Untitled
I guess the weekend recap has to start with Thursday night or was it Friday morning? Actually a little bit of both. I stayed up till two or so chatting with the testers in India trying to figure out what was so wrong with my stuff. Apparently I used the wrong configuration for my screen reader when I originally built and tested my software back in July. With the correct configuration, sure enough, everything was broken. Thanks fellas. Good night.
When I finally got up Friday to head into work, I saw the temps were in the teens with a pretty stiff breeze, so I donned the cold weather extreme outfit (windstopper hat, neoprene face mask, goggles, extra fleece, wind tights, etc.) and rode off to work. About two miles in I was on the side of the road stripping everything off. I looked like a hypothermic lunatic throwing clothes every which way. Too hot! Way too hot! Either it wasn't windy enough or not cold enough, but I was boiling. Then I head downhill for two miles or so. Now I'm freezing. Oh well, the four mile climb to the office evened things out. Eventually I came to a happy medium with the outfit that looked something like this in the end and for most of the weekend.
The regulators for this outfit are the neoprene mask, which I can pull down or put back in place depending on wind/cold, goggles (extreme cold) or glasses. Pretty simple, but effective to keep me warm at long base pace miles on the road. More on that later.
Friday night we watched An Inconvenient Truth Pretty simple really. Carbon dioxide emissions are going up and taking the global temps with them. When the temps get too high, bad things will happen. The part I'd like to add is GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! I'm not saying everyone has to ride their bike in the middle of winter, but carpooling helps, getting cars with better gas mileage helps. Putting on a sweater and turning the heat back a little goes a long way (there's a house down the street from us with huge picture windows, every night I ride by I see the family all hanging out in t-shirts ARE YOU KIDDING ME?). Fluorescent bulbs, etc. Do your part. Do Something! Moving along.
Got up early Saturday for a fixie ride. Marcus came along on gears for the first hour and a half. That was a mistake - like a knife at a gun fight. I was killing myself to keep up. Not the kind of base pace I was looking for. Wasn't a very good route either. I was looking for an easy straight way to the Schuykill trail from my house. I thought 113 to Phoenixville would work out well with it's wide shoulder, but no. One nasty section didn't have any shoulder and the rest was covered with salt and gravel. Two hours in, down in Norristown, it was time to turn back. Wham! Headwind. I was looking at two hours back of headwind on the fixie and very unhappy.
I plodded along.
I tried taking a picture of the Schuykill river in mid freeze, but my camera phone sucks. Back in Phoenixville, I stopped at a WaWa and refueled - mmmm bacon egg and cheese on a bagel. I was quickly running out of time.
The weekend deal is if I get out at 7am, I get till about noon to ride/play/travel, before I have to get home to chores. It was quickly approaching the deadline and I still had an hour and a half of semi-hill-less headwind riding to go. The alternative was up Hopewell road. It would save thirty minutes, but after three and a half hours of fixie riding I wasn't sure I could do it. Screw it. Walking up the hill would still be faster then riding all around town to avoid it. Upwards ho! About three quarters of the way up, I considered getting off, but was only a quarter of the way to the top. I kept at it. Near the top is a false flat with a side road. I pulled into the side road to catch my breath and spin a little, then back to Hopewell to finish it. Holy Crap that hurt! Got home, changed and working on the car.
Yeah the car. Jen's car started leaking coolant a week or so ago. The main hose from the radiator to the engine was old and ragged. Like everything about cars, they're dirty and everything's a pain in the ass to do. Surprisingly it went pretty quick. I did the hose and tried to replace the mirror she broke in about an hours time. Unfortunately the used replacement mirror she got, was broken as well. Oh well. The car at least runs and runs nicely for 180,000 miles.
After the car it was back to the trim project. Finally moved out of the kitchen and into the office. You can see more of that here. A few hours of sawdust and nails, then it was time for bed.
Up again Sunday at 5 for another morning ride. This was a three hour hill ride with Craig and gears. Craig's been training/recovering pretty well on his cross bike on the bike path, but this would be his first day on hills and on real roads. We met up with Scott (I toured with Megadeath as their Spin photog) and took to beating up on Craig (and myself, ouch). It was much colder Sunday morning, then past mornings. My 2 oz. mix of Tanqueray didn't last long in the cytomax and it all froze to slushy. Craig and Scott both had frost around their balaclavas. Luckily we found some hills and Craig's mother's house for coffee to keep us warm. Yeah just riding along the countryside and Craig says lets stop at my mothers.
Now I know where Craig gets his energy from. His mother is seventy something, but doesn't look/act a day over fifty. She's nuts. She sleeps with the windows open at night. It gets so cold in the bedroom, her glass of water freezes - so she says. I didn't stay the night - even if Craig offered. I just hope she turns the heat off when she does that.
Back home after the suffer fest and back to trim work. Blah, blah blah, very busy.
Weather looks nasty over the next few days. Have to find time to ride and get the damn plow on the tractor. When is vacation!?!?!??!?!
-b
When I finally got up Friday to head into work, I saw the temps were in the teens with a pretty stiff breeze, so I donned the cold weather extreme outfit (windstopper hat, neoprene face mask, goggles, extra fleece, wind tights, etc.) and rode off to work. About two miles in I was on the side of the road stripping everything off. I looked like a hypothermic lunatic throwing clothes every which way. Too hot! Way too hot! Either it wasn't windy enough or not cold enough, but I was boiling. Then I head downhill for two miles or so. Now I'm freezing. Oh well, the four mile climb to the office evened things out. Eventually I came to a happy medium with the outfit that looked something like this in the end and for most of the weekend.
The regulators for this outfit are the neoprene mask, which I can pull down or put back in place depending on wind/cold, goggles (extreme cold) or glasses. Pretty simple, but effective to keep me warm at long base pace miles on the road. More on that later.Friday night we watched An Inconvenient Truth Pretty simple really. Carbon dioxide emissions are going up and taking the global temps with them. When the temps get too high, bad things will happen. The part I'd like to add is GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! I'm not saying everyone has to ride their bike in the middle of winter, but carpooling helps, getting cars with better gas mileage helps. Putting on a sweater and turning the heat back a little goes a long way (there's a house down the street from us with huge picture windows, every night I ride by I see the family all hanging out in t-shirts ARE YOU KIDDING ME?). Fluorescent bulbs, etc. Do your part. Do Something! Moving along.
Got up early Saturday for a fixie ride. Marcus came along on gears for the first hour and a half. That was a mistake - like a knife at a gun fight. I was killing myself to keep up. Not the kind of base pace I was looking for. Wasn't a very good route either. I was looking for an easy straight way to the Schuykill trail from my house. I thought 113 to Phoenixville would work out well with it's wide shoulder, but no. One nasty section didn't have any shoulder and the rest was covered with salt and gravel. Two hours in, down in Norristown, it was time to turn back. Wham! Headwind. I was looking at two hours back of headwind on the fixie and very unhappy.
I plodded along.
I tried taking a picture of the Schuykill river in mid freeze, but my camera phone sucks. Back in Phoenixville, I stopped at a WaWa and refueled - mmmm bacon egg and cheese on a bagel. I was quickly running out of time.
The weekend deal is if I get out at 7am, I get till about noon to ride/play/travel, before I have to get home to chores. It was quickly approaching the deadline and I still had an hour and a half of semi-hill-less headwind riding to go. The alternative was up Hopewell road. It would save thirty minutes, but after three and a half hours of fixie riding I wasn't sure I could do it. Screw it. Walking up the hill would still be faster then riding all around town to avoid it. Upwards ho! About three quarters of the way up, I considered getting off, but was only a quarter of the way to the top. I kept at it. Near the top is a false flat with a side road. I pulled into the side road to catch my breath and spin a little, then back to Hopewell to finish it. Holy Crap that hurt! Got home, changed and working on the car.
Yeah the car. Jen's car started leaking coolant a week or so ago. The main hose from the radiator to the engine was old and ragged. Like everything about cars, they're dirty and everything's a pain in the ass to do. Surprisingly it went pretty quick. I did the hose and tried to replace the mirror she broke in about an hours time. Unfortunately the used replacement mirror she got, was broken as well. Oh well. The car at least runs and runs nicely for 180,000 miles.
After the car it was back to the trim project. Finally moved out of the kitchen and into the office. You can see more of that here. A few hours of sawdust and nails, then it was time for bed.Up again Sunday at 5 for another morning ride. This was a three hour hill ride with Craig and gears. Craig's been training/recovering pretty well on his cross bike on the bike path, but this would be his first day on hills and on real roads. We met up with Scott (I toured with Megadeath as their Spin photog) and took to beating up on Craig (and myself, ouch). It was much colder Sunday morning, then past mornings. My 2 oz. mix of Tanqueray didn't last long in the cytomax and it all froze to slushy. Craig and Scott both had frost around their balaclavas. Luckily we found some hills and Craig's mother's house for coffee to keep us warm. Yeah just riding along the countryside and Craig says lets stop at my mothers.
Now I know where Craig gets his energy from. His mother is seventy something, but doesn't look/act a day over fifty. She's nuts. She sleeps with the windows open at night. It gets so cold in the bedroom, her glass of water freezes - so she says. I didn't stay the night - even if Craig offered. I just hope she turns the heat off when she does that.
Back home after the suffer fest and back to trim work. Blah, blah blah, very busy.
Weather looks nasty over the next few days. Have to find time to ride and get the damn plow on the tractor. When is vacation!?!?!??!?!
-b
posted by JenBob at
6:27 AM
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