Updates

I just cleaned up some things on the blog. It was brought to my attention that my email address was not on my profile page, which was an oversight, so I put that up. I also corrected a typo on the profile page. I added a link to my galleries, and that brings up an interesting problem. Firefox, my browser of choice, does not work well with picassa photo galleries. If you are having trouble viewing the photos in firefox, you may want to try Safari or, gasp, internet explorer. What's up Mozilla? And then I added subscription services in case anyone wants that. I know that the exciting trip is over, but I plan to continue updating this blog regularly with whatever nonsense would otherwise spill from my brain directly onto the floor. So keep coming back and reading it, if that's your thing. And if anyone has a blog of their own, send me a link and I'll not only read it, but I'll post it for others to read. Personally, I like reading blogs. Especially if I'm supposed to be doing something like work, which sucks in comparison to reading blogs. Or if it's raining and cold outside, which is the default weather condition this summer.

Thoughts On Bicycle Design

Now that I'm back home in Vermont and trying to resume a “normal life” again, I have all of these revelations that I want to pass along. This one is kind of earth shattering. Seriously. I'm probably going to be drowned in derision from the people I usually associate with, but hey, I'm a cyclist and as such, comfortable with derision. Racing bicycles, as in the kind of bicycles that road racers ride, are not your friend. They provide a huge disincentive to the growth of cycling as a leisure activity and as a mode of transportation. Earth shattering, I told you. Now that I've identified myself as a heretic, I've got to move quickly. If this blog suddenly goes blank, or I disappear, suspect The Man. By that I mean Specialized, or Trek, or Cannondale, or one of the other peddlers of bicycle hype. Here's the deal: 99.9% of the human population cannot assume the bodily position dictated by the design of modern racing bicycles. What about the 0.1% that can, you ask? Well, if you were one of them you would know because you would currently be recovering from having just completed the Tour de France. The modern racing bicycle, as pretty as it is, is just not suited for use by human beings. Except for human beings who employ a full time staff of sports physiologists and massage therapists. The bikes are too stiff, the tires are too small and hard, the handlebars are too low in relation to the saddle, and, believe it or not, the bikes are just too light. If you want to buy a comfortable bike that will last the rest of your life and never cause you to say to yourself “I'm not riding today because I just can't face that torturous machine,” then you should talk to Grant Peterson at Rivendell Bicycles. He's a visionary and, while I can't say that I follow his formula completely, he speaks the truth.

What qualifies me to make all of these blasphemous claims? I've tried it both ways. I worked diligently to adapt my ordinary body to one of those svelte racing bicycles for over ten years. With some success, I might add. More recently, I rode a different kind of bicycle about 1000 miles over the course of 14 days. I rode an average of around 65 miles every day for two weeks. Between those 65 mile rides I slept, mostly, on the ground. My body has never felt better. Seriously, I would wake up in the morning with fewer aches and pains than I've ever had. My lower back felt great. I had better than usual flexibility and my banged up left knee was stiff only one day - most likely from a weather system moving in. The only discomfort I had was some stiffness in between my shoulder blades for a couple of days early on, and a little pressure from saddle contact that I attribute to breaking in a new Brooks saddle. That was it for the whole trip. My touring bike doesn't look as cool as the racing bike I've got hanging in my basement. I probably can't get as aerodynamic on my touring bike either. But now when I look at that racing bike, I say to myself “I'm not riding today because I just can't face that torturous machine.”

Photo Gallery

I've culled the photos and captioned them and they are viewable here

Things To Do In Michigan When You're Tired

Smell that? That smell is the absence of hot greasy road kill baking on the asphalt. That is my goal for today, the seemingly simple goal of not smelling any well-dead raccoon carcasses. I plan to accomplish it by not riding my bicycle today, for the first time in 14 days. Another goal for today is to begin moderating my food intake. Now that I won’t be riding an average of 65-70 miles everyday, presumably, I won’t need to consume 5000 calories a day. Preliminary estimates indicate that I lost four or five pounds over the course of the trip. I wouldn’t mind keeping those pounds off. It looks like the total distance was closer to 1000 miles than the 900 I initially reported. What’s an extra hundred miles in the grand scheme of things? Now that I’m in Michigan for a few days I plan to take it a little bit easy and rest up. Tomorrow we have plans.

As some of you know, the main reason for Christine and myself to travel to Michigan (Christine drove here and arrived last night and her willingness to drive 12 hours by herself was instrumental in Marc and I being able to make our trip. Thanks Christine) this July is to attend a memorial, a celebration of the life of my Grandfather, Robert O. Young, who passed away 30 years ago. And while I can’t claim that it was the prime motivator in my decision to ride my bike to Freeland, I realized early on that there would be no more appropriate way for me to honor the life of my Grandfather than to ride my bike to Freeland; He taught me to ride on two wheels. My most vivid memory of the man, in fact, is of a particular early Sunday morning, perhaps 7:00, that found the two of us on River road in front of his house. I was astride my brand new Huffy, a gift for my sixth birthday. He was holding onto the seat of the bike. “You just have to pedal” he said, “I’ll hold the bike up.” We picked up speed, the two of us, and he was yelling “pump! pump! Pump!” as he ran along behind me. In fact he was still yelling “pump” moments later when I turned around to see that he was no longer there, no longer holding my saddle. Easy as that I was riding that great big scary Huffy. And I’ve logged quite a few more miles on two wheels since.

Marc and I also have an appointment on Monday at 11:00 am for a phone interview with Dennis Jenson of the Rutland Herald. He called me the other night to check on our progress and set up a time when we could all talk. I’m excited about this because I’ve never been interviewed by a daily newspaper before and now I can check it off my list before all of the daily newspapers go out of business. The story should run on the following Sunday, which I believe is August 2nd.

You rode 1000 miles to get to Freeland?

07/23/09 - Freeland at last! After another long day of 85 miles, give or take, we rolled into Freeland at around 4:30 this afternoon and were greeted by my Dad and Grandmother standing at the end of her driveway. We’re still not sure how they knew when we’d arrive, but there they were. Marc and I had some wet riding for a few hours today but knowing that we were going to have a warm dry bed, good food, and family around us at days end made it more than tolerable. We stopped at McDonalds, not once but twice, today. The first time it was for coffee and the town we were in didn’t have any other options. So we bought coffees and sat outside and ate some leftover pizza and other stuff we had with us. The second time was for ice cream. It was about 3:00 and we had been battling an increasing headwind for a while and I said “it sounds crazy but I’m hungry again.” Marc suggested that we stop for one last ice cream before the trip came to an end. We went to two stores in the town of Hemlock looking for ice cream and found none. The proprietor of the second one said that there was an ice cream parlor on the other side of town, in the wrong direction. We were kind of stunned. All I wanted was an ice cream sandwich, man. What kind of a place was this? Reluctantly, we rode across the street to McDonalds and ordered two ridiculously expensive mocha McFrappes or whatever they call those things. I do have to admit that they were delicious. Really delicious. And then, sweet tooth satisfied, we tapped out the last hour of our 14 day journey from Rutland VT to Freeland MI. The last couple of miles we had a headwind and it felt kind of sad to know that it was coming to an end as we rolled effortlessly along. Except for the chafing that was occurring from too many hours of wearing wet shorts. And the heavy legs. And the near constant hunger. Okay, I guess we were ready to get of f the bikes for a couple of days. Other notable things from the last day: At one point we were riding along in the pouring rain and gentleman was walking out to his mailbox and saw us and flagged us down. He invited us to come in and dry off and have a cup of coffee. We probably should have taken him up on it but we kind of just wanted to get home so we thanked him and continued on. This is the sort of thing that happens most every day when you are touring and one of the most special things about this mode of transportation. A woman came out of McDonalds and saw us sitting there drinking coffee and asked where we had come from. We replied that we had started in Vermont and she was like “wow, that’s great, where are you headed to?” We said Freeland and she looked completely puzzled and said “that’s not very exciting.” Marc and I just looked at each other. I suppose it does seem rather anti-climactic to ride a thousand miles and end up in Freeland. Unless you are Marc and I, and you have your reasons. Plus, the exciting part is along the way. Lastly, about two miles from home I had a yellow jacket fly into my helmet. I could feel it trapped against my head, wings beating frantically, and I knew that I needed to get my helmet off ASAP or I was going to get stung, but I didn’t think I had time to stop my bike so I managed to remove my sunglasses and helmet, while riding in traffic on a fairly narrow road, and liberate the dazed creature. I absolutely could not believe I didn’t get stung. Just lucky I guess.

One More Day

Today we were lucky. When we checked the weather before leaving the motel this morning in Bowling Green the radar showed a giant green blob of heavy rain marching north. We thought it would envelop us just as we were hitting the road, so we battened the hatches and set off with our raingear on. Half an hour later we stopped and took off our rain gear because it wasn’t raining and we were sweating to death. The storm never caught us and we rode the whole day with nothing more than a few sprinkles. We made our goal of Howell Michigan fairly easily, thanks mostly to a nice tail wind. We estimate that it was about 90 miles, which would make it easily our highest mileage day yet. Tomorrow we have to do roughly the same to get to our final destination, and we’re pretty sure we’ll manage it. It’s like a bike race now, in that once you can sense that finish line, you have super-strength. Plus we’ve been staying in motels so we have extra energy from not having to set up camp and make dinner and breakfast. Tonight is our fourth night in a motel out of thirteen nights so it seems like we stayed pretty close to our plan. We spent a bit of time searching for detail maps today to try and figure out a good safe route through Michigan. Not an easy task. There are lots of busy roads with no shoulder. And people here love their cars. I thought every one in Michigan was out of work these days. Where are all these cars going? We definitely had some stressful riding today, with cars constantly zinging past us uncomfortably close at hand. But we also had some really secluded roads and some horrendously bumpy roads. So overall it was a great day, as usual. We had one memorable conversation with an older farmer, somewhere in rural southern Michigan. One of my water bottles bounced out as we were riding by his house and I turned around in the road to grab it. As I did so, this guy yelled “where are you going, California?” So we rode over and told him what we were up to and he told us all about his farm (300 acres,) his barn renovations, his family, and the fact that he held off selling some corn and soybeans and the price fell and he lost thousands of dollars. He didn’t seem too broken up about that last bit either. It was a really fun interaction of the type that we seem to get almost every day. I think that is the thing that impresses me the most about touring, the fact that people are really interested and want to talk to you about it wherever you go. Tomorrow will probably be the end of the trip, but I’ll keep adding more posts. I have some equipment reviews that I’m working on and some other observations about the whole experience. I’m also going to caption and post all of the photos as soon as I can. Thanks for reading.

Leaving Ohio Behind

07/21/09 - Another day of favorable wind. We got about 65 miles in today and are now in a motel in Bowling Green Ohio. It was pretty hot today and I don’t know if that was the problem, or not drinking enough water yesterday, or possibly not eating enough today, but for some reason we both hit the wall at about 3:00 this afternoon. I felt pretty wrung out and didn’t really want to deal with camping, and Marc wasn’t arguing with me so we got a room. We were lucky to get a room, and we may not have been able to get a campsite anyway because there is a huge RV exhibition going on in Bowling Green. We got the last room at the Knights Inn. Then we immediately went next door to Subway and ate a huge sandwich. I feel pretty normal now. We are spending the night tonight trying to find a route from here to Freeland MI. Tomorrow morning we leave the Adventure Cycling Association route and start heading north. We don’t really have a map, so we’re not exactly sure where we are going , but we know we’re going north. And we know that it will take at least two days. So that means that, best case scenario, we will finish up on Thursday afternoon. It could be Friday though, but even that is better than what we though we’d manage a few days ago. We were kind of thinking we might have to ride right to the memorial on Saturday, which would have saved us the better part of a days riding. But now I’m pretty sure we’ll get to Freeland, our ultimate goal. Not much exciting happened today. Rural Ohio, much like rural Michigan, features a lot of roads so straight and flat that even mini-vans can drive too fast. We did stop at a really nice coffee shop in Fremont Ohio called DaVinci’s. Good coffee, good pastry and free wifi. Loved it. Tonight for dinner I think we are going to hit the Big Boy next door. I used to love Big Boy and I haven’t eaten at one in probably 15 years. Yumm.

Well Hydrated Raccoons

07/20/09 - Today was the first day of favorable wind we have had in eleven days of riding. Unfortunately we didn’t really maximize our mileage because we wanted to avoid morning rush hour traffic in Cleveland and also get some internet time in, so we went to the library in Wickliffe (award winning library, rated number 2 in something) at 9:00 when it opened. I think we did 65 or 70 miles, nonetheless. We stayed at a nice campground in Huron Ohio and had a great private, grassy space between a creek and the Huron River. Actually, maybe it wasn’t such a great spot. There was a lot of goose poop all over the place and just before dark the whine of mosquitoes revving up to bleed us dry drove us into the sanctuary of the tent. And then what I believe were two frogs had a raucous conversation all night long. I don’t know what they were saying but whatever it was, it took an incredible amount of verbiage to get the point across. We awoke to find that we had been burglarized and vandalized by what appears to have been a knife wielding raccoon. Seriously, Marc had a Ziploc bag of Gatorade powder in a waterproof dry bag that he keeps his camera and other stuff in that he needs frequent access to. Something got into that Gatorade powder by ripping the rip-stop nylon of the bag in a perfect L-shaped tear. It looks like someone cut it with a knife. Of course neither of heard that happening, probably because the frogs drowned it out. But the spot did look really nice when we first got there. Thunderheads were building to the south of us the whole time we were making dinner and we thought we would get wet, but the storm passed us by and it never ended up raining. For dinner we had bean and cheese burritos made with dehydrated refried beans that I had been carrying for the last 750 or so miles. I was glad to finally get rid of them, and the burritos weren’t half bad either.

Quick Update

Just a short note, we are at the Wickliffe Public Library right now waiting for the Cleveland Monday morning traffic to get a little less lethal. We had a relaxing and enjoyable evening at the no-tell motel last night and a fine dinner at the Sussex Seafood Grille (voted Cleveland's best seafood, evidently.) We even got that beer we were looking for the night before. This morning we had breakfast at an old school donut and coffee shop with a bunch of boisterous old retired guys. Much better coffee than the last place and the donuts were pretty good too. We should be out of Cleveland in a couple of hours and that will be a relief. I don't think I'll come back. We are starting to think about the next couple of days and the likelihood that we will be in Freeland by Friday night. Specifically, there is some likelihood, barring any unplanned distractions. Thanks for reading and we will update again as soon as we can.

Disclaimer

Umm, this may be obvious but I just wanted to toss out the fact that I am not spending a lot of time editing these posts, so they may not be as polished as I would like. Please excuse the sloppiness. I generally like to post pretty finished stuff but the shortage of time, lack of connectivity, and size of my screen are all contributing to my haste. I apologize for this and thank you for reading on. Also, while we are on the subject, I have been pretty lax with the photos because they tend to take a while to upload. Look for a complete album of all of the photos, including Marc's, at some time in the near future.

What To Eat

If you’re interested in what we are eating on a typical day of this trip, here it is. Please don’t try this without medical supervision.

Breakfast 1: We usually start off the day with a cup of coffee brewed through a Melita cone filter. Next we like to make some oatmeal fortified with peanut butter and whatever else we can get our hands on such as granola, raisins, dried cherries, and sometimes honey. Then we usually scramble up a couple of eggs each and again throw in anything we might have handy. Cheese, sausage, tomatoes, peppers, onions, hot sauce, even leftover spaghetti sauce. If we have any, we might finish with a banana.

Breakfast 2: Whenever possible we like to stop for coffee and a snack mid morning. The snack might be a couple of donuts, a muffin, yogurt, or a bagel.

On the bike snacks: During the days ride we like to have a selection of easily eaten foods on our bikes or on our person. Granola bars, clif bars, clif shot blocks, trail mix, or candy.

Lunch: We usually try to stop for an actual lunch sometime in the early afternoon. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches with honey are a favorite. We have also eaten sandwiches with cheese, sardines, canned herring, summer sausage, and whatever fruit we might have available. Sometimes we stop for a Gatorade or other energy drink in addition to the water that we try to drink all day.

Afternoon snack: Usually as soon as we find a campsite or other lodging and get a little bit settled in we are ravenously hungry and eat anything we can find. Trail mix, pretzels, peanut butter sandwiches, sausage, a loaf of bread or a granola bar are all in grave danger of being consumed. Several times we have gotten ice cream on hot days. If it is cool out or raining we usually have some tea.

Dinner: If we are camping we try to keep dinner as simple and mess free as possible. Ramen noodles have been a favorite because they are light to carry and easy to prepare. If we have some stuff to add to them we might not use the seasoning packets that come with the noodles. The seasoning has a massive amount of sodium and other dubious stuff in it. We might add vegetables, onions, sausage, or hot sauce to add flavor. The nice thing about ramen is that you get some needed water with it and the noodles have a lot more fat in them than regular noodles so they increase our calorie consumption. We also have eaten cous cous , spaghetti, canned stew (smelled like dog food but tasted pretty good) and instant miso soup. A couple nights we have eaten out and this is nice because we can usually get more calories from restaurant food. Cheeseburgers, meatloaf dinner, pizza, and fish and chips are meals that we have eaten from restaurants. We might finish off with another cup of tea.

Sometimes I get hungry again before bed so I’ll have some trail mix, a little chocolate or some candy. Sometimes I just go to bed hungry. I usually wake up at some time in the night thinking about food. Getting the stove fired up is my first task in the morning. Mmm, I'm starting to salivate thinking about food.

Best Diet Ever!

Want to lose some weight? Try this foolproof diet: 1) ride 65-80 miles on a bicycle loaded with 40 pounds of gear and food. 2) Eat anything that will fit in your mouth. 3) Repeat daily for as long as you can. Guaranteed results. Seriously, that guy Tom that we camped with in Canada told us that in the first 18 days of his tour he lost 15 pounds. He was scared that he wouldn’t be able to finish his ride if that kept up so he started eating two breakfasts everyday and trying to eat dinner at restaurants as much as possible to maximize calorie intake. Marc and I have reached the stage where hunger is our default condition. Sometimes I wake up at night because I’m hungry. I’m hungry right now. What could be better than going on vacation and eating absolutely as much as you can and not gaining any weight?

Feeling Unwanted In Ohio

07/19/09 - Day ten is in the can, as they say. Another productive day, if not one of the most enjoyable. Not that the weather was bad or the company, but I have to say that so far Ohio is getting a barely passing grade as a cycling friendly state. The greater Cleveland area, in particular, has not impressed me at all. Positively. In fact, I was prepared to give it my lowest possible rating of “sucks balls” until they threw in a few miles of bike lanes. The citizens must have been pretty excited about the addition of the bike lanes; it looks like they celebrated by breaking lots of glass all over tbem. Anyway, I’ve decided to give it one more day before I give my final grade, but as of right now, it’s looking like F+. That reminds me, I saw a construction company today called C+B+C+ Construction. Slightly above average, I’d hire them. The people of Ohio, so far, are the least courteous of anywhere on this trip. We had some pretty close calls today and that really hasn’t been happening much at all. Here’s another observation: there is no roadkill in New York. They must pick it all up and give it to Pennsylvania and Ohio for distribution on their roads. Seriously, you never see any dead animals on the road in New York state, but for the last two days you couldn’t swing a dead raccoon around your head without hitting another dead animal. It’s kind of gross.

Today we also had to say goodbye to brother J.D. His route took him south in the town of Ashtabula, while we continued westward. It was great having J.D around the last few days, we had some really interesting conversations. We traded info so that we can stay in touch and wished him well on his great big adventure.

Speaking of Ashtabula, so far that has been the coolest city we’ve visited in Ohio. Unfortunately, it was one of the many cities gutted by the implosion of the US steel industry. Idle power plants and massive freight docks stand as monuments to that unfortunate chapter in our history. We went to a nice little bakery there and had some pretty awful coffee and pretty good pastries. An older gentleman who had lived there his whole life gave us some history on the area. Here’s some trivia about Ashtabula that I bet no one knows (except maybe Nuber): the cheap one piece cranksets that come on cheap kids bikes and Walmart bikes are called Ashtabula cranks. Anyone know why?

We ended up riding about 75 miles today, in nice weather and got to a motel on the outskirts of Cleveland. We had to resort to the motel again because, strangely, there are no campgrounds in the metropolitan Cleveland area. I’m actually really starting to prefer sleeping outdoors. I’ve been sleeping so soundly and comfortably that I didn’t want to get a room tonight, but short of knocking on doors and asking to camp in back yards, there was no choice. We almost got lucky, stopping at the fire station to ask directions to a motel. The fireman there said that his old fire chief would have let us stay at the firehouse, but the new guy wasn’t that cool. Oh well. He also said that he and his wife had driven to Frankenmuth MI yesterday to eat at Zhenders and shop at Bronners. Mind boggling, and absolutely meaningless unless you live in Michigan, but here’s the kicker: It took them five hours to drive there and it will probably take us six days to ride there. Kind of demoralizing.

Before we lost J.D. this morning we were riding through a nice residential area and Marc spotted a yard that was decorated with probably 30 pink flamingos. We stopped and got some photos of me sitting amongst the colorful birds to send to Ben. He loves those birds. That’s about it, I think. We are staying in the J and L motel in Wickliffe Ohio. It’s slightly nicer than the place we stayed the other night, but best of all we both have our own beds and it’s not massively humid in here because there aren’t three wet cyclists and their bikes and their wet gear drying out. We did a quick bit of sink laundry and now we can watch some TV and walk up the street and get some dinner. And read. Marc finished his book a few days ago and we have been unable to find a place to trade it for another so last night I tore off the first 80 or so pages of my Junot Diaz novel and gave it to him. Now we are really shaving grams, sharing one book for the two of us.

Uncle John's Pennslyvania Pavilion

07/18/09 - Day nine, and it was a pretty good day. We managed about 70 miles and did it in record time. The rain stopped shortly before we got on the road and by early afternoon we even had some sun. It may end up raining again tonight but we are now snug in our campsite, so we don’t care. In fact, we have such a good campsite that it won’t even matter. The owner of the campground, Uncle John, told us we could set up under a pavilion so that we would be under cover in case the weather got bad. He was a really nice guy and let us put up both of our tents, which would normally run $50, for $30. We have two tents because we are still traveling with J.D. Unfortunately, tomorrow we have to part ways with J.D. as his route takes him south and we continue west. It has been nice having a third person to hurl himself at the incessant head wind with us. J.D. said this afternoon that riding with us for the last few days has been really good for his morale. I can see how your motivation to ride your bike for 12 months could wane after riding for three weeks by yourself. Mostly in the rain. The weather is really crazy, the temps barely got above 65 degrees today and with the 20 mph wind off the lake, it was cold. But at least it was dry. This is he second campground we have been in that the owner has told us that he basically doesn’t care about his summer business because he makes all of his money in the winter. Kind of like Basin Sports. I didn’t mention it in the earlier post but the campground that we stayed at on my birthday, Joe’s place, was on the Tug-Hill plateau, an area familiar to all snowmobile enthusiasts. It is a destination for snow machiners, as we call them in the 802, because it is a high area immediately east of Lake Ontario and as such it always gets tons of snow. 540 inches of snow last year. That puts it about on par with Little Cottonwood Canyon in Utah. Except that the max elevation is 1800 feet and there isn’t much vertical relief. Cool facts though right? And what is the draw for Uncle John’s campground? It sits right at the mouth of the Elk River, a world famous Steelhead fishery. So Uncle John is merely amused at our wanting to set up our little tents on his spot here in Lake City PA. We had one notable encounter today, we had stopped for J.D. to take a photo of the Welcome to Pennsylvania sign and a guy comes walking up with his dog. He asks us all of the usual questions (where did you start, where are you going, how long will it take, how many miles a day, etc.) and then he notices the scar on my leg and asks, “what happened to your knee, too much biking?” To which I reply “no, too much getting hit by cars while riding my bike.” Which then causes him to reply that a lot of his friends back home tell him that they would like to hit cyclists with their cars because they don’t think bikes should be on the road. I was going to say “yeah, I live in VT and am surrounded by lots of ignorant people too,” but I decided against it. Again with the people wanting to kill you for doing something they don’t like. Like “99% of rednecks surveyed said they would definitely buy a tag if cyclist hunting season were introduced.” Oh well, what are you going to do, other than hope that you don’t run into that guys friends. Oh yeah, and we have been riding the last two days through wine country. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true, both New York and PA have these wine trail deals where you can tour the various vineyards. I don’t know what varietals they grow here, but we did pass a sign that said Concord Grape Country, so I’m not too optimistic about the wines. There were some really fantastic views though, looking out over the vineyards and down to Lake Erie. I realized today, by the way, that I have been spelling Lake Erie wrong for the last few days. So stupid.

A.M. update - We had a couple of serious storms come through last night and we were very glad to be set up under the pavilion. No thunder and lightning, just heavy, heavy rain. Marc and I thought that a beer sounded good so we walked up to a convenience store that we had seen on the way into the campground. It was a the top of a really big hill. It was also a bait store, as it turned out. Unfortunately, they didn’t sell beer. I’ve never seen anything like it. So we each got a root beer and then ate an entire bag of Tostitos and a jar of salsa instead. Before dinner. I forgot to mention the other night that when we camped in Canada I had a harrowing experience with a skunk. I had been at the laundry room updating my journal and when I came back to the site, I set my computer on the picnic table and got busy organizing my stuff to go to bed. When I went to grab my stuff off of the table, I was confronted by a little skunk, sitting right under the table. I really wanted to go to bed but I didn’t want to upset the skunk and get sprayed so I waited for a while, but it didn’t seem like it was going to go anywhere. So then I retreated to the next site over and tried tossing pine cones at the little critter. That didn’t do any good. Finally, after about ten minutes the skunk got bored and wandered off. After I got in bed and started reading, I heard something brush up against the tent fly and it startled me so I jumped to the side and basically landed on top of Marc. It turned out to be my water bottle falling over. I think I heard that skunk laughing.

The rain in Dunkirk falls mainly on the cyclists

07/17/09 - Well, the streak is dead. We awoke to the pitter-patter of rain on the tent this morning. It was soothing and my sleeping bag was cozy so I didn’t want to get up. I read for a little while as Sleeping Beauty slumbered. Eventually the thought of hot coffee and the fullness of my bladder conspired to drive me out into the weather. The rain was light and intermittent, at least for a while. But ultimately we had to break down and get a room tonight. What a beaut it is, too. The Dunkirk Motel in Dunkirk NY. I may sleep in my sleeping bag anyway, just to protect myself from the linens. I can’t find anywhere to plug my computer in because none of the outlets are equipped for three prong plugs. I hope we don’t have an electric fire tonight. The bathroom is pretty wet right now because the shower cannot be contained by the shower curtain, despite the half pound or so of miscellaneous hardware (nuts, bolts, plumbing parts) wired to the bottom of it. I have to take a photo of this thing. We rode 65 or so miles today, entering back into the US this morning and continuing along the Lake Eerie shoreline. Much of the day was spent riding in a torrential downpour. Not that much fun but at least it washed most of the dust off of our bikes from the canal trail. And now we have a roof over our head and out stuff is drying out, and we have a whole pile of pizza to eat because we were so hungry when we ordered it that we ordered way too much. Oh, and we have a guest, J.D. the French Canadian cyclist that we met yesterday. We were stopped on the side of the road just outside Buffalo talking to two other cross country cyclists on their way to Maine from Washington. Josh and Zack, maybe? Anyway we had just asked them if they had passed J.D. and they said no, and at that instant, J.D. rolled up. He was heading the same way we were so we rode together and he decided to go in on a room and some pizza with us. My experience with French Canadian cyclists has primarily been in racing situations and always terrifying. But J.D. did a fine job today of not crashing us or acting generally erratic. We may even keep him around for a few more days. Crazy Canadian told me that in over 300 days of bike touring this is the first time he has stayed in a motel room. Hard. Core.

Tomorrow we will finally be leaving the giant state of New York and moving into Pennsylvania. We are in PA for just a short time, but we probably will have to spend the night there. The weather for tomorrow doesn’t look so good. Rain showers and highs in the low 60’s. Crazy weather for the middle of July. We have decided that riding in the cold rain isn’t so bad, it’s only when you have to stop for the night or to eat that it gets really unpleasant. As long as you can keep moving, you can stay warm and dry enough. Setting up camp in the rain is another matter, and it extends into the next day because it takes extra time to try and dry things out or pack them up all wet. I suggested that we just keep riding until the rain stops, even if it means riding through the night. No one even responded to my suggestion. I thought it was reasonable but no one listens to anything I say. I’m just trying to be helpful.

Oh Canada!

07/16/09 - I’m sitting here listening to the locals speak Canadian. Today was a pretty leisurely day for us, we only covered about 55 miles, not because we’re wusses, but because we wanted to have a reasonable place to sleep. What I mean by that is that we had the option of staying in a nice campground just north of Fort Eerie Canada, or pushing on and staying somewhere in Buffalo. If you’ve ever been to Buffalo, you know what I mean. So we are here at the Riverside Campground, which was kind of expensive, but they have a laundry facility and we washed all of our clothes for the first time in a while with a washing machine and everything. We smell good. Now tomorrow we can power through Buffalo early, while we’re fresh and find someplace nice to sleep on the other side. Plus we got to rest a little because we had a relatively short day. Marc took a nap and I laid out on a lawn chair by the pool while I waited for our laundry to finish. Two Quebecois ladies just came in the laundry room where I’m writing this and, evidently, put a basketball or something in the dryer and left. It sounds like it wants to get out, badly. Anyway, it was relaxing, except that we had a kind of budget dinner because we don’t really have anything good left to eat and there is no grocery store near here. We met two cyclists today though, and had some good conversations with both of them. The first was a guy from Quebec City named J.D. (Jean something, no doubt) who has been on the road for 20 days so far of a planned year-long tour to…Alabama. Sort of. His first destination is Alabama, for reasons he could not articulate to us, but eventually he is headed for Argentina. We rode about ten miles or so with him this afternoon and he shared some really good bread that someone had given him. He is on tight budget of $20 a day, and consequently he is camping for free by knocking on people’s doors and asking if he can set up his tent in their back yard. It sounds crazy, I know, but he says it has worked every night so far. I don’t think I can do that. The next cyclist we met is camped in the site next door and he has been riding from San Francisco to Portland Maine following the same route as us, but in reverse obviously. He gave us some good insight and we had a nice long chat over dinner, as he came and joined us. The woman across the road from us, Jessica, brought us over some leftover taco salad and it was especially delicious. She has a three year old son named Aidan and he is a handful. She also has a husband named Al, and he is a meathead and not much help at all. I felt sorry for her. I happen to have a two year old friend named Aidan, and he really isn’t a handful, comparatively. I was thinking of him the other day when I was looking for a snack in a convenience store and I spied the Nilla Cakesters. I know Aidan likes the Cakesters. J.D. the French Canadian cyclist was riding a bike by the name of Falardeau or something like that. It was a funny word, I kept saying it over and over the whole time we were riding together.

We took the obligatory photos at Niagara Falls today, which we have both seen before, and while we were there I couldn’t help wondering why anyone would actually vacation there. I can see stopping and looking at it if your are passing through, the Horseshoe Falls is pretty spectacular, but the whole area is so tacky and commercial and grossly commercialized. Seriously, people can’t think of anything better than that for a vacation? It’s not even as if it’s particularly natural, it has all kinds of stuff built all over it and a hydroelectric dam and everything. Whatever. People keep coming in here and looking at me like I’m the one responsible for whatever large, heavy, hard object those ladies put in that poor dryer. It’s not me man, I’m just trying to steal some electricity and write in my journal. I came here on a bike, I don’t even have anything matching that description.

I’m having some issues with my pedals. You may recall that I purchased new pedals yesterday because my left pedal had worn out bearings and was making a clicking sound. Well, today, my left pedal started exhibiting signs of worn out bearings and began making that same clicking sound. They only have 100 miles on them, how can the bearings be worn out? Here’s the thing: that clicking may be innocuous enough on a typical ride. But I now have to listen to that incessant clicking for the next 500 miles. On every pedal stroke. I’m not sure what will happen but I’m not buying another set of pedals, I know that. It is a complete mystery to me how this could happen. I could see if it happened once, I’d chalk it up to defective materials or improper assembly, but for it to happen twice, I just don’t get it. The only thing I can think of is that maybe my crank is bent and causing the pedal to load in a way that the bearings weren’t designed for, but I can’t imagine how a crank could get bent either. Any ideas, anyone?

I’m up past my bedtime tonight. I guess because I had such an easy day I’m not as tired as I have been. Today is day seven and that means that the trip is half over, one way or another. We have to be where we’re going by the 25th, so we are done, essentially, on the 24th wherever we might be by then. Hopefully it’s Freeland. Seven days and we haven’t had to sleep inside yet. How long can we keep the streak alive?

Canals and stuff

07/15/09 - These every other day updates are a little cumbersome because I forget some good stuff. The reason I could not update yesterday was because I was just too tired. For some reason, yesterday’s ride just took it out of us. We did have a pretty fierce headwind, and there were a surprising number of steep rollers, so that might have been the problem, but still, it seemed like we were riding in soft sand all day. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that every time we cook anything, it comes out of Marc's bags, and not mine. He's down to like a ziploc sandwich bag full of food and I still have two grocery bags worth of stuff in my panniers. I'm going to have to start jettisoning food soon.We managed to cover about 60 miles and then found a great place to camp in Macedon, NY. It was basically a city park, on the Eerie canal, that allows hikers, bikers and boaters to camp for free. There were no showers, but water and portable toilets were furnished. And the park was quiet and every bit as nice as any of the campgrounds we have paid for on this trip. The biggest problem we had was trying to stay awake until the sun went down. I seriously considered going to bed without dinner because I was too tired to think about cooking or cleaning up. In the end, we did make a simple dinner of miso soup and cous cous, but it was a struggle. Then we took some silly photos of ourselves clowning around at the locks on the canal. The canal and the canal path that we have been following are really cool. We have yet to see any boats actually go through the locks, but we understand now how they work. I didn’t realize that no pumps are needed to move the water in and out of the various chambers, only valves. And then we went to bed at about 8:15. One of the funny stories that I forgot to mention the other day was that Marc had a tube of lip balm that he had been carrying for the whole trip and he had used it in the tent right before he fell asleep. In the morning when he went to use it again, the tube was empty. Like, completely empty, not even a little residue. We still have no idea what happened to it. We thought initially that it would turn up as blob of wax in the tent or one of our sleeping bags, but so far it hasn’t. Maybe something got in and ate it, I don’t know.


And then today. Today we hammered pretty hard and ended up with about 70 or so miles by the end of the day. The weather has been an absolute gift, that’s for sure. We did have one small mechanical problem, however. Yesterday my left pedal started feeling funny and making a really loud clicking sound on each revolution. It turned out that the bearings were shot and there was a lot of slop between the pedal body and the axle. I was a little concerned that the additional movement would have a negative effect on my knee, so we decided that if we passed a bike shop we would get it checked out. Today we just happened to be riding by the Towpath Bike Shop in Pittsford, NY at exactly 10:00, which was when they opened. I ended up buying a new set of pedals just to make things easier and so I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. We also topped up our tires with the shop’s pump and got directions to a great coffee shop, so it turned out to be a good stop. We rode all day today on the Eerie Canal Trail, which is really great. When all of the sections are done it will be over 500 miles long. We took it right through the city of Rochester and never even knew we were in a city. It was awesome not having to worry about vehicular traffic all day today. The only downside was that it was really dusty and all of our stuff got covered in dust. A worthwhile trade off in my mind. Tonight we are camped in Middleport, NY, again at a city park. This one even had showers and we both took immediate advantage of that. We also walked into town and had dinner at the diner in town. We both had meatloaf with mashed potatoes and lots of gravy. And bread pudding for desert. We tend to get really hungry, usually about every two hours. We may even go back there for breakfast, thus sparing me the need to fire up the flamethrower. Tonight they are calling for some rain overnight, which wouldn’t be so bad, as long as I don’t leave any electronic devices plugged in and charging outdoors. We observed today that we have spent very little time indoors in the last six days. Only going into convenience stores and eating a coupe of meals. We are both very happy that we have been able to camp every night so far.At some point I'm sure we will end up having to stay in a motel room. The owner of the Dunkin Donuts that we were eating in the other day asked us "you have every thing you need to ride to Michigan on those two bikes?" We both responded at the same time, "actually, we have more than we need to ride to Michigan." It's pretty cool how little stuff you really need. Tomorrow we have about twenty more miles of the canal trail before we have to return to the real world of cars and trucks and road signs. Tomorrow we are also going into Canada, and we might even end up staying in Canada, somewhere around Niagara Falls. We’ll have to see how it all shakes out. And the next day? Buffalo.

America Runs On Dunkin

Ahh, two old fashioned donuts and a coffee with free wifi. Thank you Dunkin Donuts. Another successful night of camping and we are ready to set out for the greater Rochester NY area today. The camping spots are getting thin as we get into more urban areas, but we'll see what we can do. I continue to struggle a couple of times a day with my stove. The MSR whisperlite has only three settings: napalm strike, iron smelting, and off. I have developed a method of cooking scrambled eggs without nuking them to the pan, though. I hold the pan about three inches above the cooking surface for the entire process. Our campsite was really nice last night, lakeside with a great breeze. Except the breeze died right about the time we sat down to eat with a resulting explosion in the number of mosquitoes. We each ate with one hand and whirled the other one around our heads. I guess you can't have anything. We are both sleeping well at night, which is not always possible when sleeping on the ground, so we are thankful for that. Everywhere we go people ask us about our trip, our equipment, this cool little computer. We're like, you know, celebrities or something. Okay enough about us, we've got some more pedaling to do. Next update? sooner than this one hopefully.

pelaling is my business; business is good

07/13/09 - Hmmm, okay, I said in my last post that if the conditions were like that everyday, I wouldn’t want to stop touring when I got to Michigan. Well, if the conditions were always like they were on Saturday night, I’d ride directly to the nearest Greyhound station buy a ticket to Freeland, MI and leave my bike leaning against a lamp post. Saturday night was a little grim. It started about 3:00 in the afternoon when a cold front rolled through the greater Old Forge area and brought with it a horrendous thunderstorm. I’m a little gun shy after my close call the other day, but we soldiered on until we found a campground at Eighth Lake State Park. By this time we were pretty chilled and the rain was just coming down in buckets. The thunder was pretty much continuous and some of the lightning was pretty close, but that didn’t bother me much because I was pretty sure I was going to die of exposure. We couldn’t set up the tent because it would have been full of water before we got it up. We sat on the picnic table convulsing for a while and decided to make some tea. The act of setting up the stove to make tea soaked nearly everything we had. The tea was nice, it allowed some feeling to creep back into our fingers for a little while. We decided to take showers but we didn’t know what to put on for clothing because we have very limited clothing with us and we didn’t want to get everything wet. I have to thank the state of New York for the ample hot water supply at that campground, it may have saved our lives. The showers had these timer gizmos on them that were supposed to limit your shower time to 5 minutes. We each ran the timer three times. After showering and putting our wet rain gear back on, the rain tapered off and we were able to set the tent up and get our sleeping bags into them without soaking them. We made more tea and survival started to seem like a reasonable possibility. The rain held off until after we finished making dinner, which was merciful, and we fell asleep around 9:00 only to be thumped awake at 1:00 by another round of violent thunderstorms. All told, the area got over two inches of rain that night. And tonight, Monday, we’ve nearly gotten all of our stuff dried out. Not bad.

Now, I don’t want anyone to think that we’re complaining. Truthfully, I wouldn’t mind if it was just a little bit warmer, but you know. Sunday was my birthday and I can’t recall ever being cold on my Birthday before, but whatever. Actually, hypothermia concerns aside, we are having a ball and meeting a lot of really nice, interesting people. In fact, this will probably come as a surprise, but we have not encountered one discourteous driver since the start of this trip. I’m starting to think that maybe all of the people that are trying to kill me in Rutland know me or something. We have had really nice weather for riding everyday except that last hour or so on Saturday. Yesterday, the 12th, we managed close to 75 miles of riding in the sun. It being my birthday, Marc wanted to celebrate with a beer when we got to camp. We rolled into the town of Osceola, which appeared to consist of one bar, around 4:00. Marc announced that he was going to go into the bar to try and buy a couple of beers, since the map said the campground was only 2.5 miles out of town. There were a lot of Harley Davidson motorcycles outside the bar. I thought, “better him than me.” The last thing I wanted to do was go into a Harley bar wearing lycra shorts, but I do like beer. He was in there for quite a while and I was starting to get nervous when one of the well lubricated patrons came out and said “what are you doing out here, it’s your birthday, get in here.” I reluctantly went in and found Marc getting along famously with the Sunday afternoon crowd. And he had a six pack of Molson and two shots of tequila in front of them. Every person in the place wished me a happy birthday and we each had a shot of tequila, loaded up the beers and rode off toward the campground. The map neglected to mention that the campground was 2.5 miles straight up. It was probably the steepest climb of the whole trip. But we made it, tequila burning a little in our bellies the whole way. Then we each drank three beers and stumbled around until dinner. The “campground” was an interesting place, and it was owned by an even more interesting gentleman by the name of Joe. Joe had carved himself out an empire in Osceola and you can believe me when I say that carving out a dirt farm in Osceola would be an impressive feat. Joe opened up his restaurant to us and made us coffee in the morning. He was one of the most hospitable people I’ve ever run across. He said some beautiful things too, like: “Did you two sleep in that tent right there? That little tent there? I’m sorry, but you bikers are retards. First off, you rode here on a bike. Secondly, you sleep in the smallest tents I’ve ever seen. There’s something wrong with you guys.” We took a photo of ourselves in Front of Joe’s restaurant that we’re going to send to him when we get done. I bet he’ll put it up on the wall.

Craziest thing that happened today? I went into a Super Walmart with my spandex on and did some grocery shopping. Marc took a photo of me. Only photo in existence of me at Walmart. We covered some good miles today pretty efficiently, despite the fact that we had a 30 mph headwind most of the day. We are out of the mountains now so we should be able to make some progress. It worked out that the best place to stop today was at about 60 miles, so we knocked off early and took care of some housekeeping issues, like emptying the water out of our panniers. Before the start of the trip I joked with Marc that I had enough room in my bags so I was going to fill one with brine and salt down a beef brisket for later in the trip. Marc’s bags kind of looked like he tried it. I haven’t been able to update the blog or make many phone calls on this trip due to a lack of necessary infrastructure. We have been in the sticks. How about this for a statistic: 250 or so miles and not one McDonalds. Not one. I’m thinking things might get a little easier now that we seem to be in an inhabited part of the state. I saw a Dunkin Donuts with free wifi today, so that is a good thing. Okay, gotta hit the showers and cook up some food. We have the entire top of our picnic table covered with food that we are sick of carrying, so we’re going to try and eat it all in the next 12 hours or so. Wish us luck. One more thing, we had sardines in mustard sauce for lunch yesterday. Not something I would typically eat on the bike, but it worked out fine. Who knew? It was a little messy though

lunch time

Just a quick note - we are in a cafe/deli in Long Lake NY grabbing some lunch. Today we got off to a good start and are working through our early trip organizational troubles. Marc got a good shot of me this morning working on my stove. The thing is shooting flames about two feet in the air. Evidently there is a learning curve with priming the thing. Photos to follow. Okay, gotta eat.

Day one

07/10/09 - What a great first day we had. So much happened that I doubt I’ll be able to relay it all. Fun things started immediately. We had just barely gone 15 miles when we were flagged down by a guy in a pickup truck who identified himself as a reporter for the Rutland Herald newspaper. He said that we would make a good photo for the Outdoor page and asked permission to use our photos. After we explained our trip a little bit he decided that we would be a good story so he gave us his card and asked us to call him when we got to Michigan so he could interview us. Very nice gentleman, so apologetic about holding us up, although we did not mind in the least. It was funny because when he first pulled over and got out of his truck, he said “can I talk to you guys about something?” and I was thinking “oh boy, here comes our first confrontation. But it turned out to be the opposite.

Our next interesting encounter occurred while we were waiting for the ferry to cross Lake Champlain. I was reading a historical marker and Marc was talking to a woman. When I turned around I saw that she was on a loaded touring bike also. Turns out that Nancy was on her way home from riding across the country twice and up or down each of the coasts. About 9000 miles into it so far and headed to her home in Ohio to celebrate her 50th birthday on July 25th. After the ferry ride we ended up having lunch with her and swapping some stories and then we headed on. It was nice to talk to such an experienced touring cyclist. I will say, however, that she was definitely ready to be done with the trip, especially after riding in the weather we have had the last few weeks.

The riding was good today too, with little wind, warm temps and sunshine. We managed about 65 miles before stopping at a nice campground that even has warm showers (but no wifi.) The best part of the campground though is a really cool waterfall that we walked to and hung out at for a while. There were lots of smooth rocks to lay on and they were warm from the sun all day. I even found a really nice place to do some stretching. We took some photos of course.

And now, even though it’s only 8:30, I think we’re about to call it a night. The mosquitoes are starting to attack and we are pretty tired anyway. We couldn’t be happier with our first day of the trip. If every day was like this I don’t think I would stop at Michigan.

We're off!

Well, we're all packed up and ready to leave tomorrow morning. My bike is really...heavy. It sure looks like it means business though. We didn't actually ride today, other than back and forth in front of the house a few times. We were pretty busy with food shopping and packing and map studying and stuff. I am quite happy with my selection of gear and what everything weighs. I wanted to keep it under 40 p0unds including a few days food (not including clothing worn) and I managed that. I could have gone a little lighter but I wanted to make sure that I had enough clothing to ride comfortably in the crappy weather that we've been having. I also wanted to have my netbook to update the blog and keep track of all the cool things that happen. I created a packing list and I think I stayed pretty true to it, so if you're interested you can check it out here.

Now I'm off to try and get some sleep. Tomorrow might prove to be tiring, you never know. Wish us luck.

First Ride

Marc arrived safely in VT yesterday and we got right to work with our preparations. I took a few photos of him during his first ride on his brand new Surly Long Haul Trucker (the LHT is the choice of 100% of cyclists riding from Rutland VT to Freeland MI in July of 2009.) As you can see, there was some problem with his razor prior to his arrival. Hopefully he will get that squared away. Marc was absolutely filled with praise for the mechanic who put together his bike. He kept repeating over and over how grateful he was to have had such a mechanical wizard work on his pretty new bike. Particularly the wrapping of his handlebar tape, which was masterfully, even artistically, done. He seemed to enjoy the bike and thought that it fit well and would do the job. Which was good news for both of us. I have finally stopped fooling around with my own bike too, and am confident that it is ready for the task at hand. Today we are taking care of last minute chores and loading our bags. Hopefully we will be on the road around 8:30 tomorrow morning.

I know why the weather blows

There has been a lot of talk around here about the weather lately. Frankly, the weather has sucked. I think it often helps matters to lay some blame so I'm going to level my accusations at that ever popular scapegoat - the liberal media. That's right those tree hugging, touchy-feely, fact mongers in the liberal media (some would say liberal media elite, although I personally have a hard time giving a negative connotation to the word elite, but that's just me) are using every tool at their disposal to cripple our economy and bring this nation down, even to the extent of deluging us with near constant thunderstorms and torrential rain. Notice how it's the Northeast that is taking the brunt of the deluge? Well where is the sacred holy land of the elitist (now elitist, that I could see being negative) left wing infotainment mafia? Correct, New York City. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if those demented pranksters over at The Gray Lady had some kind of mad scientist cloud seeding apparatus set up deep in the bowels of their headquarters. What we need is a genuine, red-clad, facts-be-damned Austin Powers type figure to come storming in and shut this Dr. Evil operation down. I think know just the lady to do it. And she just recently cleared her calendar until at least 2012.

Lightning strikes twice

I went for a nice easy ride today that degenerated into one of the most terrifying weather related experiences I've ever had. Is someone trying to tell me something? Am I crazy for setting off on a 900 mile bike ride in light of these recent circumstances? It rains every single day. It's cold too, so the hypothermia index is high. And then there are the drivers, hundreds of motorists ranging from careless to downright malicious. Finally, today, I thought for a period of time that I was going to be electrocuted by lightning. In all my days as a cyclist I've only seriously considered taking shelter on two occasions. One was about thirteen years ago when I got caught out in a hailstorm that was pummeling me with quarter to golf ball size hail and left me covered with nasty red welts. The other was this afternoon when I was two miles from my house and twice had lightning strike close enough that I wasn't sure if I had been hit or not. The first strike was somewhere to my left and made an eerie sizzling sound in the split second before the near simultaneous clap of thunder. The second one sounded and felt the same but left some apparatus on a utility pole 40 feet in front of me smoking. All of this resulted in my riding of that last two miles at a near record pace. Luckily, the hail didn't start until after I got into the garage but in the time it took me to remove my soaked riding clothes and run up the stairs to check the windows, my front deck was covered in hail. I have not been that scared in a while. I hope that doesn't happen again anytime soon. I'm thinking maybe I need to have a weather scanner or something for my trip. It was really crazy how quickly this storm came in and also how it never appeared to be that bad until it was too bad to do anything about it.

think green

Here's a good example of the kind of doofus I usually encounter on the fine roads and highways of this great nation of ours. Yesterday I'm riding home from work and it hasn't really been raining all day for a switch so I tack on some extra miles just for the hell of it. There are plenty of inconsiderate drivers on the road because it's July 3rd and everybody is in a great big yank to get their giant travel trailers and various recreational vehicles up into the woods so they can hurry the hell up and relax. So I try to stay off of well traveled roads and I have a nice little ride. Until I get about three miles from my house, on that very same road/bicycle route that I almost got banged up on the day before by the Subaru. This road is a 35 mph residential road, by the way, but that doesn't stop people from acting stupid. In the space of about two minutes I almost got sideswiped by two vehicles, both of them in a situation very similar to the last one, where somebody could slow down for 2 seconds to let an oncoming car go by before they pass me, but that would take up too much precious time so they stuff their giant land yacht in between me and the oncoming car, nearly taking me out with the sideview mirror and simultaneously almost getting in a head-on collision. Brilliant. Anyway, the first one is some kind of SUV that is tailgating the shit out of some other car. It's likely that he didn't even know I was there because he couldn't see through the car in front of him that was bringing down his average speed on the way to happy hour. Or to beat his kids or whatever he does after work. The second one was a battered mini-van that had no excuse for almost taking me out unless, of course, it was because the driver was text messaging or something. Here's the best part. The van had a sticker that said "think green." Admirable thought for sure but I'm wondering how "think green" and "kill a bike commuter" fit together in a sentence. Happy Indepencence Day. Go Red White and Blue.

Why?

Today, as I was enjoying my nice cool ride home from work in the driving, soaking rain, some d-bag in a black Subaru Imprezza decided it would take too long to wait for the oncoming car to go by before he passed me and basically forced me off the road. And then he confirmed that he truly was an asshole by laying on his horn. I replied with only one finger. I might add that I was on a road that my gracious city has designted as a "bicycle route." Anyway this incident got me thinking about two things 1) this was odd behavior from a Subaru driver; it's generally American label car drivers that threaten my life and 2) what would be the best type of firearm to carry on my bicycle.

As for the latter, well, normally I would say bigger is better, but in the case of shooting from a loaded touring cycle I'm not sure. There is the recoil to think about and the effect that recoil would have on one's balance. I'm not at all certain, for instance, that I would be able to safely fire, say, a .44 magnum into a moving pickup full of fat rednecks without losing my balance and falling off of my bike. That just wouldn't do. So a slightly smaller caliber would probably be better, and definitely a semi-auto because of the recoil mitigation that those mechanisms have. Plus being able to fire quickly might help. I have always wanted to try riding around with a sawed off shotgun protruding from my camelback, Mad Max style, mostly as a deterrent. Possibly while wearing a leather vest and chaps. I think people would think twice about hurling obscenities and loose change at me from inside their little metal boxes.

You may be thinking "wow, what militant crazy bastard that guy is." And you would be partly right. But here's the thing a lot of non cyclists don't realize. Just because you don't like someone or don't like what someone is doing, you can't go around threatening that person's life. I know I dress funny and because I wear really tight shorts someone might think I'm gay (although I've never really understood the connection between tight shorts and sexual orientation myself) and that someone might be a closed minded adherent to the teachings of Jesus Christ (although, again, it's news to me that those teachings said anything about killing people you disagree with) but, unfortunately for some, it's still illegal to kill me. As of right now it's illegal anyway; that could all change depending on which party controls the various branches of our government. I also know that I sometimes take up space on our roads and highways that God himself (or herself) gave to the owners of automobiles. And I know that everyone is pressed for time these days and, you know, can't spare any extra seconds on the road, what with soccer practice and oboe lessons and play dates (wtf?) and social networking and reality TV and thank God for the serenity of my naked fitness/fasting-colon cleansing yoga-pilates hybrid class to reduce stress. Otherwise I might kill someone. Or I might kill someone anyway if they act differently than I do or get in my way. See what I'm saying?

I'll admit that I probably wouldn't really like the guy that almost ran over me today. And I probably won't like the guy that will almost run over me tomorrow or, worst case, actually run over me tomorrow. But I still don't want to kill the fat sweaty bastards. Can't we just agree to disagree?

Don't they see, I'm doing it for them. I'm deliberately not using my allotment of fossil fuel so that others who need it more can run their ski boats and quad runners and stock cars and 5oo,ooo megawatt honda generators all night at the campground. I'm a team player. I'm even paying an incredible sum of money every month to some insurance company so that we can all (ignorant sedentary clowns and athletes alike) have our diabetes and obesity and cardiovascular disease covered, which we will all most assuredly suffer from if we don't get killed in some type of violent accident beforehand. What the hell is not to like.

Really long bicycle ride part 2

I am easily sidetracked and I can't quite get the post written that I sat down to write. So here goes again. I am preparing for a fairly long bicycle ride. I know it says really long ride in the title, but it's all relative. Some people think riding down to The Beer King for a six pack is a really long ride. I think riding from Prudhoe Bay to Tierra del Fuego is a really long ride. Consequently, the ride I am preparing for is only sort of long, about 900 miles or so. I am riding from my home here in Rutland VT to my former home of Freeland MI. Unless things don't go according to plan, in which case I may only be riding to Oxford MI, because my ultimate reason for doing this is to attend a memorial celebration for my Grandfather, who passed away 30 years ago.

One of the main reasons I am attempting this ride, which I have contemplated for some time, is that I have the privelege of company this time. My Uncle Marc, who hates to be introduced as my Uncle Marc (one of my very best friends that I've known virtually since I was a fetus, Marc?) is going to accompany me and the two of us are very excited to have this opportunity to ride our bikes and spend some time together. When I found out that he was interested in doing this thing it really solidified my resolve to make it happen. And so it shall. Here are the details as I know them right now:
Marc is arriving in Burlington VT on July 8

He has already purchased a new bike, a Surly Long Haul Trucker just like mine, which I have in my possession and will attempt to have prepared for his arrival.

We will probably do a ride and get our gear together on July 9.

We will hit the road on July 10.

As I mentioned, we have an engagement on July 25 in Oxford MI, so with any luck we will get there under our own power.

I don't know the route exactly but I do know that we are heading for Ticonderoga NY and points west of there on day one. The first couple of days present some pretty significant vertical relief, and after that the climbing mellows out.

We are both very excited to get underway.

I will try to post any info and photos that I can along the way, and of course anything notable that happens in the period immediately prior to setting off. I may or may not bring a computer with me. Depending on how much all of my other crap weighs. Wish us Luck.

Really long bicycle ride (but not a tour)

Okay I've only really go one thing on my mind right now and that is my upcoming long bicycle ride. Some people call it a tour but I call it a long bicycle ride because as a recovering elitist bicycle racer, touring is just one of the things that you always told yourself you would never do. Kind of like wearing one of those helmet mounted rear view mirrors. Or riding around all of the time with a goofy one piece aero bar jacked up all comfy-like (think early nineties triathlon.) You just never think you'll get to that point. I've gotten to that point. I haven't ridden my race bike but once all season. I regularly ride for pleasure on a bicycle that has a front and rear rack. I ride to work on a bastardized cyclocross bike with panniers and a blinking tail light. I have hair on my legs. I will admit, and this is very, very hard for me, that I have considered purchasing one of those afore mentioned helmet mounted rearview mirrors. I am unrecognizable to myself.

I've known it would happen, in the back of my mind, for a while. I saw how the changes presented themselves in the older masters racers when I was still racing. These weren't the pack filler riders either, these were the guys that were winning races, wearing national champion jerseys, pioneers in American cycling, guys that you just knew were real bad asses when they were younger. And now some of these guys were wearing helmet mirrors all of the time. Guys riding on disk wheels all of the time, even for cyclocross and mountain bike races. Guys who only wore skinsuits despite the fact that they are hot, uncomfortable and have no pockets. Guys who used weird gear, like aerodynamic water bottles, even in long road races where such trinkets couldn't possibly have any positive effect. So yeah, I knew that old road racers get weirder and weirder as time goes on. I figure it must have something to do with the constant oxygen deficit that accompanies years of hard training. And now it's happened to me.

Here's the thing. Despite the fact that I just absolutely adore bicycles, I don't really want to ride my bike anymore. Unless, that is, I can ride it someplace in particular. You see, for years I've ridden thousands and thousands of miles a year and gotten...nowhere. I rode all of those miles just for the sake of riding miles. And I no longer want to do that. I want to ride my bicycle somewhere. I don't care where; it could be work, or the grocery store, my family reunion in Michigan, or, my favorite, The Beer King corner store. Just so long as I set out with some destination in mind. Sure, occasionally I'll get a hankering to hit the road just for the hell of it, usually on a nice sunny summer day (which is pretty rare in itself around here) but for the most part, I don't want to go out and ride the same tired loops that I've forced myself to ride inumerable times before just to get in another, say, 30 miles. Now a 900 mile bicycle ride, that's something that gets my blood pumping. As long as I don't call it a tour. Because deep down inside I'm still that smooth legged guy who absolutely must have the lightest possible wheels on the lightest possible frame. The guy wearing the massively logoed jersey and 25 function heart rate monitor. The guy who just absolutely has to go out and ride 30 miles in the rain because that's what his training program says. Wait, now I'm not sure which version of myself is crazier.

Introduction

I usually only write about skiing because, well, I really only care about skiing. No, that's not true, I care about stuff. Just not as much as skiing. Plus no one seems to care what I think about, with the possible and occasional exception of skiing. But here's the deal: I like writing and writing helps me get out of my own head for a little bit which, as anyone who's ever been in my head for any length of time will attest, is a good thing. So I'm going to have a go at writing about other stuff. Read it if you want, or if you're at work and you've already read all of your other blogs and whatnot and the only alternative is to actually get some work done. Just remember, I'm writing this for me, not for you, so don't leave me any nasty comments or I'll find out where you live and burn your house down.