cycling

cycling / Friday / photo — Comments Off on More little things
19
Jun 20

More little things

Today’s bike ride was all about hill repeats. We would go out to one of the lakes and find a great big hill and go up and down it a few minutes at a time. This particular torture apparently makes me a better climber. as I am not a climber and still no better at it, clearly I’m doing something wrong. There are many reasons, I understand them all.

Anyway, being a sunny and warm Friday, we decided to avoid the lakes because there are often boats pushing trucks toward them. We went on campus instead, which was delightfully quiet.

So quiet, in fact that we saw a guy spraying a bit of herbicide on one of our trips up this great big hill we found. He stood out because he was there, I guess. How often do you note a guy just doing his job? Someone else did, too. On my next trip up the hill two police cars rolled up, and then a third cruiser. On the next trip a fourth cruiser was out front of the building. They took his ID, talked to him under a shade tree. He’d shed the high pressure sprayer that was on his back. And the conversation, whatever it was, took forever. For my next eight or nine trips up the hill they stood there chatting.

Eventually the fourth and the third cruisers melted away, and some time after that the first two officers that rolled up moved on as well, leaving the guy to pack his stuff up and go about his day.

The worst part of it all is that just after the police left we were done with our hill repeats. So the poor guy probably thinks the two people who were riding up and down the hill, up and down the hill, up and down the hill, were the ones that called in the four cops on him. We were not. I am not one to think a guy with a high pressure sprayer on his back and obviously tending to weeds is a bad person. But, then again, I have a long record of being pro-landscaping.

Pictures of small things time. I picked up these crinoids a few days ago down by the lake while The Yankee swam. For this installment I remembered two important steps in light box photography.

It’s been a while since I’ve done this, you see, so the tricks are coming back one by one. I don’t know all the best techniques because I’ve only dabbled in this style of photography. Probably on the next batch or two I will peak. Maybe, on the next batch, I’ll remember to focus!

Anyway, there are around 600 crinoid species left in the world, but a few hundred million years ago there were many more sorts of these little creatures. Limestone beds are good places to find these fossilized fragments.

I’m using three lamps and a translucent storage box for this and I suppose it’s coming along nicely for a project that has cost me no money and doesn’t have to be perfectly perfect. But wouldn’t it be nicer if it was?

Well, there’s always next week for that. For now, it’s time for the weekend.

cycling / memories / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Here’s a question
15
Jun 20

Here’s a question

Well, hello there, and welcome to the new week. Do we still mark those as units of time? Should we? I say we just stick with days and years, and every other Mondays. Vote for me, 2020, because I’m going to cut the number of Mondays in half. And if you vote for me twice I’ll have the mandate necessary to double your Fridays.

You’ve seen flimsier campaign platforms.

Anyway, so we’re on a Monday, and this is when we check in with the kitties. They’re doing great. Phoebe has become a big fan of climbing into this blanket for her evening naps.

Poseidon … well, he’s had a lot to say recently.

He’s always chattering on about something or other.

We went for a bike ride today, a simple little 19-miler to start the week. It was over familiar roads, and on one road I’ve only been on once before, last fall. There was a little spot on that road last autumn that was all but perfect. The leaf turn was just right. The sun was at a good angle. The leaves on the ground were brushed away in a pleasant display.

I was shooting video that day, a fine choice for the perfect peak day of fall riding. I tried that road that day simply as a curiosity. For three years it had been a fork to the right, always seen, never imagined. But the road sign there makes no sense for the area, so it became important to try the road. And that’s how it ought to work. New roads should be discovered by experience, not by maps.

A screen capture of the video became a photo for the top banner of the blog. Perhaps you’ve seen it on the site before. It looks like this:

Today it looked a lot like that, too, but much, much greener. A woman at the house closest to that spot was working in her yard, and a little boy was playing in the garden. It all seemed almost as perfect, so that road is two-for-two.

I don’t have video of it, because the little hill was hurting me today, which is also perfect. I’m sure I’ll be back on that road, though, and I’ll get another shot to show it’s greener state. The only question is, do you take the special right and make it routine? Or do you leave it rightly special?

Something to think about over the next few rides, for sure.

cycling / Friday / memories / video — Comments Off on Beware hyphenated beverages, and television tropes
12
Jun 20

Beware hyphenated beverages, and television tropes

After the meetings were done and the work completed, it was time for a bike ride. We took the usual Friday route, and today that meant about 42 miles. I rode it very fast, which means decidedly average.

After the second stop sign I caught a break in traffic and decided to see how long I could stay out front. So I looked over my shoulder for the next 36 miles. But my shoulder and my wheel stayed clean.

I knew if “I make it to there, I can stay out front until … ” and then I did, which meant I had to keep reshaping those observations. “OK, if I can make it to the climb … ” and then I did, so I did that four or five times and I found myself shooting for the place where she caught me last week. At which point she was well back and I thought I might stay out front the entire way, if traffic would cooperate. So then I had to ride harder to be sure. And that’s how I stayed out front the entire way, which never happens. Turns out my legs felt tired, but it was a pretty good ride. And The Yankee didn’t have her best ride. That’s what it takes to stay ahead of her. (She’s very fast.)

Sometimes, you can say it all in 280 characters.

But why stop with one 280-character style tweet when you own a domain where you can throw another 1,450 characters and 322 more words on it?

They made a movie based on the television show a few years ago. I understand it was very bad. I listened to some people complaining about that, another part of their childhood ruined, basically, before saying “It isn’t like the show was high art … ” and everyone had to agree.

I call it the Yoo-hoo phenomenon. You remember that drink. It was so good.

It isn’t good at all.

This used to be the Chocolate Soldier phenomenon, but that drink disappeared before the turn of the century — and not a single soul outside the creation of the product noticed — but Yoo-hoo, somehow, survives.

Point is, things that you thought were great when you were a kid are probably not good at all. And after you get over watching GTOs jump over every ravine that doesn’t exist in south Georgia, and realizing that it always seems to be infrastructure week in Hazzard County, there’s not a lot to the show.

I’d like to see the Amazon metrics, is what I’m saying. How many people are streaming that show, at this point? It is, I would imagine, a vanishingly small number. Also, it’s disappeared before, only to quietly return, so what do I know? What does this Time author of 2015 who decided to re-watch the pilot episode know? (Update: A week later, it’s still there, but a bit harder to find. And you can still by t-shirts or fake rustic tin sizes featuring the car. There are also 66 purchase options for Yoo-hoo.)

In more ways than one, The Dukes of Hazzard are a chocolate-flavored drink. It’s not milk; it’s barely a chocolate. People that endured the Dukes because the kids loved it could have said the same thing, then. And who among all of us are streaming shows like that now?

Go try that Yoo-hoo. Next time you’re out, pick one up, buy it, shake it, slam it. You’ll see.

cycling / Friday / photo / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Wrapping up this week
5
Jun 20

Wrapping up this week

There are a few Eastern Tiger Swallowtails (Papilio glaucus) down at the lake. I’ve seen them flying around and play-fighting a few times. Photographing butterflies is easy with a proper camera. If you’re using your phone you have to be first, sneaky, and, then, lucky. And I was almost one of those two things today:

That was while The Yankee was getting in her laps, though one doesn’t really do laps in a lake. She’s doing concentric shapes, and always improving the open-water swim. It’s the opportunity found in all of the pool closings. Plus, butterflies.

And, now, some scenes from today’s bike ride.

It was a light week, so we only rode two hours today. That is a thing you say, sometimes. It is one part posturing. “Yep. Light day, just two hours.” It is also one part something you can be incredulous about: “I’m not even training for anything and this was a light day and it was two hours.” Or you could be incredulous in another way, as I was: “It took me how long to go that far?”

Anyway, today’s route was a simplification of the recent Friday regular. We just went out a ways and then turned around and retraced the route. Instead of making the big circle, or having the one proper climb in it, we went close to the lake. All of the fun, without the refreshing water views or the dreadful climb after.

It was good, then it wasn’t. Then it was all over the place, which is what usually happens with my rides, so it was good. Except for the parts that aren’t.

I went through one little slice of town and set out for more rural communities and pedaled 55 minutes in one direction, at which point I turned around, figuring that’d the reverse course would set me up at one hour and 50 minutes, which was, I think, the goal, and my understanding of math. And the math worked out, perfectly, before I added an extra mile or so at the end to put a unique finish on a regular route.

Now we just have to find some long flat routes around here. (We won’t.)

Much more on Twitter today, like …

Be sure to check me out on Instagram and listen to the On Topic with IU podcasts, as well. And have a great weekend!

cycling / Friday / photo — Comments Off on Brief notes about a now regular route
29
May 20

Brief notes about a now regular route

At the end of the workday, at the end of the workweek, it was time for a bike ride. And, on Fridays, we ride a bit longer. This involves leaving the usual route through the adjoining neighborhoods and then turning left, instead of going straight.

Going left meant different rollers, and two or three cycles through the same red light, cars parked in the bike lane and a small handful of other indignities to a good ride in the first four miles. After that, though, it moved along nicely.

The next 45 minutes were all on the same road, so you settle in and duck the wind and try your best. We’ve done this route the last three weeks in a row and if you do such a thing often enough you begin to have an understanding of what you can do over such roads. Sometimes you do your best, which is great! And sometimes your legs and your mind and your bicycle have formed an unconscious understanding of what your best can be and you do even better, which is great! And sometimes it just isn’t in you and you underperform. Which is, you know, just great.

Anyway, you do your best until you pass through two little communities and over the county line where you can enjoy a short and steep downhill. After that you turn left and run along a causeway over a lake for three miles or so. And it was somewhere in there that I set a New Personal Best Top Speed of 49.1 miles per hour.

And, boy, are my jokes tired.

Right after that, the road goes up and away from the lake and there’s one stiff hill you have to get over. Eventually, you take a few turns and you’re back on that first long road and headed back toward where you started. It let me breakaway from The Yankee for about 20 miles before she caught me in traffic.

And soon, at around mile 30, we caught up to these nice people:

I’ve read about people on bike tours using pool noodles. And now I have seen a family do it. That one guy is hauling two kids on a pull-along, and they all count as cyclists. After we did a big circle we saw them again from the other direction. They waved and said hello and we waved and said hello and I hope they were having a fine a time on their bikes as we were having.

Got to the house at precisely the right time:

And began to think I should start adding some serious miles back into my routine. Some how. Some when.

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