Books and books

Reading is an escape. Writing is a release.

Been reading a lot I guess. Works really well as a reset. I think it probably works even better as maintenance.

I'm not sold that there is a difference staring at an android tablet screen/vs reading a book. But some people seem to think there is. That said I'm not about to buy a Paperwhite (yet), but if I had one i'd probably wear it out.

It kind of struck me this morning when I returned on book to the library and filled up the hold cue with 8 books, that I am in the middle of quite a few series of books. Held up by holds.

Funny thing is I can mentally jump between stories, waiting for the book to be automatically checked out from the library. Going from the one I just finished to the next and back to the first. One I've been waiting on for a long time, two three four I'm stuck waiting for Book #2, one I'm just waiting for #4 and can finish, another the 3rd and final book in that series.

Inbetween there are a few stand alone books. A few single books have been put on hold, checked out and read and returned. Finding books to read isn't all that easy, some are better than others, some are just entertaining fluff, most I've found are very well developed, read well and get me thinking a bit more about everything.

A distraction? A diversion? Partly maybe. I find if very cool that I can bounce back and recall all the books in the series I've read recently and am waiting to finish. All seven series. I guess that's sort of like some of the more complex books with multi-threaded storylines that eventually work together. I generally like those books, getting drawn in and jumping around. Movies like that? nope. Don't like them. books? love them.

Reading is a sort of obessive thing I guess. Always has been.

The most memorable binge read was Two Years Before the Mast. My mother debated giving it to me that night. But she did. I started reading it and couldn't put it down. I finished it before the sun rose, had an hour or two of sleep and went to school.

Oops. It was a fantastic book, the details aren't as clear now as they have been but I've done that with many books since. I had a growing collection of physical paper books that I start but just, cant, muscle, through, to, finish. Ugh. Either too familiar of a subject, writing style that just doesn't sit well with me, or just flat out boring.

While working on trying to get a laser to fire yesterday on a system the users were saying something about a new show on Netflix they are watching and were incredulous that we don't have Netflix, or any other on-demand video content service. None. we really don't watch much TV. There's too much going on.  My life works well with books. digital or other wise. Reading and writing are two things that can be dropped, and picked back up easily and fit well in a busy life I guess. One with lots going on. In some way maybe keeps one more mentally flexible? Yes I think maybe I've swapping one addiction for another, which one? But it means i'm missing out on the social shared connection by watching orange is the new black or breaking bad or whatever show everyone else is watching and wanting to talk about. What you should be talking about is what the book All the Light You Cannot See makes you think about. How does it stirr your concious and awaken you to your actions? How do books make you interact so much differently than TV shows? I guess the LOTR series is a good example, esp when you follow up with the Hobbit. Even taking the smallest book of those four (the Hobbit) you wind up with a three part movie and still missing lots of nuance and details.  sure plenty of extra stuff added, but for better? no not really. Anyway - reading is that old addiction/affliction I guess. Words...  like I said - trading one addiction for another? It would be a good one. But which one?

Well sure as hell I'm not giving up coffee. Even if I'm an idiot, like today, and forgot to bring in coffee and was stuck putting 4 green tea bags in the drip coffee maker and making something to drink with maybe a tiny bit of caffeine. Cutting back on coffee? That's probably needed, may happen by default, but not going to give up that one. nope.

The weekend was good for me though. I felt more rested. Friday got to stay home and read, had a couple beers after the shop closed with Don. Came home and made myself some food and started reading. Got everyone out the door on Saturday then read a bit more and went into the shop for a while and got some side work in. Sunday again, got everyone out early for a soccer game, crawled back in bed with a cup of coffee and the book and read some more. Then headed in to a closed shop, cranked up the uncensored House of Pain Pandora station and cranked out more bikes before riding home in the early afternoon.

The reading kind of recharged me, as did just toning it all down. No training, but I did ride. I'm not super good at getting it all perfect, meaning making the commutes effective and not junk. Too close to medium on too many days. But efforts the last few days have felt pretty easy but the times are a bit  shorter so maybe there's something there.

I had intended to get the final RdR2015 post out. kind of didn't get that done. I'm going to blame the lack of coffee for the lack of focus. But that's a pretty weak excuse looking back up at this mess of words.

Maybe later. Maybe I'll have a few moments to finish out that last chapter. The final book in the series. Like all those holds I have in the Library. If you want to get to the conclusion, you might need to read a few different things and hope you remember where I left off.

Heddwch
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Smacked down... again

I managed to get out there. For Smackdown.

How could I not. Peng was going to be there, came back for smackdown. Sandy was riding down. Took half day off and rode is bike from Lexington to PVD for the ride. Terry showed up, Andrew, Nick, Brian, bit shock was PKS rolling in and me. We picked up Fox on the far side. Maybe I'm missing a few but man it was big crew for us, and heavily weighted on the 20 something kids who are fast. I thought maybe with Jules being in a van with Alex and Big Tom that maybe the ride would be more sedate than usual. WRONG. Shit Nick even put it on Video.

Detoured because Broadway was a disaster.

We passed Bruce, I lingered long enough to say hi, long enough to get a gap and need to chase back on. Oops.

Prospect wasn't terrible but it was fast. I snuck in and sat behind Sandy as best as I could. Stayed out of the wind.

I loved the click - BOOM SHIFT vs click, maybe shift maybe not of the worn out CX bike I've been riding. I also LOVED the single tooth steps between gears. AND how the bike felt, Except the hoods. coupled with the bars the hoods are just too small and weirdly located.

Knee never gave me a problem the whole ride. Fit was bang on. Bike was brilliant.

But I really did ride more like I was the one hanging up and resting for 3+ years. Not the bike.

I hung on until the turn on Pine. We started up as a group. Then someone decided we should start going even faster than the fast we were going, not to mention it meant going fast up hill (okay only a couple % grade but that's still noticable for 200# of me).

Boom. Sandy let a bit of a gap open, but he also just rode 65 miles after working all morning, Nick Jumped around. Pretty soon Fox went past, and then I went to the front to help pace Sandy, and pretty soon PKS looked back, saw the gap and drifted back.

Years ago he did that for me a couple times, drifted back and helped pace me back in. I told him not to wait this time, to just go. He said nah.

The fast kids with Fox were gone. Buh bye. I just had nothing. Zip. i could generate power, but not as much, and not as long. Fatigue.

It is amazing, remarkable really, how much fatigue and exhaustion factor into stuff.

Anyway - The three of us kind of pacelined it, Sandy and I kind of at our limits, different levels/reasons for fatigue.

But those two kept me from bailing like the week before.

We found Syl after turning off of Hillside to Pine.

Found Peng waiting for us in EP, and we rolled back in.

Syl and I headed home via the new bridge, and we chatted a bit.

It was good to chat. In person. It was less chat and more serious discussion.

Needed though.

RIP Jobst Brandt

Over the twitters - just after eating lunch, after a meeting, frantic catch up...

I saw this entry (retweeted by Service Course)

https://twitter.com/jimlangley/status/596008709676933120 :

"A cycling legend has pedaled into the sunset. RIP Jobst Brandt. Thank you for everything. https://rayhosler.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/jobst-brandt-leaves-behind-memories-to-last-a-lifetime/ …"

crude cut and paste but effective

And this stuck with me:
"If you disagreed and didn’t have the facts to support your argument, you were just another crackpot."



There are a lot of crackpots out there. Facts. Back your shit up. And don't you dare try to think you're going to make friends if you are fighting dogma built on back science/belief with facts.

Reading the story about his rides, I think he would have f'n loved the RdR.

Give Laurence Malone's essay a read (linked there in Ray's blog post).

respect and thank you Jobst, thank you

heddwch
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after ~3+ yrs . . . It is alive

The Q Pro

so we will take a break from the serialization of the RdR2015 coverage....

wrap up will have to wait.

or will happen when I finish this thought.

maybe.

truth is inspiration and the energy to give the final RdR installment all that it deserves is lacking at the moment.

got super derailed yesterday, hard core off the track the whole train in a tangled mess of wreckage kind of derailed.

didn't see it coming, knew the potential was lurking lately. not sure how to get a handle on it all but I keep trying, keep putting one foot forward and stuff.

I managed to impress myself with the flavors of dinner at the same time getting the Klein rideable again for the first time in 3? years? Long enough that since getting the smart phone thing i've never ridden it (or created bike profile in Strava).

Downside? I messed up the seat height by a few mms (too high) and now the back of my knee is sore from the ride in, we'll see if it sorts itself out before the smackdown.

The cassette that we had at the shop? an HG-50...  a 14-25 (14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25)

Pretty f'n close to a straight block.

Lots of teeth too. Extra contact should make up for less durable and equal longevity of higher quality lower tooth count cassette.

And yeah - i was complaining about the 46x11 high gear. Is this any better? Not really. It is a little better maybe, one gear more. But that's plenty. that and now there's the super tight one tooth difference and the 55t big ring just looks huge, think solobreak's SSCX bike.

On the other end going from a 38x27 to a 42x25 low may be kind of dumb but then hey, you only go as slow as your low gear and now I've got 180mm cranks and a much more efficient bike.

Wheels are the same.

And man is this thing smooth.

I don't like the hoods anymore but they are positive and clicky and work and brakes that work? DAMN gonna have to watch out.

RdR2015 full saga: part 2 (of ?)

Okay, back at it, tiny window of opportunity.

So we roll out. I covered the flat? Right? A couple groups rolled through, including the Firefly Adventure Team ladies once Sandy and I were done gramming the situation we rolled out. Ready to really get the ride started.

We passed the FAT as they re-grouped after a bit of a bridge or technical section or something (brain a wee fuzzy) but how do you not make note of passing them?

We wound up at the trail exit, Alex riding around on the road almost getting hit by car zooming through. Meanwhile the brain trust with all the computers are trying to figure out if they say turn left or right (left). And by that time the FAT have emerged from the single track and we head out together. I had a delightful opportunity to talk with the charming Cindy for a bit as we rolled on. We wound up a bit in the middle, my Orange crushers pushing the pace and her Black cats chilling at a slower pace, So i excused my self and jumped up to latch into a freindly draft and she drifted back with her team.

The roads were familiar and I think Cutler was next, and I was expecting to go in the way we did one year, in the first thing, not go to the second way (thinking left at the lot, not right) but the guys rode all the way to the light and then on the path, i guess someone was actually following the cues on the Garmins.

And we hit Cutler. Teams everywhere. Not sure how much we looped back or how lost others were. We rode through the Hup crew at the peak in one spot. We had to regroup shortly after that with a slipped axle or two on one of the disc brake bikes. and then we rumbled and rolled on. It was fun. Other than the roots. Those weren't fun. Some of the rocks not so much. But it was good. We did a pump track loop as the Flannel wearing single speeders lead by Camelstache with tunes blasting by ROBERT HALE and then tagged on to the back of their group a bit. They took off as they knew the trails but weren't stricktly following the route and we had not clue and only could follow. I think we got off course following them a bit but wound up leaving at the right place.

The flannel crew was up ahead and we made the effort to join in a bit. Myette surprised me, wasn't expecting him to be one of the flannel crew, Uri was in that pack as well. So, yeah, A+ rockstar amazing group to join up with.

From this point it gets a bit mixed up in my head. We wound up merging with so many other teams along the way, Sparky Jamie and Tyler with Josie, were sort of on the notable next level.  But i think maybe we spent the most time with the Hupsters. At least one of the Hup teams.  The Baker crew, with Roger, Derek, Michele, Ed....and...  I dunno It was hard to tell Oh CHURCH (I gotta be forgetting someone else). It was a blast.

So much fun. It was relaxing in that we could just follow Baker's lead. As we hit single track the groups all split up, made sandwiches, rode around.

Getting lost, following one team, seeing another. We lost the camelstache team in the intestinal track of trails that just made me want to get off the bike and walk the few feet to the next section.

Then we saw the PVB crew with CF on the MTBs. Who else? EVERYONE ELSE!

At that point we were taking a wrong turn here or there, and then wound up meeting the Baker crew and THAT's when we jumped in and started riding with them. Turned out I'd lost my early 90s vintage/heirloom Pearl Izumi black vest. But at the start Chip pinned the pair of Hup buttons on it, so it had a homing beacon and they saw the buttons and Wade stuffed it in his backpack. Derek tried to sell it back to me, but I didn't want to lose it again and Wade hung on to it.  Still has it because despite saying I needed to get it a few times from him after the ride, somehow we left or he left before I managed to get it. I want the buttons more than the vest but yeah, I wouldn't mind having my vest back.

So we hook up. I think we wound up back with the Flannel boys, picked up a pile more teams and we just kept swelling with riders, seeing friends. C Todd actually picked up and joined us mid-ride to roll around. he bailed as we dove into the next section of woods (the ones I think before the poney hendge?)

Cruising through the big group gets there - takes a few photos, the sky is awesome and I try to document it, I wound up inadvertently catching Alex taking an epic selfie (see the instagram or the first brief post).

Then James asked if i could take a team shot, so i did. Alex is posting and the rest of our guys ride off. I figure we'll catch up. No big deal.

I finish capturing the shot for James and Alex and I head out.

Remember? Here we are, the only two members of the team w/o GPS device (we both have phones but neither of our phones have the map loaded, nor a way to have it tell us where to go). We get to the first 'turn' and the team isn't anywhere in sight. Uh oh. Shit.

The Blue Hills crew rolls up as we're like 'oops' and I think they kind of sensed we were a bit wanting to get back to the group, so tempo went up on the road and we were cranking it.

A few turns later I caught sight of someone, and felt confident enough that I could bridge before a turn and made an effort. Alex jumped with me and we tagged back on. It was a big of an effort and it almost blew up Alex but we got back to our group.

David was getting close to bonky town. I think that was before the corner drug store stop. I think. But doesn't really matter.

The RdR is like a series of short stories that you could read as a novel or pull out in any order. Other than the beginning and the end, the stories all just could but cut or pasted in any order.

I guess the drug store was next. This was just before the abandoned train station. People were out of water (I had only had one sip). We ate a bit, the GeWillies weren't as firm as they have been in the past, I must have messed something up or didn't cook them long enough or? I dunno. I followed the recipe pretty much on the money. I think maybe not long enough baking time. I was super preoccupied/stressed/tired making them.  But they were fuel. And David needed fuel. We all did. We all ate. And some people bought gallons of water. Teams rolled up and then through, joined in and were still there when we rolled out.

Providence Orange crush headed out with the Hupsters and on to the waiting abandoned train station, with bootleg beer stashed in the trash cans and under the porch. Lots of beer. Camelstache Matt had secured a sponsorship/donation from Moats and there were cases of tall boys hidden. A few teams were there having a beer.

I had one, then a second. Probably would have gone for a third but the teams had already left...  I would have grabbed pocket beers but damnit pockets were full. Grumble. I almost dumped out the water for the beer but I didn't. I knew there was that keg of Dales waiting for us at the Tavern.

But man. I wanted another one. David was dragging. He was really slowing down a bit but he was still going, wee bit of a balance of heckle/support/encoruagement/cajoling kept him going. gave me time to think that if I had worn the orange jumpsuit on the ride i could have had six tall boy pocket beers instead of zero pocket beers. All good though. I wasn't really needing one or wanting one that much and we still had a ways to go.

But riding with everyone was just soooooo sooooo soooo awesome. So much single track. so many good people...

Groups started to fracture and separate. Wrong turns, hoofing it, detours. But sooo much good riding

Maybe I can wrap it up in one more installment...

...too be continued....

heddwch
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RdR2015 full saga: part 1 (of ?)

Ronde De Rosey... I should really write this up eh?

Motivation? maybe i can muster up a bit here while I'm waiting for a half dozen replies that will make the rest of the week either tolerable or insane.

Of course what seemed simple and maybe routine (with the new routine of building a few bikes a couple nights a week and the new spring soccer practice schedule) got messed up and for a bit looked like the Wed night smackdown might be in jeopardy. Which really would be funny because I broke down and bought a chain and an HG-50 9sp cassette to put on the Quantum Pro, to decrease the disadvantage against all those who show up on their latest and greatest bazzilion speed bikes and fancy light frames and stuff. The QP ain't much lighter if any than the plastic black blue but it is also a road bike designed to go not slow and the CXy bike is a CXy bike, it ain't made for speed. Even if i generally make it go almost fast. Maybe have some scheduling shenanigans sorted so maybe I can resurrect my hopes for getting out there on the Jade Chameleon machine. But we'll see.

Sitting down to write has been tough lately. But the talk went very well on Friday. More follow up questions from more different people and a diverse group of the audience than any of the other talks so that was gratifying. The other talks were cool and the car made it there and back despite some wonderful anxiety triggering speed vibrations. Heck sitting down now has been interuption city. Not sure anyone could tell, but I lost the train or the process a few times, picked it up but like with any good improv, kind of missed the original mark from the start. But then that's life no? You set off in a direction and sometimes encounters push you off path, plow you off course. Sometimes you get wrecked, sometimes something dramatic happens and sets you back on course. But then that's life eh?

#RdR2015 Way back i guess when I first started hearing rumbles and hints from Rosey and Velocb about route planning and all that, I kind of felt it would be really good to go this year. So I asked if I could bring a PVD team up. So we set it up, and I got on the captain list for the first time. It was special. Now who to join me? Well why not the guys I ride with all the time, who share the same kit and come from the same 'hood?

Sent an email out to the team listserve, and got some absolute 'IN's and a maybe. The maybe turned into a week before yes and then we spent 30+ emails trying to figure out how we were all going to get up there.  To add to the mix and the urging of Velocb, we stuck in David B's Rasputitas ride partner who happens to be the same guy who graciously loaned me his fat bike to race at Eco-Cross, the one and only internet famous [not-so] old bearded hipster Alex, he even agreeed to fly the PVD team kit colors!

Joining me and Alex on the team roster was Syl L (our crazy french mtbr guy who rides his MTB on smackdowns and road rides and everywhere, and lived a few blocks from Washington Square Tavern for years), David B (they guy who got me to the Deltron 3030 show, a generally all around awesome happy stoked on life guy), Burke (CX star, MTBr, Roadie, world traveler, famous facial hair, and really happy positive enthusiastic and strong cyclist), and our kid, recent Brown grad now working/living up around the Sommerville area Sandy the guy as tall(taller?) than me. I saw Skinnywhitedude's name on the Captain list, but no riders. So I sent him a text. Got no response. Hmm, maybe he's ignoring me too? Sent him email. Oh he changed his number AGAIN and he ain't got a team, and I ran down our team and we became a band of seven.

Lucky number 7

The odds were stacked far against me the weeks leading up to it. So much going on, so much crazy. But we hit it big with that combination.  After all the carpool crazy David wound up driving Alex and Burke, Curtis drove down and Sandy rode to the start. Syl picked me up, his wife along for a day wandering BOS while we were pedaling around, and van loaded we headed north.

And the sun was spectacular. Syl nearly took out a car that changed lanes rapidly as we were admiring the Intense low angle of sun lighting up the buildings with a dark dramatic sky to the west. It was one of those magic light days. Unbelievablely gorgeous.

Already I was relaxing and feeling at ease and optimistic. The day before was insane, worked at the bike shop, came home to make the chocolate peanut butter bars, AND dinner, and try and figure out what I was going to take. I had just barely gotten the bike ready. It has been a mechanical pain lately, I guess stuff actually does wear out? Go figure.

Out of the group of 7 only two of us were w/o some sort of navigational device, and everyone else was able to load the route. There were various levels of mapping going on and one of them took a long time to draw the route. The two w/o? Me and Alex (foreshawdowing if i ever get there).  Pretty good odds tho.

We get there. Plenty of time. Some go grab coffee, I was wearing kit and the orange jumpsuit. Figuring it was time to put some good mojo in there. Yeah. Orange jumpsuit from the time I left the house until I got back (I should have worn it on the ride, i would have had lots more room for pocket beers).

Get sorted out, sunscreened up, I collect start money and waivers. Rosey says wait till just before you start. I hug everyone. So good to see everyone. Little cookie exchange with JLSCX, man it was just good. The energy was awesome, no angst, no stress, everyone was super chill and happy and, just awesome. Curtis was happy and relaxed and just yeah. It was good. Of course I decide that I need to take a shit at 8:10, and get in line in the tavern. And the. line. is. moving. so. slowly. By 8:25 I cut infront of three and get in and mid poop i hear "Is GeWilli in there?"

I rush out, hand the wad of releases and cash to Rosey, we pose for a pre-start photo taken by Velocb and more or less the orange clad crew rolled out from there. The weeks of uncertainty that I had been hiding and supressing, dark cloud of depression looming over, basically dissapeared. We rolled off the two guys w/o navigation in the lead (this is not the foreshawdowing part, just the facts) Alex and I took off first. Okay Alex took off and I rode up with him. Before the first big turn we debated who was going to be navigator. Burke or someone said we should appoint one person, and so we nominated the kid. Except his map drawing computer thing wasn't giving streets or stuff and so it turned into navigate by committee. Before we'd gotten too far another team joined us and so we were nearly a dozen strong when we hit the first section of dirt. Rolling through and around the rocks and roots filtered out who had decent tire set ups and David, who had been maddly pumping up his tubeless rear tire three of four times in the morning before we left announced that he'd burped it.

So we stopped.

4.6 miles into the ride.

And we made him put a tube in.

And lots of teams passed us.

Keeping a list of when or who was passed and where will be tough. Will try to but bottom line it really did feel like we rode with every team out there. Obviously we didn't but we got damn close and every team was full of super super awesome people.

The cool thing about the RdR for me was familiarity. Even though this was my 3rd? time many of the sections I've seen before and lots of them I remember. But then some I don't. They are more of a Deja Vu sort of feel, familiar and it feels right, vs "hey I know where we're going" kind of a thing. A comforting feeling.

The ride was f'n spectacular. Off the bat the group was solid and pretty decently matched. Syl obviously could have SMOKED us on the single track and he did a pretty good job of that a few times but there was no feeling of needing to win, wanting to be first, or any of that.

The overall group feel and dynamic was support, fun, patient and stick together. It was a band of brothers i guess? We were literally a team and holy shit that was an awesome experience. It wasn't struggle free and perfect but I think how everything was handled was super awesome.

Okay so RdR is a single track ride with some road thrown in. SOME ROAD. It really feels more like you spent the whole day on trails and single track. The road sections dissapear from the memory, and you're left with this 5+ hours of riding single track with a group of awesome people with other awesome people joining for bits and spits.

'Our' group would swell and shrink, we'd all get mixed up together, chat, ride together and just really all with a common goal of having fun riding bikes.

Fun.

Bottom line amazing fun. Relaxed and fun.

Did I say fun?

Well now I have to say stay tuned for the next installment, because I'm out of time.

more words soon, hopefully,

heddwch
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Ronde de Rosey 2015 - so good

Amazing.

Much needed.

Riding can fix most things.

An attitude adjustment that I needed and that worked.

It was one of the best days every.

Best day on the bike maybe? From the amazing morning sunlight on the city as we drove in. To the team I rode with. To riding with nearly every other team on the road at some point or another. Having a group of 30+ riders all together. from catching up and riding with some just flat out amazing friends.

The hugs, the high fives, the smiles. The beers, the trails.

I'll get to writing it up (probably before I get to writing up Boston ride) more officially.

more completely, things are still super crazy and I have a few minutes, but not enough minutes.

But here's a few photos:

The team before the ride. Such a great crew pretty much smiling the whole day.

this is us after the ride, still smiling

The most epic of epic shots... the 'gram crop is one i'm pretty happy with... hangin with the Drifters+ Matt Roy posting it was amazing. High fived those guys and then Matt motioned me over to sit down once i had my beer. I mean just hanging out with everyone, but this shot was grammed and posted with a great suggestion. Not much difference from the raw to the gram, but the minor tweaks... anyway

Such an amazing ride, Thank you Scott. I haven't been to all of them but this had to be the best ever.

heddwch
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foggy mush

Usually I start with a title and go from there.

But maybe I need to loosen a bit of the constrains or the issue of having it not be sitting there looking at me saying "dude you are off on a tanget" and of course I always see it as failing to follow objective, aka just flat out failing.

That's me.

Despite measures of success or profeiciency always seem to fail, or feel like a failure. Like my spelling. Fuck it. Mis-spelled words bug you? I got piles of them.

scheduling

juggling calendars, timing, planning...  multiple ones, lots of different users and limitations. Usually my strength.

but been taxed way more than usual lately.

to the point even simple scheduling with where to be when with the kids activities is completely breaking me.

can't function.

brain turns to foggy mush and I lose it.

trying to get to RdR with the PVD team is stupid complicated. Everyone has their own limitations, 'won't pick everyone up at their house no way, one stop' or this or that or fuckit i dunno

give up almost

frustrated, exhausted, overwhelmed at work with the complexity of everything.

anxious about the need to go to Thornwood but not having reliable transport. too far to ride...  and get work done.

stressin about the talk next week. Should really be working on that now.

i'm not.

back at working the second job, it obviously is adding to the scheduling stress, both pride in building coupled with needing the extra income.

I dunno if i should write about the long ride, everytime i go back to think about it i get depressed. But then maybe it is just one of those things that needs to be put down in words and then move on from there.

Funny how little it takes to unhinge me lately, how i can go from feeling awesome to boom *hands in the air* f'it level

rode in so slowly today. sure didn't help that I put the heavy tires back on. got thinking abit. stupid fucking asshole cold headwind.

thought about some friends who have a show tonight... a short one middle of a set, but timing is of course not going to work out.

that thinking and the wind got me thinking about stuff and then I just started singing Amazing Grace. Just me and the wind on the path. In tune? I think so. I know the words, at least to the first verse, then i started improve.

I liked the flow, i changed the melody, I wrote the lyrics on the fly and I liked the song, I like the meaning of the words and the implications and how i wove them and looped them back a bit but never creating a chorus, just a steady stream of conciousness song. So I'm singing, and as I'm singing and making words and rhyming and creating a melody I'm also at the same time wishing I could remember the words, remember the melody, write it all down and record it.

But. I can't. I didn't. I have tried it in the past, and when I play the tape back the sound of my voice irks me, little comfort in hearing that I'm usually bang on the note, rarely out of tune but, i guess that was a long time ago.

The closest I got to writing the improve down was for one of the Lullabys I sing to the girls at night.  It was actually in michigan, a lullaby I made up for my oldest. I sang it one night, then managed to remember it the next. And write it down.

Still now more than 10 years later I sing each of the girls (even though they are in the same room) their own lullaby. Each one gets a different melody, gets different words, similar phrases I suppose, sometimes the lullabys reflect some musical influence from the evening. Usually they are just what ever comes out of my head, a soft comforting melody, soothing words, for my precious girls.

But I sang as I pedaled. Thought about child hood musical influences like Gordon Bok, Hound Dog Taylor, all the poetry I read (and could never memorize), the quotes I'd find and share with someone... even growing up, I would make up lyrics and melodies and songs, like going to feed the chickens in the morning before school. My mother tells the story of sneaking out of the back door just as I went out the front so she could listen to whatever song I would make up walking down to the chicken coop.

The singing today, no just me...

It didn't help much, turned into blues with a lilting meldoy vaguely evocative of Amazing Grace...

Once I got through the morning meetings I cued up the Deltron 3030 station on pandora and yeah, listed to 'rap' or whatever pigeon hole you fit the Pandora algorithm based on that band's genere.

Very lyrical and complex cerebral lyrics for the most part. But then, it is rap, but more to me I guess it is poetry with a bit of a bass line.

Then just now song tangent thanks to to Carl

I should move onto writing something productive, positive, or whatever. Or not.

This ship's got some work do to, the steering linkage is bused and there's no feedback from the engine room, but the merciful winds and currents have kept us safe thus far. The one man crew is working on fixing. But man, he's one over worked, under appreciated and under paid dude. How long can one carry on like that. Who knows, but one set of lyrics I remember from this morning:

One foot down,
and another foot down
we keep moving along

The weekend comes, work and crazy schedule on Saturday, RdR2015 on sunday, back to insanity here on Monday, repeat until Christmas.

heddwch
G

back to food and stuff

Read this, I take a few issues with it but mostly can let it stand as it is pretty close to correct.

That said: training isn't doing something once. Training is doing something with enough repetition that you show improvements. Not improving isn't training, that's just recreation, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But if you ARE training (doing specific workouts) or competeing at all, you shouldn't ignore the food side of things and the timing and impact of the food.

Best bottom line from the write up tailor what you eat so what you train is going to be most successful.

The doper enabler that has done more for the eat real food movement than anyone (Allen Lim) says much the same in his first book, and contiunes in he second.

Which I was reminded of when I read this just after the TP one.

That last one brought back up the Insulin issue.

If eat something that will spike your insulin, your body is generally going to store the calories w/o burning them.  That's why a bowl of frosted flakes with a few teaspoons of sugar, skim milk and a glass of orange juice is going to be great fuel for a second but if you aren't immediately getting on an hour of HIIT or a CX race simulation most all of those calories are going to be converted to fat and stored. Not burned.

Implication for calorie counters: You'll be hungry way before you think you should because while your calorie count is where it should be (aka Cronoman and his powertap based caloric consumption) you will likely feel hungry and be 'underfueled.'  If you have an extended fast and well exercised fat metabolism, and you have a fast before you subject your body to another big insulin spike, there's a good chance you'll burn off those stored fat calories...

Now if you are in glycogen deficit, and you're used to refilling glycogen then much of that pile of sugar you ate will go to the muscles instead of having the liver make it all into fat.

BUT first thing in the morning you will have the highest level of Glycogen (it gets stored overnight, aka why better to have your sugar at night than first thing in the morning).

It is simple.  And complicated, and biggest issue is it messes with some people's habitual stuff.

But hey. Smoking was habitual for many people. Why stop smoking. It won't kill me for a while.

Why should I give up my morning breakfast of skim milk, grains(aka sugar) and uber processed chemically flavored premium orange juice?

-- yeah i'll write up the long ride sometime --

10 minutes between dealing with This grant after the sample sorting and trainings and user set up and NO LUNCH - I ate lunch but it was a hurried rushed thing. Links read between, or while waiting for late people.

So people who were late? Thanks. Your delay gave me a chance to read a little.

Oh and this link:
http://belgianwerkx.com/2015/04/the-anti-customer/

I won't say it on Facebook but I'll say it here. If you buy a shit ton of high end bikes but always take them to one shop to get them fixed, but never buy any of these fancy bikes from that shop... well...  next time you're ready to dump a giant wad of cash on a bike. Buy one from that shop.

repairs are great, accessories and other stuff, they are nice too. But when you spend a couple grand on a bike, that's really actually pretty important for them to keep the doors open.

When you bring in your custom special bike for work they'll be less begrudging and grumpy behind your back if they know you've also picked up an Emonda, Boone or Superfly or Santa Cruz or something, kids bikes? yeah those are helpful but not really the same.

Like Glen said, shops don't like eating the crumbs if they don't get the cake too.

And to everyone walking in while they are going nuts right now (understaffed and overworked now that the weather has gotten nice) The mechanics in the shop didn't become mechanics to work on your shit for free. Esp when they are two weeks out on repairs for people who are willing to pay for it.

heddwch
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The post that started off with the goal of being about that last ride to Boston/Cambridge

I should probably document it for myself. Not for anyone else because I guess while I was motivated to ride up there in order to support and be there for someone, relationships are two ways streets, but they are also more like double tracks in the woods. If they don't get used they get over grown. You can walk on track down yourself but you can't keep both paths open alone. But you can keep the path between clear alone.

The metaphor works for me as it allows me to imagine one of the many old two-tracks in the forest growing up. Watching them become dis-used and eventually dissapear. When there's no reason to keep traveling on it the barriers of stinging nettles and black berry brambles are a pretty good deterent to look elsewhere for places to walk.

But underlying the overgrowth and pioneer plants are those worn and packed tracks. Takes some effort but they can be recovered and put back into use. But that sort of thing takes two people.

And then there are relationships where the other side deliberately seeds barriers, knocks down a tree or two across the two tracks.

Moving through life is a curious thing. It must be way easier when you can legitimately think about what's best for you and ignore impacts of others. Oh don't worry, I know there's so many times I've been super selfish, thought only about myself, and pretty much every one of those times causes me some variable measure of greif and anquish when I reflect on it.

As much of an effort as I have made to keep writing and get things out of my head here, I've only been moderately successful, aka totally failing in past GeWilli superblogger's mind. But then that's okay. Things are insane and complicated and the demands everywhere are a challenge, sucking up time and energy. That or i'm just getting old and am un-inspired.

Definitely searching for a new muse I guess. Somewhat lost in many ways, not that a muse is a person in the flesh, they can be. Sometimes a dog, a pet, a simple park bench with a view.  Maybe I need to go hang out on my favorite bench some more. It is probably soaking wet right now. Kind of miss eating lunch their with friends. Okay I'm not fooling anyone, i've never had friends, maybe a friend now and then will join me there. My mother, on visits, has joined me for lunch and we've eaten at that bench, usually getting something from East Side Pockets.

The other imaging facility across the hall that I'm not a part of has had a steady influx of workers. Guys either fixing the wall, installing stuff, moving stuff. Working together. Talking. With eachother. As I'm sitting here emailing, scheduling, trying to make sense of quotes and figure out what's next on the list of stuff that has to get done. As much as this gig is a part of me, it also kind of, for another part of me, unfulfilling/empty. Forunately bikeshop has gotten busy enough to ask me to come back and that's a nice social/but task oriented and productive kind of outlet. Keeps me balanced I guess, at least until it gets slow there, and CX picks up.

I should really get to the whole point of writing about the long ride, eh?

maybe later...

heddwch
G

life of introspection aka the overthinking introvert

nice title - maybe inappropriate for such a short remark (at least it is starting off intenting to be short)

I don't run [much/enough] but this resonates...  they [the demons] quiet in my head during intervals, or in races that go well. Races that I'm not doing well in tend to bring them back out in force. All day rides bring out a different set.

But maybe i don't ride to silence them.

I ride maybe to come to terms with them sometimes, to overthink and overthink and overthink. And less overthink and more meditate and process I guess.

Better work for overthinking is processing. It is appropriately descriptive, and less negatively saturated with stigma than overthinking is.

Processing thoughts, feelings, sometimes, and rarely to a positive end. But somethings do work well going through the neruon machine. I've gotten better and filtering stuff together, better at capturing good ideas that arise out of free form processing on the bike, on the commute.

I should really transition into writing about Last monday's ride to Boston and back. I should. But I also need to do taxes today (or at least start them). Anxeity riddled scary baggage associated with it. That said, I know, analytically that it is just sitting down with computer, a stack of numbers and punching it in, entering my credit card/bank info for refund/payment and getting it over. Simple, no? Deadline isn't until the 15th. Usually we have to get it done way early in Feb for financial aid applications, but well they moved those deadlines up to December. Thanks alot for that. Suddenly instead of the Feb deadlines I have April...

With luck the second book in the Hyperion series won't be ready to check out until the 15th (or when taxes are finished), why? because reading that is way more fun and distracting.

But it doesn't silence the demons. Doesn't deal with the anxiety. I know how to deal with it but even as distant and clinical as I can get, it doesn't actually make it easier to do.

I've also sat through my 3rd PhD defense talk in 10 days.

What is science? Stuff. What is effecitve science? Engaging an audience, captivating them and getting them to understand your stuff. Bonus points for keeping the attention of the experts in the field as well as those who don't have a clue.

Overthinking. Demons. Yup.

Does it get easier? No, not really. Because you find more and more people who are doing it all better than you. Doing what? Everything. And my brain can't function or focus on anything I do well enough to leverage it to happiness. Always focusing on failings. There has to be something redeeming about me or my life or some purpose besides just being miserable, right? Sometimes I find a glimmer of reasoning, but usually I don't.

That's why this panel (can be found in the link above) is the most difficult, real, aka woke up all my demons.  So keep in mind, everytime an introvert/overthinker tries to offer advice, it is probably because the advice is coming from a good place, a place of wanting to help. Being frustrated or getting emotional and directing anger and frustrations at them for saying something kind of fucks them up. A lot. Keep in mind, if you find one of these people's comments difficult to deal with, imagine how self critical they are, imagine the constant internal dialog that none one else hears.

I guess the post wound up hitting the target and all the tangents.

Oh and I've tried running to escape them. It makes them louder. "How's the form? You look stupid running, keep your arms in line, why are you slowing down? think about the breathing? Why is it taking so long to get there? The bike is so much faster! WHY ARE YOU RUNNING? Oh man this is going to take months before it is going to be anywhere close to efficient? Is that really worth the time off the bike?"

maybe I'll start running anyway... I've started planking.

heddwch
G

PS (after ride home) need to make a correction, in addition to overthinking, i underthink too. super polarized. and then of course i overthink my underthink/immediate reactions and they become demons that follow me around too. Sometimes the underthink stuff is good, sometimes? not so much. but worse is the blackhole. Send email - no response. Should always expect responses i guess. I probably leave enough emails hanging w/o responding to deserve all the silence in return. Also.
i'm still really tired from last week.

salt good, sugar bad... mkay?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4336865/

sure - just a review, of questionable epidemiological studies and experimental trials.

But, like recent meta data, reviews are usually on the mark, up to date on scientific evidence and well cited.

Not much of an exception here.

Then again I tend to agree with the conclusions drawn.

Salt good (unless you have failing kidneys and then maybe not so much, but you've got bigger problems in that case)
Sugar bad

even cupcakes.

not real food. never ever. horrible little things. have some sugar with your sugar and other sugar. and let me load it with red dye that causes attention disorders and call it velvet. awesome. cupcakes are not real food.

yummy? yup, sure, if you find pancreatic crippling sweetness yummy.

extra bitter tonight i suppose.

eh, what's new. i'm impossible.

smackdown write up? this week?

I suppose I should.

The lack of turnout let me slip into a debate with someone on twitter who was 'curbing' group rides. Worthless no need why drive to them stupid serve no purpose Roadies are elitest d'bags only concerned with tubular deep section carbon wheels.

Yup. Then you got guys now who only race training races. "They know how to race" um no it is a training race and no one gives a shit. "Group riding is too sketchy" "road races/crits are too sketchy" "roadies are d'bags".

No I'm a CXr. Well first a bike mechanic. I never found my niche in the road scene. Dirtbag mt biker turned into Roadie by buying a Paramount and drafted onto the cycling team by Geo in college.

it came up that someone has been riding for half their life. Damn that's not much. If I go back to my first bike shit i've almost hit the four decade mark riding two wheels. and i'm only in my not quite mid 40s.

But then maybe they are only 20...  percentages. I guess some people start late.

the group ride thing. It is different now.

Roadies all nod. It is code. Right? One of my friends commented, roadies always wave, but almost none of the hybrid riders acknowledge anyone. That's his observation.

Last night after the smackdown a there were three cyclists working on a flat change. One cranking a tiny min pump with a turtled bike. I said loud and clearly "NEED HELP?" and the hesitation made me stop.

More code eh? If a cyclists is on the side of the road, always ask if they need help. Yes, even if you are late. Or have no tools or anything. Maybe there is a chance you can provide assistance, or if nothing else just the simple offer is enough to turn their bad day into a good one. Never pass a rider on the side of the road, no matter what bike they are on, w/o offering. Worst case you can't do anything, but if they know that you tried and can't help it is still exponetially better to have stopped than to have ridden by.

This group of cyclists was effusive with thanks for just offering. They had watched countless cyclists ride past not even looking at them much less asking if help was needed.  It wasn't. Or at least by the time i got my frame pump out and started switching it from soccer ball filling schrader valve to presta they realized the patch wasn't holding and the one with the flat was going to walk home and the other two were going to continue on.

Drives home two points to me. Always ask. Easiest way is the Ben Folsom Method "NEED HELP?" Simple, clear, unabiguous. The responses are equally clear. A NO is easy to interpret and you can keep going. Anything else and you f'n stop.

Back to smackdown.

I rolled up. It was awesome in the sun but the wind was brutal and cold. I was kind of hoping that no one would show and I could just ride back to the office, get my backpack and head home. But Andrew was there.

Only Andrew. Guess he's gonna keep me honest. He's also prep'n for Battenkill so this wed night thing is important but isn't his only thing and, as y'all know, he's a good 50# lighter than me and a former elite/varsity level lightweight crew dude. Aka #alllungs

Great, We've got big mr watts and the climber dude. Of course we went out. I assumed that Fox's comment about never riding his bike again were joking. But he didn't show like he usually did over on Broadway. Damnit. It really is just the two of us. "I'm gonna get my ass kicked."  Bottom line? I did. He crushed me on Pine. We road Rocky Hill together, but I think that was more him sitting on my wheel. He dissapeared on the second pitch of Hillside. And gave a solid power dig in his big (way bigger than mine) big ring and 11/12 cog downhill into the wind. I may have put some pressure on over on Walker but man. It was a good ride. Great ride.

Not the fastest ever, not the slowest but it was great. Almost from the get go i could feel my right calf a bit edging on the cramp side - i knew by a few other signs that I was slightly dehydrated. Not optimal. But I survived.  And even just the two of us we had a great smackdown ride.

Dissapointing turnout for a routine well advertised ride. Is it too hard? The beginners get dropped all the time, but hey, who knows. I'm going to keep doing it for a few reasons. One usually at least one or two of my friends shows up and riding with people you like is always something to relish. Second i know that even though I was destroyed by Andrew on the hills, it helps me. It pushes me beyond where I'd normally go with my commute and my riding.

There is value in the group ride.

Yes, a good group ride is more like a training race than a social tea party. And functionally can be better than a training race if the combinations are met just so.

I tired to take it easy riding in this morning to recover, It worked pretty well. But the ride home? Fuuuuuuck. First I was late so I had to push it. Second? BRUTAL F'N HEADWIND. It was a nice reminder that. nope, not recovered from yesterday.

Planning a Monday ride. Long Ride. Boston and back ride.

I miss the whole day in the saddle. Can't wait to be back. Looked for ride partners, got radio silence. Kind of like usual though.

There's a reason they've kept me in the basement w/o windows or social interactions in the IRL category for the last 20+ years. Reinforced by the lack of response. But hey, i'm used to it. finally figuring it out. Finally being okay with the guy left alone way off in isolation. I'm also sort of seeing part of a pattern with why i've wound up friends with socially awkward bullies. Wayne in first grade... it carries on - I only pick his name because I think last i heard he was not maybe the best roll model in South Kidsap county.

That bike racing woman who was a grad student then moved on said something about her two readers in her blog, and I definately think maybe she has more than two. Right now I'm wondering... shit maybe the 6 page views (as tracked by google) are two people clicking from three different devices/IPs. Would make sense.

This journey isn't straighforward. It isn't easy. But it is starting to make sense to me, and I'm more okay lately.

I'm also going to be talking at a fancy PRO meeting about nanoscape on may 1st. So that's pretty amazingly awesome too.

Life's a pretty f'n amazing journey. Even when it sucks it beats the alternative.

heddwch
G

red meat not bad?

So just when i say avoid click bait this comes out and I like it, and share it. But This is one of the examples of a review of primary literature looking at both sides, and the arguments and presenting primary data.

Bias? Maybe, but it points out that the growing obesity problem isn't because people are ignoring their doctors, they are listening. They are eating less red meat, they are cutting back on fat. And replacing those calories with grains and sugars, and non-red meat protien source (chicken i'd wager mostly).

I like it and as Carolyn Johnson​ pointed out on Facebook it makes me even more critical and skeptical. But it fits very well with what seems to have happened. If nothing else, and esp if you disagree with it. Read it, follow the links to the primary research arcticles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/31/upshot/red-meat-is-not-the-enemy.html

thought about posting to FB but man, not sure i have the constitution to moderate or deal with a discussion there... maybe i'll wing it up on twitter with a clickbait quote ;)

heddwch
G

linkbait headline breakdown

Why is it important to stick with primary sources? Because journalism/reporting has gone to linkbait headlines.

Clicks count, and any way you can spin the report to get people to read it or to suit your target demographic, well go for it.

This morning there was one story that sounded great.

Headline: "One Cup of Coffee Could Offset Three Drinks a Day"

hey I drink coffee, that sounds awesome, but that article didn't list primary source or make it easy to find it.

So I punch into Google search: "World Cancer Research Fund study on coffee liver"

Found the two PDFs (the full report and the summary) from WCRF

But I also found a diversity of headlines all relating to this one study/press release.

"Science/health Journalists" were saying much like the first one.

But here's an incomplete list of headlines from this study:
"Consumping three alcoholic drinks a day may cause liver cancer - study".
"Coffee erases liver cancer risk caused by daily alcohol consumption"
"Coffee lowers the risk of liver cancer, new study suggests"
"Alcoholic? Coffee can negate potential liver cancer"
"Drinking Coffee likely decreases risk of liver cancer, diet soda can triple belly fat"

--TARGET YOUR DESIRED DEMOGRAPHIC--

What do you learn in inorganic/general chem?
"When in doubt, go to moles."

For health studies and food reccomendations and stuff that rings your bullshit meter (or more importantly when it sounds perfect) i suggest:
"Always go to the primary source."

and don't click on the linkbait

Also - as much as I like the idea that two cups of coffee can offset drinking a six pack/day, it probably isn't the best idea to draw that conclusion from the study.

But hey...  any reason to justify continued coffee consumption is okay by me!

Oh...

Bias, don't forget bias and funding. WCRF seems pretty okay, but I didn't dig much deeper than their web page, but nothing raised much of a flag, but also seemed a but less open about funding, so that's still making me wonder a bit.

heddwch
G

Smackdown and Strava

Wednesday we got out for Smackdown. Second one of the year.

First one was three of us, Syl and Andrew joined me. Syl showed up on his road bike even! I had spend the day outside on the roof working on the house after eradicating a starling from inside and keeping the nesting squirrel from coming back inside.

A goregous day, wet roads from snow melt but a day sweating on the roof must have done my legs good or the lack of morning commute or something. I felt great on the bike. Probably my best legs for riding since racing at Shedd Park in 2013. We were riding south on Prospect and I was just chatting with Syl riding side by side and he was breathing hard and had to drop back in the draft. I was just talking. It was strange. Andrew I think was just having a nice easy ride not too bad.

But hey that day was kind of fun. With the wet roads I stayed on the front just to keep a bit cleaner (and it worked). But I also led across every sprint point. And we weren't going too slowly. Not the fastest ever up anything but I was very nearly at my limit at the top of pine (won both sprint line) then also at Rocky Hill. Recoved and then went to the front to Hillside. Andrew took the lead at the base of Hillside and I nearly got dropped on the first section, but I held on and got back on the wheel before we started the last pitch. And Suddenly I was actually in contact with them and I couldn't but go for it at the last minute and I managed to sprint around the two skinny climber guys and take the sprint I never win. I paid for it but then we re-grouped a bit and I nearly got dropped again in the speed section leading over to Wheeler's Athletic complex. Recovered and managed to set a solid tempo up to 152.

Felt amazing. I won every sprint line and had a great ride. Legs were completely trashed but in a great way.

New (new last year) pedal stroke is natural now. No longer getting fatiqued and reverting to the old style.

This week was a bit different. Tuesday, the day before, I wondered what kind of time I might be capable of at the Providence Fight for Air Stair Climb tomorrow (saturday) so I did the 128 steps in the building next to us 2x. First time in 50 seconds not going too hard. Second time later in the afternoon I did it in 30 seconds no hands. Yes the climb is 348 steps so who knows if my sprint can hold out for ~90 seconds probably not but that 30 was in pants and vans. Not shorts and running shoes. Point being I think it fatiqued my quads a bit, the supporting muscles that normally don't pedal much were kind of sore and that impacted the total power I was able to make (also just not recovered probably on Wed). That and while I ate a big breakfast sandwich after getting to work (two eggs from my brother's chickens, a big leaf of swiss chard, some cheese and dry italian hard salami on bread) and had a taco salad (packed from leftovers the night before) for lunch I was still pretty hungry by 3pm. From past experience that is usually not a good sign. Esp when, like now, I'm not drinking any beer at night.

The ride in wasn't as slow as I wanted it to be, or as easy with the wind. So there was that in the morning going for me. AND the weather was going to be in the 40s. WARM OMG SO NICE OUT.

wrong

It was f'n windy, not as windy as last week when we cancelled the smackdown, but it was blowing out of the south and with no sun 40 was cold. Jersey and arm warmers with bib tights wasn't quite enough clothing. But once we got going hard it was warm enough.

At the start it was just me and Andrew and a new kid. He had a sweet bike, lots of dreamy gadgets, but was nearly dropped over the bridge as I was leading out easily. We picked up Fox (who claims not to be riding at all, but has been posting blistering fast running races in all distances this winter) riding through EP. And rolled out on 152 to woodward. Rolling along casually but not slowly until Andrew decided it was time to make some tempo and we fell in line and started moving. New kid on the nice bike started getting gapped but never really losing ground, just 75 yards or so back, out of the draft.

As we turned right on Prospect, we turned right into the wind. Andrew, then Fox, then me. Rotating through into the wind. Not an easy pace but I was still breathing through my nose. Headed down Broad/Jacob we kept rolling. And then Pine we had the tailwind. I started the climb and kept it pretty hard for myself. Not at the limit and this time not trying to go fast enough to discourage anyone from coming around but still not slow enough that they would want to come around too soon. Just after the first sprint line it was go time for Andrew. I heard the click click as he dropped it down a couple cogs and came past with Fox in tow.

I was able to jump on Fox's wheel and when Fox drifted off of Andrew's wheel I was able to jump around him but not quite close the gap to Andrew.

Andrew was climbing well. As he should relative to me, I have to keep reminding myself that even in my best shape I'm still hauling an extra 40-60 pounds more than these guys I'm riding with. We got to the top and regrouped, I recovered surprisingly quickly and went to the front to drag us out over to Homestead. Then Andrew and Fox cranked out the next tempo section to Rocky Hill.

Fox lead the turn around the masssive snow bank and we climbed the little rise and started drilling it. We passed three guys coming down with the tail wind as we were fighting the wind up hill. I knew given Andrew's strength lately that there's no way I could set a tempo to hold anyone off, much less beat him to the telephone pole so I just burried myself at the bottom of the hill. Thinking about the strava segment and hoping for a better time than the first smackdown this year. Just crushing it with Andrew and Fox on my wheel.

Getting close to the final couple bends Andrew came around as I started to fade, Fox didn't come off my wheel but we say Syl (on his mt bike), who turned around and tagged onto Andrew's wheel. the two of them hit the top of the hill together. Fox and I came up next. I was at my limit.

We regrouped a bit rolling over to Hillside and well somehow I wound up setting tempo up the first section. And I liked it. It felt good to dictate the pace. The rhythm was my own. I felt strong. Was a memorable feeling. Out of the saddle rocking back and forth in the big ring, powering up. Got around the bend there as it levels out and shifted, sat down and tried to keep the pace up. As we got to Medalist, Andrew and Syl went past and gapped me a bit. I pulled them back as we gathered speed before hitting the last steep pitch, but wasn't able to keep in contact. I did manage to out climb Fox on Hillside with is a rare enough feat and was status quo with the little skinny guys Andrew and Syl deftly floating up out of reach on the climb.

From the top of Pine I came around Syl and started hammering. Always amazed at being unable to turn the pedals over one more time and then not even 3 minutes later I'm pouring on the coals and back at tempo. We turned over onto Read and well. Downhill, this is my section so I just dropped it into the 46-11 and cranked it around until we got to Wheeler. I burried myself that whole stretch, which was really actually kind of stupid.

Stupid because I know Andrew usually crushes me on the final run on Walker to 152. Sure enough, I lead on to Walker and Andrew starts flying, i manage to grab Fox's wheel... then dangle just out of the draft... after the bend to the left I dug down and powered back on his wheel and managed to hang on until the end but completely at the limit. the hip end of the quads were on fire (from the stairs i think) and I could feel a fuel bonk hovering. This was way too much intensity for this big slow freak at the end of the day on an empty stomach, but also a really good training day. totally emptying the tank is like cycling the battery. Use it all up so you know you can and your body gets used to it.

Syl was trying to get back home for 7pm and we had a monster headwind facing us heading south. So we kept the pace on all the way back. no recovery chill chatty sections rolling through EP. It should have given us a great overall loop average on the strava segment. We pushed it over the bridge, up to college hill, grabbed my backpack, and headed towards the bike path into the wind.

Trying to hang with a motivated Syl was tough without the backpack or the headwind. Now I had all three to contend with. We started rotating, about 30 second pulls into the wind once we got to the causeway and the strongest of the wind. I made it almost to the Lighthouse before I just couldn't even stay in his draft anymore.

Boom.

That was the limit. Hello limit. Ouch.

Actually it was pretty close to perfect timing. Just the right distance/time to get a true recovery (and much needed) before getting home and off the bike. So we chatted about his remarkable day about the student worker trying to explain her dog costume to him.

And my legs... shredded. So good. So good.

great great ride... went to turn off Strava and upload the ride only to find it was off. It had only captured a tiny part of it. Seriously? FUUUUUUCK.

it is irrational to be mad at it. I got the ride in, I had a great freaking ride. Not having it recorded isn't a big deal. It is not a new route, I know the roads, I know how long of a ride it was. BUT STILL IT IS DATA THAT I WAS EXPECTING!  GRRR.

Lately actually anytime i took a photo, opened 'gram, made a call, got a text, the Strava app would stop working and I'd have to restart it. Usually it happened when I was stopped so no big deal.

This time i turned off the wifi (after strava was running) and I just never thought that something that simple would have disrupted the ap. I got a phone call mid-ride that I ignored, and I initially thought that was what crashed the ap but it wasn't. Oh well.

On the plus side I was asked if the phone was old, so I looked at which version of strava I was running (4.3.1) and the phone OS (4.4.2), should have been fine. But then I looked at the update time. Hey it has been flakey for a while. I'd filled the phone with snow pictures from the storms and when I cleaned it up Strava auto-updated and suddenly worked like shit.

Turned out they had just released 4.4.0. So I updated and BOOM fixed. I was able to take photos w/o the ap crashing. Back to expected reliability. Hopefully.

We'll see who shows up next week for the smackdown. Looks like some of the club guys who can't make the Wed ride are going to start the west side smackdown on Tuesdays. More options for hard/fast rides in the PVD area!

Today's ride was nice, missed the rain...  nice and easy... trying to be fresh and somewhat recovered for tomorrow. Hoping to get close to Paul Curly's time, it is a race afterall. I'll be honest, I'm worried about warming up properly. Would love to ride there but it is early and it will be cold and there's no secure storage and stuff. Probably going to wind up driving but then where to warm up, maybe I get on the trainer before leaving home and have a good warm up while drinking coffee and then just show up and check a string back with some pants and jacket in it. We'll see. At least I made my fundraising minimum, not quite to the VIP $500 status but that's fine with me.

Damnit that's a lot of words for today. Two smackdowns strava and stairclimbing.

better turn off the flow of words before it gets worse or I start talking about our new dogs (yes plural, we have TWO new members of the family).

heddwch
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okay brain - where is it

At some point during the day - between emails, questions, busted stuff and staring at some of the slowly accumulating clutter on my desk (but i DON'T WANT TO CLOSE MY MCMASTER CATALOG NUMER 121 - open to page 2048-2049) I opened this tab because I had an idea, something in my brain that I wanted to write down.

I forgot and just as I was typing 121 I got interupted and have been busy since (hours ago now). Yes - tabs live a long time here on GeWilli's desktop. Much like how McMaster's new Catalog doesn't really get closed.

Nice Cycling - a new web page (and a few thoughts of my own)

http://www.nicecycling.com/

It is a well designed and simple page. No not a huge depth to the content but absolutely precise and spot on,

I related very much to it because, I suppose, it mirrors my commuting and riding style. That's how I ride to work.

In the past i've felt like (and sometimes still admit to the feeling) I'm going into battle against the 2 ton death mobiles. But that's a shitty way to go about thinking about cycling and commuting by bike. Prepare for war means you're loaded with ammo and armor, much more likely to use it if you're carrying it no?

A comment from G+ got me to expound and clarify the filtering forward connundrum that many people have.  MC's comment:

I agree with almost all of that, except for the assumption that you should stay in the flow of traffic. At least here in Chicago, it's completely legal for me to filter up a line of stopped cars. I see little point in being stuck in a traffic jam of cars if I can filter to the front of the line safely, then go through the intersection when the light changes, or it's my turn, whatever. If folks in cars want to get their drawers in a twist because I don't have to suffer the traffic jam like they do, then maybe they need to be on a bike instead.

My response:

Careful MC your justification falls into a very similar argument of "you don't like getting run off the road, get in a car."
Filtering when there's room is one thing. Filtering where you have to weave between mirrors and space on a tight road is another.
Filtering when you ride past 20 cars then they have to pass you right back over and over again or even only once is too many times. Every time you make someone pass you more than once you increase the potential for their frustration/anger/rage to increase. Doing that while, sure, seems great, just get on a bike, is a super good way to set cycling advocacy back and make the roads more dangerous for every other cyclist that individual encounters down the road.
Filtering when you're never going to see the cars again? I'm fine with that, but falls under a very different circumstance. 
I find it very much worth while being patient and waiting 3-4 or even 6 cars back from a red light, esp if it means I will get through the red light once it turns green. And even if I don't What's waiting for one red light going to cost me vs the potential aggravation others will feel from my filtering actions?
These are the things I think long and hard about. They are feelings and guidlines I follow having been in traffic on a bike since the 80s. 

There was a discussion about stop signs and stop lights from the RIBike email list a week or so ago.

ST shared an experience that happens quite a bit. You stop for sign. Car starts to go through (who has right of way) and your slow poke buddy comes flying past you and through the stop signs pissing off the car who had just started to go forward. I wrote this in response to ST's long story (I won't quote ST here)

So many thoughts on this very topic.
I have a rolling criteria based on my [short] lifetime of riding.First I prescribe to the vehicular cyclist model. lay that out first.Not really a surpise maybe to those who've ridden with me.
Red Lights are a curious thing. Over the years I've watched most ofthe stoplights I have to interact with go to detection/switchinghardware that can see a cyclists waiting at the light and switch it.IE most of the ones in Providence. In places that have coils I'velearned how to ride over the coils and trigger the light change (youneed metal ~32 spoke wheels to do it).
I don't see going through red lights as a viable, responsible action,with very few exceptions (there are always exceptions).
I am not a fan of filtered past cars unless the line of traffic is solong that they won't pass you again, at all or for a very long time(like tonight with traffic stopped on Waterman from Hope to the RedBridge). Even then, I still waited for the red light to turn green atButler even though there were no cars anywhere near that could enterthe intersection.
The laws may not suit us very well. And officers may wave us throughbut unless the officer does, I will be waiting in line, being veryconservative about when I filter forward. We don't have green boxes,and I'm not sure they are a good thing honestly, but that's a personaljudgement.
It is slower, it is more conservative but I believe very strongly thatit is safer and is a responsible thing to do. Running red lights evenif only one person sees you still puts you in the wrong. Sure, carsspeed, they cross double yellow lines to pass, they roll through stopsigns. Yes, people driving are the problem not the cars, but mostpeople do follow the laws. But it seems most cyclists don't. Or atleast barely enough to hit 50%. At least in areas where there isn'tany enforcement or penalty.
But do we really need enforcement or the threat of burning foreternity in hell to do the right thing? If so, maybe well, tangent andphliosophical topic not appropriate for the list. To the point thoughI feel running the red light...  is just not the right thing to do. Itsaddens me when others do it, and I've been nearly creamed by, i'msure nice cyclists, who've run stop signs or red lights because therewere no cars, there was just me and well - because I'm payingattention neither of us were sent to the ER. I hate that I have to bethe one to be aware of you red light, stop sign running riders (I usethe 'you' with a bit of liberty hoping no one here would treat acyclist in the intersection with less right away than their own givensignage and vehicular code).
Life is a journey of making choices. Every choice you make impacts others.
I feel that picking a path of peace making on the bike whilecommuting/riding is the right choice. Now I have a temper and can bepushed to far and have come close to fighting more than I like toadmit, but each interaction lately has been more zen like andentertaining to me. I guess that's sort of the premise here. Andalways, always I prefer to be wrong than dead right. I would prefer towait at a frustrating red light with no other cars coming for whatfeels like an eternity than roll through and give even just one car inline behind me the satisfaction of saying "HAH SEE TOLD YOU THEY ARETHINK THEY ARE ABOVE THE LAW"
Use every red light and stop sign as practice. for Cyclocross startsor trackstand handling practice. Make use of each opportunity toimprove. Getting somewhere faster without learning is a waste. Theaccumulated lessons make us wiser and better at this whole being humanthing.

Many words - but it does come down to a zen like state in a way. Maybe being too empathetic makes this approach easier for me than someone who's more prone to exploitation for personal gain, balancing that part of me is the part that is prone to lose it violently, but I know that's not good and have found ways to keep that in check. All that said, I do firmly believe that the Nice Cycling page's clearly stated guidelines can benefit everyone and move cycling advocacy forward in a productive manner and make it all safer for everyone.

heddwch
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one of the other percolations

First post was a product of the over-thinking bike ride this morning.

So much going on, and yes my legs decided to say hey lets see how little work we can get away with while I was preoccupied with stupid brain thoughts.

My ride home was like a dream sequence of thoguhts

You know what I mean right?

Check the clock 4:30 have an intense and complex series of dreams and then look back at the clock and it is only 4:35, no way did that whole sequence happen in 5 min, it feels like an hour, sometimes a day.

That's what my brain was doing on the way home tonight.

Occilating between gut wrenching sadness hearing about Lesli having to make the brutal desicion to say good by to her beloved companion. Overclocking on the red light, and at the same time...  thinking about finishing Ready Player One... and the cascade of emotions and feelings and thoughts generated from it.

Doesn't help that I finished reading Ender's Game on Saturday, had some very deep and philosophical discussions on the ride on Sunday with Syl and David.

And just finished Read Player One today.

Add on top of it all some serious soul searching and challenging lately.

One moment of the ride home was a desire to write a Facebook post, turn off the comments and say:

Thank you, each and every one of you for being my friend. Not just a facebook friend, but a real friend. Many if not most of you it has been a long time since I've really talked to you, spent time with you or really been a friend in a physical sense. But you are still a friend. And I mean a friend in the sense I am grateful for what you've given me for affording me the tolerance and the patience and acceptance of my idiosyncrasies, even if superficially.  The last year has been a sgnificant awakening. Won't know for a few years if i can call it an epiphany, but it was, none the less, formative and eye opening. Making choices that ultimately really really hurt and what felt wrong and needed was the opposite. Losing friends and close confidants when you have few is never easy. I'm a challenge, a mess, few people really ever understand me. But I had unwittingly found a team that did. And then they were gone. And the void was pretty huge. Probably completely my own doing but I make some really dumb choices sometimes. "The choices you made" one of the most influential people in recent memory kept hammering into me. These are indeed the choices I made and I alone have to live with them.
And honestly I think I can. Most of them. The ones that have wound up hurting others are the toughest to deal with. They are challenging. So forgive me, please. I'm not new to this being human thing, but I am still figuring it out. 

The one thing I struggle with, still, is the awareness of when people fuck up, or have a position based on wrong information, or act on bad/wrong facts. I'm really struggling but at the same time really working on it. My brain is going overtime trying to find a way to respond and react in a positive helpful direction. I fail spectacularly still. But, failures are getting further apart it feels. And, yes, you can't even begin to fathom how self critical I am. Seriously. Not Possible.

Life is a weird weird thing. Honestly so much of the Ender's Game book and Ready Player One resonated with me. On a level that is both exciting and scary but in a weird way validates so many feelings and observations along the way. So many of my friends have wound up being the smartest people I know, mostly because we are all equally disfunctional and frustrated by the f'n idiocy in the world around us. Or driven together by common interests.

Life isn't easy on this end of the mendoza line. It can be fucking unbeliveably brutal.

Maybe some (one) of the people over here maybe I over estimated, or got played big time. But in the end, I often take comfort in knowing I helped, at somepoint open doors, get through struggles, make new connections, find new confidences, find something that clicks.

Some old (younger than me) pain in the ass guy said once: "You have a lot to offer the sport, and the people around you. It doesn't go without you. I mean that sincerely"

I rarely get any sort of praise, recognition or acknowledgement.  Much less thanks. It happens, but so infrequently that I think maybe it is just fake and contrived and insincere. And that's okay. I'm an observant asshole.

Once, long ago my sister described some guy as the creepy guy who stood in the corner and stared at people. She didn't know, probably doesn't know to the day that as she talked about this "creepy guy" she was describing me as I was standing there. It opened my eyes to how my shyness was manifested as I grew up or at least explained how/why everyone reacted to me the way they did.

But moving on. Moving on. One thing that has been reoccuring lately is just by follwoing my sub-concious how luck I am, well, not lucky enough to have a reliable car, or disposable income or a garmin or anything else luxurious. But that's a negative spiral. No, there are elements that I realize are difficult to explain, but also possible to explain, just not easily.

This may or may not be one of the most revealing or most cryptic posts ever. I think that is going to depend on who you are reading this.

Another realization riding home, my youngest may be indeed the smartest of the two despite the insane potential the oldest is exibiting. Reading the Jazz/soccer/coach article a while back, the youngest gets it. And I fucking hate that she got subjected to being put on a team where she's the strongest and the biggest because I wasn't playing the politic game like a few other dads were. But on the other hand it taught me so many lessons, Coach Kurt's links have helped, and perspective has helped. Also, youth sports and the whole system is really f'n broken and stupid. That said my kid has taught me so much.

This verbal unloading is probably because today someone said my beard had acheived wizard power. Could be. It has never been this big/full or amazing. Shopping on Sunday there were kids with their parents who couldn't stop staring at me. It was entertaining and at the same time kind fo made me feel a bit wizard like. This strange human like person who is different but special and distinctive and memorable but you don't quite know why.  No. Don't worry. I'm still as full of self doubt and have still zero self confidence, and pretty much no idea how to move forward still. But. I have a commitment to myself.

This is what hit me riding home. A commitment, to figure out how to see the flaws and help people without alienating them or pissing them off or making them feel like I'm trying to insult them or make them feel inferior. Fucking impossible task honestly. But you know what? Fuck it. I don't wany any easy challenges. We live once. Then we're gone.

That should be enough motivation to try...

I should proof read this verbal expulsion but I won't. I will ask Tommy D to give me a call if he reads this, shit anyone else wanna call? call...  you have my number...

Heddwch
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