Ride Report: Kodak Loop #1

Now THAT is hi-viz!

I'm confused- No bikes INSIDE the atm? 

water, bikes, what could be better? 

My kinda sign.  Still seems a little controlling, though, doesn't it?

So, I started again with my new shot at being an actual cyclist.  I laid out a loop in the woods near the Kodak plant and rode it 3X, figuring that 10 mi. in the woods is about equal (to me at least) to 20 mi. on the road.  The loop is approx. 2.3 mi.  With a 1.5 mi. warm up/cool down to get there, it adds up to almost exactly 10 mi.

So, my best time of the day was the middle one  (of course) at 14:48.  That's my current PR.

The air felt like gulping down water today.  I had no idea how humid it was until I was out there.  Esp. the long sunny sections (duh) were hot and humid.  Don't know if it was my legs from being out of shape and riding yesterday, or if the trails were wet and it added rolling resistance, but I felt it all the way around all three times.  The downhills were fine, but the short, low speed anaerobic climbs were hellish.  And the hike-a-bike sections felt pretty horrible too.

I saw two small rabbits and two turtles, one of which was digging a hole, I think preparing to lay eggs.

I was wearing a cycling jersey and cargo shorts.  Going to see if lycra shorts make a difference tomorrow.

Oh, and lastly- one downhill where I couldn't get my foot into the pedal (the first of the loop my first time around, actually) had my heart in my throat- maybe it never quite recovered from that!

I thought...

i thought I wanted to start trying to ride 20 mi. a day on the road, but you know what?  Riding on the road is boring and kind of annoying.  Sort of re-thinking my plan, since the best part of my ride was seeing the marsh beside the road during my ride.  I'm not really an "urban cycling" guy.  Commuting is one thing, but riding just to rack up mileage?  This is why I quit riding a road bike.

Hmmmmm.

My Ten Miles: Salem, Lynn, and Revere

Heading straight out Highland Ave. you pass walmart, and the muffler place with the plane "crashed' into the roof.  Puleo's Dairy.  Then across the bridge and you're in downtown Lynn. 

A little more downtown and you enter a marshy area.  The Lynnway, maybe?  For some reason this section is beautifully paved.  Almost brand new.  Huge wide edges to the highway.  Flat and just pleasant.

Past a factory on your left, into Revere where you can see the castle church away off to your left, and at almost exactly ten miles is the small traffic circle you go through on the way down Rt. 1 to the airport (Rt. 60- with the sunoco?).

And then you turn around and head back.

Maybe I should work on loops?

I was passed near the very end by a Bianchi fixed gear rider with a Bailey Works backpack.  In the words of Phil Liggett, I kept the elastic from breaking but just barely- then it was time for me to turn for home.  His hipness didn't feel the need to speak to me, incidentally.

Fixie Dave Nice and the lost titanium wonderbike

Hey, our friend Dave Nice, who is planning to do the Great Divide Route northward was supposed to have started already, but Greyhound lost his bike!  How that could happen I do not know (wouldn't they just load it under you on your bus?  What else WOULD they do?  It makes NO sense.)

So he's at the starting line, but bike has yet to show up.  And is this something he could just pick up in any bike shop?  Well of course not.  Custom made for him, from titanium, every part chosen carefully by him for its weight, durability, etc.  Each piece of camping gear weighed and probably modified for this trip.  And Greyhound has lost track of it.

So I doubt if anyone out there is someone super important, but if you are, sure would be cool if you could pull some strings for this guy.  He's planning to ride the bottom to the top of the Great Divide, doesn't really need to be worrying about just having equipment!

Good Luck Dave!

AHA!

You want to simplify?  Really simplify?  Well, I guess you COULD go brakeless, or fixed.  But that is quite a commitment.  Want to keep your bars as empty as possible, realistically?  (Calm down 63xc fans, I know some people can go fixed offroad....)  Check THIS out:

 

Yep- that's a brake lever that pulls 2 cables.  Made only for V-brakes.  You can even get them so that the rear brake pulls slightly before the front brake.  And for either hand!  (which really just means holes for the cables hidden on the bottom whichever side you want to put it on).  Or, you could use cable discs, and run both a V-brake AND a disc brake on each wheel!  ULTIMATE BRAKING POWER!!!  :)

I'm sure you can get these other places, but the only one I know of offhand, the place that I saw them, is Rivendell Bicycle Works.  As their owner Grant Petersen often says (and I agree with him) you should always buy from the one who introduced you to an idea if you can.  

So, if this provokes an AHA! moment, there ya go.

Good Words from Surly Blog

Hey, tattooed and pierced long shorts wearin flat brim hat red bull drinkin white Oakley sportin rad person on your full suspension big hit bike – nice work out there.

Hey, little round glasses pocket protector collared shirt skid lid rear view mirror sandal wearing schwalbe marathon running pletscher two-leg kickstand tourist – good job.

Hey, shaved leg skinny as hell super duper tan line hear rate monitor checking power tap train in the basement all winter super loud lycra kit million dollar wheels racer – keep it up.

Feeling Old On Father's Day Eve...

 

 I took my family for a long walk in the woods the other day, and got them semi-lost, and there were many bugs, but I have to say, we didn't get too bit up, since we'd coated ourselves in bug spray beforehand.  That's not what this is about, however.Incidentally, blogger seems to be going absolutely batty right now-- as in I hit return and it goes two lines UP, rather than one down-- (sounds like a country song, doesn't it)  So, we found some new trails.  Like, lots of them.  And

Yeah, it's a beer-drinking goat.

 a busted up, rusted out old pickup truck that was driven in there who knows how.  And an old wheelbarrow.  Oh, did I mention that there were actual trails without rocks?  Yes, in New England!  Isn't that absurd?  I meant to say banked turns since some of these were apparently made by moto, but the shock of the rock took over.  I couldn't believe it.

 

Which brings up another thing (see that space above this sentence?  Added by blogger and I can't delete it- batty, I tell you!).  We stopped by the local skatepark today.  Hard to imagine what my riding life, heck, my whole life (career) might have been like if we'd'a had one of these.  Concrete, flowy, with actual vert.  Oh, anyway, there were some pretty

I've told you before about my thing for bike rooms.

I want coffee from here.  ps. I camped for a week in Camp Four in Yosemite.

 Ripping local kids there.  One with a cookie monster t-shirt was especially great.  360 flyouts at will (didn't seem much for the airs back into the tranny, though).  Another kids was doing tailwhip flyouts.  Nice.  Of course, after each trick they had to sit on their top tubes and hang out for a good long while, but that's understood.  Made me feel pretty freaking old, I'll tell you.  Not that I expected at this age to be rocking the skateparks... Oh, no.

The Rapha van.  How is everything they touch so darn coolified?

I could very easily sell my mtbs and break myself on that park.  I'm thinking more along the lines of 'I've been riding consistently since I was 11 years old and what do I have to show for it?  A no handed trackstand?'  Honestly.  A fat belly and... and what?  That's almost 30 years of riding a bike!  THIRTY YEARS!  I didn't ride much in college, but other than that, riding pretty consistently for that long.  And I can't jump?  I don't have super fitness (or any).  I don't even know what I'm after here, but by fausto coppi I ought to have been able to pick up one of those bikes and do something!!! What, a poser?  Some rear wheel hops on the pegs?  Maybe I could whip those out.  Except they don't use brakes.  Or pegs.  You may say, but you ride a mountain bike now!  Yeah, since 1993- a little earlier if you count mtbs I test-rode at the shop after they'd been fixed.  And can I hang with XC guys?  No.  Could I do a drop over about 3 feet?  Nope.  Road rides?  No way.  So what the h@ll have I been doing for 30 years?  Can someone tell me that?  For that matter, can I even WRITE about it?  You'd think after so long, maybe I'd be considered some sort of aged (read that as two syllables) wise man.  Nope.

Why don't I just sell 'em all and go birdwatching or something?  

Fathers Day Addendum:  

Okay, I need to add a few things that I've thought of since yesterday.  I am capable in fact of doing the ol' CX remount, and I can build a bike from frame to finished bike, if imperfectly, including lacing the wheels.  So I am incorrect to call that nothing.  Still, I feel older and fatter than I should- and I'm going to do something 'bout it, too.  I swear!