Why I sometimes feel clueless: A true story.

My wife and I had a conversation last night which shows why I sometimes feel clueless. You may find it helpful when talking across the gender gap. Or not. Either way, there are a couple of things you need to know before you read this. 

First, our next door neighbor Mrs. H. recently moved into a condo type of place after living next to us for over 10 years. 

Second when you read this, the lines in "quotes" are what my wife said and the lines in (parentheses) are what I thought after she said it. Okay, here we go:

Winter Solstice Ride

 

I don't know if any words can capture the full magic of our Winter Solstice Ride but Patrick (Dancer) said it well:

bade farewell to autumn and welcomed the first day of winter with a small handful of hardy randos on the inaugural Winter Solstice 200k, the all-night ride complete with bikes festooned with string lights, tinsel, reindeer antlers and Santa hats, the dark night punctuated with Christmas carols, bad jokes and oohs and aahs at the festively decorated houses along the route. Good friends, good times: a wonderful way as any to spend the longest night of the year.

Audaxing through the snow

The New Jersey Randonneurs held their annual holiday gathering on Sunday. In true Rando style, it centered around riding a 112K permanent - the Great Adventure.  Joe "K-Hound" arranged it all including the meals and refreshment. We'd meet for breakfast, ride the route and then eat again. 

Coffeeneuring - final day: Create Wonder * Share Joy

The long ago fallen brown leaves crunch and crackle under our wheels. We pedal on a path of broken pavement, gravel and rocks that borders Pennypack Creek, a thin ribbon of wild, threading through the north suburbs, protected by signs defining conduct.

• Catch and release only. 
• No hunting. 
• Stay on trail.

We stay on trail and ride the line of least resistance on this unknown path. Over the river and through the woods, to coffeenneur we go.

Coffeeneuring day six: Mint tea and Irish Potato at the Keswick

The Keswick Theater provides live performances for the NPR listening kind of customer. Live music - folk, rock, acoustic, electric - live comedy, a little bit of this and a little bit of that, to keep the middle aged suburban sorta-kinda-hipster feeling relevant and "with it." 

Almost next door is the Keswick Coffee House. Selections of flavored lattes served in paper cups, teas, ice cream, Kosher Hot Dogs and couches. 

The laptop user in the window seat has his book on theological writing propped open so the title is easily read by us non-theological writing non -window seat customers.  

Coffeeneuring day five: Talking turkey at Creekside

 The Veterans day rule saved the day.

Central Jersey 200K: Come dance with me.

A big turn out. A fast course.  Challenging winds. A mighty fine group to ride with. Sounds like the making of a Rando video:

Coffeeneuring day four: Stream of color

Coffeeneuring day three: Finding Higher Grounds

After yesterday, I wanted a flat and easy ride. We went to Philadelphia and rode along Spring Garden Street to the hipster neighborhood of Northern Liberties . 

Schuylkill to Susquehanna

Saturday is laundry day in Lancaster county. Riding through miles of farmland, we see clothes hanging from lines stretched between homes and barns or sheds. Lots of black, single color, simple clothes snapping and whipping in the cold steady wind. They remind me of Tibetan prayer flags.

Coffeeneuring day two: Morning bagel run

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Before heading to NYC, we needed coffee and bagels -- a dozen, fresh, assorted bagels
for the trip.

A fine coffeeneuring opportunity. 

Coffeeneuring day one: "Junetober"

The third annual casual caffeinated cycle challenge called Coffeeneuring  (click for rules!) is underway. Once again my wife and I are stepping up to the plate mug.

 

First Friday writing for Randos: Rules of civility

{First* Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly 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 month it's an excerpt from:

Rules of Civility

by George Washington

1st     Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are Present. 

September

September makes me restless, a bit anxious. The days are noticeably shorter. The weather becomes noticeably cooler. It has days that can touch upon perfection, low humidity, warm days and cool nights, but those same days precede the cold dark days of winter. Summers are hot, humid and sticky but its days are long and languorous and I like that.

September makes we want to move. Maybe fall is the migration season and some ancient instinct deep in the DNA wants me to follow the sun, follow the geese, move to warmer climes, see what comes next.

What is innate to humane nature? Big question - I know. But one thing that history seems to show is that humans cannot stay long in one place. They move, they migrate. Out of Africa, over mountain ranges, across frozen tundras, across oceans and past the visible horizon to see what lies beyond. The drive to explore, the restlessness, is in our base genetic material. Everyone may not share it, or act on it, but it is a thread that runs through the species. It runs through me. 

Or maybe life has made me restless. The first funeral I went to was for a child.

Independence Hall 200K - crossing paths

This weekend would be the final training weekend before my big ride for the year - the Last Chance 1200K. To prepare for the multi-day ride, I've been training on a three days on, one day off schedule. Friday was an hour run on the treadmill with 45 minutes of mile repeats after my 12 mile bike commute. Saturday was strength training - primarily 3x12 heavy reps  on the v-squat machine and leg curls to failure. Sunday would be the long bike ride. I figure that this schedule would simulate riding on the tired legs of the second or third day of a Grand Randonnee.

Earlier in the week, I sent an email to the usual suspects to see if anyone wanted to ride over the labor day weekend. Janice, with whom I rode on this year's fleche, was up for it. The others opted for a shorter ride or no ride, so Janice and me it would be.

She agreed to ride the Independence Hall 200k. It's a relatively new Permanent that starts at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I chose it because I can ride to the start and, if I also rode home, that would add about 25 miles to the 128 mile official ride giving me a solid 150+ mile day. To keep the effort honest, I chose to ride the fixie. No coasting. It was a choice I would later second guess.

Intervals between breaths

GO!

Recovery Based Training - Part 3.

Another blogger actually read my prior posts  regarding recovery based training (Part 1 and Part 2) and had some important concerns and questions. You can read our full exchange here.

That conversation made me realize that I had not updated my progress on this training plan. So I decided to take a look at how things went in 2012.

A notch above: The North Country 600K and the Kancamagus affair.

I ride long stretches - 20 miles, 30 miles, 50 miles - on remote roads. I pedal past mountain lakes, through wildlife refuges in Northern New Hampshire, the North Woods and over the White Mountains of Maine. In this unfamiliar vastness, at times as distant as the blue peaks on the horizon, at times as close as the thicket of trees edged along the shoulder, I am uncertain but eager. A child of adventure taking his first steps, wavering but willing. Without the barriers of a car or the silencing noise of a motor, an unbound consciousness tentatively reaches out for the edges of the world, stretches toward the distant mountains, rises toward the cumulus clouds, teeters at the edge of the wilderness, learning to find its way.

I leave invisible traces as I travel through this place. Molecules of my DNA infuse the North Woods. My breath joins the cool air. My sweat seeps into the asphalt. But this place also leaves its traces in me. My legs and my lungs intimately know the measure of Dixville Notch and Kancamagus Pass in ways beyond mere miles and meters. Hours spent climbing mountain passes are not soon forgotten. Between the conversations, the arguments, the dances, disappointments and triumphs, we practically had a relationship.

Along the way, thoughts bubble up and burst into ideas and emotions - at times elated, at times melancholy, at times at peace. Rain falls sporadically from a turbulent sky. Flowers bloom in colors that overflow from the fullness of the summer rains. The road rises, falls, twists and turns and still I ride. Always moving forward until movement becomes its own stillness.
 

First Friday Writings for Randos - "You. Are. Not. Giving. Up!"

{First Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly 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 month it's an excerpt from . . .
 

Trans Iowa

By Mauricio Babilonia
'sconnyboy

The birds began to sing and the sky began to brighten for a second time. We walked another hill. Pete and HB pulled ahead, but I stayed with Ben as his mood continued to deteriorate. Shortly after dawn, Ben and I came upon HB waiting for us at an intersection.

"Our navigator is gone."
"Where is he?"
"I dunno. He took off."

Oyster Creek 200K - The calm before the storm.

The Oyster Creek 200K undulates like easy waves on a breeze brushed pond. No significant climbs means no screaming descents but the varying terrain intersperses spin worthy flats with opportunities to rise from the saddle and power over gentle rises. It is a good course to enjoy a fast ride or a merciful one.

Great Allegheny Passage 2013: 73 miles with 9 kids and 8 adults in 2 days= 1 fantastic trip!

I am the locomotive. Steady chugga chugging up the long long climb from Cumberland Md. to Frostburg, Md. on the Great Allegheny Passage.

The children riding in line behind me, the "cars" of the train, sing a loud and joyful cadence, as only children can, over the soft rolling crunch of the fine gravel path.

"Hey bay-bee"

My five year old daughter's voice, as pure and as sweet and as precious as the rainbows that slide on the surface of a soap bubble, responds - in a quiet voice tinged with excited expectation - from the trailer that I pull up the hill. 

"Someone's calling my name"

"Hey bay-bee"

"I think I hear it again"

"You're wan-ted on the tele-phone"

"Well if its not sister -then I'm not home."

"Hey sis-ter"

Now it's sister's turn. 

The song doesn't end. The call and response goes in circles, naming each rider, until every car in the train has had his and her turn, or two or three or more turns, as we ascend the long steady hill on a warm Sunday morning in July lifted by song and sharing.

First Friday writing for Randos - Easy Does It

{First Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly 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 month it's an excerpt from . . .
 

Easy Does It 

By Bill Strickland 
Editor at large for Bicycling Magazine

When my bag of jelly beans drops onto the pavement of Dogwood Lane, I almost don’t turn around. We have just a while ago come off Coon ­Hollow, which is a road we would ride for the name alone but as a bonus happens to be smooth dirt packed as hard as any pavement, with such little canopy that the country sky sometimes curves blue and near-feeling from one of earth’s edges to the other, and with a ramshackle mansion of a barn that provokes sadness and wonder each time I pass—though I have been doing so for more than a decade.

Dogwood becomes one of those climbs that at first is barely so then can take your knees off here and there over a couple miles. But that is only after you disappear into its deep shadowed woods. Its bright opening slope sustains the reverie Coon Hollow began, with sunny farmed fields to either side, and split-rail fences gone gray from weather and time, and a rural community ballpark where a great home-run ball could be lost forever in the soy. This is where I am when my jelly beans fall.

DIY - Spare tube wrap.

A quick and easy way to use an old inner tube to wrap a spare tube into a compact package that also protects the valve:

Catskill 600K - Meditations in the mountains

A good Randonneuring course showcases its region. On the ride, you get an intimate appreciation of the terrain, a feel of the place's history, immersed in the geography. Going to the controls to get receipts and brevet cards signed (which seemed odd when I first started) forces you to interact with the locals beyond the basics of buying and selling, you hear their accents and exchange greetings - you talk to people. You get a sense of the soul of the area in a fingers in the cool earthy dirt kind of way. Randonneurs not only ride through a place, we participate in it, we live in it, if only for a moment. Such was the case on this ride.

The Catskill 600K starts near the majestic Hudson River. The scenic course is a visual treat. From the Palisades cliffs along the river, it weaves  through mountain towns which run the gamut of mountain town possibilities; from standard middle America to art enclaves, exclusive schools, monasteries, many places of exotic worship or meditation and working farms. Sets of pictures from this year's ride can be found here and here.

The NJ Randonneurs have a detailed description of the Catskill 600K course on their website. They also gave fair warning that finishing would mean lots of climbing - over 22,000 feet of elevation gain. 

This would be the climbiest 600k course I had ever attempted. But somehow, despite the fact that I make a much better descender than I will ever make as a climber, I decided that I would keep to a schedule for a personal best 600K. In fact, I would eat and sleep well and finish the second day strong. Yup, that was going to happen, for sure. All I had to do was follow the plan.

Images from the Catskill 600K

Grand Bois Lierre tire after a sidewall blowout that was field repaired with a patch, a dollar bill and duct tape wrap.  It lasted for over 100 miles.

A collection of images from the Catskill 600K: I recommend Full Screen

First Friday Writings for Randos - The Rider

{First Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly 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 month it's . . .

The Rider

by Naomi Shihab Nye

A boy told me
if he roller-skated fast enough
his loneliness couldn’t catch up to him,

the best reason I ever heard
for trying to be a champion.

New Holland 200k - Skipping rocks across time

Sometimes a brevet fools me into thinking that it is one event, one story to be told. Maybe because the rides have a start, a finish and lots of stuff happens in between. Maybe because my mind wants to follow the path of time, connect the experiences along the way and have them make sense. That is a trait of the human mind after all, to try to find some order in the chaos. 

But then something reminds me that just because things happen sequentially doesn't necessarily mean they connect in any other way. Real human stories have a way of skipping through time, like rocks bouncing on the surface of a pond leaving intersecting ripples as they pass. Sunday was one of those reminders . . . .

Answer the alarm

Rip Van Winkle slept for twenty years. He awoke one day, his beard now gray, to find himself a strange man in a changed land. A war was won, a nation begun, his children grown, his friends unknown. And he had slept through all the throes. Or so the story goes. 

Leesburg 400K with ROMA (Randonneurs of the Mid-Atlantic)

I wanted to tell you what the course is like.

Maybe you are thinking of riding the upcoming Shenandoah 1200K and you have learned that this ride covers the first 170 or so miles of that route. Maybe you are reading this in 2014, or 2015, or even years after that, and looking for a clue as to what to expect in the way that I searched the interwebs to find some idea as to what to expect before I did this ride.

If that is the case, here are some facts:

First Friday Writings for Randos - Desiderata

{First* Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly 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 month it's

 Desiderata

by 
Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. 

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Blue Mountain 300K - River lessons.

April 21, 2013

The Delaware River, inky black under the pre-dawn sky, flows on our left. It speaks in a thousand whispered voices. It sings forgotten songs that play at the shores of remembrance. It echoes the vibrato of unstoppable, ancient power. It reverberates with the timeless sound of patience and persistence.

Fleche 2013 - A just 'cause.

At 4:45 on Sunday morning, the temperature in Frenchtown, NJ, a small town on the banks of the Delaware River, hovers around 30 degrees. I lay on a sidewalk bench outside of a closed restaurant and a closed cafe, closing my eyes for ten minutes, willing myself to rest for just a little bit before the cold seeps into my body. My three teammates, Cap'n Chris, Janice and Chris are nearby, sharing fig bars and snack food while seated at a metal table. Our next official stop is 12 miles away and won't open until 6:00 am. We've been riding together, basically non-stop, since 9:00 am on Saturday.

Another team, Bill, Guy and Paul, arrive. They are riding fixed gear bikes. They cat napped in the bathroom of a State Park just a few miles away. It was 70 degrees in the bathroom. They are also headed for the restaurant that is 12 miles away and opens at 6:00 a.m.They've been riding together, basically non-stop, since 9:00 am on Saturday. After a brief conversation, they go their way and we go ours. We will meet again. That is the way of the fleche.

#30daysofbiking - A monthly cycle.

"30 Days of Biking, whose fourth year begins April 1, has one rule: Bike somewhere every day for 30 days—around the block, 20 miles to work, whatever suits you—then share your adventures  online."

I'll be sharing my rides here by updating this blog entry with something from or about my 30 days of biking.

Hard Nox

We rode the Nockamixon 200k Permanent. After starting in New Jersey, it crosses the Delaware River into Pennsylvania. The land is a series of ridges and valleys that run parallel to the river in row after row of geographic wrinkles. The route crosses the undulations. The climbs are short but steep. They come in groups, like waves on a rough sea, spaced by brief stretches of flats and false flats. We climb and climb again.

Three Questions for the writers of RIDE 2

The editor, publisher and contributor of Ride 2, Keith Snyder, described it as "The second collection of short fiction about bicycles." And it is that. It is also a varied, diverse entertaining assortment of stories which include bicycles but may not be about bicycles.

The website for Ride 2 also offers readers and potential readers a chance to look behind the curtain and hear from the writers who contributed to the collection. It's called the The RIDE 2 “Three Questions” Game (click for a link) and it goes like this:

First Friday Writings for Randos - Character

{First* Friday Writings for Randos - A monthly 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 month it's an excerpt from:

The Rider

by Tim Krabbe

If only I'd come down with a puncture. How often, fighting away in a long beaten peloton that nonetheless lay down a hellish tempo I could barely follow, have I longed for a flat tire? A puncture, permission from beyond to stop the dying.

Birds in flight - February 200K

Many hours into a 140 mile ride, we pass hundreds of acres of open land, a winter farm field, laid bare until Spring. It is the last weekend of February. The wind blows strong, cold and constant. We have many miles and hours yet to go.
 

Len, my riding partner for the day, tells me a story of another time, another ride, on the same course at the same field. 

Peter and Mary

Do you have to meet someone to know them?
RIP Peter and Mary and thanks for living.
Really living.

Two videos submitted as evidence:

 Peter and Mary

Cycling Central Asia

Friday Writing for Randos- Song of the Open Road

{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:
Song of the Open Road
by Walt Whitman

Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

Friday writings for Randos - Once in the 40s

{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. . .

Once in the 40s 

by William Stafford

Texas Wild

Fifteen minutes before the 4:30 alarm was set to go off, the crashing boom of thunder woke me up. The flash of lightning illuminated my hotel room in Dallas, Texas. I had planned to ride the Wild Willie's 100K but now I wasn't so sure. Last night, Ken from Oregon called to let me know that he wasn't going to ride because of the rain, so I was already looking at a solo 100K. The rain seemed steady and persistent. The Weather Channel was in full-on hype mode:

Severe weather warning for Dallas, Texas

60 mph hour winds reported

Shingles blown of buildings

Tornado watch until 9:00 am

Thunder! Lightning!

Death! Destruction! 

(okay, they didn't say death but they implied it)

The Doppler radar was showing red and green with squares of danger zones. I had scheduled the ride to start at 7:00. I  rolled over and went back to sleep.

Friday Writings for Randos: Speaking of that horrible Rt 2

{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:

Speaking of that horrible Rt 2

 By Chris Nadovich*

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 -- McVille, North Dakota

 

The accursed southeast wind is gone! Today we rode 130 relatively comfortable miles. We received some good advice for a change and were led to an alternative route that was both a short cut and a beautiful rolling road through pretty lakes, farms, and wetlands.

Of Ice and When.

January all but slipped away. Along with it, the opportunity to keep my R series streak going. Since my first brevet, not one month had gone by without my riding at least one 200k. Now, less than one month into the new year, life was getting in the way. I skipped the January 5, 2013 PA Randonneur ride to celebrate my wife's birthday. I organized a 200k permanent later in the month but had to bail before starting it to work that weekend.  Then it was my daughter's birthday. Then the forecast for last weekend of the month called for sub freezing frigid temperatures and snow. By that time, the last time I went for a ride of any substance was a 200k in early December - like six seven weeks ago. Since then nada. I felt off my game. Doubts about the distance alone grew, much less riding it solo in sub freezing temperatures. What to do? Let it go and start again in the Spring?

Friday writings for Randos - It's all about the Bike

{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 and excerpt from. . . 

It's all about the Bike

by Robert Penn

The bicycle saves my life every day.

Friday Writing for Randos - The Snow Man

{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. . . 

  The Snow Man

Wallace Steven

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

A.H.H. The sum of the parts

 

58 cm Rivendell A. Homer Hilsen (Toyo Japan)

Friday Writing for Randos - We grow accustomed to the Dark

{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. . . 

  

  Emily Dickinson
 

We grow accustomed to the Dark --
When light is put away --
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye --

Test ride

After adjusting the brakes and transferring the Edelux light from the Surly to the Homer, I stand back and look for what needs doing next. Then it dawns on me - the bike I assembled is ready for a test ride. Not done, but fully rideable.

Still dressed in my riding gear from my bike commute home, I pump up the tires, don my helmet and go back out into the night.

Work in progress

I am assembling a new bike. I know a lot of people call the process "building" a bike but I'm not comfortable with that term. It's a little to presumptuous for what I am doing. If I were cutting tubes, brazing joints, welding lugs, even lacing spokes into a rim, I might say I was building a bike. But I can't do any of that. I can order parts and assemble them into a working bike. That is what I am doing. Assembly. If I assemble IKEA furniture I don't tell people I built a couch. I just put it together.