I understand her apprehension

Jill posted an excellent blog post about her apprehension of an upcoming epic adventure in Alaska. While I have never done anything near as adventurous as her, I could relate to what she felt before the start of a race. These feelings of dread and fear are one of the things that made me quit doing endurance races. I just felt like if I wasn't going to enjoy it then why bother. She didn't talk about why she races in spite of the fear before the race. I can only guess she either enjoys herself during the race or maybe even after the race. I definitely got something out of it, but I can't put it in words.

On a completely unrelated note here is a commuter tip. When it is really freaking cold and you are scared to open your garage door and head out, put on all your cold weather clothes then inflate your bicycle tires. The more days you wait between re-inflating your tires the better this technique works. It had been weeks since my last inflation, and I was toasty as I headed out on my ride this morning. As a bonus, I felt like a speed racer with an extra 50 psi in my tires. It is amazing how much better your tires roll when they are inflated.

Happy Valentine's Day

my present

first day back

I must have set some kind of record for sleeping this weekend. 15 hours on Thursday, 13 hours on Friday, and 11 hours on Saturday. The flu really kicked my butt, and I needed every minute of that sleep.

Saturday I cleaned up my old Sugar and gave it to a friend of Amy's. Felt good to pass it on to someone who can get some use out it. Other than the chain suck it was a great bike. I loved the way the suspension felt on the downhills.

Sunday I saw the movie "Juno". It was kinda quirky. The main character was as cute as she could be though, and I enjoyed watching her story.

I rode today for the first time since I got the flu. I just did my normal commute to and from work, but it felt almost epic at times. Funny how you can lose fitness so much faster than you can gain it.

I am a doper

I have been loading up on Tamiflu, Tussionex, Advil, and MucinexD. I am pretty sure I could win the Tour de France now.

I saw another cool commuter bike this weekend.

Electra Bikes

getting old

Over a week ago my elbow started hurting while standing up on my ride to work. So instead of taking a couple days off, I decided to keep riding but not to stand up. I also tried to do as much stuff as I could with my right hand. After about a week my elbow was still hurting so I looked up my elbow problem on the internet.

Turns out it is my medial epicondyle that is hurting. If you punch this into google you will find many articles about what is called golfer's elbow or medial epicondylitis. Strangely enough you can get this even if you don't play golf. I got mine by tugging really hard on my handlebars as I stand up to pedal.

Treatment involves rest and ice. Ice is easy, but I don't like the rest part. Some sites say 4-6 weeks. Whatever. So anyways I started my ice regimen and things seemed like they were actually getting better.

Then all of sudden my wrist starts hurting on my other arm. It doesn't just hurt when I ride but all the time. I have no idea what caused this. Maybe my right wrist hurts because I was putting all my weight on my right arm while my left arm was hurt. I don't know.

Anyways I bagged all my rides this weekend. Then I wrapped up my wrist with an ace bandage. So guess which arm I had to use to do everything this weekend? And guess which wrist is now hurting the most?

So I have decided to just stop worrying about it. No more bandages. No more favoring. Let the best wrist win. I will stay off my bike till Wednesday, but after that my wrists are just going to have to deal with it.

If my wrists ever stop hurting I will start adding in some upper body workouts to my exercise routines. I don't see myself joining a gym. I am thinking more about channeling Hershel Walker or Stallone in Rocky IV. Pushups, pullups, carrying large pieces of wood on my shoulders, having my friends punch me in the stomach, letting secret service agents chase me up a snow covered mountain. You know just the simple stuff.

bike lust

No riding for me this weekend. The cold scared me off.

I spent most of time looking at commuter bicycles online. I have a nice road bike that I commute on. I don't need really need a new bike. There is no hurt in looking though.

Here are some of the ones I found.

ANT bikes

This guy is an artist who happens to build custom bikes. He has some serious style. I have his flickr stream in my rss reader. Daily art delivered to my door.



Civia cycles

These guys make some pretty cool looking production bikes. Same owner as Surly and Salsa so the quality is probably pretty good.



Batavus

Cool Dutch bikes available with a Nuvinci hub



Breezer bikes

I like all the features on this bike (chain case, internal gear hub, dynamo with front and rear lights, fenders, etc ...) except for the 26" wheels. I guess they did that to run bigger tires. I would rather have 700cc wheels though.




I would really like a bike with a shaft drive, because I hate oiling my chain. Sheldon Brown's website says they don't work very well though. I could probably live with a good chain case.

Maybe I will get lucky and someone will steal my road bike so I can buy one of these bad boys. It is a nasty addiction.

Noontootla

Pic taken by Duckman.More Here

Weather was rainy last week so I decided to ride some forest service roads and avoid the mud. Since Amy was out of town, I posted my ride idea on the sorba website's rides forum. I have tried this a couple times before and have never gotten any takers. The stars must have aligned this week though because there were probably twenty people that show up on Saturday. I couldn't believe it.

I had a great time meeting a bunch of new riders and chatting with some old friends. It is so much fun to share a ride with others. Combined with the ride I did last week I can't remember when I have enjoyed riding my bike more.

The route I chose was new to me. I saw it a long time ago in Alex Nutt's book Mountain Biking Georgia, but I never got around to riding it. I have been missing out.

We started our ride from the church on Doublehead Gap Rd and rode south on FR 58 up to Winding Stair Gap. The climb followed Noontootla Creek where the ride gets its name. The climb is slow and easy. The views of the creek are spectacular. This climb is so much easier then coming up FR 77 from the other side.

Once at Winding Stair Gap, we headed east on FR 42 to Hightower Gap. Most of this part of the ride was downhill. I was in my biggest gear pedaling with all I had to try and keep up with the group. For a little while I was able to ride behind mama and try to copy her line. It was very educational.

Once we hit Hightower Gap we took FR 69 north. We traveled past a beautiful lake, a recreation area with bathrooms, a fish hatchery, and another church. The lake was beautiful. I would love to spend a day sitting on it's banks with a cane pole and a cooler of beer. The fish hatchery also looked pretty cool. I need to find out if I can get a tour of that place.

Finally we turned west on FR 248/ FR 333 back to DoubleHead Gap Rd. This part of the route was a little muddy but not too bad. There was one real big mud pit right before we got back on the road. I should have carried my bike like others did. It was so much fun trying to stay upright while my tire spun around that I couldn't resist.

Once we got back on the road the sun was out and it felt really good. There was a little climb back to the car and my legs ached. I guess I got my money's worth.

reward for getting out of bed

alarm shrieks violently
body springs to silence it
cold air invades my cocoon
burrow deeper under covers

it is too cold
been sick all week
eleven days since last ride
wastes too much gas

hardly know any of the people
too slow to keep up
gained too much weight
stop stop stop stop

check the weather
throw on some clothes
grab water, food
load bike, helmet, shoes

crank up the tunes
sing like you know the words
smile starts to come
great way to start the day

beautiful ride
shared with amazing people
funny jokes, stories
reward for getting out of bed

more here

Best XMAS present ever

Merry Christmas

Anger Management Problems

Flew off my rocker too many times today.

The day started off with me using a really bad analogy when trying to help my girlfriend. I was trying to help, but what I said was insulting and wrong. I quickly realized my mistake, but the damage was done. I left the house pretty frustrated with myself.

I rode a couple hundred yards from my house and then stopped at a light. There were two lanes in the road. One is a right turn only lane and one lane is either for going straight or for turning left. I was in the left lane planning to go straight. This guys pulls up next to me half in the right hand lane half in my lane. I try to get his attention, but he pulls up further so we can't make eye contact. So I pull up further and get right in his driver side window. At first he won't roll his window down. He is talking on the phone and pretending not to notice me. So I start waving my hands and yelling at him.

Finally he rolls his window down. He says "What".

I say "What are you doing?" in a very annoyed and confrontational tone.

He says "What do you mean?"

I say "Are you turning left?" (again in a very smart ass way)

He says "I was planning to."

I say "Do you normally pull up on the right hand side of a car in a right hand turn only lane and turn left in front of other cars?"

He gives me a look like fuck you and rolls his window back up.

The light turns green and we both take off but I beat him into the intersection. I cut in front of him and glare at him. Then pedal on my way.

I am proud I stood up for myself, but I wish I could have been less confrontational about it. He is probably just waiting to run over some poor roadie now.

After I got to work, I sent off some shit-o-grams to the customer service people at batteryspace.com.

I ordered some rechargeable batteries from them a couple weeks ago for my commuter lights. The day I got them I tried to charge four of the AAA batteries in the charger I got from them. After about an hour or so the light went from red to green so I went to take the batteries out of the charger. They were much hotter than I would have expected. I would expect that they would be a little warm but they were very hot. I thought this was weird but I assumed since they were brand new it must be okay. I double checked the polarity of the batteries in the charger and tried another set. Again in about an hour or so they light changed and I took the batteries off. The batteries were not quite as hot but i thought a felt some kind of slick liquid on the batteries. I had just finished dinner so I thought maybe my fingers were just greasy. I put a third set of batteries in the charger. When the light went green on the third set the batteries were cold and covered in liquid. There was also liquid in the charger. I was pretty sure this was not normal so I sent an email that day to battery space people.

They wrote back pointing me to their warranty/return page. After reading the page I got a really bad feeling like I wasn't getting any money back. So I wrote them back and told them I would be sending the stuff I bought back.

The guy wrote me back and said he would refund the AAA batteries, but he would charge a 20% restocking fee for the charger and AA batteries I ordered. Also I would have to ship him the defective batteries at my own expense.

I basically sent him a nasty email telling him I thought what he was doing was not fair. I have no safe way of knowing if the AA batteries or the charger are not defective. I also asked if he knew the AAA batteries were defective then why did he ship them to me?

I think paying $7 in shipping to return a $10 set of batteries is not fair.

Anyways I am sure as a customer service person he has to take shit all day so what I did doesn't help anyone. I guess I have too high a level of expectations for customer service from a discount online store. If I want customer service I would be better off buying from a local store and paying full price.

maintenance

unload the bike from rack
feel something not quite right
grab the wheel give it a spin
hear rubbing on the frame

anger yelling frustration
why must i fix you again
i clean you, i oil you
i keep your tires full of air

i have fixed your broken cable
i have fixed your broken fork
now your gears are no longer indexed
and your brakes are no longer aligned

maintenance is a constant
no purpose anger serves
might as well complain about pedaling
or even breathing in and out

flip the bike over
wiggle the offending wheel
grab an allen key
re-tighten the loose slider

swing a leg over the bike
pedal fast around the car
lean hard in the turns
listen careful for the rub

call it good enough
pray the bolts hold till the ride is over
remember on any future slider adjustments
reapply your blue loc-tite


is everything like bike maintenance
can you choose to not get frustrated
should you just accept the inevitable
or accept the challenge as part of the fun

the ride was worth the challenge
the problems faded away
the time spent with my baby
the joy of a beautiful day

Human

a crowd gathers at the trailhead
lights grow bright
pedals click like thunder
positioning riders fight

the pace is risen
the line is blown
quick speed reduction
the flock has flown

click goes the gears
pedal with all your might
bring back the rider
escaping into the night

slam into a rock
slide across a root
skid through a corner
heart rate through the roof

saved by the climb
where my skills are their best
rider's light dead ahead
stringing out the rest

the climb has leveled out
the lead riders have been caught
better get a handle on your breathing
or your effort will be for naught

the trail points back down the hill
the flock again pulls away
stop staring at your front wheel stupid
it is here to stay

now i can see much better
i'm starting to get the feel
a few hard pedals
now i am on your wheel

Turkey Turkey Turkey

Went to Virginia for a week but didn't ride much. Did a fun ride at O-Hill and a quick road ride but mostly sat around on my butt. Had a delicious Thanksgiving meal at the Boar's Head Inn. Finally fixed the driver side mirror on my Subaru. Taking the door panel off was tricky. Glad I don't have to use duct tape or hold it on with my hand any more. My nephew is getting possessed this weekend. Hopefully I will get to sneak in a ride some time.

Riding Buddies

I went on three rides (other than my daily commute) last week and the best part of all three rides was getting to ride with other people.

Wednesday was the first Big Creek Night Ride. 24 guys (unfortunately no women) showed up for a couple of laps around the Big Creek trails. All kinds of riders showed up including first time night riders, a pair of 9 year olds, pro roadies, and plain ole weekend warriors like me.

Once we rolled out of the parking lot, I tried to settle in to what I thought was the social pack. I still ended up riding pretty much at my limit all night though. Even at my limit I was the last one in line. I tried to tell myself that I was doing everyone a favor by making sure no one got lost. I stopped several times to give people moral support while they fixed their chain or shed some clothes. :)

Saturday Amy and I rode our tandem link around Bull Mountain. We started in the Jake mountain parking lot and rode the connector trail to 28, went up 83, stayed straight on the forest road past the turn off to Bull Mountain and Jones Ridge. We took the single track connector to the end of the Whoop-De-Doo trail. Then rode 77-A to 77 back to 28. From 28 we took the pavement back to the Jake Mountain Lot. Our loop was around 11.5 miles.

The leaves were really colorful on Saturday. I wished I would have remembered to bring my camera. We saw also lots of beautiful horses. We were careful to get off our bikes and let them pass, however one of them got a little spooked when the rider stopped and asked me for directions. Maybe the horse was just itchin to get riding again. Amy rode strong all day. I barely got to do any pulling.

Sunday I rode with Amy and Bubba. We went to a new park the city of Kennesaw is building right across from Bubba's house. I think the name of the park is Swift-Cantrell. Right now there is a 1 mile paved loop with a couple of connector paths as well. We rode the loop in a bunch of different variations.

While Bubba was taking a nature break, he found an old basketball in a ditch in the woods. We ended up using the basketball to play hide and seek. One person would go off on their bicycle with the basketball and hide the ball somewhere. Then the other people would ride their bikes around and try to find it. It was a lot of fun.

This week I thought a lot about my training last year and how I would ride 6 hours at a time by myself on trails I have ridden a hundred times. I think I have decided for me it is so much better to ride with other people. Even being the slowest guy in the pack is still much better than riding every ride by myself. I was very lucky to share those rides last week with other people.

Tanasi

Amy and I decided to go camping at Tanasi last weekend. We spent most of the day Saturday driving around doing the tourist thing. We checked out the overlook and civil war historic site at the Chilhowee Recreation Area. We watched some boaters playing around in the Ocoee River. Then we drove down a long forest service road to our campsite.

We wanted to stay at the Thunder Rock Campground since you can ride your bicycle from your campsite to the trails. Unfortunately the campground was closed while the TVA makes repairs to the power lines.

Instead we stayed at the Tumbling Creek campground which was nice. There are probably 10 campsites there. Each campsite offers a picnic table, a fire ring, a lantern post, and access to a vault toilet. Here is a picture from our picnic table.



Sunday we headed to the Ocoee Whitewater Center. The center is beautiful. I think anyone that lives anywhere near this place should drive over and check it out. You can sit on the back porch and watch the boaters play in the water.



Or you can walk around on some of the concrete paths and get a closer look at the river.



Amy and I rode our bikes along Old Copper Road. This trail is relatively flat and wide, and it runs a long the river for almost it's entire length. We found some rocks and roots to play with on our ride.



After we rode together, I did a solo ride called Thunder Rock Express in the Parham Eastern Tennessee book. This may be my new favorite ride. Lots of tight fast single track descents. There was definitely some climbing involved, but it felt like you got back twice as much as you put in.

Bear Creek

Day started out a little rough. Went to load my bike and noticed my fork was in two pieces. I got it over it quick, and Amy and I worked together to quickly put my old bike back together. After installing some new grips, fixing some stuck links, and re-indexing the rear dérailleur we were on our way.

Our destination was the Bear creek trail in Ellijay, Ga. We arrived without further incident and quickly geared up and hit the trail. The picture above shows one of the main attractions on this trail the Gennett Poplar. At 100 feet tall and 20 feet around, that tree is a giant among saplings. Check out how it dwarfs my little bike.



After admiring the big tree, we hung a right and headed up the Pinhoti trail to the Bear Creek Loop Trail. The normal route is straight up the singletrack to the overlook. We haven't yet mastered riding with the x2cycle on singletrack so we opted for the forest road instead.

If you can take your eyes off this good looking man, you can get an idea of what the road looks like.



Once we got to the overlook I changed the tube in my rear tire to get rid of an annoying slow leak. It was nice sitting in the sun letting it dry the sweat off my back. The view wasn't bad either.



We blasted down the road back to the car and went to the Mexican place in the square. The food wasn't good, but I was hungry enough to clean my plate.

Can't wait for our next adventure.

Asheville

Amy and I got back from Asheville yesterday. We spent the week riding our bikes, relaxing in our cabin, and exploring the city and surrounding areas. We had the best time.

I loved being able to look up and see mountains. Everywhere you turn there is another beautiful view. Knowing those mountains are full of bicycle trails made the views even better. You can ride anything from all day long gravel grinder routes to super steep and technical single track trails. We rode mostly forest roads, but I also rode some nice single track like Ingles Field Gap and Spencer Gap.

Another thing I loved was the people. I thought my own redneck, hippie, and outdoor geek combination was unique but there seemed to be thousands of people just like me living in Asheville. I felt like I fit in there, and it felt really good to fit in somewhere.

I need to figure out some way to move there. My one week vacation was way too short.

Photo Credit

My new header was shot by jl from mtbr. I cropped it from one his excellent panorama shots. Check out this thread to see more of his work. Thanks jeff!

Da Bonk

Saturday I went to Bubba's soccer game then we did a ride on the Silver Comet Trail since the SCT is right next to the field he played soccer on. We rode from Floyd Rd to Florence Rd and back. We also explored a little on some of the side trails.

Click to view gallery

Sunday Amy and I rode the Upper Chattahoochee Loop that we have been putting off for the last month. We made it, but it took us a full 5 hours. Most of that was due to my rookie mistakes.

1) First my rohloff shifter cable pulled out of my external gear selector, and I didn't have a Torx T20 wrench to fix it. I need to either get one of those wrenches or switch out the bolts to something more standard. I ended up going back to my car and switching the gears manually with 8 mm wrench to my easiest gear. I was pretty useless on the flats, but most of the trail was straight up or straight down so being able to pull the tandem uphill was the most important thing.

2) Next I totally forgot to stop and get picnic supplies. This led to both of us eating much less than we should.

3) Finally I think I picked one of the busiest weekends for Helen with Octoberfest and hunting season beginning. Cars were everywhere and we were continually having to slow down and move over to let cars pass on the narrow forest service roads.

I am glad we went though. The area is very beautiful and it was nice to spend all day with Amy.

Click to view gallery

Next Saturday we are going to Asheville for the week. Should be fun!

Grocery Rant

Amy and I drank and ate too much on Saturday at my nephew's failed baptism party (priest got sick). So the best we could on Sunday was to ride Gainesville college.

The Gainesville College trail is a pretty easy 5 mile singletrack loop. Awhile ago, I volunteered for Trips for Kids and had ridden maybe a mile of the trail. It was good to get back there and see the whole trail. None of the climbs are too long or too steep. There are couple of tricky places to practice your skills. Parham calls it a good place to introduce a beginner rider to singletrack. I took a couple of pics.

Click to view album

I found a link to Hodge's blog on psychobillycadillac's blog the other day. Hodge's funny rants inspired me to write about my grocery story experience yesterday.

Amy has been really getting into her cooking. She finds these excellent recipes that are healthy but still taste pretty good. I have tried helping her some, but I have not been consistent about it. Saturday we worked out a really good deal that should allow us both to ride more, eat earlier, and spend more time together. Part of the deal involves us working more as a team both in our riding and cooking. Usually Amy goes to the grocery store by herself, but Sunday I decided I wanted to go as well to show my team support.

Usually my grocery shopping is done with ninja like precision. I know everything I want and where everything is. I use only the small baskets and avoid the buggies. I keep my item count low to use the express or self checkout lane. I basically have very little interaction with the other people in the store.

When you are buying food for a weeks worth of fancy recipes, the experience is very different. First you notice the people around you more. Take for example this lady talking on her cellphone. She was talking so loud that the entire produce section could hear her. She was telling someone that she had accidentally put her dress on inside out. Yes I checked and it was on inside out. She noticed me looking and told her friend that now everyone was staring at her because of her dress. Actually I would have never noticed if she wasn't talking so loud. The dress was so ugly and the colors were so bright wearing it inside out was probably an improvement anyway.

After almost getting run over twice by the cellphone lady's shopping cart, I escaped over to the cereal aisle. I was gazing longingly at the sugar cereals of my youth, and I guess I left my cart a little too far over in the aisle. A man and his son walk by and shove my cart out of the way. No warning or eye contact just walked by and pushed it out of the way. I am not really up on grocery store etiquette, but it seemed pretty rude to me. Not knowing the etiquette I was really not sure how to respond. Should I have chunked my box of Captain Crunch at the dude's head? I settled for my best WTF look and got away from this dude as well.

Sunday did not seem like the best day to go shopping. There were carts everywhere. I got several nasty stares for my cart driving skills. Amy was walking very quickly, and I was just doing my best to try to keep up. This one woman in particular seemed to have it in for me. She kept parking her cart in places that left me almost no chance of following Amy. Several times I had to loop around other aisles to catch up.

Finally I beat the cart blocker to the breakfast sausage section. Amy and I were trying to find the plain Jimmy Dean sausage instead of maple or sage flavored sausage. I think we were in mid sentence when the cart blocker parted the 12 inches between us and started trying to pick out her own brand. I made a quick exit over to the milk section and started studying which chocolate milk brand I was not going to buy. Maybe I just have an overly large sense of personal space, but I think I would have waited a couple seconds to let another choose their sausage in peace. If we would have been discussing some other topic other than sausage and were being rude by occupying space we weren't really using I could understand the cart blocker's frustration, but we were both being active and participating in the sausage selection process.

We almost made it out of the store without any further incidents, but this lady tried to dart in front of me to enter the store through the exit. Luckily she saw the weight of my shopping cart and decided it wasn't worth getting knocked on her ass. The way she bobbed her head and shifted directions back and forth reminded me of the squirrels on my morning commute. I laughed at her as I walked by.

I am going to have to work on my cart driving and people avoidance skills next week. I am sure I will eventually figure out to make it through with less confrontations. Who would have known the grocery store could be so dangerous.