Scares the beejeezus out of me. Not sure I could sit through the whole thing. Bicycle crashes scare the ever living hell out of me . . . because they hurt. And I've had enough of them, thank you very much.
Had an odd thing occur yesterday at the Memorial Day picnic.
It was a picnic put on by a group at a church attended by a good friend of mine. Obviously I'd ridden the bicycle to the event. Figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. Attend and get a bit of a ride in.
I'd never met any of the people at the event before. They were all nice, friendly, gentle people. (As I would expect most church-going folks to be.) Since I arrived in full biking gear (biker shorts, clipless pedal shoes, Camelbak "hydration system," iPhone app for biking), bicycling became the topic of choice as I sat down to drink some delicious sweet tea.
We were all pretty much in the same age group. It was a "singles" group from the church, so in addition to being at the same point in life, all of us had been through divorces and separations; we all had children who were grown, and children still at home. I secretly made fun of the "damned Yankees" who ate watermelon with a knife and fork. (We Rebels just pick up a chunk of melon and start gnawing.)
Everyone there had some experience in bicycling. Most were content to ride "periodically," i.e., a few miles here and there every now and again. One gent had ridden just that morning about 10 miles and was justifiably proud of his ride.
The most interesting stories came from a guy named Larry. Back in the 80s he'd gone over to mainland China to ride through that country. The group he was with had to sign agreements that they'd ship their bicycles over to China. But when they were done, they could not leave them in country. They had to ship them back to the United States. They couldn't just give them to their guides upon their departure.
The guides were, of course, provided by the government. The bike tourists weren't allowed anywhere without the guides. They also couldn't deviate from the "approved" routes the government had set up for them.
Larry said when they'd ride into a new village, the people there would come up to them and just stare. The bikers were all in bright bicycling colors. (Sometimes the color combinations bicyclists wear would put pimps to shame. Well, pimps and golfers. Ok, maybe not golfers.) The locals were all in black. And, of course, those round eyed folks just flat looked different, too. Larry said that was the strangest part of the tour -- the feeling like you were a strange creature who'd arrived from another planet.
All of them seemed to be very interested in my "giving it all up" to ride across country for years. Truth be told, I guess I expect that reaction from people in their late 40s, early 50s. Not so much that everyone in that age group wants to ride a bicycle thousands of miles. But that most of us wouldn't mind an . . . escape. A chance to . . . "do something different."
I don't think most people are miserable or even slightly unhappy with their lives. But there's something to be said about taking off an a "grand adventure." Starting a new chapter. Exploring new things, new people.
As the picnic reached its end, I got ready to head back to the house. The topic subjects had gone on from bicycling. Multiple games of cornhole had been played. I drank my last cup of sweet tea and mounted my Camelbak for the return ride. That's when all of the folks who'd been talking about bicycling formed a semi-circle around me to . . . well, talk about biking some more. There was a keen interest in the bicycle itself. The men all wanted to pick it, see how light it was. There was very specific questions about the number of gears, the brakes, how to shift the gears, how difficult it was to ride in wind / rain / uphill. Questions about the seat. Rather, how tiny the seat was and how hard it was.
That's something I rarely experience. All my friends and family pretty much know I'm nuts and they just accept it. But to strangers, I'm doing something familiar (nearly everyone's ridden a bicycle) and completely foreign (almost no one plans to store everything and ride across an entire continent) at the same time.
The stories I've read of people who've gone great distances on bicycles all say pretty much the same thing: people are friendly and interested in the journey of the bicyclist. I guess I'm looking forward to meeting those people and telling some stories.
Just a quickie today. The wind was kicking between 12 and 18 MPH. The temperature was over 90!
I had been invited to a Memorial Day picnic. The picnic gave me about 90 minutes to hang out before hopping back on the bike for the return trip.
I search the 'Net for stores of tales of people who've crossed the US on bicycle before. I'm learning what I can, discarding the stuff that seems silly, and embracing the stuff that seems to make some sense.
I'd picked up on one fella who thoroughly recommended a Camelbak water backpack. I know that's a good idea because I bought one years ago. Yet I never used it after the maiden voyage with the thing. Couldn't get the straps right and it chaffed.
Still, though, like I said, it sounds like this is a good idea to carry more water than you get in a couple of water bottles. I dug it out of the closet, admired the multiple pouches to put stuff, and filled it up. Spent five minutes or so figuring the straps. Wasn't happy with how it felt at first, but figured I'd get used to it within a bit.
To my amazement and relief, I did get used to it. I didn't notice the extra weight I was carrying on my back, either. I also noticed that it cooled my back. Which got me thinking about conduction heat transfer. Wouldn't the water be heated by being in contact with my skin? All I know is when I sucked on the tube, the water that was in the tube exposed to the sunlight was warm. But once the tank water reached my lips, it was as cool as when it came out of the tap. Guess I'm going to have to try filling that thing with beer at some point . . .
The last few rides I've done have all been down the same starting path: south on Indianola, west on Crittenden, then south on High Street / US 23.
High Street is the north / south main road through Columbus. (Broad Street is the east / west main road. Where those two streets intersect is where the "direction"-based addresses change. For example, you either live on north or south High Street or east or west Broad Street.
When I first was stationed in Ohio in 1985 I was perplexed that High Street allowed for on-street parking. Through the Ohio State area / Short North area, one of the two lanes of High Street is taken up with on-street parking.
As a driver, that always drove me nuts. It's congested enough in that area. To reduce the available road space by half was / is, in my opinion, nucking futs.
Here's the silver lining, though: while it drives me crazy as a driver, as a bicyclist it's not a bad deal. The parked cars don't take up all the lane. There's a good 2.5 to 3 feet that you can ride your bike in. Granted, you have to watch out for chowderheads who don't look before opening their doors as they're exiting their car after parking. (It's called "dooring." I was going to post a YouTube clip of examples, but, as a bicyclist, they're horrifying for me to watch.)
Speaking of nucking futs, there's another potentially lethal thing that I do when riding downtown. Once you get into the "financial district" part of High Street, the right lane is reserved for buses. These buses are busy stopping, loading and unloading . . . hogging the lane like the parked cars did. Except they're moving. For a two to three mile stretch, there's a half to full dozen of the lumbering beasts that you have to play tag with.
What I have to do is ride on the left side of the right lane to get around the buses. Basically, I'm riding on the white divider line of the two lanes. On the left of me will be a car that's less than 2 feet away. On the right will be a bus that's also less than 2 feet away. If a bus is a Saint Bernard and a car is a Rottweiler, then I'm a Chihuahua between the two. It's not for the faint of heart. But, hell, I've ridden in downtown Manhattan before, weaving between taxis and buses and pedestrians -- none of them paying attention to the traffic lights, pedestrians, or bicyclists. Columbus Ohio should be a piece of cake, relatively speaking.
Then again, it only takes one slight mistake or error in judging a miniscule distance . . .
Finished Cycle: May 25, 2012 7:02:24 PM
Shortened Google Maps URL: http://j.mp/KLwSDi
Ride Time: 5:08:15
Distance: 67.62 miles
Average: 13.16 mph
Fastest Speed: 42.11 mph (What the hell? Trust me, there's no point I was doing 42.11 MPH on bicycle.)
Ascent: 3822 feet
Descent: 3784 feet
Calories: 4911 ("paid" for the meal stops!)
A few weeks ago I did my annual "dump out my piggy bank to get the bike ready for the season" thing. I dropped $400 in new tires, new handlebar tape, new gears, and a complete tune-up. One of the thing I replaced was a very powerful, yet extremely bulky headlight. I'd bought it nearly 4 years ago, but used the thing only three times. You had to charge it and I swear you could see the lights dim when you plugged that charger into wall.
Unfortunately, if you were out in the middle of a rainstorm and the battery died on you (one of the fond memories of a 103 mile day on the way to Lake Erie in 2011) you couldn't just pop in a couple of AAs and be on your way. You were screwed blue and tattooed. (This blog will benefit from my collection of colorful Navy metaphors.)
Part of the $400 personal stimulus package ("I'm going to create bicycle-ready jobs!") went towards a new headlamp that actually would welcome a fresh set of AAs to keep on chugging. I've been dying to try it out.
Tonight was the night. I scored a loooooooong nap today and wasn't ready to turn in at 11:00ish. Did a weather check. (No, I didn't check weather.com. I went out on my porch, thank you very much.) Cool. Mid to high 60s I reckoned. Wind coming out of the north. Earlier in the day weather.com was calling for rain, but not until 2AM or so.
All right. All systems go. Except, where am I going? I hadn't eaten since lunch, so, why not Waffle House? Since I'd already ridden 27 miles this morning, if I could get in another 20 miles or so, I'd be happy with that.
I had to think this through. Roads that I'd have no problem with in broad daylight I'd hesitate traveling in the dark. In my head I mapped out a route that'd keep me off the main roads. I knew them all well enough that I wasn't worried about bad road conditions. (Hmmm. Guess I should tell the story about almost dying on the bicycle last Friday, huh? Eh, maybe later.)
One thing I learned the other day on my 50 mile ride to South Bloomfield was my wireless computer (fancy name for bike odometer) wouldn't work when the new headlight came on. I looked it up and it turns out it's a rather common problem. Good thing I do 99% of my riding without turning that headlight on.
The problem, though, is that the Waffle House I picked out was a lot closer than I realized. It was only 6 miles away. Well, hell, if I came back on the same route, that'd only be 12 miles. I wanted to do 20!
I came up with a route that'd take me three miles past my house. Had the wind with me on the way back and that was nice. (If you look at the mile-by-mile stats on the map, you can easily see, by average speed, which miles were with the wind at my back.) Reached the 3 mile beyond the house point, and rode on back home.
Night riding is different. It's quiet. It's peaceful. It's almost like there's no one else in the whole world but you. It possesses the same qualities as an early morning ride, right as the sun is coming up: still air, peaceful sounds, a feeling of having the world just to yourself. The lack of that great big ball of fire in the sky makes night riding something spectacular.
Finished Cycle: May 22, 2012 1:27:41 AM
Shortened Google Maps URL: http://j.mp/KPcqRY
Ride Time: 1:15:44
Stopped Time: 22:35
Distance: 17.01 miles
Average: 13.53 mph
Fastest Speed: 18.95 mph
Ascent: 140 feet
Descent: 143 feet
Calories: 1241
Discovered a "new" route today. I kind of knew that it existed, because I've ridden it at it's other end. Just didn't realize it came out where it did. That was a pleasant surprise. Will have to go back and see how it all fits together.
But not now. Time to get back to cataloging comic books . . .
Finished Cycle: May 21, 2012 11:38:26 AM
Shortened Google Maps URL: http://j.mp/MaN96d
Ride Time: 1:53:55
Stopped Time: 16:39
Distance: 26.99 miles
Average: 14.21 mph
Fastest Speed: 28.30 mph
Ascent: 612 feet
Descent: 713 feet
Calories: 1979
On many rides from my home in Worthington I head south. About 5 to 6 miles away is the Ohio State main campus. The street I live on dead ends into a cross street. Where those two streets intersect is nothing but student apartments, sororities, and fraternities.
Take 80+ degrees, add a sunny cloudless May Saturday afternoon, throw in beer, and here's what lines the sidewalks and the yards for miles in every direction:
Bicycling is an inherently dangerous past time even if you are paying attention to where you're going. If you're not paying attention because, say, you're developing whiplash from trying to look from side to side to see them all . . . accidents can happen.
I've been schlepping around close to 3000 comic books for decades now. From house to house I just tote the boxes. Whenever whichever woman I'm with has grown weary of me, I pack up my computers and comics and move on down the road.
I've not read them in years nor will I be able to tote them along on the ride. Guess I could digitize the ones that I really like and put them on my iPad. (I long ago digitized all my CD / DVDs and got rid of the physical media.)
In any case, I found some nifty software that allows you to quickly catalog your entire collection. I've spent a few days going through them all. I'm just about done. Got roughly 500 or so more to get through.
100% of them are DC comics. 85% of them are from the 60s to the 80s. Unfortunately, there's no Action #1s or Detective Comics #27s in the bunch. There's a lot of Superman, Superboy, Legion of Super Heroes, Supergirl . . . do you detect a "super" trend here?
Also, unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of what I have is pretty much worthless. None of it's going to fetch big bucks. I may have a few isolated books that are worth $10 to $20 for a single book, but that's going to be a rare thing.
Being a businessman myself I know that any place that buys these books has to be able to resell them and make a buck or two. I think most of the books could fetch a minimum of $2 per. If I could manage to get them to buy them from me for $1 each . . . I'd be happy with that amount.
So, let's say I net between $2000 and $2500 selling all my comic books.
Next, I have a lot of original / framed artwork by folks like George Perez, Curt Swan, and Alex Ross.
Plus I have a few prints by Stephen Hanks.
Each item was originally a few hundred dollars. If I can get even what I paid for them 10 years ago, that will hopefully raise the last of what I need for the bike.
. . . because I really will miss the little beast.
But as I started to think about the logistics of it, there isn't any way. It's not like when I go to work now. The dog stays warm, safe, and dry in the house.
I won't have a house. I'm going to be technically and literally homeless. (Such a negative connotation, this word "homeless.")
Since I won't have a house, I won't have any place to put the dog when I need to do something like, oh, eat in a restaurant.
That got me to thinking about something else. The bicycle itself. It's going to be like a Siamese twin to me. I'm never going to be able to just leave it somewhere. Gonna need an industrial strength lock / chain, for sure. But, even still . . . with a car, you can just park it somewhere and it's more than likely going to be unharmed upon your return. A bicycle? I don't know.
Can you store a bicycle at airports? Let's say that I feel like flying home at some point on the road. (Home? What home?) Ok, let's say I feel like flying to someone's home at some point. Where do I stash the bicycle? Will I have to ship it back with me when I fly?
The one being on the planet who's always been happy to see me.
It's going to be like leaving one of my kids behind. It's going to break my heart. I keep recalling the line out of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Mr. Bojangles":
He spoke through tears of 15 years
How his dog and him traveled about
The dog up and died, he up and died
After 20 years he still grieves
Best dog I've ever had. Can't imagine what it's going to be like without the little beast with me.
But I can't imagine toting him with me. I can't imagine subjecting the dog to life on the road.
Goddammit, though, I'm going to miss him.
(And yes, I've got folks lined up to care for the little beast for the rest of his life.)
Ohhhhhhh, what a beautiful machine. Stopped by a local bike shop the other day. The only place in town that's a distributor / reseller / partner of Seven Cycles.
Got to put my hands on a custom made bicycle.
Oooooo.
I had a hybrid bike for the longest time. It was slow. Cumbersome. Heavy as hell. It got stolen in NYC. (Mainly because I was a dumbass. I'm sure the guys who stole it called me that. "Hey, look at the lock that dumbass put on his bike. That may work fine for Columbus, Ohio, but we criminals here in NYC eat those kinds of locks for breakfast.") Replaced that stolen bike with a road bike.
It replacement was a "Sequoia" model from Specialized. Cost a little over $700 back in 2007. I've been riding it ever since. It's been a great bike. I bet I've sunk $3000 into the thing over those years to keep the wheels, tires and the drive train as good as they can be. I rode it across Iowa in 2008 for RAGBRAI. Across Ohio in 2009 for XOBA. My own trips to Lake Erie and Richmond, Indiana. Plus, what has to be thousands of miles spent on the Miami Valley RailsTrails.
That Sequoia has never let me down. (Oh, there was the 4 flats in one day thing on the ride to Lake Erie, but it was hardly the bike's fault.) It's been a good and faithful machine.
But it was love at first sight (touch?) when I picked up that Seven Cycle Axiom.
The very first bicycle I bought was when I was 12 years old. Bought it from my best friend, Tim Blevins, in Clovis, California. It cost $5. Which was all the money in the world to me.
In spec-ing out the Expat SL I'm figuring it's going to cost me about a thousand times what Tim's bike ran me.
Obviously the first order of business in "retiring" to figure out is . . . how to pay for it.
When I was in high school, I had grand plans to ride across the United States on a bicycle.
They were silly plans, of course. A 17 year old doesn't think of things like, "Where are you going to sleep?" "How are you going to eat?" "Which roads will you travel on?" A 17 year just thinks, "I'm 17. I'm indestructible. I'll figure it out as I go along."
Here's my plans: Just go. Figure it out as I go along. Hmm. Maybe a 17 year old's way of looking at something isn't so silly after all.
Of course, there's a few more things to consider. Generally, a 17 year old doesn't have anything. Isn't responsible for anything. A 17 year old can disappear and it'll hardly be noticed by the world at large.
But a 53 year who has obligations, responsibilities . . . possessions. . . has to figure out what to do with those things.
While he's figure out what to do with all of that, the detritus of just being alive that long, maybe he should take a little bit to figure out some other basics: "Where is he going to sleep?" "How is he going to eat?" "Which roads will he be traveling on?"
