Friday Writings for Randos - In the days of growing darkness

{A weekly that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's. . . 

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness
by Mary Oliver

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

A gift idea - Ride 2

Tis the season (to read a really good book)

Keith Snyder is a Randonneur and a writer (the published kind). He has just published a collection of short fiction called Ride 2. The contributors include award winning authors and some never before published voices. It's rare that I recommend a particular product but if you like good writing then I really recommend this. The stories (and a few poems) all involve bicycles, but, like life, the bicycles are not the whole story and sometimes, not even a major part of the story. The submissions cover a range of topics, moods and ideas. Each piece is its own experience and memorable for its own reasons, kind of like a good bike ride. And you can enjoy it for less than the price of two cups of fancy coffee. It's a small investment for a big return.

I am not a book reviewer so if you want a more detailed review here are two:

Here's one review:

And another review 

Get it for yourself or for a friend or both. You won't regret it. 

 P.S. if you have a computer you can get Kindle service with a free download. Just go to Amazon and download it.

Friday Writings for Randos - Uphill

{A weekly that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's. . .  

Up-Hill 

By Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

The Jersey Devil in December.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Sunday was a good day to lounge around in a robe and warm slippers, curled up on the couch with a cup of coffee, a hard crossword puzzle and a sharp number 2 pencil with a good eraser. Instead, at 6:00 am, in the lingering night that makes a December morning, I was driving through fog, interspersed with rain, to meet three Randonneurs in Vineland, New Jersey and ride a 201 kilometer route through five south Jersey Pineland counties. 

Friday Writings for Randos - Re-learned lesson

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from:

Schuylkill to Susquehanna Permanent (1/16/2010)

 By Don Jagel*

  
Riding along River Road, at about 60 miles into the ride, I was really starting to pay for my early effort. My butt was dragging.  Arriving at the Subway Restaurant (Control 3) in Columbia, we stopped for lunch.  By this time the temperature was well into the 40's, and close to 50.  Wow, that is the way January weather should be.  After lunch we started the uphill ride out of Columbia. My fatigued legs didn't like the idea of spinning again, especially after sitting for awhile during lunch. Rick patiently waited for me on the uphills and tried to hold himself back on the flats so he wouldn't leave me too far behind.

Riding across America

Typically, I save the links to other people's writings for Fridays. But I've been enjoying Chris Nadovich's account of his 2009 bike ride across America. He wrote it en route. It's honest, direct, plain spoken, and funny in an understated way. I don't know how many people have read it so far, but more people should. It rings true, possible and audacious all at once and that makes it all the more inspirational. I left the best parts back at the source, but here's a small sample. . .

Friday writings for Randos - Call me Ishmael

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from:

Moby Dick

by Herman Melville

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago- never mind how long precisely- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. 

Friday Writings for Randos - What We'd Come For

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from:

Somebody Else's Rum

by Mark Jenkins

"Mark, you feel it?" In the firelight, John's eye's gleamed like a wolf's.

Friday Writings for Randos - You don't have to be perfect.

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from:

Bike for Life

(from an interview with Rich White)

By Roy Wallack & Bill Katovsky

Don't judge yourself by the mirror. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be fit enough to do the things that you want to do. That's the most important thing.

coffeeneuring dates - Trip 7

November 11, 2012

Flatbread 200K, sweet and scenic

The DC Randonneurs Flatbread 200K is a flat course that twice crosses the northern end of the Delmarva Peninsula by first going east from Centreville, Maryland, near the Chesapeake Bay, to Slaughter Beach, Delaware, on the Delaware Bay then making a short trip south to Milton, Delaware before heading west back to Centreville.

I rode this course for the first time last year. Then, the incessant wind made for a memorable experience. Despite that, one year later, I decided to give it another go. As the weekend drew near, I realized that I had missed a few highlights of the route the last go around. I vowed to not let that happen again.

Friday Writings for Randos - The Journey

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's. . .  

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
 

Coffeeneuring dates - Trips 5 and 6

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Friday Writings for Randos - Ode to My Socks

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's ...

Ode to My Socks

by  Pablo Neruda

Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted
with her own sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.

Coffeeneuring dates - Trip 4

October 27, 2012

Friday writings for Randos - The Life of a Day

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's . . .  

 The Life of a Day

by Tom Hennen

Like people or dogs, each day is unique and has its own personality quirks which can easily be seen if you look closely. But there are so few days as compared to people, not to mention dogs, that it would be surprising if a day were not a hundred times more interesting than most people. 

Coffeeneuring dates - Trip 3

October 20, 2012

 

Friday Writings for Randos - Wild Geese

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's . . . 

  Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

October 200k in Central Jersey (or what wouldn't I do for a hot cup of coffee.)

I guess I could blame the RBA.

Just before the start of the NJ Rando's October 200k, the "Ron Anderson Special", she explained the alternate procedures for the final controle:

If you finish before 5 pm, the coffee shop will be open and there will be a sign in sheet and envelope inside.

If you finish after 5 pm, you will have to drop your brevet card in the window of a parked car. (No coffee, no baked goods.)

The ride would start at 7:30 am. I took off my gloves and did the math - 9.5 hours to get in before 5 pm. Before arriving at the start, I was convinced that I would ride a relaxed pace - just enough to check the October R-12 box and get in before dark. I even brought the fixie to discourage any thoughts of a hard paced ride. But, hmmm, I have ridden a 200k on the fixie faster than 9:30 - just once - last year - when my friend Joe pulled me around the course. Joe wasn't riding today. Then Katie really put the carrot on the end of the stick - she said it was a fast course. And then we were off. 

Guess what happens when you give a group of Randoneurs - people who ride long rides to beat essentially arbitrary time constraints - a time constraint that involves possible coffee and baked goods at the end of a ride? 

Coffeeneuring dates - Trip 2

October 13, 2012,

On a day filled with kids' activities, the sun is about to set before we can get away for a short ride and a hot beverage. 

A local Dunkin' Donuts will have to do. 

Friday Writings for Randos - Where the coureurs are Kings

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from:

Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Suffering 

Paris-Brest-Paris 2007 

by Paul Jurbala

Now I am riding on my own ribbon of granite. I pass a boy at roadside handing up cookies, and I snag one as I go by.

Ambieres, Lassay-les-Chateaux…the sun is getting low now. Through Le Ribay there is climbing but then in the direction of Loupfougeres the road flattens out again. It’s quite pleasant now, and I am alone with the coming dusk and my strange inability to look more than a few metres down the road. I imagine myself out on a club ride at home, explaining my day: “Well, I got up early and went out for an 85 k ride. And that was fine, so then I did another 55 k ride. So I had something to eat, then I went out for another 85 or so after lunch…and when I’m finished that one, I’ll, you know, have dinner or something, then I think I’ll go for another 85 k. That should do it for today I think.” Really makes it sound like something, four “normal” rides on one day; far more impressive, or crazy-sounding, than the simple statement “I did three hundred and ten kilometers on Thursday.” And three hundred and thirty on Wednesday, and four hundred and fifty back on Tuesday, and I’m capping it off with a short one hundred and forty- just a doddle really- on Friday…

Coffeeneuring dates -Trip One

Saturday October 6, 2012

Keswick Coffee House

My wife and I went coffeeneuring 
I had a chocolate and honey latte
She had an iced coffee
The customer in the tie dye shirt had an argument with herself.

 6.6 miles round trip

Friday Writings for Randos - Descent

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's an excerpt from:

Descent

By Keith Snyder*

Boy, do I love descending.

Grabbing a tiger by the tail

The arguing voices grew more heated. One voice pleading just let go and slow down. The other screamed quit bitching and hang on. The simmering argument reached a boil. Sad part is, both voices were in my head. With the voices as a backdrop, I ride on.

Rando Joe, AKA Mellow Yellow, leads our group of four on a fast ride of the 128 mile Princeton-Belmar-Princeton Permanent in New Jersey. Fresh off his recent record setting ride in which he soloed his fixed gear bike across the width of New Jersey, Joe rides a constant, unrelenting, pace. Joe likes to lead. He volunteered to pull our group around the course. We agreed. So the three of us do an informal paceline rotation in his draft.

Friday Writings for Randos - "Of Two Wheelers and One Lesson"

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from:

A Man Called Daddy

by Hugh O'Neill

Josh was just six years old. We were at the park, late on one of those golden, New York October afternoons. Strangers were playing basketball together. Tape players dueled – salsa and Debussy – as old men played chess in the falling light. And in one corner of the sweet tumult, Josh and I were going one-on-one with a two-wheeler. The training wheels had been taken off. A rite of passage was in the air.

Friday Writings for Randos - Bicycles

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's . . . 

 Bicycles

by Nikki Giovanni

Midnight poems are bicycles
Taking us on safer journeys
Than jets
Quicker journeys
Than walking
But never as beautiful
A journey
As my back
Touching you under the quilt

Midnight poems
Sing a sweet song
Saying everything
Is all right

Lessons learned

Okay. The Taste of Carolina 1200k, my "next big thing" is done. I did it - barely. I was the "lanterne rouge" - the final finisher - rolling in bandaged but unbroken, tired but triumphant, on a course that was difficult but surmountable. But I did it.

I learned a few things in the process. Some of those things seem obvious now, in hindsight, but I missed them the first time around. I don't want to miss them again. (Oh yes, I am already looking at the calendar and considering what will be the next big thing. What can I say; this sport has epic physical challenges, adventure, uncertainty, stunning visuals, a really cool cast of characters and makes for a memorable story -I'm hooked.)

Friday Writings for Randos - Who's with me?

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from: 

MOMENTUM IS YOUR FRIEND 

by Joe Kurmaskie

Climbing a healthy series of switchbacks through the chill of a Colorado dawn, I don't feel tired, I don't feel the miles I pedaled yesterday or the weight I'm carrying now. Pockets of warm air hug the corners of the road. I spot wildflowers, rebels against the altitude, clinging to washes as I clear the treeline. When I look over my shoulder there's another cyclist, some industrious insomniac out for an early morning ride. He's determined to catch me before the top but it doesn't happen. We rest beside a sign marking Cottonwood pass, at more than 12,000 feet above sea level.

Friday Writings for Randos - Why do you go away?

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's a quote from:

 A Hat Full of Sky
by Terry Pratchett

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. 

***************************************************************************************

Special Bonus feature: A three part "movie" of the Taste of Carolina 1200K

My Taste of Carolina 1200K

I text a message to Facebook - 

29 August - Soon it begins.

If this is Randonneuring then there must be an early start. Since the ride started at 4:00, I set multiples alarms for 3:00 and arranged for a wake up call at the same time. Then I woke up at 2:00 and, after staring at the ceiling for a while, turned off the alarms and canceled the call before they woke up my wife and kids.

They came with me for the trip. We planned to meet up at a couple of the sleep controls. The risk was that their being at the sleep controls would mean that I had a ride in place if for some reason I couldn't continue. Having an easy way out of a tough situation is not always a good thing.

Friday writings for Randos - Adventure

 {Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's an quote from:

Andre Gide 

“It is only in adventure that some people succeed in knowing themselves - in finding themselves.”

The next big thing

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful,
we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those who have been following this meandering blog may recall that I have been training for an event that I have referred to as "the next big thing." This entry is about that thing.

Friday writings for Randos - As if seeing the world for the first time.

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's an excerpt from:

SIDDHARTHA

BY Herman Hesse

"I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha."

NJ Transit 200K Permanent - Moving toward isness.

(Sunday August 19, 2012-  Hillsborough, New Jersey)

The next big thing, my goal ride for this summer of training, is less than two weeks away (more on that later). To get in one more 200k, both as part of a taper and as a “safety” to keep my R12 streak alive, I rode the NJ Transit 200k on Sunday.

Friday Writings for Randos - Be here now.

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's an excerpt from:

The Way of the Mountain Turtle
Single-speeding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Race
By Kent Peterson*

July 6th PM

Buddhists advocate the wisdom of “be here now” and that advice is easy to follow when here is somewhere ruggedly beautiful like Zuni Canyon or the Chain of Craters Byway. But when the day grows long and the trail is a hot, windswept washboard ranch road leading to a place called “Pietown” then it is easy to forget the sage advice and build Pietown into an oasis of earthly delights, a place of air-conditioned comfort, cool drinks and a smorgasbord of pies.

Friday Writings for Randos - A Raccoon

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's  . . . 

A RACCOON
by Siv Cedering Fox

A RACCOON

lies broken

on the broken line of a road. Like

the car that killed it. I speed by.

Friday Writings for Randos- Long Journeys

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:.....

An excerpt from 

"Off the Map - Bicycling across Siberia" 

By Mark Jenkins

There is something about long journeys. 
You're lucky if you manage one in a lifetime, and by the time you are done you're swearing by God never I'll never do it again. 

Hawk Mountain 200k Permanent - The ride of the psycho chicken

On Saturday, I rode the Hawk Mountain Permanent with Chris from PA. He's working on his R12. 

This will be my third 200K in as many weekends, with a few 100's tossed in for good measure. After Friday morning's pre-work 100k, I'm a little tired but, the big ride in August is getting closer and it starts with lots of climbing. I want to be ready. 

Hawk Mountain has 8500 feet of climbing. That's why I chose it.

Friday Writings for Randos - Tension and Compression

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from:

The Bicycle Wheel

3rd edition


by Jobst Brandt

Bicycle wheels don't work the way people think they do.Wire wheels are pre-stressed structures, with built in stresses that are reduced when they are subjected to loads.

Shore by Night 200k

The NJ Randonneurs "Shore By Night 200k" began at 10 pm. Fourteen of us would take an overnight bike ride from Cranbury NJ to the Jersey Shore and back - 130 miles. A simple description of a simple event. So why was it that doing that simple thing felt so dreamlike, surreal, inverted?

Philadelphia to Phoenixville

Philadelphia to Phoenixville is a 102 Kilometer RUSA permanent (#1472) that begins in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia and loops through Center City, Philadelphia,  before going through Valley Forge to Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. The mostly flat course has a few climbs (one pretty steep) mixed in to keep it interesting. It uses bike lanes, bike paths and low trafficked streets.

These are a few pictures taken during my ride of the course on Sunday July 22, 2012 (click on any picture to zoom):

Friday Writings for Randos - Where is man's truth to be found?

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from: 

WIND, SAND AND STARS

 By  Antoine de Saint-Exupery
(1939)

Everything about mankind is paradox. He who strives and conquers grows soft. The magnanimous man grown rich becomes mean. The creative artist for whom everything is made easy nods. Every doctrine swears that it can breed men, but none can tell us in advance what sort of men it will breed. Men are not cattle to be fattened for market. In the scales of life an indigent Newton weighs more than a parcel of prosperous nonentities. All of us have had the experience of a sudden joy that came when nothing in the world had forewarned us of its coming - a joy so thrilling that if it was born of misery we remembered even the misery with tenderness. All of us, on seeing old friends again, have remembered with happiness the trials we lived through with those friends. Of what can we be certain except this - that we are fertilized by mysterious circumstances? Where is man's truth to be found?

Hawk's Nest 200K - Playing in the street.

Today, I went to the mountains to play in the street.

Ted saw a black bear. He took a picture of it. The  picture shows the black bear standing, nose to ground, next to a white swing set. Its body seems half the height of the swing set.  Thick, rich, black fur. Either Ted has very good zoom or that bear was close.

Ted saw the black bear on the long climb on Route 390 toward Promised Land. I made the long climb toward Promised Land but I didn't see the bear. Maybe it wasn't there when I went by or maybe I was just focused on climbing, turning the pedals, passing the bottom of the ski lift and the "antique store" where "antiques" fill the front yard like a mashed confusion of history's droppings.

Ted showed me the the picture at the next controle, an Exxon Mini Mart:

Friday Writings for Randos - Breath and Spirit

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from: 

Running after Antelope

by Scott Carrier

In the beginning God inhaled and created all life. This is the Hindu creation myth. They have the same word for breath and spirit, as did the ancient Greeks. 

Heat index and other imaginary numbers

Some imaginary numbers annoy me. Just on principle. 

Like the "heat index." A weather forecaster stands there and pretends that a high temperature added to high humidity equals an even higher temperature. That's simply not true. Wet heat and dry heat are different. Hot and humid can be sweltering, it can be steamy, but it's not like hot and dry. It's the difference between a desert and the tropics. One ain't like the other and inventing a "heat index" don't make it so. 

Friday Writings for Randos - What if it all felt perfect?

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's an excerpt from a blog post titled:

  
What if it all felt perfect ?


by John Romeo Alpha*

What if I was riding my bike, and it all felt perfect?

Passing thoughts

To the guy wearing

the black and white skin suit

riding
the carbon fiber Pinarello

on aero bars
and pencil thin tires

on the bike trail 

at 20 mph:

Friday Writings for Randos - The way to start a day

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

The Way to Start a Day

by Byrd Baylor

in training

I am training for a big ride, my biggest one yet. The key word in that sentence is training (details on the ride to come later.)  I don't use the word training lightly or often. The mere act of stating that I am training for an event seems audacious and not a little bit self-centered - an unnecessary public commitment to a challenging course with an uncertain outcome. The more cautious aspects of my personality would have me just be quiet about it. Don't draw attention to it. If no one knows that I'm training, then only I will know if I fail to train or if my training fails. Plus, why would it matter to anyone else?  Maybe it doesn't, but it's worth a post.

Friday Writings for Randos - Moderation

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

Moderation is Not a Negation of Intensity, 

But Helps Avoid Monotony

John Tagliabue

Will you stop for a while, stop trying to pull yourself together

for some clear "meaning" - some momentary summary?

Friday Writings for Randos - nineteen-twenties feeling

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:...

An excerpt from: 

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance -

An inquiry into values

by Robert M. Pirsig

We travel down the eastern shore of Klamath lake on a three-lane highway that contains a lot of nineteen-twenties feeling. That's when these three-laners were all made. We pull in for lunch at a roadhouse which belongs to this era too. Wooden frame badly in need of paint, neon beer signs in the window, gravel and engine drippings for a front lawn.

Beyond ultra - Race Across America

If you ride a bike far enough, will distance cease to matter? If you ride often enough, will weather cease to matter? If you ride through all kinds of terrain, will landscape cease to matter? If you ride long enough will time cease to matter?

This week a handful of riders will take on the Race Across America (RAAM). RAAM is a 3,000 mile bicycle race from Oceanside, California, to Annapolis, Maryland. Some will ride as a part team of riders,  a few will ride the entire distance solo.

Commuter light review - Sigma Lightster v. Planet Bike Blaze 2 Watt - Part Two

 Part Two - 

"Rain" testing

(For part one click here)

To test the rain worthiness of the Sigma lightster and the Planet Bike Blaze 2 watt, I mounted both to a a set of handlebars.

Then sprayed  them with the hose set on "shower"

Test duration = 5 minutes:

Both lights shined throughout. Inspection of the lights at the completion of the test showed no water intrusion.

Both passed the test.

Friday writings for Randos - The Moon and the Mountain

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's an excerpt from a blog post titled:

 The Moon and the Mountain

 

by Mark Thomas* 

Not my finest hour (or two, or three, or maybe more). By turns walking, riding, throwing up, and sitting on the guardrail trying to settle my stomach, I was making poor progress up White Pass on our 600k brevet Saturday night. Last or near last among the riders on the course, I began to lose confidence that I could finish the ride. Of course, that confidence was at best a thin veneer from the start. "Petrified" was apparently the word I had used earlier in the week to describe to Robert Higdon my state of mind about the 600k. . .

Atrial Fibrillation in endurance athletes

Consider this a public service announcement.

I just read this comment on another blog:

My Polar is going haywire at the moment, with my heart rate suddenly shooting up to an unhealthy 230 for no reason at all. It even plays with my emotions by occasionally being close to what I’d expect, but not quite (popping up 10 bpm then quickly shooting back down, for example), giving me a sense of insecurity about my hill-climbing prowess, or lack thereof.

The commenter thinks that his Polar Heart monitor is having a problem. When I saw that description, I wondered whether he is having an episode of atrial fibrillation (A-fib). 

The Pennsylvania Randonneurs 600K - There once was a man on a bike

  

There once was a bike ride through Limerick

It is about 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning and I think that I am finally, completely, awake. Yes - the ride started at 4:00 a.m. Yes - five hours later, the sun is up, over 60 miles have gone by and Yes - I have already gone through two of the ten on course controls. But here and now, reality has set in. I am here. Now.

I waken in the midst of a 20 mile climb toward Promised Land. 20 miles of ever increasing grade - steep, followed by steeper. 20 miles until we reach the highest point on the elevation profile. 20 miles of reminder that this is a Pennsylvania brevet. 20 miles of reminder that I am not built for fast climbing. 20 miles of this is what you signed up for. 20 miles of reminder that I still have over 300 miles to go. That realization now has my full attention.

Friday Writings for Randos - The Loneliness of a Distance Rider

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's an excerpt from a blog post titled:

The Loneliness of a Distance Rider

by Vincent Muoneke* (Spokesong)

 

The Distance Rider affirms that every rider has a finite number "x" of pedal strokes. He imagines and hopes that the current stroke, will add to the total number, not subtract from the residual. . . .

Jitters

The Pennsylvania 600k starts on Saturday.  Walking the dog this morning, my legs feel weak in anticipation. 600K, 375 miles, 40 hours. The numbers are too big. I did a 600k once before. But it was flat - it was not Pennsylvania. Think good thoughts. Breathe. Cool morning air. Put one foot in front of the other. The dog wags her tail and smiles. My legs feel weak. Perhaps I will ride to work - see if I still know how. Or maybe I should take the day off and rest up. I should have slept longer. The Pennsylvania 600k starts on Saturday.

Friday Writings for Randos - Endurance

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's a quote from:

Counting Roadkill - Another reason to ride?

If you a looking for another answer to the question "Why are you riding?" Here's another good excuse reason: to count roadkill for science:

A re-post from Adventure Cycling's "Bike Bits":

If you're heading out on a road trip yourself this summer -- or even if you just commute to work by bicycle -- you can help the Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation collect data on roadkill along our highways and byways. Cyclists are obviously ideal participants in such a project, as they see (and smell) much more than do those travelers encased in fast-moving automobiles.

Go to the following link to learn more and to enter data: http://www.adventureandscience.org/roadkill.html

PA Randonneurs Blue Mountain 400K

The 2012 Pennsylvania Randonneurs' Blue Mountain 400K provided a course that would test the 30 plus Randonneurs who signed up to ride the brevet. To complete the 250 mile route, they would have to climb hill after hill after mountain that added up to 18,899 feet and 126 miles of up. To put that in context, consider this: Denali (Mount McKinley) is the highest mountain peak in North America and, when measured from base to peak, it is also the world's tallest mountain on land. The base to peak elevation of Denali is 18,000 feet. In one day, the Randonneurs would climb the height of Denali.

Friday Writings for Randos - The Hard Way

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:

The Hard Way

by Jane Flanders

"All right, do it the hard way." My mother's voice - the tone implies mulishness, snubbed advice, and an easy way, of course, if only I'd listen. " . . .

Ride of Silence - Philadelphia

The mission of the world wide Ride of Silence is to honor bicyclists killed by motorists, promote sharing the road, and provide awareness of bicycling safety.

Flying Pigeon PA 06

Put a bird on it.

I picked up this Flying Pigeon PA-06 from a local guy who had bought it at an estate sale. It was in very good condition. Its utilitarian simplicity and rock solid build give it an undeniable charm. Some of its features include a triple spring leather seat, push rod brakes, pigeon rack, pigeon bars, tires that appear to be originals, fully enclosed drive train and kickstand.

A test ride showed that it has three speeds: take it easy, slow down and walk.

Some interweb research led to the following: 

From Wikipedia: 

The classic Flying Pigeon bicycles are the PA-02 and PA-06 (men's) and PB-13 (women's). These are one of the most iconic symbols of old China (the sturdy, single speed black roadster bicycle ridden by the masses).

They are simple, conceived of as a working machine meant to last a lifetime. Like the Ford Model T, they are only available in one colour, black, except for the flare of vanilla at the fender tips.

Friday Writings for Randos - Fly Fishing

{Friday Writings for Randos - A weekly post that features pieces from other writers that touch some facet of the Randonneuring experience, even if that was not the author's intent. It's stuff that's best read out loud - slowly.} This week it's:.

An excerpt from A River Runs Through it

One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing. It is also interesting that thoughts about fly fishing are often carried on in dialogue form where Hope and Fear - or many times, two fears - try to outweigh each other.