Back to Bicycling

You might have thought, when you read the title, that I'm commuting to work by bicycle again. Ah, well, no such luck for me. I hope that will happen some day, but not until I move or change jobs again.

No, this blog is just another bicycling blog. Not unlike many of those you've read before.

The story starts when I met Steve, one of Cindy's coworkers at Playmakers, at his house for distance-oriented training ride at 7 a.m. Saturday morning. You may recall reading a previous blog in which we rode with Steve and his girlfriend, Lizzie, for family ride. A guy named Bob went along, too, for that one. We've done that a couple of times now (although not the Bob part), but this particular Saturday ride represents the beginning of training for ODRAM 2011. Oh, yes, you remember that too, don't you! The One Day Ride Across Michigan. Because it's not sufficiently painful enough to do ordinary rides; it's important to seek out the worst; plan for nearly intolerable training schedules, undertake them bound to fail, and then suffer through miles of pain because, well, just because, I suppose. Ah, well, that's coming later.

OK, back to Saturday: Steve and I met at 7 a.m. planning to bust out a quick 60 miles before lunch. I needed to get home to the kids, and so couldn't spend time lolligagging down the road at a leisurely pace. We headed straight north for 30 miles with the wind at our backs. Our average speed must have been over 20 mph. We talked while we rode, occasionally discussing the fact that we riding at an unsustainable pace, and with a return trip into the wind, would really pay for our overzealous start. We did. I did.

I still felt quite strong when we stopped for a break at mile 30 beside a statue of a cow that was larger than any elephant I've ever seen. Pay a visit to Elsie, MI, if you'd like to see it. It's huge (the cow, not Elsie). There's not much else of interest in Elsie. Well, I guess I don't really know that. OK, after our short break we headed north a little further, and looped around back to the south. Yup, the headwind was a killer. By the time we hit mile 40 I was beginning to wonder where I'd find the juice for the 20 miles we had to cover to get home. I'd already used up two Gu packs and Clif bar. I felt hungry so I ate a Clif Mojo bar. Yummy, but dry, and my water bottles were running low. Not even at mile 50 and I'm starting to lose steam; slowing down; and where did these hills come from? Another Gu shot -- this one with a double shot of caffeine. along with a short break in the shade of a tree. Back on the road, feeling better but moving slower, with Steve dropping me on every hill, we made it home.

I crashed in the shade beside Steve and Lizzie's house. Lizzie brought me some ice water. She was probably wondering what she'd do with the body if I died right there in her grass. What would she tell Cindy?

OK, well, you already know that since I'm writing this, Lizzie didn't have to dispose of my body. But what the hell? Am I not strong? Maybe Steve held up better than me because he rides a Waterford. I was riding my Soma; still stripped of it's fenders and rack after the Barry-Roubaix Killer Gravel Road Race earlier this year. That Soma Double Cross is awesome, but I'm gonna call Soma and complain that it's not as fast as a Waterford. It's all about the bike, you know. No! Of course, I don't really believe that; just mocking.

After all those Gu shots, I was just about sick for the rest of the day. I could barely eat lunch. When I got home, I think the kids thought I was going to die on the sofa in the basement. They were probably wondering what they'd do with the body. What would they tell Cindy? But after an hour long nap, and some lunch, I lived. The we went down the street to an "open house" for a local graduating senior and ex-occasional baby sitter. I ate lunch again.

OK, so that was Saturday. Can you guess what we did on Sunday? Yup. We got the mountain bikes out and headed off to Brighton to ride the Murray Lake Trail. I know, you've read about that one before too. Like, right here. But this time we did it differently: Quinn and I took the Black Beast (our Fandango) while the girls rode their Santa Cruz singles. It was just way too much fun!

Quinn and I hammered through every tricky climb, every switchback, over every log. That tandem is awesome! I really enjoy negotiating it through switchbacks lined with trees, letting the front wheel swing a wide arc, under full power, right to the outside edge of every turn so there's plenty room to bring the rear around. It just adds to the swoopiness of the whole experience. Quinn didn't even seem afraid of the land speeder approach to zipping through the forest, although Murray Lake doesn't give quite the opportunity for speed that one finds at Yankee Springs.

I'm pretty sure we never got both wheels off the ground at once this time. We never crashed. We caught Quinn's crank while crossing a log pile -- that stopped us quickly, but we didn't crash. Worse yet, I whacked the stoker bar on a tree along the inside of a sharp 180-degree turn. Quinn got his fingers out of the way so they were not destroyed, but his shoulder, elbow, and knee hit the tree. No big deal, he's a tough kid, right? We just got out the tools and fixed him up. Loosened the seat post binder bolt and straightened out the seat and stoker bars. This is when Quinn came up with the idea for a retractable stoker bar. One that works just like my Gravity Dropper Turbo seat post. When forest is tight, hit the button and slide the bars in. Wide downhill? Snap those bars out wide. Quinn's gonna make millions -- or maybe just bike parts -- for me someday, if he gets over this fever.

The girls did really well, too. Abbey rode the full 9+ miles on her Chameleon with Cindy behind her. I hope Cindy was yelling at her to make her ride faster. You know I would have been. Cindy was trying to work with Abbey on shifting. Abbey understands how the shifters work and uses them well, but still has to think about which hand to use and which way to shift. It should become instinctive. Involuntary. Like breathing. You need to climb a hill, your brain tells your fingers what to do, but the thought never crosses your mind. Like a dog barking at a raccoon. Okay, a dog is a bad example; based on my observation of Amos, a thought never crosses a dog's mind. Anyway, Quinn and I could tell Abbey was having fun when we heard her screaming on short, steep downhills. I could tell Quinn was having fun because he kept telling me he was. And when we were done he wanted to do it all again.

Oh, you want to see pictures? Sure, I took a few, let me look...






Click here to see the Garmin data from our ride.

The next day, after work, I did it again, this time on my Nickel. Click here to see the Garmin data for that one.

It's interesting to note that the bike odometers read close to ten miles on this ride, while the GPS indicates only nine. This I assume must be becuase many of the twists and switchbacks are too small for the GPS to detect.

Pinewood Derby

OK, I'm rolling with the blogs tonight...

This is one from earlier this spring. Over the holidays when we were in Wichita, we cut out the basic shape for Quinn's Pinewood Derby car on Grandpa's band saw. We kept the shape simple. At home we finished it up with some chiseling, sanding, drilling, and painting.

We drilled holes in the back for cylindrical weights, and filled the holes with epoxy, then smoothed them with putty. We recessed the bottom of the car and screwed flat weights underneath. The car has to weigh not more than 5.0 oz, and getting as close to that but not over is critical for a winning car -- which probably means that 5.09 oz. is the weight to target. We took the car to Playmakers and used the digital shoe scale to get the weight to 5.1 oz. We had some small screws in the bottom we planned to remove to bring it down to exactly 5.0 oz at the official weigh-in, held the night before the race. Unfortunately, on the official scale we were only at 4.9 oz. We had brought some extra little screws I could have added to the bottom to get it up to 5.0 (we even had pre-drilled holes), but at that time, for some reason I just didn't bother. In hindsight, I sort of wish I had, since we'd gone to the effort to polish and dry-lube the axles; I should have added that extra 0.15 oz.

It was fun to build. Quinn did much of the sanding, and most of the painting. I got to use the power tools and chisel.



The car did pretty well, making through first series of races and into the top six. Here, Quinn's car wins another heat:



On the polished aluminum track, the cars were fast, and the time-difference between winning cars was often down to less than 0.01 seconds. Quinn's car came in 6th overall. The overall winner is that red car second from the right.



The race was run fairly, and in good fun, which made it a good experience. We've thought we might do cub scouts again for the sole purpose of making next year's winning car. But I don't think we will.

Spring Sports

I took Quinn to his soccer games each Saturday this spring. Cindy had to work and couldn't make it to any of them. You would think I would have taken a bunch of pictures, right? Well, given my excellent organizational skills, we were lucky to make it to the game with his cleats and uniform -- not once did I remember a camera. This first picture was taken with my phone, which is pretty worthless as a camera. I had to send this image to Abbey's phone as picture message, and she was able to email it me from her phone. Even our other cameras are just little point-and-shoots. For these sporting events it would be nice to have a digital SLR. Maybe someday.

This was Quinn's first time playing soccer. He played very well and very hard, especially for a first-timer.



Since Abbey's lacrosse tournaments usually last all day, I had plenty of time to go back home and get my camera.

Abbey can run pretty fast when she wants to. Yes, that's her; number 44. She usually played mid-field when she wasn't playing goalie.




Here, Abbey is playing goalie. In the last game, I watched her block two solid shots, one of which she blocked with her hip. The ball hit her just above her thigh pad. She also knocked down another shot that probably would have missed the goal anyway. Not one got passed her, so she was pleased with her final half as goalie.

She looks a little angry here, doesn't she?

School is Out

We finally reached the end of the 2010/2011 school year. I think the kids always find the last day bitter sweet, although I'm not sure they'll admit it. Starting next week we'll be looking at the onset of the summer doldrums.

Abbey missed only one day of school this year. Quinn had missed none until today. Yesterday, on the very eve of the last day of school, Quinn was stricken with a high fever and most painful headache, forcing him to miss his last day of school. Rarely have I seen him so sad. Tonight, we are still battling to keep his temperature out of triple digits.

The last six weeks of school were just about the busiest we've seen yet. Little wonder he should have a headache. Quinn was in cub scouts, playing soccer, and of course playing the piano. Abbey was playing lacrosse (four nights a week and a tournament nearly every weekend) and playing the piano and trumpet. There was plenty of homework, too. We had at least two activities going on just about every evening. On top of that, I did a couple of bike races, we've been moving walls in the basement, and Cindy has been painting the basement.

A most unfortunate reprieve from piano lessons came these last three weeks, when the kids's teacher, Mrs. Black, became ill and had to spend some time in the hospital. This meant no spring recital, but with everything else I don't know that Q&A could have found time to polish and memorize two piano pieces each.

The other unfortunate reprieve, of course, was Cindy's abrupt halt to her marathon training with the onset of a hip injury. She'll have to try again this fall or next spring. On the positive side, this has meant an earlier start to our bicycling season.

We're interested to see if Abbey was able to maintain her usual stellar academic performance through the last month. I'm betting not. How shall we punish her? Quinn of course, maintained his usual rowdy academic performance right up to the last day. How should we punish him?

Quinn's class went to the Meridian Historical Village this spring. It's a standard 2nd grade field trip. The village is great little spot just up the road where some of Okemos's first buildings were moved and are now maintained. Quinn really seemed to enjoy it - especially making and eating butter. Late 1800s dress was encouraged for the trip, and everyone was required to limit their vision to black and white.

Quinn, on our porch the morning of the trip to the historical village (our house was built in '62):



Here's Abbey, in second grade, on her trip to the Meridian Historical Village. Cindy made the dress:

Mouse Toes

Poor Amos. He's had a couple of little bumps on the webbing between two toes on one front paw. We're not sure what caused them - possibly the result of something he steppe don. He'd been licking the area for a few weeks, turning it red and bloody and sore with his tongue. Yesterday the bumps were removed by his doctor, but now he has stitches between his toes and he has to wear the cone of shame.

Get well soon, Mouse!