Bicycling

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Stage 8 of the TDF resulted in zero change at the top of the leader board. Old Man Lance is still in third place 8 seconds out. We are in the Pyrenees Mountains, but today and tomorrow’s stages are the kind that probably won’t determine who will win the Tour, but can decide who will lose it. While there are two or more big ass climbs on the stage, they don’t end at the tops, there are 30 to 40 miles of downhill & flats before the finish line allowing any of the contenders who is dropped on the climb to catch back up.

Appears that some of the blog’s theme CSS conflicts with the theme stuff that is produced by the stats generator and I’m not smart enough to know if there is an easy fix and don’t want to spend the time, so I took the easy way out. Just click on this link – Geocaching Statistics

I guess it is OK to blog about this because the FRS apparently don’t need me to jinx tonight’s victory over the supposedly lousy Kansas City Royals because right now their relief pitching is busily snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. When John Smoltz left the game after pitching 5 solid innings they had a 9 to 1 lead. KC scored 5 runs in the sixth. Now after a solo homer in the 7th they have a men on first and second with nobody out, so now the current batter represents the go ahead run!

At the pool party with the MMC this morning it was pointed out to me that I had misspelled retirement in my countdown widget in the right sidebar. What happened here, either all of my readers are as bad as I am when it comes to spelling or you all enjoyed watching me humiliate myself with the Internet equivalent of toilet paper stuck on the bottom of my shoe.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 292

Unfried Side

At what point does too much advertising about a new product tip over into negative feeling towards said product?

Finally, after being not literally, but figuratively rained out all last week and the first 80% of this week we got to ride the bike into work today.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 218

National Bike To Work Day…

…is Friday, May 15th. Donna and I won’t be riding to work that day, I have a doctor’s appointment across town, so we are riding tomorrow. Which is OK because it will be smack in the middle of Bike to Work Week and it is pretty near the middle of National Bike Month.

I just hope the roads aren’t crowded tomorrow.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 190

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