The week after that I had a fairly successful 77 mile ride that was meant to be a 71 mile ride. I lost gps connection in some deep valley between Seneca and Canandaigua Lakes after my planned route took me down some terrible gravel dirt roads that were insanely steep downhills. I stopped following my route and started following paved roads. I had a good time but was tired by the end. Tired but not destroyed so a triumph of a sort.

The next week the weather was going to be bad. I wanted to stick to the training plan and do 75 miles. I was determined to do it so I even bought some gear that I believed would keep me warm enough in 35 degrees and soaking rain. If there is apparel that will work in those conditions for an extended period, I have not found it yet. My bike shoes were my downfall, the necessary insulation barely fit in my shoe, so my foot was insulated but since there wasn’t much blood making it to my toes, it didn’t really matter. Then when they got soaked with water they just kept getting colder and colder. I tried some toe warmers which really just cut off more circulation and didn’t really get warm anyway.

I made it all the way to the Alton Coffee cup and stood in their parking lot trying to operate my phone through a ziplock bag to text Brian that I was aborting the planned adventure and heading back. The ride back was mostly me wondering if you could get frostbite when it was above freezing. Only my feet were cold and numb so I didn’t think I’d get hypothermia.

When I got home and peeled off my socks my feet looked horrible red and when I ran lukewarm water over them they looked like they were turning black. I got freaked out and decided to let them warm up on their own and hope to avoid amputation. They were fine in about an hour and a half. I was disappointed that the weather had defeated me but I think heading home was the right plan. Next time I go out in that kind of weather I’ll take the hybrid and wear my boots. Not sure I can do 70+ on they hybrid but I’m pretty sure waterproof boots are important. There is suffering in cycling but it’s also supposed to be fun.

I did another long ride the following week. A large part of it was along the shore of Lake Ontario. Pretty but cold even on a sunny day in early spring. I had some chilly foot moments that made me worry that I was going to repeat the previous week. Once I headed south, away from the lake I warmed up quickly. Some of the parts along the Wayne, Monroe county border were kind of boring. Too populated. It wasn’t unpleasant, it’s just that if I’m going to ride past a bunch of houses I’d rather see something unusual than a repeating pattern of well manicured lawns in front of identical ranch houses. I wish people were more creative with their home building. I wonder if there’s some kind of Weird Architecture Stimulus Package that could be put in place to make suburbs less boring. If you built your house in the shape of a farm animal, you could get a serious tax deduction. Imagine the awesomeness of that neighborhood. Anyway, that ride went well, I finished with more energy than I had in a long time.

For my century I was watching the weather obsessively. I was trying to decide whether to do it on Sunday the 6th or do it on my birthday (the 8th). The weather looked good on the 6th so I went for it. I decided to leave from my house and ride south to Watkins Glen on the East side of Seneca lake and then back home on the West side. I started about 7:15 a.m. It was beautiful. Riding early on cool Sunday mornings has to be the best biking time hands down. It’s quiet, the birds are singing, the only people you see are wandering to their mailboxes to get the paper in their bathrobes.

Sampson Lake State Park was kind of neat to ride through because there was almost no traffic and a road/path that was bike and pedestrian only, right along the lake. Hills. Hills. Hills. Got chased by cows (they were behind a fence). Waterfall. Filled my camelback with nasty looking water at a park in Watkins Glen. It tasted fine though. Super steep hill to get out of Watkins Glen. Wineries. Wineries. Wineries. I had a moment before I got to Dresden where I felt the distance between me and the end of the ride was way too far, but I recovered from that quickly. I really felt pretty good until the last 14 miles from Geneva to home. It was still ok but I was tired. I made it home around 5:30ish. Then I ate a bunch of food that was terrible for me and fell asleep.

I haven’t been out on the bike much since. I did 30 miles this past weekend and bumped up my Eddington number. I’m definitely not sick of riding or anything, I’ve just had some other stuff on my plate.

Yesterday's Weather

Weather Predictions for Saturday

The screenshots are from weatherspark.com.

… but I’ve been doing a lot of night riding and the more lights I’ve got going the safer I feel. Yesterday I didn’t ride anywhere near as far as I’d meant to but at least I got the lights on.

Now I’ll have to adjust my spedometer though because the lights bump into the sensor when they go by. I will probably just have to move the magnet and the sensor to the other side of the fork.

Here’s a pretty lousy video of them in action.

It was just sitting in the road, looking around. There were bits of bumper and other things that had come off the bumper. It was clear that I wasn’t the only person who’d called to report it. While I was on the phone with them, a few more cars drove by. The deer got freaked out and stood up and fell down and then somehow got up and off the road and disappeared into the cattail marsh. I felt bad for it but I didn’t know what else I could do at that point so I continued on my mission.

A mile later I was cruising along trying to avoid potholes in the dark when five or six deer darted across the road right in front of me, so close I could smell them. They did not smell good. I felt lucky to have avoided a collision with them.

I got to Wegmans and couldn’t bring myself to lock my bike to the rack that is so light weight I can pick it up with one hand. I am generally a trusting person, but I love my bike and I don’t think i could afford to replace it, so I found a post to lock it to instead. A guy walked by and said “nice bike” so then I was paranoid that there was a gang of bike thieves out to get me.

I biked home with seven pounds of pork, three bottles of bbq sauce, a pound of green beans, and 2 bags of shredded cabbage in my pack. It wasn’t a bad distance for the weight but I wouldn’t have wanted to go much further with that on my back.

I got back and I still had another four miles that I wanted to get in that day so I rode around the block one more time.

All in all a pretty good ride. I wish I had felt as energetic today. I ended up spending quite a while putting my monkeylectric lights on the bike and then just doing one lap for the day.

One of the sessions I chose was biking concerns in map maker. I already knew it was a complicated issue. There are a lot of different kinds of cyclists. Some people prefer bike trails, some are unphased by traffic.

I actually had the opportunity to suggest to one of the engineers that it would be really really handy for cyclists to be able to choose and option for “only paved roads” when using google biking directions. After all,  since I try to mark all the unpaved roads I encounter while riding, I would like that data to be able to benefit someone, and also me. He seemed to think it was a good idea. Hopefully he wasn’t just humoring me.

I also chose a couple of sessions on map ups. So if anyone wants to learn about map maker, let me know. I am happy to evangelize at you or just tell you what you want to know. Your choice.

I brought my folding bike with me but there really wasn’t time to do much exploring on my own. I think I would like to go back again sometime and drag Brian with me. I think he’d like it a lot and he actually speaks some French. I barely speak English.

My bike training plan did suffer because of this trip. Somehow I’m going to get back on track tomorrow.

• A decent photo scanner. I want to scan all my family photos so I can have my own copies. Brian wants a book scanner. I wonder if there’s anything that’s good at doing both things. I have been too lazy to do any serious research.
• Some kind of helmet mounted video camera would be cool because I don’t look like enough of a dork with just a light strapped to my head. Not really though, these things are expensive and I can do roughly the same thing with my actual camera and the gorilla pod.
• I’m not actually giving anyone any reasonable ideas here, I know.
• A cable to connect my garmin etrex legend to the computer so I can pull data off of it. I lost the cable and have been to lazy to figure out what the correct replacement would be. Laziness is a theme here.
• I need a new Adirondack High Peaks guidebook. Mine is really out of date. I think all of my ADK guidebooks are out date at this point though.
• Hiking socks, but nothing that will shrink in the laundry. I do not follow laundry protocols.
• A biolite camp stove - but do not really buy this for me it’s too expensive. I just want it.
• Anything with an Adventure Time, Fallout, Portal, TF2, or Skyrim theme, or zombies. They’re always good.
• Cephalopod themed items are also good.
• Anything map related
• rechargable aa batteries
• Some kind of battery + charger organization system
• a picnic table
• a couch. or you could just build me an Ikea nearby so I can just go get one myself
• I need some sunglasses or something for biking but I’ll probably have bought myself some by the time my birthday rolls around. I’m tired of being temporarily blinded by insects and small stones.
• I’ve already got plenty of video games. I haven’t finished Skyrim and I’ve barely started I am Alive.
• I would like to be genetically engineered to not get sunburns anymore. Maybe I can be a lizard person.
• I need a bike tune up.
• Um… I feel like I don’t really need much stuff, even though I’ve listed a lot of things. Experiences are better than stuff and I’ve been working to seek some more of those out.
• Kiva gift certificates are fun too.
• I’d ask for bike tools but I don’t really know what I need.

Seriously though, I don’t need anything.

It is also possible that I’m just dehydrated and tired. It is quite likely in fact.

Anyway,

Today Brian’s sister Jodi and I rode around Keuka Bluff. Her name is Jodi too, only with an ‘I’ instead of a ‘Y’.   The only thing that makes telling stories that involve her more confusing is that her significant other is also named Brian.

The other Jodi

Anyway, back to the bluff. I felt bad about the crappy bike I was loaning her. The shifting doesn’t always work that well and she’s not got a whole lot of experience with shifting. But… it would still be better than a mountain bike on a 20 mile ride.

The roads around the bluff aren’t in the best shape but there are barely any cars so you can ride two abreast and chat.

There were a couple of big climbs. I think the only reason I didn’t get off my bike and walk for the second one was because I was convinced I wouldn’t manage to stop without toppling over. I’m way more confident with the clipless pedals now but still a bit of a spaz. So I just kept pedaling even though I wasn’t sure I could.

There were at least ten vultures on the west side of the bluff. Four of them were sitting in the road and there were a bunch of them in the trees overhead just hanging out. They weren’t particularly worried about us and didn’t bother to relocate too far away when we rode past. It was really cool getting to see them close up.

Turkey Vultures

It was rainy in the morning so we delayed a little bit and ended up starting around 11:30. I should have eaten before I left. I ended up doing the whole ride fueled by a bowl of cottage cheese I’d eaten four hours earlier and a bunch of dried bananas which are great, by the end I was really ready for something more substantial.

We stopped at Seneca Farms where I ordered fried chicken and corn fritters. They were delicious but I guarantee they had more calories than I could have possibly burned on the ride.

Did another longish ride today. 53 miles. I felt a lot better than last week. I rode south almost to Dresden past lots of wineries and vineyards. Then I climbed back up on to the land between the lakes and rode back home past farms and wild turkeys and horses that thought I should give them my apricots. I didn’t. Horses will pretty much drop dead over anything. For such big strong critters they seem to have pretty useless digestive tracts.

On my way through Geneva, a pickup truck with a giant dog in the back passed me. I didn’t know the giant dog was there until it stood up with it’s front paws on the top of the cab and it was barking at me like crazy. It startled me and I think I might have loudly strung together a few words that might have been deemed offensive by some. or many.

A few miles later I passed a bar where the truck was parked with the dog tied to it. It was excited to have another opportunity to let me know that it would like to gnaw off my legs.

A few miles after that the truck passed me again and the dog was still excited to see me. I definitely prefer being chased by dogs in trucks to dogs on the ground.

I passed a tractor that was probably going about 13 or 14 mph. Not a big achievement, I suppose, but somehow the Breaking Away music was playing in my head. Of course he caught right back up to me because of this lovely little little bit of terrain.

He wouldn't have caught up to me if it weren't for those meddling kids... I mean valleys.

Somehow when I realized I was in the last quarter of the ride and I still had a ton of energy and felt good I was almost involuntarily sprinting. I kept thinking who’s legs are these? These are definitely not my legs.

I think I have loaned $50 – $75 of my own money, and I asked for gift certificates one xmas. As it get’s repaid I re-loan it to other people so I can help numerous people with with one chunk of money. So far I’ve made 15 loans to people in 12 different countries.

Countries where I've made loans (Ukraine and U.S. were on the next page)

If you want to try it out Kiva has a bunch of Free Trials. There are about 5000 left as I’m writing this. If you’re curious and want to try it out without spending your own money this is the way to go. Act fast before they’re gone.