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6
Jan 13

Catching up

The weekly extra photos post! Now with 45 percent more cat.

She’s helping me do a bit of research. You’ll see some of her hard work here in the next few days:

When she saw the preview for the upcoming Star Trek The Yankee asked me if this all constitutes a re-launch. I had to explain the differences, and the curious nature of fandom, where people will accept a Batman relaunch, but the fans — often the same folks — wouldn’t allow that for Trek. So I had to explain how the previous movie altered the timeline, and the speculation about who Benedict Cumberbatch is playing. I explained a bit of Gary Mitchell. I explained the premise behind the Eugenics Wars and Khan. I did not name Ceti Alpha V. I didn’t want her to think I was a nerd who knew all the planet names. (I don’t, really.)

And then I drew this simple chronological history of Trek. You’re welcome:

One logo is larger than the other. And the local affiliate has a bad typo here. Can you find it?

The Chinese is OK, but the fortunes are just so optimistic that I am forced to go back for more!

Every so often I have to go look for the cat. This isn’t hard to do, she’s a creature of very precise habits and schedules, for the most part. This is a complete violation of her suntanning time.

No idea what this is about:

collarbone / cycling / iPhone / photo / site / weekend — Comments Off
5
Jan 13

Return to the saddle once more

Wake up!

Your time of slumber is over, Cateye and Felt. I have many, many miles to start adding back into my routine. And today is the day that slowly starts. Today is my first day on the road since the crash and the subsequent surgery.

Looking back on those helmet photographs in the crash post makes me queasy. Thinking about how that lousy ER wasn’t concerned at all about my head just makes me angry.

Time marches on and now I can pedal on. I have a new tire on my bike, a Gatorskin. Everything is tuned up. I put on a pair of bibs for the first time since June — I’ve been riding the stationary in normal lycra. The bib strap goes right over my collarbone, which I hadn’t even considered, and that was the first thing that came to mind when I pulled on the straps.

Put on a jersey, threw on my new cycling jacket — a lovely Christmas gift this year. Filled the water bottles, put on the bike shoes, noted I was missing a glove and searched that out. Filled the tires with air. Put on my new helmet, which was a gift from my mother not too long after I crashed. Matches my bike almost perfectly and was a great way to inspire. I’ve thought a lot about that new helmet while recovering.

Walked the bike outside. Felt a bit anxious about it. I told The Yankee, right about here:

I don’t normally get too worked up about things, but there are questions. Will I remember how to balance? Can I clip out of the pedals without embarrassing myself? Can I manage to stay upright? What happens the first time I really I have to lean into the handlebars? Will the shifting still make sense? What will I do when I see debris in the road?

That’s what caused the accident, after all.

Turns out, as she said when I clipped in, it is just like riding a bike. So I stood over the frame and smiled and pedaled off to the road behind our house, where I start to warm my legs.

There was a lot of energy in my legs today, but my lungs felt impressively shriveled. That’s OK though. This was just a refresher ride. I have to figure out how it all feels and what I can hold up to. I’m a long way from doing real miles, and that’s sad and —

Ow. My neck is stiff. I’ll blame forgetting the cycling posture. But I did a little warmup ride. I had to climb one little hill. I felt gassed, but not terribly embarrassed should anyone see me. I’ve got a great scar I can use as an excuse and this is just day one.

So a few weeks, I said, of just getting everything back under me. And then I can think about miles and fitness. But I’m riding again.

Riding again.

Auburn / cycling / Friday / iPhone / photo — Comments Off
4
Jan 13

Restaurants, sunsets and the bike shop

We had lunch at Chick-fil-A, which was thoroughly uneventful. We were there because another place in town, where we have tried to visit now on consecutive days, was closed.

Big Blue Bagel, downtown, had a message on their white board yesterday. “Closed for the holidays.” It noted they would re-open on Jan. 3rd. Which was yesterday. I checked. But they were closed.

That’s one way to run a business.

So we visited for lunch today. Closed. The white board had a breakfast special, so someone had been there. Now the place was locked up tight.

There are no hours on the door. No hours on the website. That’s one way to run a business. One of the review sites says they are open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Maybe they are not open in between.

Oh look, they are for sale. And use frames! That’s one way to run a website.

So Big Blue Bagel has now officially broken Smith’s First Law: Don’t make it hard for me to spend my money with you.

I was on the fence about the entire thing, but then I read the reviews on the review sites. They get fairly well panned, which strikes me as a bit difficult to do in a college town. C’est la bagel.

Visited the library. Did library things. Got ran out of the library, because they close the library at 5 p.m. “You don’t need learnin’ that bad, boy.”

That’s OK. We walked out to see this:

We have some of the best sunsets in the world here. I’m biased, I’m sure, but I realized that in undergrad and I haven’t been any place that consistently shows off enough to change my mind since then. Tonight’s wasn’t even trying hard, and I couldn’t get into position for the big finale fast enough, but the sky is just gorgeous.

Orange and blue and all that. Pollutants hanging over Montgomery 50 miles to the west help too.

Picked up my bike. Everyone was in the shop this evening. My derailleurs have been adjusted. Almost everything works again. I can fix the last little bit myself, because I know how to Google this part.

If you know the right nomenclature you can fix most anything yourself these days. If you have the proper tools.

Spoke with the owner about the proper tools. Bicycle maintenance has an improbable amount of specialty equipment — turns out you can’t make every change with a crescent wrench — for most of us this is daunting and unrealistic. I expressed my interest in knowing more.

I’d like to appreciate the art of maintenance a bit. And are there classes for this sort of thing? I don’t want to be a guy who tears down the bike and greases the ball bearings, but I also don’t want to be the guy in the shop every two months with the next thing I should be able to do on my own. It seems counter-intuitive, I know, like that’s asking you to take money out of your pocket, but …

There are classes. He told me about a great one in Colorado, if I’m ever out that way. And he said he’d be happy to teach me more. Make a list of things you’d like to know, he said. We can haggle over rates for a private lesson, he said, using the modules this class in Colorado uses. It wouldn’t be just turning a wrench. This was an important point he wanted to make. This won’t just be “turn wrench here” stuff.

After all these years in school a few hours learning about spoke tension doesn’t bother me too much.

Now I just need to make a list of things I’d like to learn. And ride.

That’s tomorrow.

collarbone / cycling / iPhone / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
2
Jan 13

I actually thought about making a montage

I opened a box that was delivered sometime in September. Inside was a new Gatorskin for my bicycle. So I flipped the frame, pulled on the rear quick release, spun the tire out of the chain and dug for a tire lever.

I have red tire levers, and they get a bit grimy because everything about my bike seems to get dirty. There’s a smear of grease on the hook that got there who knows how. There are nice deep grooves in the plastic at the hook from sliding around the frame, pulling the bead and freeing the tube.

I did all of that today, too. I took out this massive looking Gatorskin and wrapped it around the back wheel. That wheel has been sporting a trainer tire — which has no tread and is designed to spin on a silver drum — since my big crash. Since it is time to ride again the trainer came off. The new Gatorskin, designed to defeat pebbles and glass and things, went on.

I haven’t changed a tire in months, but it comes back to you. Just like, well, you know.

So I put the tube in the tire and mount it all to the wheel. Pick up the chain, set the wheel into the forkend, wedge it through the brakes and double check the chain. All of this felt like a bad sports montage in a Disney movie, the kind where the character is on the way to a significant personal achievement.

Spin the wheel and we’re one step closer to riding again.

Spin the wheel and notice an unusual noise.

After a bit I notice the chain is rubbing on the derailleur. This is peculiar. More work, examining other derailleurs in the house, a furrowing of the brow. Some online research, which was unusually unhelpful. A big, long sigh.

I have to go to the local bike shop, where we can all laugh at my simple questions. Load up the car, drive over there:

Of course.

Cycling insists on teaching me patience.

family / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
1
Jan 13

Happy New Year

I used this picture on the site at my birthday two years ago. That’s me, just learning to walk. My mother, showing me my first snowfall. This is at my grandmother’s place, or across the street from it. It all looks different now, but the farther away it gets the more I like this picture.

And it seems fitting with that whole new year, new baby iconography.

But, really, I’m using that picture today for this: My mother wrote me a nice note in my most recent birthday card. Just good mother stuff. Part of it also works for the new year. So, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to share some of that wisdom as this new year begins:

Life is an adventure. Adventures are not big because of cost or location or activity. They are big only if you put your full heart and soul into them. They are only as small as a small mind, or as big as you dare to make them.

Dream big, reach high, laugh at everything you can and — above all — take God with you and you will make memories to last a lifetime.

Happy New Year.