stem balderdash

Let's get honest about this (and not just because my career didn't fit into one of these categories). STEM fields are not better-paying because they're more difficult. They're better-paying because they are traditionally male.

just do it; it's time.

Original here.

Just do it. It's time.

creating a monster

I have a number of Youtube channels I follow. One of the bike-y ones is Spindatt. His motto is "Ride Reasonably-Priced Bikes", which is right up my alley, even if his nose ring and ear gauges aren't.*

*I'm sure, being Mr. Wears-A-Necktie-And-Gonna-Be-65-In-A-Couple-Weeks, that I'm one of the ones who are supposed to be put off and horrified by the extreme jewelry. In the interests of mercy, I assure you I'm horrified. I certainly wouldn't want these folks risking hurting themselves by doing anything really risky to get my attention!

Spindatt has a shed full of bikes in various states of repair, maintenance, and upgrade. One of them, he calls the Rawnstercross, which name reference I sort-of got: it's more-or-less a "cross" (cyclocross) bike made of some pretty raw parts.

But then, why not just "rawcross" or something like that? Is there such a thing as Monstercross?

It turns out, there is. It's apparently a thing. From one of the linked articles:

Monster cross is a bike designed to fill the gap between a cyclocross bike and a mountain bike. A true do-it-all bike that rides singletrack, pavement and gravel well. Key features are rather simple: tires between 38-45mm tires and dirt drop handlebars.

Note that other references indicate that road drop bars work fine, too. And one of the suggested frames is the Surly Cross-Check.

Now, about five years ago, I built up a bike on a Surly Cross-Check frame, with drop handlebars. I intended it to be for a trail-and-road bike, and put 30mm tires on, much wider than the 25mm tires I was running on the Yellow Maserati road bike. I call it the Krakow Monster, partly because The Excellent Wife (TEW) was in Krakow when I built it up, and partly because of the original Krakow Monster.

But I never really loved it. Recently, I did a number of upgrades to it, and I like it a lot better.

But after seeing Spindatt put 40mm tires on a bike that he was building up, I thought maybe I hadn't gone far enough with the tire width. Well, my favorite bike shop needs some business; I'll order a pair of cheap 40mm tires, throw 'em on the Krakow Monster, and see how I like it.

Oh. My. Stars.

I took it out this past weekend on some of those paths on which I rode the weekend before. There were more people out this week, and, to maintain my safe social distancing, as I came upon them, I'd ride off the path and onto the nearby lawn, or into the woods a bit, or whatever.

The Monster just handled it. And with those wide tires (only inflated to about 50psi, as opposed to the 100+psi I run in the road bike), the ride was smooth like buttah.

It's not fast, but it does OK. Just to prove I could, I took it up Coppermine Road (which goes up about 400' in about .8 of a mile, unless it doesn't), and came down Old Georgetown. It was slow goin' up (although I got up over 32mph on the steep part of the downhill).

But it's a great ride. And it goes over a lot of surfaces without complaint. I could just as easily ride it in work pants and flat shoes as I did in full bike-y regalia.

Club riders (when we ever start riding again) will probably see me on the titanium road bike. I'll save this one for solo rides, local chores, and rides at lower paces.

But now I know why I built up this bike.

(Incidentally, the joke among bike-y folks about how many bikes you need is N_CO+1, where N_CO is the number of bikes you currently own. I adhere to a different rule: the number to own is Q_SD-1, where Q_SD is the quantity of bikes you've bought that will get you separated or divorced. I'm currently at that number, apparently.)

why he runs is why I ride

Of course it's too small; it might even be too small if you click on the pic. Instead, go check out the original, and then add Incidental Comics to your regular web check-ins.

You're welcome.

finding the path

So in the spirit of social distancing, I decided to do a solo ride today. I had planned to do another longish one... but I heard from a couple of people one was Bob N) that there were more paths in that section of Montgomery/Hillsborough through which I lead rides. So I took a look at RideWithGPS for the area, and on the Open Cycle map (you can choose which map to set the route from, or the satellite image) a number of the paths showed up. So I set a route based on going through as many of 'em as I could.

On the way, I passed by the entrance to the D&R Canal towpath park. It's pretty closed.

I thought I might have a hard time finding the path entrances again, once I found 'em, so I took pictures of some of the entrances... but it turns out that they're almost obvious, once you know what you're looking for:

It turns out that was a shorter ride than I wanted, so on the way back, I went up Coppermine and down Old Georgetown. I'm getting old & slow; not only was I slow going up Coppermine, but my top speed coming down Old Georgetown was only about 30 mph.

See the circuitous route here.

So there might be some path travel on rides I lead... if I ever get to lead a ride again!

anniversary celebration in the time of covid 19

So when your twenty-third wedding anniversary comes around during the enforced isolation and social distancing of COVID-19, what do you do?

Well, since you can't go out to dinner anywhere, you review your options for getting good take-out. It turns out you can't get dinner at The Blue Point Grill, since it's closed until further notice, as is the Stage Left Restaurant, so you call up your next favorite, the Trattoria Procaccini. They're open for take out, and when you try to make an order on the Tuesday for the following Friday, they get all flustered and assure you that you won't have any problem placing the order on Friday.

So on Friday, you're extra hungry early, and you call up and place the order and drive to Princeton to pick it up. You emerge from the car with a bandanna wrapped around your face as a mask, and with plastic gloves on, and endure the slightly worried looks of the cooking staff in the otherwise-abandoned front-of-house.

You pack both bags into the car (there are only two orders; it took two bags?), you hustle home to find The Excellent Wife (TEW) has completely cleared the kitchen table, and put out good china and silver and a candle (you can't use the dining room because that's been turned into your office-away-from-the-office because you're working from home these days). You eat wonderful food, and rejoice in one another's company, and count your blessings, such as they are. (You also complain about your relatives and make prediction about the dire fates sure to befall them; gossip about friends; count the days until retirement; make secret plans together that neither of you will tell anyone else.)

Then you take the anniversary picture yourself (that's usually done by a waiter at the place you've gone to dinner) with your selfie camera, and decide that the picture is better done by somebody else.