I was out riding the Felt today, and on my way home as I was approaching the overpass over the 35 bypass, a tractor-trailer was turning left onto Bellbrook Avenue ahead of me. I stood up, sprinted and tucked into his slipstream. I was very pleased with myself riding along in that pocket of dead air until I made a sad realization:
Once we start down the hill there’s absolutely no way I can spin fast enough to stay with him. Damn.
I don’t recall ever wishing so sincerely that I was riding my geared bike during the nearly 3 years that I’ve been exclusively on fixed gear bikes.
As I sat up and watched the truck pull away down the other side of the hill I decided that I have to get the geared bike out on the road.
I’ve had the new bike for over 3 months now, but for some reason I just got around to putting its Madonna del Ghisallo medallion (which I purchased in anticipation of buying the bike) on. As I’ve written before, this isn’t necessarily about religion, but it has become a sort of talisman to me. Both of my other bikes have one and now, so does the Felt.
Click for close-up of medallion.
I really like the way they look once they take on the patina of an old penny, but right now I’m digging the contrast. The bike, stem, and bars are all matte black, so the shiny copper medallion is a nice counter-point.
Yeah I know… “Thirty-six minutes to ride less than 7½ miles*? Wimp!”
You have to take into consideration all of the stop-signs and red-lights getting out of town (16, by my count), plus I had a 10-15 mph headwind, and I was taking it easy (honestly).
*The distance from my house to here and here (they’re the same place).
Today on my way back from the bike shop I passed a deer; a young doe, standing just off the side of the road (on my side). I turned around and rode back, positioning myself for a photo while she warily watched me. As I fumbled for the camera, I noticed her looking more tense, just then her little fawn appeared from the bushes and nursed for a moment. Now having become much more concerned with my presence, mom began leading her little one away from me. I grabbed a quick picture before riding on, leaving them to their business.
The two barely discernible blobs near the center are the deer
Click for a digitally zoomed ‘Bigfootesque’ view
A bit closer to home, very near where I drew inspiration from the elderly gentleman on his bike the other day, I spot what appears to be a motorized wheelchair coming down the road toward me. As we draw closer, I realize that it is, in fact, a man in a motorized wheelchair, and perched on his shoulder is a great big parrot!
As we pass I say “howdy”, he nods, and the parrot squawks. As I ride away, I can hear the parrot squawking for quite some time, I’m pretty sure he was talking about me, but it’s hard to say. I do wish I had stopped and asked them if they’d mind me taking their picture. Oh well… maybe next time.
Go for a bike ride, or a walk out in the country. There truly is no telling what you might see.
Today while I was out riding my bike I saw a Peacock! I was going to title this post “Unusual Birds”, but since I’ve been seeing a peacock at that same spot every now and then for years, it’s not really that unusual. Plus, exotic is really more descriptive anyway.
I would have taken a picture, but he lives beside a nice little down-hill on a fairly heavily trafficked road. And you know… bike riding, particularly on the fixed-gear, is all about preservation of momentum.
I knew the glorious, perfect weather couldn’t last, and alas, it has not.
Am I going to let a little wind and heat keep me off of
the bike?
No!
No, of course I’m not. I’m off to ride!
Click photo to enlarge
If a picture is worth a thousand words, that’ll save me a lot of typing. I’ll just add this:
Is it any wonder this is one of my favorite spots to take a snack break?
Today it was about 70°F (21°C) with bright sun and fluffy white cumulus clouds marching by overhead. There was just enough gusty breeze to keep things interesting, basically as close to perfect riding weather as I would dare to hope for. I don’t mind hot weather (which is good, given that summer seemed to arrive in mid-May this year), but 70-ish seems to be where my motor runs best.
As I was rolling out of town I spotted two wrenches in the road, which I grabbed to add to my collection of road finds.
Later, riding along an otherwise empty country road, I passed another cyclist going the other direction; a gentleman of (I’m guessing) 70+, tan, shirtless, and fit-looking. We exchanged pleasantries and I rode on, grinning a bit wider than before, imagining my future riding off behind me.
The much needed rain we finally got yesterday had everything looking very fresh and green; a Goldfinch paced me for bit before disappearing into the trees. The day just kept getting more perfect!
Turning back toward town, the wind shifted and I glided along effortlessly at 20MPH, all was right in my world.
Back in town, heading home, I did a (rare for me) perfect trackstand at a 4-way stop and the driver whose turn it was actually went.
Harsh reality, as always, awaited. A block later a car coming the other direction starts to turn directly in front of me; the dreaded left cross! He’s coming right at me, I’m going too fast to stop… thankfully his window is down and he hears me shout “Hey!” He jams on the brakes as I’m right in front of him, looking right into his wide, vacant eyes.
“My bad” he says.
“My bad?”
“My bad” is for when your buddy is wide-open under the basket and you don’t pass him the ball. “My bad” is for when you spill your drink. “My bad” is not for when you nearly hit someone with your car. “My bad” in that situation will get you (at a minimum) cursed at. Thankfully, by the time I realized how much that pissed me off, I had cleared the intersection and was riding away (cursing over my shoulder).
I’m glad I’d had an otherwise perfect day, it makes the near-miss much easier to shrug off. I’m also grateful that the near misses are few enough and far enough between that I don’t recall when the last one was. I do know that I’ve put quite a few perfect rides under my wheels since then, however.
On previous rides on the new bike, I’d decided that my saddle needed to come down just a bit, and that its nose needed to come up a degree or two (I prefer it to be either level, front to back, or to have an almost imperceptible nose-down tilt). Anyway, before heading out today I finally adjusted the angle and dropped the seat about 1/16″. After riding along for a bit, I decided it was now too low, so I raised it about 1/8″. Continuing on my ride this felt a tiny bit too high. Apparently, it had been exactly where it needed to be before I starting fussing with it (other than the angle, which now feels just right).
Another thing struck me as odd. I was climbing easier (remember, this is a fixed-gear I’m talking about), but felt like I was spinning out at a lower speed. “It’s almost like I swapped the gear.” I thought to myself.
Upon arriving home, I checked and sure enough, I had, in fact, been riding with the wheel swapped to the side with the 17T cog, rather than the 16T. “Oh, yeah… I did that yesterday, when it was raining”, I suddenly remembered.
Duh!
I was relieved to verify that my spin hadn’t actually slowed down, I’m still maxing out at my pitiful 140 RPM, at least until I can polish off the rough edges I developed over the winter.
I couldn’t have asked for nicer weather to take the new bike out for a spin. It made it into the mid-sixties today! I was actually a bit too warm with my lightest tights and a long-sleeved jersey.
Click photo to enlarge
The new bike rides like a dream. I don’t know if it’s the carbon fork or what, but it actually gives a much smoother ride than the
Pista (using the same wheels and tires). I really could not be any happier with it.
I love my new bike!
So, today was Thanksgiving. I was, first and foremost, thankful for such a gorgeous day; 55 degrees, basically no wind… fabulous! I went out for a nice ~1 hour ride, there were so few cars that it was almost creepy at times. As I passed the location of yesterday’s dog incident there were no dogs, but there was a deer carcass, right where the one dog had appeared from, which goes a long way toward explaining his behavior.
As I turned onto my street, on my way home, I passed a man pushing an old pickup to the side of the road. I started to stop and help push, but realized that I wouldn’t be too much help slipping around on bike cleats. As I rolled into my yard, I asked if he needed any help.
“I could use a jump, if you have a car,” he replied.
No problem, I replied, just let me run inside. I ran in, put on some regular shoes and a jacket, and grabbed my car keys. Pulling my car around to his, I asked if he was sure that was all that was wrong. He assured me that it was, that his ignition switch (or something; still pumped from my ride, I wasn’t listening too closely) had gone bad, that he’d filed something down (again; not paying close attention) and had been using a screwdriver to turn the switch. He had left it on, thus draining the battery. I mention that he’s picked a bad day for car trouble as there’s no one around (apparently almost the entire population of Xenia spends Thanksgiving elsewhere). Laughing, he agrees.
I open my hood, he hooks up the cables, then asks if I’ll get in his truck and push in the clutch, he can handle the gas and the starter from there. No problemo. He gets it running pretty quickly and all is well.
As I’m closing my hood, he’s thanking me very graciously and has fished a wad of bills out of his pocket, wanting to give me some money “for my trouble”.
“Seriously, dude; all I did was pull my car around, don’t even worry about it,” I told him.
He thanks me again, saying that I’m a “lifesaver” and that “what comes around goes around” (an awkward turn of phrase, but I knew what he meant). He goes on his way, I park my car and go back inside.
It wasn’t until quite a bit later that it occurred to me that there might be a chance the truck was stolen (I really don’t think it was). I felt a small surge of… what? Not exactly pride, but something, realizing that; faced with a strange black man and a pickup that he has to start with a screwdriver, my first instinct was to help, not to automatically assume he’d stolen it. He seemed very genuine and the color of his skin had in no way colored my perception of him.
Now, if we, as a people, can just evolve to the point where we don’t give these things a second thought, then we’ll all have something to be truly thankful for.
It was a perfect day for a ride (for late November). Somehow, it seemed tremendously appropriate when I saw numerous farmers out working the fields, harvesting their corn, wheat, and what-not.
This also gave me pause. We always give thanks for our food, but how often do we give thanks for (or to) our farmers? Not often enough. This is something I’ll have to add to my list of things I’m thankful for.
This moment of introspection was short-lived though. Rounding a slightly uphill, 90 degree right-hand bend into the sun, I saw a large dead dog lying in the center of the road. When I reflexively sighed, “aaawww”, he turned to look at me. Not dead at all, it’s a friendly dog who lives just up the road, sunning himself. He’s a sweet old guy, has never so much as barked at me and today was no exception. Suddenly just ahead there was a rustling and an explosion of dark fur and ferocious barking as his less well-mannered sidekick charged out from the shadows, sun at his back, straight for my front wheel. I braced myself for impact and swerved, but obviously his “attack” was just a bluff. Once my heartbeat returned to normal, I had to chuckle; he had set a perfect trap. He had me going up-hill, sun in my eyes, and distracted by his docile friend napping in the road. Under different circumstances, I would have been someone’s dinner.
I guess I should be thankful he didn’t want to eat me!
As I was getting ready to head out for a bike ride yesterday, I thought about bringing my digital camera, but decided not to, primarily because it doesn’t fit very comfortably into a jersey pocket, plus I was getting a late start and figured I wouldn’t really have time to take pictures, anyway.
Once I got out into the countryside I noted that the birds seemed especially active. First it was groups of Barn Swallows swooping down, time and again to catch bugs, then the Goldfinches were out en masse to flaunt their brilliant summer plumage.
Then as I rounded the sharp left-hand curve riding west on Stewart, there they were. Two fawns, contentedly munching grass in the field to my right, just beyond the split rail fence. They didn’t seem particularly concerned with my presence, so I stopped to watch them for a bit, expecting their mother to come rushing out to escort them to safety at any moment. A few minutes passed, their mother was still nowhere to be seen, and the youngsters’ grazing was actually bringing them closer to me, so I decided to ride a bit further around the curve to give them some space then went back to watching them. A few more minutes passed, a few cars drove by, and the two little deer continued to eat, despite my admonishment that they were supposed to be afraid of me and really should be running away.
Today I went for a ride again; same exact course, same time of day, same weather. The only difference was that today I decided to shoe-horn my camera into my pocket; well, that and the fact that were only a very few run-of-the-mill type birds to be seen, and, of course, no deer.
I did see the same lady walking by the park who just scowled at me yesterday when I said “Howdy” to her. Today I didn’t say anything. She scowled. Maybe I should have taken her picture.
