{"id":573892944,"date":"2021-01-13T17:58:50","date_gmt":"2021-01-13T22:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573892944"},"modified":"2021-01-15T19:40:31","modified_gmt":"2021-01-16T00:40:31","slug":"achterbahn-is-german-for-rollercoaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2021\/01\/13\/achterbahn-is-german-for-rollercoaster\/","title":{"rendered":"Achterbahn is German for rollercoaster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Meetings this morning. Bike ride this evening. Odd bookends for the day, really. <\/p>\n<p>We tried Innsbruck, on Zwift today. I hadn&#8217;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&#8217;s called Achterbahn. And I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ve ever ridden a German rollercoaster, but you have to admit: now that we&#8217;re here talking about it, you&#8217;re curious. <\/p>\n<p>This climb averages out as a 5.4 percent incline. It gains 1,311 up to the top. It&#8217;s steady. You just put your head down and grind it out. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/segments\/18397965\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">It looks like this<\/a>. And the larger route I rode today looks like this:<\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/photo\/jan21\/graphic07.jpg\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>I am, predictably, slow, going up this hill. Delightfully slow. I touched 58 miles per hour on the descent though. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;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&#8217;t have to ride through snow drifts. Also, I can&#8217;t ride off any cliffs. When the month is done I may have more January miles in the saddle than I&#8217;ve ever recorded for the first month of a year. Wouldn&#8217;t that be something? <\/p>\n<p><center><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/blog\/banners\/bannersouth.jpg\"><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Some things going on back home. This is one of those Have Nots kind of stories:<\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Alabama started shipping vaccine doses to county health departments, but not to Coosa County, population 10,663. <\/p>\n<p>It&#39;s &quot;one of eight counties in Alabama without a hospital and the only one without a public health department.&quot;<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1dheNstlt5\">https:\/\/t.co\/1dheNstlt5<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/RuralHealth?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#RuralHealth<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Kenny Smith (@kennysmith) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kennysmith\/status\/1349392168125923337?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 13, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/center><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s just 50 miles from the biggest city in the state, and it&#8217;s world class medical system. And from another Haves part of the world, just 129 miles to the north: <\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&#39;Rocket City&#39; Picked as Home of New Space Command Headquarters <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/LkO5PCARIk\">https:\/\/t.co\/LkO5PCARIk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Oriana Pawlyk (@Oriana0214) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Oriana0214\/status\/1349434438451650560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 13, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/center><\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;t help but wondering how deeply Mo Brooks has been involved in this lately. <\/p>\n<p>Speaking of Congress, one of the new members. <\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Before President Trump, there were only 2 impeachments in our nation\u2019s history: Andrew Johnson &amp; Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Democrats have cheapened the process by impeaching President Trump TWICE &#8211; with 7 days left &#8211; setting a dangerous precedent for future proceedings. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/stnSqt8Mz2\">pic.twitter.com\/stnSqt8Mz2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Rep. Barry Moore (@RepBarryMoore) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RepBarryMoore\/status\/1349472796116725771?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 13, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/center><\/p>\n<p>His replies are something else. It&#8217;s one of those times I wish there was a sorting function. I&#8217;d like to see what his constituents were saying his stream. You can imagine the rest, and they don&#8217;t matter to a junior member of congress anyway Which is why he won&#8217;t reply to this, because I&#8217;m genuinely curious. <\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Rep. Barry Moore, admitting his ignorance of American history, kicks off his time in Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Two terms in Montgomery, national guard, businessman, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AuburnAg?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@AuburnAg<\/a> grad* &#8230; did you really not know this basic bit of information, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RepBarryMoore?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@RepBarryMoore<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>*Same.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Kenny Smith (@kennysmith) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kennysmith\/status\/1349451105638428673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 13, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/center><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>It is its own sort of rollercoaster, but with fewer thrills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meetings this morning. Bike ride this evening. Odd bookends for the day, really. We tried Innsbruck, on Zwift today. I hadn&#8217;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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,31,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573892944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-twitter","category-wednesday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573892944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573892944"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573892944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573892948,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573892944\/revisions\/573892948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573892944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573892944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573892944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}