.8%
5     5.6%        16     6.9%
6     3.1%        17     6.6%
7     8.6%        18     6.8%
8     9.4%        19     7.4%
9     10.5%        20     8.3%
10     10.1%        21     9.1%
11     9.3%        22     10.0%

It’s not a leg breaking kind of climb, hills shaped like that aren’t especially hard to find. The difference is the distance. And this is definitely cumulative. The distance, the unrelenting nature of the thing, that’s what taxes your muscles. There aren’t many places on the way up where you aren’t asking your legs to pull you up something that isn’t a strain. I spent most of the time in my lowest gears.

Two other things about a trainer ride aren’t quite right. I, of course, stayed at 760 feet above sea level the whole time I was climbing. If I’d gone all the way up to a real-life altitude of 6,263 feet, I would have felt it. Though, to be honest, late in the ride it seemed like the room was thinning out.

What you also don’t experience on Zwift is the wind. Ventoux is a variant of venteux, which means windy in French. They’ve recorded wind speeds as high as 200 miles per hour near the summit. It blows in the upper 50s for two-thirds of the year. And if you get a headwind, good luck. Me, I was dealing with an underpowered ceiling fan.

But I did this. I climbed a digital representation of a legitimate mountain.

On the descent I came back down the giant fast, again feeling nothing like the real world. I’m old enough now to feather the brakes. At about 60 miles per hour Zwift was having trouble rendering some of the graphics during the descent. I just couldn’t wait for those trees to appear, I was ready to be off the bike, cleaned up, have dinner, do the dishes and enjoy some time quality time with the compression boots.

So I can go do it again.

cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Yes, there are cat photos
4
Jan 21

Yes, there are cat photos

It was a lovely little weekend. We ventured out to pick up our regular Chick-fil-A lunch, and the parking lot was almost entirely empty, despite being noon on a Saturday. Everyone was watching bowl games, safely at home, I’m sure. We took ours home to do that very thing, and had a day full of football, and evening chatting with a few friends. It was all delightful.

We spent yesterday afternoon riding bikes indoors. The Yankee and I tooled around Normandy and a flat part of France for a while.

And then I slowly went a third of the way up Mont Ventoux. According to Zwift Insider … :

This GPS-accurate model of the world-famous climb is by far the toughest ascent in game, climbing 1480 meters (4857′) from the beginning to end of the timed KOM segment.

It’s something like a mile of vertical gain! Naturally my non-climbing self is eager to get to the top of one of the storied cycling mountains. I just need to plan my days better. And I’ll need to bring my lunch.

Oh, it’s the Bedoin ascent, one of the hardest in cycling. It’ll take me hours, plural. I’m looking forward to doing the whole thing.

Seeing that it is Monday, we do our regular photo feature checking in on the kitties. They’re doing swell. Phoebe really likes paper bags.

This was once a bag full of bagels. We have a few grocery store paper bags that I can’t bring myself to fold up or re-use because every so often she re-discovers them and they serve as either a complete cave, a cute hidey-hole like above or a nice place just to have a seat and think cat thoughts.

Poseidon had a nice morning in the sun recently.

When he does the early morning chattering thing, and it is always him, it could be that he thinks the sun is ready for him and we should open the curtains. He’s always wrong, and I really wish he would figure out how the tree line is an obstacle to his winter sunbathing.

Phoebe gets her time in the rays, too, of course. But this is more of an afternoon warming session..

And here’s Poseidon, hard at work.

More tomorrow. Until then, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? Phoebe and Poe have an Instagram account. You can keep up with me on Instagram. And don’t forget my Twitter, where most of the nonsense goes.

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