Vermonsters & leaves

So, in middle of an epic ride (kidding) my shifter broke on my Stumpjumper. It answered the question what the rattling was in the shifter/brake lever contraption. I thought that it was brake cable stop or something like that, because that brake lever had a little bit of play in it. But, nope, it was the shifter falling apart. So much for the reliability of XT (XT circa 1996). Anybody got one of these? I'd really appreciate it.

So, I did some hiking instead.


On Saturday, Johanna and I found the elusive summit of Mt. Hor. Actually, this preceeded my shifter braking. I broke it when we got back.


Sunday was the day of actual bikelessness. I think that if I give myself eight or nine hours, I can do all four (five?) peaks of the Franconia Ridge Trail. But, I only had time for three on Sunday. Hiking still makes my legs hurt and coming down the Mt. Flume trail is really difficult.

Fucking cycalists!

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Leg pain

As part of my comprehensive D2R2 training plan, I went to the hills of the north. Well, sort of. Part of my comprehensive training plan involved making sure that Johanna had a ride home from Vermont. On Saturday, Johanna and I decided to take a hike at Franconia Notch. Hikes are great for places where one cannot ride a bike. We hiked up Mt. Lafayette and then along the Franconia Ridge Trail to Mt. Lincoln & Haystack Mt. There were views and it was nice, but the next day, my legs were all sore and still are. I don't understand it. I hike pretty frequently and generally my legs are fine, but then every so often, they really hurt. Does anyone know why? Am I simply a bad hiker? Is there some secret walking technique that I don't know?


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Nalgenes are still pretty impressive

I know that everyone is switching to stainless steel water bottles and canteens now because plastic will kill you. Will gave me a stainless steel one and I find that it scratches and dents pretty easily, though I still thank him for the gift.

However, after an experience yesterday while hiking with Joel (not the one who writes for this blog, he was riding a bike) and Johanna at Peoples State Forest. I think that Nalgenes still have their place.

This bottle:

Fell off this cliff:


No damage! It even spectacularly bounced off a rock and went like 20 feet up in the air. That's actually a post cliff-fall picture of the water bottle. I'm totally impressed. Stainless would have definitely broken. Read more!

bike paths are a waste of money and shouldn't be part of an economic stimulus

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) was on Face the Nation Sunday morning and had some thoughts about the need to quickly pass a "responsible" stimulus plan. Here's a link to a story on the TheHill.com

“I think there’s a place for infrastructure, but what kind of infrastructure? Infrastructure to widen highways, to ease congestion for American families? Is it to build some buildings that are necessary?” He stated. “But if we’re talking about beautification projects, or we’re talking about bike paths, Americans are not going to look very kindly on this.”

I am an American and i am not looking kindly on the idea of widening highways during oil wars and impending depression while also disregarding bicycles as transportation. The irony is killing me. Its it that crazy of an idea to the federal powers that bicycles are freakin' transportation?!?! Widening highways would cause more problems than it would solve and eventually that solved problem will only be the same problem but bigger and wider!

and here's another similar situation, check out this post on bicyclespokesman.com about a bike path near Washington DC that is not being built, but a 6 lane highway will be built!

Anyways, shoupy gave me a heads up in this along with with Rep. Boehner's contact info.

We wrote him, you should to! Post a copy of your letters in the comments.

ps. By the way, "...widen highways, to ease congestion for American families?" What the hell is that supposed to mean? I didn't watch the news last night, or the night before, but did I miss some big story about the new biggest threat to our family life as we know it like: Millions of American families suffer congestion due to skinny highways...film at 11.

pps...don't read more....WRITE MORE! give 'em a piece of your mind!

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NORAD Tracking Santa

Ho ho ho!

As you may know, NORAD tracks Santa. I was watching their video of Santa flying and was surprised to see him take off from a small island that was entirely surrounded by water. Santa lives at the North Pole, isn't that supposed to be frozen in the winter? (or all year) I emailed them with my concerns and all I got was this:

Thank you for emailing NORAD.

All of us here at NORAD are programming our satellites, calibrating
our radar systems, testing our Santa Cams, and flying training
missions in our jet fighters in preparation for Santa's 2008 flight.
Unfortunately, that leaves us little time to answer emails personally.

Please email us again on December 24th when a NORAD Santa Tracker will
be available to respond.

Happy tracking!
--
Warm Regards,
The NORAD Tracks Santa Team

This is even more distressing! Everyone at NORAD is getting ready to track Santa? Our skies aren't safe! Read more!

Legs

Photo credit to someone who actually ran the marathon.

This weekend was Columbus Day weekend as well as the running of the Hartford Marathon. It also was a weekend of beautiful weather. I'm sure the marathon runners loved that. My neighbor, Val, ran the half marathon. I think that's pretty impressive, as I have no idea how to run 13 miles, let alone 26. Some how that morning, Johanna convinced me that I should go running. I'm not sure how that happened. I hate running and I always have, but next thing I knew we were at Sports Authority buying running shoes and before long we were at the Reservoir. I've been the reservoir a million times, but I've never actually run around it. Now, I have. It wasn't so bad while I was doing it, but man I was unhappy the next morning.


Also, yesterday afternoon, as I had the day off, I went over to Case Mountain. I was having a good time and didn't get lost for once. On my way back I ran into these two kids who were partially lost and it was starting to get dark. I told them to go back the way they went, as it was the easiest return trip for them. I also told them to follow me, but realized I was going a lot faster. So, I kept on ahead and returned to my car to get my headlamp. When I got there, I ran into the father of one of the kids and told him that I was going to go retrieve them with my headlamp. I went back and found them. Things were going ok, until I was riding slowing down a drop and did a nasty endo. I temporarily got that I-bashed-my-knee-so-hard-I-feel-like-I'm-going-to-puke feeling, but I persevered and didn't want to look like a wuss. We made and it back just fine until the gate a very end, where I almost did the exact same thing and managed to tear my shorts but not crash. I'm uncertain as to how I tore my shorts. But, everything turned out ok. Also, I managed to grow another knee cap on top of my old one.

In the event of this much water, the race'll probably be canceled.

Also, on Saturday, Johanna and I rode The Eel. I think it's going to be a sweet race. Two laps shouldn't be a big deal and hopefully no one gets scared of 20 miles. I need to figure out how to make a map of it so people don't get lost while racing. Maybe I could spray paint arrows... Read more!

The 5 Boro Walk Your Bike Tour

The Beat was well rep’d this past weekend by a hardy group of current and former Hartford peoples converging in the rotten apple in what was prolly the most blogged event in the long, extinguished history of the Triple B. Woo-haa!

El Cinco Burros! There is far too much to think of organizing into a digestible meal of a post; so instead I shall cook up a stew free of high-fructose corn syrup and full of beer and pedaling…lots of pedaling. I suppose about now is a good time to explain that the 5 Boro Bike Tour is a 42mile car free ride with 30,000 of your closest friends though all five boroughs of NYC including riding on the FDR, the BQE, and crossing the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge. In case you can’t do the math, that’s over 60,000 bicycle wheels spinning and avoiding NYC potholes!

El Presidente de China has well educated y’all about the ride from the Beat to Dirty Water, so I’ll just curse him one last time for that one massive hill and mention again…shorter isn’t always better; like cock size for example. Otherwise, besides the evil hill, and Klan drive, the ride was pretty nice and scenic. Doing 30mph down a hill through the Waterbury ghetto is also worth a mention I reckon.


In this exciting photo one can barely see the bikes of Chill Will and El Prez de Cheeenay with all the action going on riding the train to Bridgeport. Though no accommodations for bikes, this train was all good. On the train from B-Port to NYC we had them in the middle doorway of the car which was a pain depending which door opened. The idea of spending a few days in the city with my bike and living out of my messenger bag made me as happy as the lack of Metro-North in Hartford pisses me off. Amtrack sucks. Go fuck yourself with your overpriced tickets!!!!

Upon arriving at Grand Central we were greeted by Shoupy, the Shoup Shoupsta! I am not sure if he rode there from Ann Arbor, but he very well might have. El Prez decided against the formal motorcade and instead bombed the crap outta Broadway; speeding through the traffic, checking cabs and leading us quickly and dodge-ily to the Brooklyn Bridge. We soon split, to meet up later; as I was going with Shoup to Park Slope to his friend Megan’s apartment, who was hooking us up with a spot to crash. Thanks again Megan, good lookin’ on the couch…very comfy! And puffin' on the rooftop was sweeeet!


Shoupy and I met up with el Prez much later in Bed-Stuy at a party with some of el Prez’s administration, lots of bikers, assorted hipsters, and three fireman with large iron tools suitable for hunting wild boar. We drank, talked and tried not to inhale burning particle board before retiring early as we were to assemble the Beat Crew at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge at 6:45AM the next morning. Shoupy and I arrived at 7:15AM the next morning! Our crew of about a dozen soon took off for lower Manhattan.


Lots of people. This was the first taste of the 5 Boro Walk Your Bike Tour. As the day progressed the sun burned away all the clouds…and a few faces too I imagine. The day turned out wonderful.





Real men wear leg warmers. Later, in a bizarre twist, Shoupy removed his shorts and finished the tour in bike shoes, leg warmers, a hand-carved wooden cod piece from Turkey and his tour vest. Sexy? Yes, of course! But somewhat disturbing to the elderly and those younger than them.


A media circus surrounded El Presidente de China through most of Queens and was quite a spectacular sight. I was harassed for my crate of bootlegged bananas that I was selling 3 for $10 or one for free.


Welcome to Brooklyn! Woo-haa! I had a freakin’ good time chillin’ here the night before as well as the ride through on the tour. The only sucky thing was walking my bike for 45minutes in a bicycle traffic jam on the Bronx-Queens Expressway where four lanes became one. This was where the ride officially became the 5 Boro Walk Your Bike Tour. The car traffic jam on the other side was moving more quickly! The trike next to me had a louder stereo system than the cars! It was total fuckin' bizzaro world!!!

Eventually we were able to pedal again and riding on the highway along the water with a cool breeze felt great. Crossing on the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge is always super cool. Guinness and grinders at the irish pub was even better.


Taking pictures of groups of three on a ferry always has funny results. See above!


And again if you need further proof!



Much, much later, after learning the 7:20 train didn’t exist and I’d be taking a 9:07train back to CT, I decided to scoot on down to the west-side to watch the sun set over Dirty Jersey on the Hudson. I soon found myself pedaling unexpectedly through Times Square. Sunset, libations and a chance to rest and relax on the riverfront was a wonderful way to finish my visit to NYC.

On the train ride back from Bridgeport to Dirty Water I had to again store my bike in the middle doorway of the car, but this time the conductor made everyone get out the end doors and never opened the middle doors. Thanks dude! Metro-North is pretty good. Amtrack, not so good.



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Burros

It looks I'm the first one who gets to write about the 5boro thing that was yesterday. Here goes:

On the whole, it was fun. I'd never been before, so riding on the highway was a new and cool experience. Seeing 30,000 people with bicycles is also a very cool experience. I suppose I didn't actually get to see all 30,000 on bicycles at one tonight, but I did see a lot. The funny thing about that is that it's not really Utopian. It was like Disney World meets a traffic jam on the BQE. Well, I suppose it makes perfect sense that's it's like a traffic jam on the BQE, because it was actually on the BQE where the biggest traffic jam was. The Disney World part is because there was a lot of people standing in line wearing funny clothes waiting to ride something. I think I over-explained that simile sufficiently.

Here's the BQE with no traffic jam and lots of people on it:

Here's Johanna waiting in line ten minutes later:

Here's the high point of Staten Island, Danny Blaine's Food and Spirits:

The food had to be retrieved from a deli across the street, but the beer was awesome and the bartender even gave me a free one.

In an effort to add content to the compendium of bridge pictures, here are two bridges from a ride I took at Case Mountain on Friday:

While riding over the Verazano Narrows Bridge, a guy in front of me fell, and I believe that he broke his collarbone. I hope that he's ok, it looked terrible.

Also, despite facilitating all the complex logistical details concerning Marisa riding with us, in the end, she didn't come.

Oh yeah, and I looked like either crap or a dork:

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lunch break

I'm not hardcore enough to ride my bike during my lunch break. However, I am hardcore enough to take a walk during my lunch break. I did that today and wandered through Bushnell Park. Imagine my glee when I discovered that the Soldiers and Sailors' Arch was open! I took some pictures of the view from up, the giant koi in the smelly pond, and some nice blooming cherry trees.

Enjoy!












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