Bicycling

Summer?

We took advantage of the early summer weather today to ride the tandem into work under the full moon. It was so nice that there were only a couple places on the way to work that a jacket was required and on the way home it would have been perfect for not a 10-12 mile an hour headwind on a 1/4 of the journey. It may not be officially spring yet, but it is starting to look it, as the Bradford Pear trees are blooming. Tomorrow, for one day, it is going to feel like summer with a high in the upper 80’s before return to the more normal 60’s on Thursday.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 143

What Birthday?

My email to Geocities on Saturday, much to my surprise, generated a reply. They told me to call their Account Verification Department at 866-850-4303. After 5 minutes on hold I got a live one. The fellow who answered the phone was probably in India, but his English was excellent. To verify my status as web site owner the first question he asked me was my birthday, the very first question that the web site asked, and I told him I wasn’t sure.

I mean who doesn’t know their birthday right? Well, I know mine, but I don’t remember which one I used when I opened the account. I figured that one day I’d pass along the reigns of the web site to someone else and should use a date that means something to the bike club. The bike club was formed in 1980, so I thought I picked January 1, 1980. I was wrong.

When I guessed wrong the guy basically said that is as far as he could go and shipped me off to another department. More time on hold, but this time after 5 minutes I hung up. Somehow I’m figuring the whole birthday issue is going to be a problem.

I tried logging in again about a half dozen times trying various bicycling related terms as the password, I know the login: aikenbikeclub, but I have no recollection of what the password might be. after giving that up in frustration, I thought maybe I would try Plan B, I would report the ABC site for violated the Geocities Term of Service. After poking around a bit I managed to find the form for report this egregious violation. After filling out the form and hitting the submit button I ended up at a Page Not Found error page. Nice. I tried a couple more times with the same results.

Looks like I’m just going to have to change my home phone number…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 135

Lucky Duck

For the second time this week we chickened out of bicycling because of dire weather predictions, so we drove, but Monday’s dense fog and today’s morning rain never materialized.

This morning about a mile from home, while pulling away from a stop sign we both noticed a rustling in the bushes between two houses. There was some sort of animal, mostly white, moving towards the road, fast, so I slowed. Sure enough it ran right out in front of us and in typical animal fashion, noticed the headlights and stopped right in our lane. So I hit the brakes, hoping it was in time, watched as white faded from view and waited for the thump.

Didn’t happen, our lucky opossum scurried across the road and disappeared into the woods.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 95

Metal

On our bicycling route to work there is one house we pass that has a small screened-in porch. On that porch are two large dogs, I haven’t seen them because of the way the porch is situated, but they sound large and I’m glad they are kept inside. Definitely on the way to work and most times on the way home, we are the only traffic on the road this house is on, but we can not get within 25 yards of it before the dogs start barking. They bark continuously until we are probably 25 yards down the road past them. We are not usually talking at this point in the ride, it is flat so we aren’t doing any gear shifting, we are just pedaling along with the only sound being the whir of the chain and invariably those two dogs start raising a ruckus long before we get anywhere near them.

I think James Cameron must have been a bicyclist and had similar experiences with dogs hearing him coming a long way off because he includes a bit in the Terminator movies about humans using dogs to detect the cyborgs (AKA Metal.) If dogs can hear a component of the high pitched bicycle chain noise from a ways off it stands to reason that they also can pick up the sound of a motor moving a metal joint encased in a layer of human flesh.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 90

It’s All Over Now

The Constant

The Other Woman

We watched Episodes 74 & 75 of 82 tonight, so technically we’ve watched this whole week’s worth of shows already and the rate of two a night we will be through with Season 4 by Friday and Season 5 doesn’t start until almost 3 weeks after that.

Episode #74, The Constant, took place on Christmas Eve in Lost time, missed it by 5 days. When we started rewatching them from the beginning, I started on a Monday with the shows spaced so that we would finish up a couple days before the next season started, maybe I should have scheduled them to line up with island time, Season 1 started on September 22, 2004 and Season 4 ends on New Year’s Eve 2004. Maybe next year (as long as when Ben moved the island in time he just jumped exactly in years and didn’t shift days.)

It is almost a good thing because I have really wanted to stop writing the little episode synopsizes, because Season 4 is where the show got far out there (if that was even possible for this show that has been water skiing around a school of sharks looking for a ramp ever since the get go.) The season’s arc was intriguing, we find out that six people got rescued and we find out early on who five of them are (turns out we knew the sixth, but the producers were being cagey) and through out the episodes we see those 5 people scattered amongst several separate locations and circumstances and they are only brought together in the season finale. But several of the goings on leading up to the rescue are like jigsaw puzzle pieces that look like they came from a different puzzle.

We took the tandem out for a couple three miles as a sort of a shakedown cruise for it and us. Things worked well, mechanical and physical, and if the helmet mounted lamp arrives tomorrow as planned we are going to ride the bike to work on New Year’s Eve.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 87

Merry Christmas

I thought I was through with my Christmas gifts, but after yesterday morning, turns out I needed 2 more.

The Cateye LED headlight we bought a couple months ago does a decent job of lighting the road in a 4 foot diameter circle about 20 yards ahead of the bicycle. That, along with the ailing Nite Hawk incandescent headlight filling in the gap between the front tire and the LED spot, forward travel is pretty well illuminated. But turning corners is tricky because the lights are on the handlebars, they only see what’s around the corner once the bike is actually turned.

Yesterday morning about two miles into our 6-1/4 trip to work I turned onto a street that turned out to to be covered with leaves. Because of the lighting setup I didn’t know there were leaves there until we were crossing over them. Coasting at about 10-12 miles an hour the front tire slipped out from under me. Before I could even get out the O in OH SHIT, we were down and skidding to a stop on the ground. What took the brunt of the impact was the right front pannier that was loaded with my clothes and I think that saved both of us from a rougher landing. We got up, checked for any serious damage to us or the bike, I reattached the pannier and we pedaled slowly up the street. Because we less than half way to work we opted to turn around, pedal home and then drive the car in.

The bike appears fine except for scrapes on the right pedals and the tape on the right side of the handlebars where they skidded on the pavement. The attachment hook on that right front pannier needed to be rebent back into its natural shape. The captain has some road rash on the right knee that makes wearing pants uncomfortable, a sore left thigh that probably got poked with the handlebar and a tender right wrist from hitting who knows what. The stoker got a small cut on her right leg and a fairly sore shoulder. Both probably have bruises that will materialize in a couple days.

The right knee of my tights was shredded in the fall so I had to order a set online today. I also ordered another LED headlight, but this one has a helmet light so that I can aim it around corners by looking that way so as to avoid nasty surprises like yesterday.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 81

I Led You Here, Sir, For I Am Spartacus

While we were riding the tandem to work this morning I saw something or thought of something that I should blog about tonight. Of course I didn’t write it down. On the way home from work the same idea reoccurred, once again I didn’t write it down, so you won’t get to read about it.

It’s holiday time, so there are goodies around practically every corner at work and because I have no self control, I eat something each time I pass something. On Tuesday I started keeping track of all the handfuls of whatnot I consumed, retroactive to Monday, with the though of blogging about that today, but after writing it all down the totals weren’t nearly as spectacular sounding as I imagined, so I scratched that idea.

Even though they play the song That Thing You Do about 10 times in the 1-3/4 hours the movie runs, I still like watching it. And I did again tonight.

One of Ron White’s bits contains this quote: “…once you’ve seen one woman naked, you… wanna see the rest of ’em naked.” I’m not sure what he’d think of these women, or these…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 73