Welcome to our ool

Pool season is quickly approaching. To stack the odds of having a happy clean pool in my favor, I picked up one of these

I never had any real confidence in myself reading the colors of the test strips. My mother thinks I'm color blind. I think I'm anal. If the color is supposed to be pink, sort of almost light pink doesn't count. If none of this makes sense, it's simple. I bought this electronic doo-dah to test my pool water for me. No longer will I have to discern between two colors that look the same to me. I stick the test strip in the water, then stick it in this thing. Voila! Near instant accurate evaluation.

God I hope so or I'm burying the damn thing.

- b

ps. I'd bury the tester. Even if it's a mucky black slime pot, having a pool is nice.

School of Rock

A few of us went up to Jim Thorpe today to ride with Jamie and his crew. Overall it was a good day. The weather was perfect (started to rain as we packed up). No bikes broke and we got a decent amount of riding in over walking. Being that I'm near exhausted and busted, I'll let the pictures do the talking.

"Dude! Let me have some of your tots!"

This is why we come to Thorpe. The rocks!

Ben taking the smooth line

Craig using a little caffeine to get him through

Chris consulted with his astrologer for todays ride

The Dutch Eagle flying high

Shortly before our mid-ride snack, I had a problem with them there rocks and went over the bars. I sort of landed on my head (maybe that's why I have a headache?), but my shoulder took the hardest hit. A rock, sticking at least six inches out of the ground, slammed straight into the front of my right shoulder. So far there's no black and blue marks, but the impact was strong enough to leave a mostly dull, though sometimes shooting, pain in the back of my shoulder. Mmmmmm Yum!

Stop for much needed nourishment and refreshment if you were so inclined.


This is the sort of thing that makes for an epic ride. Besides all the rhododendron tunnels, strip mines, etc. there's things like this pipe bridge to cross over raging creeks. After busting up my shoulder, I had very little confidence in anything I was doing. Crossing this thing made me particularly nervous, which normally wouldn't be the case.

After the ride it was a few beers at Jamie's, then we hit the road.

-b

Your Opinion Counts

Jen and I are trying to figure something out and we need your help. We're considering taking the following wall

and putting a big hole in it. We have two options. Here's the first

And here's the second. Ignore the scale issues.

Use the comments and/or our guestbook to let us know what you think. Not to sway anyone but, option two would require a significant amout of $$, work and time.

-b

Management Says MORE PICTURES!

In the monthly "How We Doing" meeting the other day, management realized we were down 4,000 hits from last month. Their solution is more pictures. "Everybody loves pictures. Get em up there!" was all that was heard. Apparently trying to create pictures with words isn't cutting it. Luckily for me, management and you the viewer, yesterday presented us with a perfect picture post. Here it goes.

It rained hard Thursday night into Friday morning. Between the rain pounding my window, the thunder rattling the house, and the Invisible Fence controller beeping, I wasn't getting much sleep. It was 12:30am or so when I got up and went downstairs to see what was wrong with the IF. My fear was it got struck by lightening and was beeping to tell me so. The light blinked green, which means every thing's cool. It still beeped. As a precautionary measure and just to shut it up, I unplugged it all - the dog wasn't going out in this mess anyway. I go back upstairs and lay in bed for the next hour or so as the storm rages all around.

Fast forward to the morning. Jen gets up and heads to the kitchen. I hear a little scream (just a little one) and think the cat has left a dead mouse for us on the kitchen floor. I ask what's up and she says we have a puddle.

Without seeing it I try to figure out a source. We hadn't run the dishwasher. Did something spill out of the sink? Then Jen says it's very localized. It doesn't come or go from the cabinets. We look up - directly above it.

When we moved in, we installed an exhaust fan in the kitchen. Somehow the rain came through it. The fan sucks air from the kitchen and blows it out through a vent in the roof. The fan and roof vent both have storm flaps. The only thing we could figure was a bird in its spring nesting fury somehow made a nest in the vent and got the storm flap stuck open. Here it was 7am and I'm climbing on the roof in the rain in my pajamas.

The vent is fine. Now my worst fears have been confirmed. In addition to exhaust vents, we also had a new roof put on when we bought the house. The roofer was a real pain in the ass and I've never been completely comfortable with the job he did. Now a year and a half into our thirty year roof, it's leaking into our kitchen. Out of the rain, back into the house and up into the attic to inspect the damage.

The roof was fine (that was a relief), but I still had to figure out what happened. The exhaust fan and its ductwork are covered with insulation. After pulling some of it away, I found this.

See the wetness on the wood? If you look real close, you can see it on the ductwork too. The only thing we can figure is the storm was strong enough to hold open the storm flap and blow enough rain in to pool in the ductwork, drip through, soak the ceiling and drip onto the kitchen floor. I'm not really sure we can fix it and hoping it was just a freak thing.

-b

Me and the Worms

The light was that weird gray you get in the calm between the storms. It had rained most of the night and into the morning. I knew at 7am climbing around on my roof in the rain (more on that later), I was riding in today. Just as I packed up to leave, the rain stopped. I had an open window and took it.

On the roads it was me and the worms. A few cars passed, but thankfully nothing significant considering the conditions.

The Brandywine was ferociously swollen. I could hear its rage long before I saw it. As I rounded a corner and saw the frothy brown water, I mused on the sight of geese at its banks. I could picture in my head a volunteer fireman wearing a wetsuit, oversize life jacket and harness, using a guy-line to tredpidaciously wade out into the creek to save some stranded kid stuck on a stump. His feet would repeatedly slip and the creek would wash him to the length of his rope, while crowds and news crews on the bank reeled back in horror. Meanwhile the geese waddle up to the edge, plunk themselves in, wiggle their tail feathers and float away. The geese float out to the turbulent center, spread their wings and fly back to the relative calm of the waters edge.

I turn up the trail and now follow the Shamona Creek. It too is flooded, but calmer then the Brandywine. Not far from the first bridge crossing I see a Great Blue Heron wading in the creek. It's every bit of three feet tall. Through the leafing brush, it sees me and takes to flight spreading its wings wide and flying low to the water upstream. The picture of a pterodactyl comes to mind as the bird flies through the misty morning woods. It lands in an oxbow out of sight from me.

I continue my ride out of the woods and into the neighborhoods. Houses and manicured lawns are not nearly as entertaining. Soon I'm climbing and only focus on moderation. Wearing a rain coat and extra layers to ward off the wet cold that never presented itself, I'm getting warm. I crest the hill and slow as I go past the last bit of woods before I turn into the corporate center. Too close to humanity, the woods are still. Back to the worms I leave the trail and finish the last of my ride on the road.

Not bad for a rainy day ride.

- b

Jumped the Gun

Besides the fox cub bouncing off to hide in the grass, rolling down the driveway was pretty sane. Traffic was clear, so the sanity continued onto Boot Rd. We had a green light for the turn at Chestnut, but oncoming traffic was there. Mark took it anyway. Monkey see, monkey do, Chris, Sean, Ben and I followed. Chris and Mark were positioned slightly forward of the rest. Me not sure when to start and without a strategy jumped for the sprint. I spun like mad and pulled ahead. In an instant I spun away all awareness. All I could focus on was my light bouncing ridiculously on the pavement in front of me. Left - right, left -right, with each pump of my legs my head would bounce my light back and forth in front of me. Snot and spit began to rain down from my face. I had to make it to the bridge. Vaguely I wondered if it was the beginning of the bridge or the crest that finished the sprint. My light kept bouncing. I thought my feet would spin right out of the pedals. I had the lead. Chris was so strong tonight. Where was he? Mark was tired, but running a bigger gear. Where was he? Pedal, pedal pedal - bouncing my light back and forth. How old am I? How long can I do this? Will I puke? Pedal, pedal pedal. Does this make me stronger? Mark rolls by. I feel like I'm going to explode and Mark rides by like he's delivering papers on a warm sunny morning.

It took a block and a half before I could breath enough to talk. I ask if his heart-rate even went up. He laughs and says I went too early.

-b

Henderson's Gone

We're rolling up the double track climb to the school. Henderson's in the lead. I'm second. Ryan and Mark are close behind. Henderson and I were smooth rolling the creek and rocks in perfect cadence. Ryan and Mark got tripped up and fell back. Past the creek it's just Henderson and me. The sounds of the group drift back in the distance. He's standing and marching out his leader rhythm. I'm saddled and sitting on his wheel turn for turn. The climb continues. The pace is quick and steady. I'm stuck to his wheel. It's been a long night. Conditions were the perfect paradox - traction on the dirt and death on the roots. You ride with a heightened sensitivity. We continue up the hill. I'm riding his line like my life depended on it. Just as I notice I'm holding him, he flips a switch and is gone. Using energy I don't have, Henderson drops me. In a few seconds, a few bike lengths become darkness. He's out of the woods and across the road. I stand and try to recover. It's no use. He's gone. Up the sidewalk now and out of sight, Henderson rolls on alone.

At the top no words are spoken. There's nothing left to be said. We circle and wait for the group. Recovered it's back to the woods. Henderson is first. Henderson's gone. The woods are dark again.

-b

DTown Credo

Off-camber wet roots and sticks
are not to be feared,
for they are the marks by which
we are judged

Playing With a Full Deck

We found some patio furniture we liked that didn't cost five grand, so we headed down to the Small Wonder (home of tax free shopping) to pick it up last night.

Shortly before posing for this sexy shot Jen asked if I thought all this would fit in the truck. I coolly say, "If it fits on this cart, it should fit in the truck." Fast forward twenty minutes and we're out in the parking lot playing with a giant jigsaw puzzle. My truck has a cap on it, so no they don't fit.

After some creative unpackaging, packing and a hundred feet of rope, we get it all squared away and head home with the loot.

As we're driving Jen's thinking about our cool new furniture and crappy dilapidated deck and says/asks, "I guess we need to redo the deck now?"

I reply, "Yep." So far my plan is working perfectly.

-b

Shirt Off My Back

Mud sweat and sawdust pretty much sums it all up right now.


This post is presented by

Makers of fine alternative cycling apparel

Monta con el Diablo

The Spot boys (Buddy & Matt) have this thing they call the Four Park ride. You guessed it. It traverses four different parks. The first is Fair Hill, which is a ride in of itself. Then you take some roads - tour the old neighborhood - and hit Carpenter State Park. Though you really only ride through Carpenter, it's included. Down some more roads and you hit White Clay Creek State Park. Again another place worthy of its own ride. From White Clay it's over to Middle Run and Judge Morris. You circle back and find the shortest route home. Since Judge Morris is included with the White Clay trail system (though Middle Run is in between), it doesn't count as a seperate park (seperate trail system, but not park).

Yeah that was their plan for Sunday. Having only ridden two and half hours the week before due to being sick, I wasn't sure I'd make the whole thing. After riding Wissahickon the day before, I knew the whole thing was out of the question.

I did the whole thing. It hurt. It was hot. I ran out of water, got sunburned, cramped and slept on the floor when I got home. We did four and a half hours. I left Matt's house and went straight to the closest fast food joint I knew. I ordered two Chicken Clubs and a medium (full strength) Coke at Wendy's. I ate one and most of the other. I was too wasted when I got home to empty my car or even take a shower. I layed down on the floor in our hallway and passed out for a half hour or more. The dog felt so bad for me he layed down with me. After waking up I choked back some Endurox and jumped in the shower.

Amazingly things turned around. I felt all kinds of better. I got out and cut the grass, did some dishes and painted a door. I'm not sure what it was that put me down for that half hour, but I recovered and moved on pretty well.

Congrats to those that did the Baker's Dozen (13 hour race) and Cohutta (100 miles). Obviously from my four and half hours of suffering, I'm not ready for your level (or I'm still sick).

-b

Wheel of Power

Rode Wissahickon today with Chris and Rob. Trial by fire after a week off the bike sick.

"Let's climb some hills and fly down rock strewn - washed - out gullies." Yeah sounds like fun.

I was off the back. Way off the back trying to get oxygen to my brain and legs. Eventually I found it, or Rob and Chris stopped using so much (yes I'm still talking about oxygen). I made some climbs I didn't think I could and made most of one I didn't want to.

Weather was beautiful. Nice to get out and use my body for something other then a petri dish.

-b

Wheel of Woe

Rodrigo Y Gabriela

An awsome show. These two metal heads from Mexico City via Dublin can really play guitar. Who would have thought two people playing just guitars could put on such a good show. Gabriela was amazing. She'd lay her head down on the guitar and just beat the crap out of it.

Playing "Wish You Were Here" and having the audience sing it was a nice touch.

Check out rodgab.com when you get a chance.

- b

Stupid Sick

I've been sick for three or four days now. It's driving me nuts. It's bad enough to keep me from my job, but not bad enough to keep me in bed all day.

It started with lethargy and body aches. Moved to tightness and gunk in my lungs. From there it became a smoker's cough. Woke up the following day the gunk had moved from my lungs to my head. Two days now with a gunky head - sneezing, coughing draining gunk.

The whole time I could do some things. I could go to the store, but only one store. I'd get tired and have to come home and rest for a while. I could clean some things, but only brainless things like dishes in the dishwasher. I'd get tired and have to rest. Eventually I wasn't so tired doing things, but I was stupid. My brain just didn't do things like it was supposed to. I'd try cutting some trim, but would screw it up cut it three times till it was too short. My garage and basement started to leak water, but I couldn't figure out how to stop it or clean it up. I'd sweep away the water, but it just reappeared. Finally I realized it was still leaking. Let it go.

It was killing me. I had some energy, but couldn't apply it. When I did, it didn't work. I didn't work.

Yesterday Jen stayed home. Too tired and sick herself to go to work and do stupid things. Between the two of us, we were half as smart as average. I got some trim done, but not a lot and not very well.

I should have done nothing. I can't. I should have rested. Doesn't really work for me. Instead I picked up a sharp chisel and made delicate cuts in wood.

Today I'm going to work. I'll sit in my cube and get the rest I've needed all week. I'll be stupid and get paid for it.

-b

Sick Sucks

Home sick today. Not much done. Slept some. Drank lots of tea and played on the internet.

How is it last week I was feeling invincible and now this? This sucks.

Some links for ya

If I had all the time in the world
If you're killing time
I used to be a cyclist
Got some Marysville pictures up.
What happens when you click a link from a link.

-b

Weekend Wrapup

In brief: I'm sick, it rained a lot, I did a lot, got nothing done, and had some fun.

The break down:
Friday night we went to the city to thank Jeff and Sara for watching CJ while we were away on vacation. There's a nice little Mexican place down the street from their place, so we met them there for dinner. It was nice. The food was tasty and the company grand - this was our first time out with them since they became engaged. In addition to dinner, we got them iPod Shuffles to add a little music to their lives. The scheme worked. Looks like we have some dog watchers for life.


Saturday morning began our house work weekend. A few weeks ago we realized we hadn't been doing much as far as house chores go, so we designated this weekend a work weekend. Unfortunately I'm not talking spring cleaning kinds of stuff (gotta find time for that too). I'm talking house projects like trim and the cat cubby. We started with a trip to the paint store. What kind of finish to put on our trim (natural or paint) had eluded us till Saturday. Not that there was any kind of epiphany, but the decorator at the store helped us finally decide on paint. With that done, we could get things moving a long a little quicker in working on the trim. After the paint store it was off to Lowes to buy stuff there. A few hours later, we were home and working.

Saturday was also little league opening day for our township. Being that the main township park borders our yard, it seemed like the entire township population was hanging out in our yard that day.
This happens twice a year - little league in the spring and soccer in the fall, so no big deal.

From the time we got up Saturday morning Jen wasn't feeling well. As the day went on, she got worse. Apparently the cold she had when she started her new job, spread through her office and came back to her as something else. She was feeling so bad, she decided not to head out to dinner with friends to Casablanca. Too bad. She missed a lot of fun. The dinner was all Moroccan - the food, waiters and entertainment. Yes they had belly dancers and yes I have a picture of a guy here, but he really was the most entertaining. I kept waiting for him to turn to a puff of smoke and escape to a lamp on a shelf. Besides the entertainment, the food was decent too. We had rabbit, lamb, and lots of chicken and vegtables. The dessert left a little to be desired as it was only a bowl of fruit. I guess if you're going to go Moroccan, you go all the way.

So I went without Jen, drank lots of beer, ate lots of food, and had lots of fun. Sunday I woke up sick, but it's a sick different then what I've had in recent years. This is mostly respiratory. I can feel a tickle in my lungs. When I cough, it pops and crackles, but nothing comes up. I'm also a little achy and slow. I tire easily. It's sort of perfect timing with the weather we're getting (nearly five inches of rain in the last twenty four hours) and the house work, but it's still a cold and still sucks.

Unfortunately there's still a lot of work to do, so regardless of the cold I got things going in full swing. My garage is now in wood shop mode. I was measuring,
cutting, sanding - and with the cold remeasuring and re-cutting. See the white spot in the top left corner of the picture? Is that a ghost? Don't they say "orbs" like that in pictures are spirits caught on camera? I realize there was a lot of dust floating around, but that "orb" looks a little bigger then a dust spot in the air or on the camera. Whatever. Eventually my cold (or the ghosts) got the better of me and I quit for the night.

Woke up this morning with snow and ice. Kind of cool for mid April. I'm sick, so it's not like I can ride and really care about it anyway.

-b

Last Night's Ride

Typical shenanigans. Ride till your lungs burst, throw back some Jack, sprint to the finish and toss a keg onto someones car.

Now that's what I call spring training.

-b

Church Every Day

-b

Station to Station

So I had a little solo adventure this weekend.

Jen went up to her mother's in north Jersey on Saturday while I was racing the Mass Relay in Marysville. Sunday being Easter and the rest of her family getting together for it in north Jersey, I had to get myself up there. Driving the NJ Turnpike on a holiday sucks, so the plan was for me to drive to Princeton Junction (New Jersey Transit train station outside of Princeton, NJ), catch a train and meet Jen at Secaucus Junction.

Drive? Why drive when I can ride? At the very least we wouldn't have to drive back to Princeton Junction to get my car and drive separately home from there.

Jen was skeptical. I had some work to do if I was going to pull this off.

I started with Mapquest. I set up a route that didn't use highways or toll roads. Of course the first thing it did was direct me to route 1 through Trenton. There's three problems there. First is Trenton. I don't like driving through Trenton let alone ride a bike. The second was route 1. I don't like driving route 1 let alone ride a bike on it. The third is crossing the Delaware river. There's at least two bridges in Trenton that cross the Delaware. If I don't want to go through Trenton what's left?

Luckily this old dude named Washington had a similar problem crossing the Delaware river way back in his day. Apparently the place he used was so cool, they named it after him. That's right. There's a little town north of Trenton with a little bridge crossing the Delaware called Washington's Crossing. I added Washington's Crossing to my Mapquest request and got a new route.

Things were looking better. Mapquest said the route from my house to Princeton Junction would be seventy six miles. That's roughly five hours of riding. The train I needed to catch left at 1:20pm. If I left my house at 7am Sunday morning, that should be plenty of time. Next step was finding out NJTransit's policies on bikes. The bike policy seemed cool except for one caveat. If at any time a conductor decides there's no room for your bike, you must exit the train and leave it at the station. Hmmmm. Do I ride my nice shiny roadbike and risk having to lock it up because some nutty conductor thinks the train is full? Or do I ride the fixie and not worry about it getting stolen while it sits alone locked to a pole in the middle of Jersey on Easter? Fixie it is.

Jen was still skeptical.

Luckily I started planning this a week in advance. My next problem was I didn't know the roads. Other then knowing they weren't highways or toll roads, I had no idea how bike friendly they would be. I first turned to Google Earth to help me with this matter. Armed with the list of roads from Mapquest, I searched and scanned Google Earth to see if I could tell from their satellite imagery what kind of roads the route might be taking. Sure enough there were a few I knew by name I didn't want to ride and few others I could simply see were "too big" for bikes. Using the satellite imagery I picked out alternates around these roads and updated my Mapquest cue sheet.

Jen was starting to come around.

I think what nailed it home for her was the ultimate in navigation technology - GPS (though secretly now I was skeptical). With my GPS software, I preprogrammed the route into my device. Theoretically, all I should have to do is follow the route on my GPS, but I had never done this before and really had no idea how it would work (I've only ever tracked a route. I had never tried to follow one.). That didn't matter Jen had given me the green light.

Sunday morning I was up and out the door a little before 7:30am. It was a little chilly, but I pedaled on. The start of my route finding began in Norristown. I know how to get there, so no concerns yet, though I did take a more direct and normally busier route to get to Norristown. It was early Easter Sunday, things weren't so busy. Nine in the morning I arrive at the Norristown station with a little shy of thirty miles done so far.

Not trusting the GPS, I pull out my cue sheet (stuck in my sleeve for accessibility) and check the next three roads. I start riding north through Norristown. One block, two block, five blocks. Ten blocks. Where the hell is the turn? I keep riding. Big intersections, little intersections, Germantown Pike. Where the hell is the next road? Finally I come to E Township Line Rd and turn. I roll down a short while and make my next turn. I'm only three roads in and I'm frustrated. This sucks I'm not having fun. I decide to pull over and check the GPS. I turn it on, select the route and click the Navigate button. The screen switches over to the map view, zooms to my location and displays the route. I can see all the roads around me, an indicator for my position, the direction I'm heading, the route, my current speed and how much time it will take me to get to the next road at my current rate of speed. SWEET!!!! I put away the cue sheet and start following the LCD road. Roads and turns and rolling by. I'm not even paying attention to what road I'm on. As long as the indicator points in the right direction and follows the route, I'm happy.

It became a little game of sorts - watching the indicator move across the little screen and the time to the next road tick away. The miles too tick away. When I started in Norristown with the cue sheet it took forever for me to get from mile 30 to mile 35. With the GPS, I was rolling through the forty's and onto the fifty's, then something very bad happened. As I was nearing the fifty three mile mark "Arriving at Destination" started to blink on the bottom of the screen, then the time started counting backwards. Instead of how long till the next road, it was counting how long away from the last road I was going. The screen no longer displayed the route. The indicator was just following a road.

I rode back to the "destination" point. I clicked around in the GPS and quickly figured out the route came up short. For some reason when I entered it into the software, the entire route wasn't downloaded to the device. Wasn't a whole lot I could do now, so I pulled out the cue sheet. My worst fears were confirmed. I was at a four way intersection of sorts. One road I just came down. Two roads went off in directions that seemed somewhat level. The fourth road went straight up and it happened to be my road.

Up I climbed. It was kind of cool really as I was in quarry country. Huge slag piles and old rail lines crisscrossed the landscape till I got to the top where it was flat again. Again with the cue sheet I figured out the next three roads and pedaled on. A curious thing started to happen. I started going down. Not down huge long steep hills, but there was definitely a perceptible trend of down that continued for nearly eight miles. It ended here.


This is the Delaware river. I was oddly giddy at this point. It was only sixty-some miles from my house, but it was the first time I'd ever crossed a river into another state. Ok maybe I was a little dehydrated too. Within a few pedal strokes it was done. I was in New Jersey.

Since the Mapquest route had said the trip was around seventy six miles, I expected roughly fifteen miles left in the trip. Without the nifty aid of the GPS, I didn't have much to gauge how long that would take. Didn't really matter, just keep pedaling.

That pedaling finally brought me to Princeton, though not without climbing a nasty hill first. Tired from the hill and fighting to read my cue sheet on some shitty streets (million dollar homes on the shittiest roads I rode all day), I missed some turns. I was supposed to go through the middle of campus and take some pictures. Instead I ended up in downtown Princeton with all the shoppers and Sunday visitors. Instead of watching for my road, I'm watching for car doors and buses of tourists. I ride completely through town (which is downhill enough to suck going back) when I finally ask someone how to get to the train station. I turn around and follow his directions. Turns out they're wrong. Luckily I make my own wrong turn and end up in at least the right direction, but I'm running out of time.

I continue riding in what I think is the right direction. Finally I see signs for route 1. I know Princeton Junction is on the east side of route 1 and Princeton is on the west, but I don't know how far north or south of each other they are. I guess and head south parallel to route 1. I pass a bunch of cops arresting some guy. For some reason my sense of what the right direction was starts to feel wrong. For shits and giggles I check the GPS. There's enough of a map on it that I can get a little idea of the surrounding roads. Immediately I can see south along route 1 is not the right way. I turn around (again) and head for the cops. I roll up to the least engaged looking one and quickly ask for directions. Turns out my original direction was correct and Princeton and Princeton Junction are actually parallel to each other with route 1 running directly between. I'm still running out of time.

With a final sprint, I make it to the station.


I had enough time to buy my ticket, change clothes and call Jen to tell her I made it. The trip was 82 miles and 5 hours of riding. I don't know what the train ride distance was, but it took a little over an hour. After sitting all the time on the bike, I had no issues with standing on the train.

Jen picked me up in Secaucus, I grabbed a shower at her aunt's and we had dinner at her grandmothers. It was all very nice and very tasty. My legs were definitely sore, so I made sure I had plenty of Easter ham to pack in the protein.

Regardless of every one's skepticism, it turned out to be a really nice ride. All of the roads were bike worthy and enjoyable. In fact, I'll probably do it again next month when we go to visit friends in Princeton. At least then I could ride the roadbike, but what's the fun in that?

-b

Anaerobic Heroics

So today was the MASS Relay Race in Marysville. It was the first race of the season, first race of this format and my first time racing on the Mighty Spot Brand Team. I have to say, it was all a lot of fun. It was also very painful.

I've got a bunch of pictures and will build a page, but they're mostly of people standing around and hanging out. They don't really capture what happened today.

So what did happen?

From the first climb your vision tunnels down to just what's in front of you. Your hearing focuses only on your own wheezing breath. You hear the noise. It sounds awful. It's high pitched and raspy. You know it's not good, but you can't fix it. It just continues sucking in what air it can get to your lungs, which are burning. They're burning like someone lit a fire inside, but it's not warm - just burning. With every sucking moist breath (mucous runs from your nose across your mouth and in with the air), oxygen is brought through your burning lungs into your blood. The blood is mercilessly pumped by your heart to your legs. Your legs need it most because you keep pedaling them. They're numb, almost dead weight, but you keep pedaling them. Every now and again you push them by standing and climbing a hill. Now they burn like your lungs. They burn for more blood - more oxygen. Your heart pumps more blood to your legs and less to your brain. Your vision tunnels some more. There's no time to react to the next tree and it clips your shoulder. It will hurt later. There will be bruises and scratches you won't completely remember. You pedal on.

For a brief moment you wonder why you're doing this. Why are you going so fast? Why can't you slow down? There's no answer. It's what you do. It's what you have to do.

It's a quick lap. You hit it hard and fast, then you're home safe. Until next time.

-b

ps. the beer was good too. Thanks Bean's!

pps. so I rewrote most of this in my head today while riding.

Ride, Ride, Ride, Rest, Ride, Race!

That's pretty much it for this week. Saturday marks my first official outing with Spot on the SuperBad Spot Brand Factory Team racing the Marysville team relay for the Super Series. Should be pretty fun. The course in Marysville is one of my favorites in the Super Series - lots of tight and twisty singletrack.

Though what has me most anxious this week is my possible ride to Princeton Junction Sunday morning. Jen will already be in north Jersey for Easter at her grandmothers and it's my task on Sunday to meet her there. The obvious choice is the train to avoid the NJTPK, but it seems like such a waste to drive to Princeton Junction, then catch a train. Instead, I might make it an opportunity to get a nice long ride in. It's around seventy five miles (my favorite), but most of it is on roads I've never traveled. In addition, I might do it on the fixie in case a conductor decides the train is too full for a bike. I can get off and lock it up without fearing there won't be anything left when I get back to it.

We'll see how I feel after Saturdays race.

-b

Tiger Stripes

When flesh and thorns occupy the same space at once, you get this

This is a good thing. This means it's warm, we're riding in short sleeves and spring has sprung. This is trail maintenance in Dtown.

All said, of course, in my best growling King Leonidas voice.

-b

Mile Seventy Five

So yesterday was another century, but this one was a little different. The route was from my house to the Art Museum in Philly and back. It's generally a flat route, because half of it is on the Schuylkill River Trail. To make it interesting, I rode my fixie. Luckily Nancy, Jeff and Rick were kind enough to accompany me on such an adventure.

Interesting group really. Jeff is the one responsible for getting me into singlespeeds, Rick is responsible for getting me my job, and Nancy was responsible for kicking my ass. Nancy is a former Cat 2 road racer and generally uber fit chick. She's doing the upcoming Boston Marathon and Leadville this summer. Ouch.

We started under cloudy cool skies, so I was eager to hit some hills and warm up. Being fixed and running a bigger gear gave me no choice but stand and grind it out to the top of each hill. Somewhere along the way Nancy started throwing in little attacks on the hills. She'd drop it a few gears and surge ahead. Like Pavlov's dogs, I responded each time with a counter attack or what I thought was an attack and counter. Either way, the hills started to hurt and we began discussing options for the flattest route back. Obviously after seventy miles I wouldn't be able to climb with the same vigor as now.

For the most part the trip down the Schuylkill trail was uneventful. Some kind of regatta was going on near boathouse row, so there was some extra weaving needed through all the people. We stood in front of the art museum steps, then headed back to Manyunk. In Manyunk Rick continued home, while Jeff, Nancy and I stopped for nourishment at a little coffee shop. They had great panini's.
Refueled it was back to the trail. There are some hills climbing out of Manyunk. I'm not sure why, but I usually like powering up these hills as hard as I can. Maybe it's a test of my fitness after so many miles or maybe it's just dumb, but I do it every time. Soon afterwards the food in my belly rebelled and my stomach cramped a little. Not a big deal as we had twenty miles of flat to work it out.

Back at Valley Forge it was time to hit the roads and finish the last thirty miles. This is where my fitness truly gets tested. To get through Valley Forge and onto the roads there's a couple of rollers to get up and over. While on the flat Schuylkill for forty miles, your body kind of goes numb. You're just pedaling along not really feeling anything. In Valley Forge you start to feel again and what I felt was uncomfortable. The palm of my right hand kind of got numb and painful on the handlebar. After one particular long climb, my right quad cramped. I wasn't feeling good at all. It was mile seventy five and I just wanted to be home. I knew I hadn't been drinking enough and wasn't sure I could recover enough to finish the ride comfortably. Typically on these kinds of rides, this is the turning point. This is where it goes from a nice long ride to survival, managing discomfort and damage control. When the road flattened out, I chugged all the drink in one of my bottles. When it got flatter and quieter, I ate some food. Meanwhile Jeff was feeling it, but Nancy was just tooling along. I knew she'd outlast us.

Within a few minutes, the food and drink took effect. I felt strong again. Twinges of cramp went away and I felt confident I could finish the ride and possibly finish strong if I was smart about food and drink consumption. We found an excellent semi-flat route back with a little gravel road diversion. In a couple of places I tested myself with some hard pushes. As long as I kept the food and drink coming, I felt strong. Shortly before my house, we went separate ways as Jeff and Nancy headed back to his house. With the extra mileage to his house, they would easily get 100 miles. As I rolled up to my driveway, I hit 98. No good, so I rolled down to the neighborhood below my house and did some loops. It took four loops, some of which I sprinted, to get closer to 100. As I rolled down the driveway and right up to my front step I hit 100.1 miles.

I recorded the trip with my GPS, but it shut off a little over halfway. I thought the batteries died, so I didn't try turning it back on. It turns out it just shut off after so many hours. If you're interested the data is here.

My replaced and wedged cleat worked out ok. Something was wrong with the spring and I had to use Jeff's tool each time I unclipped to reset the spring and clip in again. I'll have to take a look at that. I think I'm finally starting to agree with people about my knee problems. I think I've been pushing too hard a gear all this time. I noticed a couple of times when pedaling got tough if I stood, my knee was fine. If I tried sitting and pushing through the resistance, my knee would start screaming, though a slightly different scream since putting the wedge in my cleat. I've already ordered some different gearing, so we'll see how that goes. I could just switch to a geared bike, but for some silly reason I really like riding fixed.

Speaking of riding fixed, I had no real issues because of it on the ride. I was worried I'd get really sore not being able to stand and/or coast, but I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary for a 100 mile ride. My tail bone was pretty sensitive yesterday, but fine today.

When I got home, there was a whole other adventure waiting for me. Jen had been doing yardwork all day and had some things ready to go in the garage attic. To do that I had to pull the truck out of the garage. When I say pull. I mean pull. The battery had gone dead in the truck, so I hooked up the tractor and pulled it out of the way.

Did some yard work myself to catch up with Jen then put it all away. Couldn't get the truck to start at all. I'll have to deal with that today now that my brain is functioning a little better.

Tonight is the Brewer's Plate. We've been all three years it's been around. Lots of tasty food and of course tasty beer.

-b