guess what

seatpost is slipping... fuck

hoping that #1 i got it set at the right height and #2 it won't move now.

annoying but not as annoying/terrifying as doing something as simple as filling up a waterbottle

holding the bottle in the left hand and reaching father with the right to turn on the water to have all the little muscles in your back all slowly start to cramp, little tiny slivers of pain radiating... WHY MOTHERFUCKER ouch...

so I'm functional, can ride, but the middle of my back/ribs is this painful annoying ache. Hurts most if I expand my chest with a deep breath. It doesn't make it go away or seize further.

It is in this weird limbo of not quite seized up but def not relaxed...  more on the edge of being seized. the onset was crazy though. nothing i could do to stop it.

talk about putting a damper on the day - mentally distracted AND physically encumbered trying to minimize the pain.

and here i was feeling pretty good about the core stability and strength lately. better get back on my plank shit and stuff, esp if I'm gonna do the singlespeeding...  ThomP suggests you need extra core balance to make it work - i know... oh i know - but i'm also not quite ready to go to one cog. But even with the legs unable to cash the check i wrote on Sunday, the other part of the riding is getting much better, def not riding around every god damn rock, more often than not the times I fuck up are because i'm going to slowly over a feature or in the wrong gear. if you have one cog you are always in the wrong gear so setting up before the feature is key...  have been riding behind Fred too, him on his single speed is helping me gauge that...

the DirtRag going under is sad. But I'm part of the problem. I don't read or buy print mags anymore. I probably would have subscribed to DR but that's about the only one. BIKE back in the day was the bible, Mikey F's column, DR's contributors are the same though - different feel but I felt def more aligned with their base than the MtBAction crew that evolved into the hucking enduro bro DH crew.

haven't had any extra coffee today - but the flip side is i'm really tired... and my back is aching...

feels okay to ride so there's that - should probably actually sign up for the Race on sunday soon.

and go home now - had a few minutes of chill this afternoon - only flow of support issues, managed to check a few things off the long list... guess i should see if the seat post says up... go ahead and make a joke about the old guy's post staying up...

heddwch
G

funny

caught a whiff of excitement about the upcoming CX worlds this weekend.

(distracting myself mid-email - i should get back to the email)

anyway - someone was getting excited about it - i don't care

i should

but

meh

i think I might have an idea why

not ready to put it in words here - will share over coffee - if you buy the coffee

otherwise I'll let the idea/logic/reasons stew until they go away or feel appropriate to share

but yeah - really don't care and i find that weird - maybe it is the mt bike thing - also totally don't give a shit about the superbowl

back to emailing

too many of them require complicated researched answers... aka wandering eyes and clicks...

heddwch
G

dreams

Mark the Shark posted on FB a selfie in front of a mural that says:
"Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind."

What if you don't have any dreams, never had dreams?

Or dreams you had were so far fetched as to be dismissed by an overthinker and then basically forgotten/nullified... or other combos or something...

Can't follow your dreams if you don't have any.

That's kind of the part that is the most raw in the Pogues christmas song "I kept them with my own..."

Even when I first heard it on that cassette tape one of the people that was staying with us and taking care of us while my mom and step dad were on tour in the early 80s i got it...

I guess I had a dream once, to be a naval architect, to design boats and stuff...  my grandfather had set up a meeting with Henry Scheel. I had a bunch of designs and concepts and what I called drawings.

They weren't precise drafting 'drawings' they were concepts ideas... I didn't have any training in technique beyond reading books. One I remember was pretty remarkable because I'd never seen the design anywhere and I read everything on sailing and sailing design and history of different ships and all that. And two or three years later a brand new Scheel designed round the world sailboat had the rudder idea essentially as I sketched it out. I can't have been that original of a thought but also difficult to disprove the link. Scheel sent everything back, calling it garbage and worthless chicken scratch...

I gave up on any thought to pursue that passion.

Who knows, I am here now, doing this.

I rode the MTB today. I think maybe the saddle is now TOO low. Damnit. also stem feels short, although only when on the road, in the woods it doesn't....  going to ignore that for the moment.

Weather has totally cleared for the weekend, might not need to change the tires at this rate, no precipitation is expected to fall. Next week looks pretty miserable though. Ouch.

Dreams, do you need them? Who do they drive? If you think too much they are kind of easily dispelled...  maybe the disquiet is as much not having them as worrying about why you don't.

I'm sure solobreak would have some quip that would explain it all and make me feel like an idiot. There's plenty enough making me feel like an idiot now though.

this is pretty good - but rather than a slope that ambitious I'd say once you make it past the initial gain it is more flat than a slope:

Staying on the path is the hardest part.

Nail the basics
Be consistent
Tweak when needed
Presence
Patience

The Growth Eq has been helping over 16,000 people with no nonsense insights on performance and well-being every Thursday morning. Subscribe here: https://t.co/fW1FuQbxRg pic.twitter.com/zD6RsZJuPC

— Brad Stulberg (@BStulberg) January 28, 2020

oh and this one:
https://twitter.com/travis_robert/status/1222187362047930369
the one about Kobe and traffic and the cars...  i'm not the only one

okay - lunch is over- time to move through the rest of this shit piling up.

And yeah - def felt like Thursday and today doesn't feel like Wednesday. Why does this week seem so LONG.

heddwch
G

have to confess

The days after I do a hard ride on the MTB I'm waking up with that stupid hip pain again. BUT ON THE OTHER FUCKING SIDE!

Yesterday I rode the singlespeed surly, woke up pain free.

Fuck.

Confession: The MTB seat height has been feeling too tall when I release the dropper post and pedal at full extension. Was conning myself into believing that it was just the extreme from the low to the high.

it was 5-6 mm too high.

I still just rode the Surly today, but was good to wake up with the pain gone. So, I can't ride cranks that are too short, and maybe I can't have my seat too high?

FUCKing bodies.

Guess that's what you get with getting old, beats the alternative.

Batty dropped some heat on the Kobe thing. I'll leave my comments about it at that.

I'm now thinking I might have ordered the wrong thru-axle for the bike. It keeps loosening up. The mechanism is designed to be adjustable and well I think it is over complicated and I'd prefer the security of a simple 6mm wrench to tighten/remove it.  We'll see I guess.

Boa should be here friday - plenty of time to get the shoes sorted out for the race. Maybe. Weather keeps changing. Now looking clear for sunday but snow and rain saturday.

this is a good little feel good story - there's a lot going on in that article, and it is good.

This song just came on (after The General - sung by Dispatch = i l ike that song too)

it is good...  another set of lyrics that are good

heading out...  thinking... 

time to pedal

hungry

tired

bike

heddwch
G

first one down

technical issue at the end of the lecture - didn't get to go into the slides but left em with enough to chew on for the week and one doozy of an assignment, but we're rolling and i guess this is what impostor syndrome is like? i have no idea why there is such a high demand for a class that's so poorly put together. Although maybe it isn't that bad.

We do always seem to manage to make some sense of the madness.

it is always tough to tell people it is full and there's no room... there are some really talented good people on the waiting list that are unlikely to get a seat in the class.

oh before i forget - go put your name on this petition: https://ebooksforall.org/

Libraries are important...  and need help, which seems odd because they help so many - but spread the news - sign the thing, do your part, even if only the two or three of you that read this blog do it will help.

made it through lecture w/o getting hungry - but man it was hot in the room, or it just felt hot to me. Could be the extra people. Always feels warmer in the room with 20 people than it does with 12-14.

Rode single speed CX today - Thom's comments about his ride this weekend make me think I need to get my ass in gear and singlespeed up the MTB soon...

although - i'm still figuring out how to ride, gonna try and get some new tires in before the weekend - just ordered some XR4s, the knobby cousin to the XR2...  really should get some fancy carbon wheels to put the 4s on for race days but just tires will work for now. Those 2s are wicked slick in the slick... 

is it too late for more coffee?

the answer is "it depends"

oops - better wrap stuff up. gonna try just drinking water to see if that gets me home

heddwch
G

Damnit stevil

almost got me

i escaped with only misty eyes

hey btw - riding 2.5 hrs with Syl, then not eating much, drinking a large dunkin black ice cold brew at 2pm and having two slices of pizza for dinner, picking up kid after a formal at 11:30pm and then not sleeping much and getting up at 6:30 to go ride 2.5 hours with Syl and Fred on the technical shit after two nights of bad sleep, lots of stress and not enough food...  was "character building"

i burned up my time watching the short film, but it was worth it.

Reminds me to include the bit about science and storytelling and art and the combination of all that with the class...  that starts in a few hours and I'm not quite prepared.

heddwch
G

slick

grainy snow on pine needles (white pine - long, durable) with those 3" XR2 tires is a 'fun' combination. Worse than mud, although there was a bit of that today too. Hell the ice had more traction than most of the snow today.

It was a good ride, a great one. But I was/am tired. Woke up at 4:30, restless night, too early, checked the clock again, oh 5:30 sweet, one more hour...  7:30 shit was gonna meet syl between 8 and 9...  his text was waiting for me saying 8:30...

coffee, food, get dressed, more coffee, pack car, get garbage and recycling out to the curb push start back to 8:45... make it by 8:48, Syl rolls in at 8:55. Right on time.

We rode where we have been, Big River. starting at Greasy Joe's, we went in by the water tower side, did some stuff, i was def riding better technically today but not perfectly, traction was a little bit of an issue, the ice the snow and some of the mud. We spent most of the time on trails that had not been ridden much if at all in a while, heavy leaf covering, not much snow or if there was snow it was grainy and soft, not packed and frozen into ice like the high traffic areas. It actually was pretty sweet out there. We hit Stine's trail after the other section of higher speed flow and it hurt.

I was gassed but when we got out Syl was breathing hard too so it was a bit of a validation that it isn't just me and the slow bike. But yeah me, 220# on a 30-40# bike was trying to keep up with 140# on a 20# full suspension carbon XC race machine. I dropped that damn post for a lot of the twisty stuff and it helps a ton, getting the weight lower and railing like on a BMX bike is faster than trying to ride it with the post jacked to the max. But it is tiring. I think maybe that is what shredded my legs. That and trying to keep up with Syl.

We'd made plans to go ride the course for next weeks race tomorrow, but Syl forgot about stuff and well that's not happening.

As sore and tired as I'm feeling now I'm half thinking I should just take it easy, work on class notes and the syllabus and get some grocery shopping done. Esp with the rain we're getting tonight.

But i can probably be convinced to go out and ride tomorrow, won't take much I think.

It is pretty amazing how little i notice the weight riding, but trying to pick up the bike and put it in the van is rough. Riding on pavement is rough. But I can still launch off rocks and keep syl in view as we climb and ride.

Man it is BLOWING and raining. Some front coming through right now.

Oh, I did almost knock myself out. Hit a ride up a rock, one of those super steep angles that you need to pop the front wheel and do the whole weight shift momentum thing...  I was paying attention to the angle and the transitions and totally ignored the overhanging tree.

SMACK

I drove myself full force into the underside of the tree. I think I actually cracked it. Helmet hit HARD, full transfer of force through my body. I was stunned for a bit. Then thought "Well here's a chance to test concussion susceptibility"

my neck is a little sore but that's about it.

I think the helmet is a bit old though - i would have expected the foam to actually have compressed or deformed with that hard of a hit, unless the tree did instead. either way as hard as the impact was, that helmet should have sustained more damage than it did.

On the first trail, Fosters?, Syl commented "I wonder who is going to be the first to crash on the ice."  Neither of us did. I had a handful of times when I spun out or spun sideways but no crash (other than my head and that wasn't ice/condition related).

Also saw Dave McC out there. Haven't seen him in YEARS! It brought back memories of riding Dawn Patrol with him and Wendy and Becca, and making pancakes after...  and for a bit there I was lagging behind Syl, half rewinding memories and the other half of my brain saying "hey dumbass...  you better not eat shit being distracted about that stuff" Syl actually said the same thing when I admitted to letting my brain drift to those memories.

Swung through Trader Joes on the way home, and yeah that's a plastic pre-package NIGHTMARE of a store. But they have stuff. Like affordable fancy cheese, cheap avocados and slice almonds and a few other things. Traffic tho, rt2 sucks. So many cars.

Stopped at the shop - picked up some more skratch sugar water mix (yeah yeah it is expensive, even at my cost but it works) sorted out what size bike Em is looking for (52, if any has a decent road bike for broke grad student who wants to start riding outside that is inexpensive lemme know thanks).

Now legs are just pissed, I'm tired. Def under fueled and under coffeed and eyes are heavy. Laundry is running (got dirty today)...  excited for class to be honest, looking forward to improving my craft, trying to help the students grow and learn, maybe I'll get lucky with this group and it will click. Last year there were a few wild cards that were not maybe the best fit. It is interesting pouring everything into a class, teaching something you're both very good at and very passionate about.

Trying to chew through The Stone Sky. I am not sure how much of a fan I am of the broken earth series. Insanely well written but I'm almost forcing myself to read and find I'm getting distracted too easily. It is better listened to. For me. Reading it, imaginatively the same but somehow, kind of like Neuromancer, the only way to easily consistently get through it is to listen to the audiobook.

What to read next? Dunno...  the wishlist/tagged books on my library account is pretty long, most of them are not available. I do have something on hold, three body problem I think... 

looks like dirt church chatter is starting up, might be riding Mountain bicycles again! Unretired.

Oh, one funny related moment  Syl also told Dave that he expected my return to MTB'n to be much bloodier, disappointed that it wasn't....

well i'm gonna go look for more food
heddwch
G

thanks brain

where to start?

i guess this morning - riding the Stache to work is fun, esp when the path is frozen footprints and rage inducing and treacherous on any other bike - when the pavement is bare and dry and i'm not listening to a book and thinking...

well it is fucking SLOW. IT TAKES A LOT OF WORK TO TURN THOSE FUCKING PEDALS.

That's a really good thing from a making the commute act as sort of training.

It is a bad thing in that it is slow because there is so much loss due to the nature of the bike.

Yet it isn't terrible in the woods and it downright fucking joyously fun to ride here.

But it makes me wonder, what it would be like to ride a bike like this that was 10 pounds lighter.

bad line of thinking - but maybe not... New wheels. I could do that - can i do that and keep the 50 mm rim width? Maybe. New Frame, damn we're talking new bike, hmm...

nope nope - lets make this work...

Talked through first day of class with my TA from last year, got some good ideas, i mixed up people speaking about stuff though - but also thanks to blogy blog found a link to the speech the year after the one I was thinking about and found both of them - might tie elements of both into first day lecture...

link 1
link 2

I did this with Rehoboth. I never could understand any of the routes out there, until I went and did the crazy May that started the HOTM year...  Dry May, in an attempt to shed weight didn't work, neither did riding all those miles, with the weight, but what it did do was activate my homing pigeon brain and orient myself to the roads out there.

of course I read that yesterday and then found today's to be awesome.

Yes - parking - fuck - parking. so frustrating the other day when I had to drive in...  the Stache may be slow but it s better than doing laps looking for a place to park w/in 10 blocks of work.

Other thinking - the absolute racket that is exploitation and acceptance of it and deference and respect to power because that's the way it is and the victim doesn't matter. And yeah I guess I'm freeloading because i'm not a subscriber to seth's stuff... i guess i like that model - monetize your work.

or keep doing what I do - fuck it - give it away - at least mine isn't worth reading and sharing - and I don't put work into it - i just unload my brain.

Sometimes, very rarely, i have an idea that gets worked and massaged and delivered in a coherent manner with words in this medium...

i should be working on class notes and refining the lecture, but, nah it has been a bit crazy - i've got some time this weekend to work on ideas and words and thoughts - and now that i posted this two things that i can draw from in collecting my notes and refining the lecture plan...

Spring calendar is coming together - regattas for the kid racing 4s and doubles, E's half and full marathons and then i get to shoehorn in a few MTB races hopefully.

No conflict with Wicked Nor'eastah so that's a start - will go from there... all the way to 24HOGG

time to pack up the place and ride home...

heddwch
G

People who are all hat and no cattle

"What’s crazy is that you’ve done all this with zero drama. People who can help you improve, you know how to spot them and learn from them and then kick their ass. People who are all hat and no cattle, you are polite and keep moving."

Just had an chat with someone i'm working with here about my brushes with Glioblastoma...  MLFN, Birch's mom, Neil...  and then the others with the cancer thing... it has touched lots of people I am close to, taken too many.

Sobering discussing it...

but was reading Seth's stuff (quote above) and of course my brain was in full this individual he's talking about just passed... no, phew. Thanks brain, always going negative.

and yeah another fuck yeah empowering awesome blog (I set the bar really low for everyone else)
http://drunkcyclist.com/2020/01/20/ride-out-the-darkness/

Dirty doesn't post much over there - I'm super close to unfollowing the founder, Big Jonny, on the twitter because he's so good at retweeting all the current political stuff and I'm maybe at the breaking point of needing to filter down even further.

And yes, I know, filtering it down doesn't mean I'm not aware of what is going on. I'll often, somehow, be more informed of interesting bits of news before my wife who actually follows the burning trashpile.

this paragraph was esp good over at DC:

"I then moved on to the “I Have a Dream” speech. By this time I was familiar with the crescendo of the speech. We have all heard the soundbites. But I had no idea there was so much more to it. A line stood out to me: “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note…” I didn’t even know what that meant so I asked my great grandfather, who’s porch I was sitting on. He explained it out of context and in, and my mind was blown. He started to tell me about how immigrant Italians like him were treated like shit when they came to America. But nothing compared to what the people with darker skin go through every day in this country. What the hell? I tried to take the conversation further but it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about any more. I remember that moment clearly. He seemed conflicted and angry. It was rare for such a badass to be flustered."

"As useful as snow tires on an ice cream truck"

Of course you should be staying up with the latest Stevil saga...

wound up putting some PHJB on not this track but the video is full of visual joy to go with the tune:

but hey can't get too happy round here can we? But yeah Keep your head up.

Colossal has a great bit up that I caught this morning. Gorgeous black and white stuff. Man does it ache to want to shoot in black and white again. And no. Taking a colormask CCD/CMOS and making it black and white is NOT the same thing. Different. very different. of course i think this guy is using a Leica Monochrome M...

Whoops - today slipped through...  got a lot done, some stuff didn't get done, there's always tomorrow...

time to ride the Stache home. MAN how nice is this thing on the lumpy ice. So nice.

heddwch
G

what is downtime?

I think it might be what i'm doing now, that limbo of i haven't had enough coffee today and I'm too tired to read or watch TV but it is only 8:30pm and if i go to sleep now I'll be awake at 4am... 

Did a lot this weekend. Fit a hell of a lot of things in over the long three days.

One of the things that did not get fit in is riding a bike. 3 days off after two weeks on. Feeling stiff and sore but also have been lifting and moving stuff for most of today and Saturday. Def not a sedentary weekend.

I did manage to lose my phone in the barn sorting through stuff. Spend 30 min takeing it apart and searching dusty empty boxes and discarded smelly paper wrapping...  Brother was there and we tried calling it but it was 20 F and it probably died/shutdown 10 min after falling out of my breast pocket when I bent over a box. It was in the last place i looked. I did stop looking after I found it, but it literally was nearly the last place to look through before starting to look everywhere all over again.

The thing about going through shit that you haven't seen in 15 years is the memories...  so much of the stuff is wrecked but there's a dozen ball caps of significance that somehow got packed and flattened and now are just garbage but still fun to see and be reminded of the things before they wind up in a landfill.  E collected a LOT of different stuff in our time in Michigan. so much stuff. and we moved most of it. That house had more storage and display space than this one does. Bottle collection, fisher price toy collection, those are the two big ones...  china, bone china, wedding china, tea and coffee services. Stuff.

So. Much. Stuff.

Bonus is we're purging more from the house than we're bringing in (barn is slated for demo 'soon') Finally taking the time to go through, organize, toss, and donate things that have been stacked and accumulated. It is good, but it is a bit of work. And I'm staring down another week of insanity. The schedule is so nuts that I really needed to have stopped into the picture factory today (on my day off) to set up for tomorrow.

Maybe I should just go to bed now and wake up stupid dark oclock and just get to work really really early.

We got snow saturday, really sketchy drive to Wide World South on unplowed roads... there and back. Nice warm up on Sunday, not a total melt though. And now a stupid hard freeze. It'll be in the low teens tonight and with the ice on the path being super lumpy from all the foot traffic, the MTB is the go to for the commute tomorrow.

Still haven't put studded tires on anything. E-Bike hasn't sold, may put studs back on there, maybe. We'll see.

This is a good read - a bit fluffy but Chabot posted it, i clicked and read and it isn't so bad.

Gadds_Truth_Five_Fitness_Commandments_to_Live_By: //www.explore-mag.com/Gadds_Truth_Five_Fitness_Commandments_to_Live_By

i suppose i should go read the rest of the articles.

slept pretty poorly last night on top of it all. caloric debt and mental tension, bad combo.

bonus is i've killed enough time that I think I can probably safely start getting ready for bed.

did some more brainstorming for the first day of class next week... might be onto something, or not, maybe just default to a lecture and be normalish...

getting to the point where that's about all I'll have time to do...

pedal tomorrow in the f'n freazing cold, got the suspension notice for the car that i sold, gotta deal with that this week too. Plenty of time...  so much time to do that. Weeee.

heddwch
G

chill to end the Friday

haven't posted this in a while - haven't watched one in a while ...  this has a nice just upbeat enough rhythm to be uplifting w/o being intense or too boring...

background video/soundtrack as the day wraps up and I prepare to head out into the weather

adaptogens

so i have a confession, back in the fall i started taking an herbal adaptogen supplement.

the science was there - it isn't some homeopathic nonsense...  the break/holidays disrupted the habit...  along with the habit of taking the Vitamin D. So I know my D levels are down in the below normal levels, they were barely normal taking 1000-2000mg/day...

but i have been feeling more anxious and all that lately, different and many variant, but drinking this much coffee while taking that stuff didn't affect me this way...

was easier, now not easier...

Thinking maybe there's something to that stuff.

Long day - only two more broken microscope problems to deal with... next week. Bikes...

oof the ride in - nearly blown to a complete stop by the headwind when I caught the full force of a gust on the causeway. Was actually a relief to turn right up the hill...  until i turned back north again...  still better than being in a car.

i got no words

been a good f'n long week - check out the HIllbilly weather forecast (faceplace) for some good fucking entertainment...

lets see how much shit i can wrap up before the long weekend - hell maybe i can avoid going to work on a day off...  maybe

heddwch
G

um... yeah wait... what?

What a F'n week so far. Still one more day to go and well...

it feels like i'm plowing snow, pushing this mountain in front of me, still moving, path clear behind me but this stuff I'm pushing is just staying in front, building up, higher and higher.

It isn't going away, some of it is falling to the side, moved off, taken care of, okay to move past, but it also feels like as I'm moving what should have been an appropriate amount along that it is growing faster than it should.

Training on the new system, two days of absolute non-stop no lunch break intensity from 9 to 5:30, and then today - Factory specialist left yesterday, me and the FSE, fixed the problem, but now I get to do my own SAT post upgrade to make sure it is working. There was something simple. A pin fell out, a shield that protects the encoder from light and mis-reading was loose, it fucked some serious shit up.

Including my schedule.

Out of wack, really wildly out of wack.

Weather's getting funky too.

Moving on from the Volvo to now worrying about the next shit on the horizon, why the fuck can't my brain just fucking RELAX

fuck

I keep taking the last cliff bar out of the emergency food stash, and then putting it back. Four times this afternoon so far.

I think maybe I didn't eat enough lunch or something. Not eating lunch for the last two days probably has me in a bit of a debt...  oops...

Getting through Vita Nostra...  these russians are REALLY good at storytelling. In High school we had a bit of a section on russian lit...  i was hooked, dug into all the translations I could get my hands on. I skipped the monstrous tomes like War and Peace, found the short stories to be engaging.

Anyway - I also have a confession, I think I like the Inheritance Trilogy better than the Broken Earth one...  both great, both incredibly well written, but.. i dunno.... 

shit it is late...  left this sitting here too long - running around too much

snow piling up in front of my plow

lets see if i can get home and avoid precipitation - not looking good for MTBs this weekend, still have to get through tomorrow...

heddwch
G

double ride

Hell it was over 60°F and sunny both days this weekend. W.T.F.

I'll take it and I took advantage of it and got two decent rides in over in Big River. Sunday was def a more relaxed pace. Followed Freddie on his singlespeed as we lead the big chicken around on his first MTB ride in a couple decades. He took us along the flatter stuff. Was fun though- i fucked up a few of the climbs but was well within my comfort zone. Saturday was chasing tiny Syl up and down all the hills he could find and through some of the more technical sections. Some day I'll clean I see Dead People. Maybe.

Was good though. Watched some football, sent the Volvo on to a new home. rode bikes. did shopping.

Listened to some music and watched the kid play some soccer - they hadn't touched a ball or laced up shoes since may and had a very good first outing. But maybe saturday nights are locked up eh?

Saturday it was crazy windy again. Bike was leaning against the van, and it was blown completely over, and landed, all 50 thousand pounds of bike, on the rear der. shifting was fucked up all day. So I tried to make it work and attempted a singlespeed ride, or a minimal shifting ride. Meant i really torqued my legs on the climbs, it was good but it was a lot of work.

Almost fucked up the spot where I broke the garmin off the week before, almost. Saved it at the last moment. Felt so much better on the bike Saturday and Sunday than i did the week before. Sunday met with the new owners - sent the volvo off and wrapped up just in time to get out to the start of the noon ride.

Football was fun to watch, Vrabel f'yeah, Seachickens almost squeaked past the cheeseheads, was enough of a chance that i was entertained enough to watch to the end.

Week of crazy before the next week of crazy has started and I'm already wiped out by the day. Have to try and get one last thing done, but needed people off one bit of instrumentation.

Although, hmm, haven't heard anything about tomorrow - shit - best double check?

crap...

well list of shit to do before leaving just got complicated and I'm not waiting for open equipment anymore.

heddwch
G

damnit - meant to share a few links and comment about them:
https://www.outsideonline.com/2407740/mountain-biker-behavior-trail-access

and
https://locusmag.com/2020/01/philip-k-dick-award-2020-nominees/

and another that I just accidentally closed and might dig back up later....

RIP Neil

Even before I was a Botanist - this song...  there are other songs - ripping chronicles to tape from Joe's CDs freshman year in college. Over and over - the meter and the pacing of that compilation is different than the stand alone albums but it is all of my favorites.

I've always listened to them, one of the few bands I have full albums that I own digital rights to and don't have to deal with radios or ads...

Glioblastoma is an extra layer of pain - MLFN, Chris's mother, now neil - and so many others - sure cancer is cancer - we know too many close people that it claims...

I've been listening to it all night - might try and read through this next..
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/rush-neil-peart-geddy-lee-alex-lifeson-59586

MTB ride in the AM - volvo may be headed out Sunday big weekend - tired G, but looking forward to the ride in the AM.

Hoping the pedal holds on until i can get it overhauled...  (one of the XT pedals has more play in it than I would like)

heddwch
G

words

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.

I finished the Inheritance Trilogy last night.  Read the coda 2x. Kind of want to go back and read it all again. But part of me doesn't have to, the storytelling is so well crafted and resonated so well visually with my imagination that I can walk through the whole thing, all three book, with ease.

Jumped right back into the Obelisk Gate this morning on the bike, but phone died a few minutes from my destination. Guess the cold kind of fucked with it, inside pocket wasn't that much warmer.

The acknowledgement section was perfect. Could be influenced by the amazing ending of the book, but by itself it was just good. So good I had to share on twitter:
https://twitter.com/Ge_Willi/status/1215253627306172416

I guess I read like I do anything else. Alone, for me, w/o extrinsic feedback...  and I have three books to try and get through now, obelisk, War Girls and Vita Nostra. Not sure about the last one, started it, hasn't grabbed me quite the way N.K. stuff does. Or the way the rest of what I'm reading has. Will try and stick it out.

The quote kicked the morning musing off here at work, was the first thing I saw on the twitters as I wait for coffee to finish and emails to get replied to.

And shit - late for the second time today.

heddwch
G

A Tom Morello day

and this one



Frank Turner station queued up a bunch of good stuff, Against Me Dropkicks, Floggin, Beans and Toast, RATM, Bad Religion... The Nightwatchman started playing and I went on a youtube deep dive into Tom's stuff there.

Trying to keep my head down, trying to avoid the news from around the world, the idiot in chief and his idiot masses...  i don't want to join the echo chamber but it is bad enough that the handful on FB that are on the other side stuff is leaking into the feed. That normally doesn't happen.

Left the house on the Singlespeed. The road looked clear from the window. Got out there and it wasn't. Turned around, grabbed the MTB and rode in. The 3" tires gripped the nubby ice very well. No problem with traction. But it was a bit slower...  and now it looks like rain and I wore street clothes. Gonna be wet.

And I'm out of garlic at home...  not that they are related.  But I am way out of sync with the grocery shopping after December's craziness...  maybe i can dance between the showers - or catch it as snow...

weather is weird RN.

Working on trying to get through book 3 of the Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin, it is soooo good. Esp read by Casaundra Freeman. Interesting trying to find time to listen. I really don't have very much time to do that. I have to work at it. I should stick with reading. Easier to do TBH - or easier to fit in here and there with the way I do stuff.

I'm honestly feeling a bit creatively stifled. It is strange. Part of it is the phone, the battery issues - the sudden death after photograph... and then the lack of inspiration - need a finch or a linden or something to show me the way - the pandora station opened with a Frank Turner song that breaks me a little every time I hear it. No not gonna link it or admit which song it is....  but Tom's stuff was worth the transition. What do look at that I'm excited about - or that someone else is excited enough about to infect and inspire me...

or just keep plodding forward, making it happen... 

pissed that I'm out of garlic- -need to make more salad dressing...

it is pouring outside now, at least that is what the radar says, i'm hiding in the basement with no windows. Like usual.

hopefully it blows over- no fender today -not even a selfish one...  ugh...

oh well - worst case is i get wet - and cold...  i've been that way many times... 

the bike is fun to ride so there's that - yeah - even fun on the bike path, although nor really THAT fun... I should have left early to do some intervals or something - not the best workout to do in heavy work pants.

mentally not there right now either, suppose that's not a surprise...  and the week has felt like a constant thursday - not good.

it is what it is

heddwch
G

if this doesn't make you grin

well I dunno



okay i'd guess if it doesn't bikes and fun aren't your cup of tea...

maybe it is the sound track, or the ridiculous level of talent...

but holy shit i had a big shit eating grin on my face after watching that...

Everyone seems to be posting it - linking to their preferred source of embedded media, a MTB mag web page usually - clicks clicks clicks, traffic traffic traffic...  i try to just go right to the U Toob channel or find it there - not better I suppose but end around in a way, they ain't paying me to promote their page, or i don't feel compelled to support them that way...

Maybe it is the music -def the music- probably have to be a GenX to have full impact of the song, you probably bought the CD, like I did...  I probably bought it used from Flat Black and Circular above the bike shop after getting paid in cash for the week... 

Gotta keep track of the time - likely to be distracted, forget to allot time to eat lunch and be shoved right into a 2 hour training session w/o food...

Van is fixed, so quiet driving it now, wishing I'd done it before the drive down but i guess if we had it might not have precipitated the purchase of another vehicle. So who wants a Volvo? Seriously. No one.  Garage said call Jack's salvage - might get $2-300 from them but feels better to get it in the hands of someone who will keep it intact for a little longer. Yeah yeah - just a car...  ugh

Well - that's better - still hungry so I'm taking that as a sign I didn't over-eat, but then again I didn't have breakfast.

Still have a few more minutes to get everything ready.

And attempt to wrap this up...

oh funny thing last night - went to check on what USAC MTB cat I was, (2) and found my license pending. WTF?

The opt-out but just kidding not going to actually let you opt out doesn't actually do anything but take your money. You have to go in and sign a waiver. So, they can take your money but you can't use the license you paid for w/o jumping through more hoops.

Got better. Turns out I'm using an old app...  but there's no notification in the old app to suggest you should get the new one... nothing...   and that one says why your license is pending.

If it wasn't kind of important for racing I'd love to have nothing to do with USAC. I suppose I could choose to race only EFTA events, would mean no CX other than the unsanctioned races or buying one days, but there is some rule about one day USAC licenses for former or current holders. Sigh... 

Got the new app though - signed the waivers... and turned off the auto-renew. Will be interesting to see if it gets turned back on before next year.

okay - out of time

heddwch
G

lets get this done

or something, Got a good ride in on Sunday.

But I was slow. Felt great to be out there on the bike but i was mentally slow - not reaction time wise just pedaling slowly, esp when i got gapped off Burke and Syl's wheels... the gap would open and I'd just unwind a little.

An odd feeling of a complete and total lack of urgency. I could make it work, I could pedal when I needed to and was able to stay on the wheels but something would happen fat tires with tiny knobs wash out in a loose pile of leaves or maybe getting the line wrong over the rocks, the gap would open and the pressure to pedal hard and get the HR up vanished.

Tired, yes, up latish, and fatigued from the short week, mentally and physically, up early...  was so crazy tired by the end of the night I was ready for bed at 7:30, like falling asleep tired. Read for a bit more, then slept really well. Got up, got the minivan to the shop for the wheel bearing, rode in. Went to make coffee...  forgot to bring beans in with me. So there's no coffee here. Sigh. Drinking crap from upstairs as a stop gap measure because I don't have time to run out.

Not the best way to start a busy day. Taking a moment right now to sit for a second.

The lack of urgency was weird. But it also drove home the fact that I need to put a plan together. last year I had a plan for Michigan's Coast to Coast and it worked. I doubted it but it worked. Now I have to put something together for the 24 hours of Great Glen.

Right now I'm thinking about the EFTA MTB marathon series (promoter meeting is next weekend - full schedule should be out after that at some point) - although most of the races already have the Bikereg page up. AND looks like Wallum lake might be the first up - and there's a nice singlespeed marathon...  and no clydesdale marathon. Downside is the amount of 'travel' for the series. These races aren't all very close. maine? damn I guess so...  also maybe that's a good thing, forced get away. But then it complicates everything and the whole working thing. Work the second job. going to be a fun challenge to balance it all, i will work hardest not to make it a stressful challenge. That's really the only challenge, i've got this history of making it work, but somehow my mind keeps me from remembering i'm pretty good at it at this point and a better track record than I let my self feel like I have. In other words i'm good at being me.

One thing though was thinking about how to get some intensity in...  one idea was maybe add in a once a week commute on the MTB and do a hill series on the way in...  hit the roads there on the east side...  the downhills are a good way to burn through brake pads but also a good way to add structure and intensity. I'm not excited by the idea of putting the trainer together but that is actually slightly more appealing than getting out for a specific workout on the road/cx bike on the roads in the winter. I'm still not familiar enough with enough of the trails to go full gas, Sundays are a good day to get in 2-3 hours of consistent pedaling (even if it was just slow riding for Syl and then waiting for me - i didn't pause much - very much kept rolling for most of the time). I think doing the all day rides also will be a good thing to get back to doing. Since 24HOGG isn't until august, maybe I'll still just plan on getting 6 in so skipping the January hundo would be good (not sure I can fit a whole day off this month right now).

I am still mad at myself for not having brought coffee with me. But digging through the Wallum Lake stuff is a good distraction https://app.racereach.com/event/wallum-lake-mtb

Oh - On the ride on Sunday? I knocked a pretty damn big tree down. It almost landed on me and the bike. Burke wishes he had the camera rolling, if the tree was another 5-8' taller it would have landed on Syl, he was headed around the trail in the direction the tree fell. It was a 12-16" DBH (diameter at breast height - forestry term if you haven't heard it before). Totally rotten and waterlogged, heavy. A pine i think, hard to tell with the bark totally gone.

A bit before that we were over on Allen's stuff and I didn't make it quite up one of the walls. I fucked it up, needed one more extra pedal, a tiny bit more momentum (and to have dropped the post) and stalled at the top and my chest tapped the garmin and broke the tabs off it. So that was fun. I mean it was a great day to be in the woods. The wind was BRUTAL and it was cold. really cold. But in the woods of Big River we could hear the wind, but never felt it. The parking lot was cold, definitely. Got chilled just loading up the car.

One thing through my head riding was 'this bike is really fucking heavy' but then so am I, but i dipped under 215 this morning so maybe there's hope of dropping the next 10 pounds...  finally...  but the bike, really the only weight area to fix is the wheels. Carbon frame would be a bit too expensive but then maybe not, def not as big of an improvement as going with new wheels. But I'd like to stick with the 50mm wide rims and there aren't many carbon wheels in that size. What else to lighten up? Bars and stem...  and...  yeah that's it. Maybe seatpost but not really. Going to the singlespeed will drop a little weight - gotta order a rear cog or three, but won't save much. I was thinking though - one year, no wheel/bike upgrades for at least a year. But then maybe it will be like last year's goal, upgrade just before the big event. Make due until then. or i dunno. fits and starts - this is going to be a typical post - written 1/2 a paragraph at a time between interuptions. Nature of support eh? Being here is most of the battle - having the answers is the easy part, and sometimes the questions are fun and challenging.

Gonna go get more shitty coffee - and eat lunch... and keep thinking about MTBing...  and maybe try to figure out where I'm going to go on the first Hundo of 2020... 

heddwch
G

disrupted

off kilter already

simple shit

full size keyboard is weird. Been too long or not long enough.

strange - but not really - had sat down to write 15 min ago - tied up with other shit - this was open, i heard "What are you doing here?" From someone walking by the office, they actually had said "Happy New Year"

sigh

gotta blast

should probably not have this as the start of 2020 but fuck it - yesterday was a good day right? That set the tone....

i hope

heddwch
G