cycling / memories / photo / Thursday / video — Comments Off on Tour update: Hors catégorie means beyond cat-egorization
14
Jul 22

Tour update: Hors catégorie means beyond cat-egorization

Poseidon is now very interested in this year’s Tour de France.

It seems Poseidon needs Tadej Pogačar, seen here in the white jersey, to be chasing the overall lead. Pogačar is the two-time defending champion, but yesterday he lost control of this year’s tour in some incredible bike racing. It’s difficult to encapsulate exactly what transpired across the French countryside in a four-minute clip, but here are a few highlights from the now legendary Col du Granon, a hors catégorie, seven-mile climb that goes up 3,474 feet, topping out at almost 8,000 feet above sea level.

The can-do-no-wrong wunderkind was finally hurt yesterday. All those attacks by the Jumbo-Visma super team paid off. It wasn’t quite tectonic, but close enough in road cycling. It took two-and-a-half years for the best riders in the world to exploit a weakness in Pogačar, meaning this was something really special.

That further means that, today, the final day in the Alps, the defending champion had to start chasing. In the photo above Pogačar was attacking his main foe, and current yellow-jersey wearer, Jonas Vingegaard, on Alpe d’Huez.

He could not pull any time back on the Danish Macaulay Culkin lookalike. It is a two-minute and 26-second race at the moment. This has our cat’s attention.

But this is not a new thing for Poseidon. Here he is last year, taking in the first stage of the 2021 Tour.

Maybe he hears the word peloton and thinks he’s going to get pets. Maybe the word bidon is too similar to Poseidon. Perhaps, because of his aggressive nature, he misunderstands the use of the word attack. Or it could be that the best joke is the one from the headline. Maybe he’s hors catégorie.

adventures / cycling / video / Wednesday — Comments Off on Nat sound included
13
Jul 22

Nat sound included

The Yankee asked me to shoot a video of her on our bike ride this evening. So that took precedence of my other video plans. She was making a video and needed some B-roll, but she gave me carte blanche. So I settled on a clip of her going by me. Which means I had to be in front of her. And I decided, for some poorly oxygenated reason, to do this in a place where I’ve never taken any footage of her before.

Which means I had to stay ahead. And then I had to wait for her to come by.

But this is the sound I hear when she goes by.

I did set a PR on one Strava segment, though, and spent the entire rest of the ride, from that moment, trying to catch back up to her. Finally I did, but only on our street.

cycling / Instagram / photo / Tuesday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Two points
12
Jul 22

Two points

I photo my thumb accidentally took while idly fiddling with my phone and watching the news and waiting for The Next Thing of the Day.

Two points if you can figure that out. I know what it is, but I’ll be impressed if anyone here can take two points off of my hands.

The Next Thing of the Day proved easy and uneventful. Started on time, ended on time, everything in the middle was assuredly a smash hit. A Tuesday to be remembered! If you could make the normal Tuesday stand out somehow or another.

Two points if you can figure that out, too.

In my idle chatter I mentioned I had a tube going on my bike. I took it off and found just the tiniest little hole seeping air. I was tempted to slap some super glue on it and experiment, but, in another sign of my own maturity and wisdom, decided this was not a profitable experiment.

You can wrap a tube in a dollar bill to finish a ride in a pinch. (Two points if you get it right on the first try!) But I was already at the house, and not in that pinch. If you’re lucky, though, the currency can hold up for weeks. I can also buy another inner tube and just be done with it. We have a small stack for just such an occasion. I went to the room where we keep stacks of things and found that we have one spare inner tube.

This does not a stack make.

Opened the little box, pulled out the tube, prepared it for installation and …

So I had to put my spare on my back wheel. The spare is the one you carry with you, not the one from the room where we keep stacks of things. That means I don’t have a spare to carry on the bike. So tomorrow’s ride will feature a new back tire, and one with a tiny pinhole on the wall. I should throw a dollar bill in there, too. Juuuust in case.

I always carry a few bucks on the bike. (Two points to me for being prepared.) You never know when a ride goes farther, or takes longer, and you want to stop at a store for water or extra fuel. And, also, for emergency tire patching.

One last point. They’re in the Alps in the Tour.

Click through that mini-thread and you get four little photos that the world feed used as cutaway shots.

The Alps get more intriguing all of the time.

adventures / cycling / Monday / photo — Comments Off on Of bikes and bees and bushes and cats and things
11
Jul 22

Of bikes and bees and bushes and cats and things

A quick shot from our Saturday bike ride. This is on the part where we go around a sharp right curve that’s almost a turn. It’s an uphill that’s almost a downhill, or a downhill that is an uphill, I can never decide. The part just before this you can really hammer it. And within just a few feet from here you’re in the Bermuda Triangle of gear selection. It never makes sense.

Immediately after that, though, there’s a left hand turn and she takes off. It’s a three-mile stretch that suits her strong, powerful style. I slowed down, too, because my rear tire was starting to feel a bit spongey and there’s a big downhill ahead that ends at a stop sign. I wanted to be conservative there.

But then you turn left and eventually it turns into a one-mile uphill.

There was another cyclist up ahead. We caught him. I jokingly cautioned him against letting me slow him down when he passed me on the bigger part of the climb. I heard The Yankee giggling at that as I went by her. And then he passed me.

But I caught him again. And then I got stung by some sort of flying insect, just above the knee. It only hurt when I pedaled, which I had to do for another 10 miles or so.

All of it was fun, except for the bee sting.

But I don’t want you to think that all of life is fun and musical and amazing. Today’s big adventure was trimming back a huge shrub in the back yard. It was long overdue.

And now back to your regularly scheduled cat update. No bush chores for them, but they had a big week nevertheless.

Here’s Phoebe enjoying her Sunday evening nap.

We’ve recently moved some furniture around and she has had no problem adjusting to that, as you can tell.

Poseidon is living up to his name, looking for a shower this morning.

I tremble in fear at what he might want tomorrow.

That’s it for now. Please check out my Twitter for more. And you can also see the (still-running!) series of videos I’m uploading daily from our Cozumel dive trip, over on Instagram, too. Speaking of Instagram and cats, did you know that Phoebe and Poseidon have an Instagram account? They do. Check them out.

More tomorrow!

adventures / Friday / music / video — Comments Off on Handle Me With Care
08
Jul 22

Handle Me With Care

I’ve been sharing video this week from the Toad the Wet Sprocket, Gin Blossoms, Barenaked Ladies show we saw last Friday night. As I mentioned here, this is making up for a 2020 show. We bought these tickets in 2019. It was supposed to happen again in 2021, but, finally, here wer were last Friday.

I’d never seen Toad the Wet Sprocket, somehow, but always wanted to. Gin Blossoms I hadn’t seen since college. BNL we saw in 2018, and last week was the fourth or fifth time I’ve seen them.

And then they came out for a one-song encore, an ensemble of all three bands, Something of a supergroup covering The Supergroup. There are 18 platinum, nine gold and one diamond records and something like 30 million total sales and 20 top 10 singles between them. I bet the Wilbury step-brothers would approve of this.

It came as a surprise to me how much I enjoyed that, how happy that song would sound, how happy it’d make me feel.

We left the venue saying it was a great show, saying it was all worth the wait.

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