in response to the boston marathon bombing

When I first heard about the bombing at the Boston Marathon, the numbers were two dead and twenty-two injured; I've since heard that the number injured is larger. My thought was, "And how many people today died in car accidents? How many from alcohol? How many from poor diet and no exercise? Tobacco kills about a hundred a day; a week's worth of tobacco deaths alone will swamp this number."

But from this page at The Atlantic, I see Patton Oswalt has a better take on it than I:

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

Thank you, Mr. Oswalt.

canal, rocky hill, & millstone tour

I took an unplanned day off today, and the car went in the shop for a recall, oil change, and something-unexpected to the tune of $500+. My only consolation was this ride (see the linked route), of which I am unreasonably proud. First of all, it's a modification of a route Dave H told me about... and I did the modification myself (which, as navigationally-challenged as I am, is a milestone for me [MILESTONE! HAH! I crack myself up sometimes]), and second, I did it at an average of 17.4 for the whole ride. I was at 18.1 when I stopped at the crossing at Blackwells Mills, and decided to cruise the rest of the way. I hadn't had breakfast, and got the Pretzels of Doom at the Philly Pretzel Factory in Hopewell (3 for $3; ate one in Hopewell, one at Blackwells Mills, and the last at Colonial Park; Little Joe, if you're reading this, you're right: I find I can go better longer if I eat something).

For you folks who lead all the time, feel free to sneer at my navigation efforts; I liken it to dyslexia, in that the information is there but the synapses just don't close right - and I have every respect for folks like Laura OLPH and Peter F, who learned their navigation by going on rides and studying maps. I just don't think I'm able to do that. As for the speed, I ride fastest when I ride alone; it's both a promise I made to The Excellent Wife (TEW) and an effort to starve that competitive urge.

Later, I did an additional five miles on the bike to go pick up the car. The dealership is about two miles away driving, but I didn't want to ride on Route 1, so I did a five-mile roundabout (and I still had to ride on an on-ramp-and-off-ramp on Route 1 for a short distance). The bike clothes are just coming out of the wash now. Maybe I'll do Dennis W's Old Guys ride tomorrow if the weather holds.

everyone will want one except me

Friend Dave C forwarded this week's Gizmag newsletter. He's apparently quite taken with this:

It's not a high-tech thermos; it's a bluetooth speaker that will fit in your bottle cage. It will run off your smartphone, and will even act as a hands-free phone unit. See the article.

It's cool, but I don't use a smartphone, and it brings to the ride music that I'm almost sure I don't want there. While I usually play music when I'm working on the bikes (and I've got a barely-functioning Linux system to stream music or play .mp3's in the garage), the only music I want on the ride is the music that comes to me as I pedal. It happens; I frequently sing to myself as we ride (I'm a bit more obnoxious on my solo rides, where the only person I have to worry about pissin' off is myself). And that's the way I want it.

I know many riders will go for this, but I also know that there are a few of us who seek the solace of the silence of the ride. de gustibus... in any case, it's not for me.

committed

That D-ride I wrote about is actually going to be listed for next month. I guess I'm gonna have to do it.

I'm sure I can't advertise this, but I don't have access to the member list, and I don't intend to get it. I promise not to throw people off the ride if they aren't club members - although I will adhere to the club rule about helmets (and maybe the one about carrying a water bottle, although, as Erich W knows, there's no rule about having anything in it).

Tell your ride-wary friends: this will be the lowest-pressure ride this season, except for any I may do later in the year. If anybody wants to try out a group ride, but is afraid they're too slow, or too inexperienced, this will be the one to do.

And you can come along as support! I'm planning a canal-towpath ride. Bring a bike with wide tires. Huffies welcome!

cold-to-warm ride

Laura OLPH emailed that, for this Sunday ride, she didn't want to leave out of Pennington again and do those roads; instead, she wanted to leave from Lambertville and visit the Homestead Coffee Roasters for the break. Well, cool! Except for the long drive to the start, I'm usually up for a new route and some new roads, and it was going to be cool enough today that coffee at Homestead was an attraction. So, even though it was a comparatively late night for me (caught the Winter's Tale at the McCarter; see one of yesterday's posts for the link - we loved it; Jack, another rider who was along today, didn't, but I'm not sure he's a Shakespeare fan anyway), I got out of bed early enough to be coffee-ed, bagel-ed, and bathroom-ed on time for the 8:30 start in Lambertville.

It was a beautiful ride. The day was clear, we went over some nifty hills (and saw some beautiful vistas; Laura got some pictures I hope she'll post), saw neat new roads. All the evidences of early spring are out: magnolias, forsythias, and all the other early flowers I have no idea how to name. It was, however, colder and windier than I would have expected; several of the six-or-seven of us (depending on when you counted) complained about that.

We did this route. That early trip up Pine Hill was more than I bargained for early on, but that was the worst hill of the day, and we got it out of the way early. At one point, we stopped at the corner of Senator Stout Road and Hog Hollow Road, and I liked the sound of that, I must have said it at least four times.

Seven of us started: Jack, Ron S, Glen, Little Joe, and The Other Ron (who has that Mercian I was lusting after in January; I had to stay away because the drooling was getting distracting). Glen is recovering from shoulder surgery, and had to break off before the break, but I'm impressed that he came along at all (and the Slugs do have a tradition of fewer people ending the ride than starting it).

One of us was tired on the way back, and was thinking of breaking off and going straight down 29 back to Lambertville, until Laura dangled a bait he couldn't resist going for: How 'bout Federal Twist all the way down, from one end at the top (where I'd never been, but where there are a few rolling hills) to the bottom (with those straight, steep downhills)? He went for it, and over we went - even I, one of the worst descenders I know, got up over 40mph on that stretch, only the third time in my life I've done that.

Don't tell my wife; she thinks I'm a safer rider than that.

early spring ride with ira

Tom H has a ride to Belmar coming, so he was doing a 55-mile pickup ride in prep for that today, but I had a hot date with The Excellent Wife (TEW) yesterday, and another one tonight, and I didn't want to risk being overtired by the early start and long distance to it... and I haven't seen the Saturday Cranbury folks for a while... and anyway, I decided to do Ira's ride out of Cranbury today, as did sixteen others.

Well, sixteen to start, anyway. Peter F led a B+ ride out of there at the same time, and we hadn't gone a mile when one of our number split off and picked up Peter's ride. It wasn't really an omen; over the course of the ride, two others went off, but they were heading for home on the way back, so that didn't count.

Here's the route, which includes my 8-or-so-mile ride to the ride from Plainsboro (and my four-or-so-mile ride back). We went over some of Ira's favorite roads; through the Assunpink (more on that in a bit), and down to Phil's, then wide east and north to avoid some of the hills and winds on the way back (although the wicked Cranbury west winds were somewhat mitigated today).

Along with us came an arrant newbie, Christina, who'd never done a group ride before. She did really well, although when she saw that first hill into the Assunpink, I thought I saw her eyes get wide. She kept up, though, and made it through the 42-or-so miles of the ride with only a chain drop for mishap. She made the mistake of asking me an equipment question, though, and had to ride off and talk to some sensible people before I'd even got to chapter six of my usual dissertation.

Oh, well. Tomorrow, to Lambertville for a ride with Laura OLPH and the Hill Slugs.

still married

(Post title is a reference to/shameless ripoff of Keillor's book.)

The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I have a wedding anniversary at this time of year. This year is our 16th (I have no idea how that happened), and TEW set up an excellent date (we have this system that works for us, because I am clueless when it comes to goin' out & doin' stuff: she makes the plans, and I do most of the driving and the paying).

After a trip to Penzey's in Philadelphia, we headed over to the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Rodin Museum. We're members of the PMA, and we've been talking about stopping in at the Rodin Museum for years (we pass it when we walk from the PMA to the Reading Terminal Market). The Rodin Museum is a little gem. Most of the collection was donated by a movie mogul named Mastbaum (who made sure he got credit; a bust of him is in a focal point in the room - but, hey, if he's gonna spend his money that way, he can certainly get a credit for it!). For folks who know Rodin: They've got a casting of the Gates of Hell, several Balzac's, a Burghers of Calais, and (of course) a Thinker out front. For those who don't: Rodin was a sculptor who worked in clay, then had many of his works done in plaster to be made into bronze castings. Rodin was a great sculptor, and part of the reason he's neat is that he integrates the sculpting process - tool marks, the marks of the clay itself - into the final works; he was one of the first to do this (although there are sculptures by Michelangelo that do it, too). It's not an all-day attraction, but it's a good visit.

Then on to the PMA itself, where there is an ongoing series of "Art after Five". We saw the Hot Club of Philadelphia, a Gypsy Jazz group (the name of the group is a reference to Django Reinhardt's band, the Hot Club de France). While the stone lobby of the Museum is not the ideal place to hear this kind of band, it was a great show, and not the kind of thing to which we would normally go.

Then to dinner at Walnut Hill Restaurant School. We went to the CIA (no, not that CIA) a few years ago, and had good luck, and our luck was borne out again. The food was good (and inexpensive, for what we got!). These are students who are looking to run restaurants and food services. My idea is that they are interested in cooking and need to learn about management, so I count on good food, but I expect the service to be friendly and inefficient (which it kinda was). The kids are workin' so hard, though, it's hard to find fault with 'em.

It was a great date. How on earth did I stay married to TEW for sixteen years?

another stupid internet law

As the logo to the lower right indicates, I support the Internet Defense League. Aaron Swartz, who developed some of the technologies on which the web depends, killed himself after being hounded by law enforcement over questionable clauses in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).

According to the Internet Defense League:

The expansive CFAA was first passed in the mid-1980s, before most households had computers, let alone Internet access.  Yet law enforcement has interpreted it to criminalize even mundane Internet use, such as petty violations of websites' fine-print terms of service agreements.  Under this interpretation commonplace Internet use would technically be criminalized, including:

• Sharing passwords for Facebook or other social media sites with friends;
• Starting a social media profile under a pseudonym; 
• Exaggerating your height on a dating site;
• Visiting a site if you're under the stipulated age requirement (under 18 for many sites)
• Blocking cookies in a way that enables you to circumvent a news site's paywall.  (For instance, the New York Times website cannot block those who delete cookies from reading more than the allotted number of free articles each month.)

Additionally, it is under the CFAA that law enforcement has undertaken a recent spate of prosecutions of questionable merit -- including that of our friend and Demand Progress cofounder Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide earlier this year while being prosecuted for downloading too many academic articles from JSTOR.

You can go to this site and easily contact lawmakers with your views about the bill. Check it out.

riders come out of the woodwork

Today was the first day temps were expected to be near 60° for the year, and you could tell; we started Winter Larry's ride with fifteen people today, including two newbies who had never been on a Freewheeler ride before.

Among the others were some fast folks whom I haven't seen in months, and they were ready to go; we started off fast right out of Cranbury, and some of our number were struggling to keep up with the pace set by the group. One rider, complaining of tired legs and a skipping cogset, dropped off before we had goone ten miles (he was noticeably lagging from the start). Another decided to maintain her own pace, within the range rating for the ride.

(By the way, at least two people have mentioned not understanding the references I make in some of these posts, and being surprised when I said that I usually link to definitions/explanations. Text that looks like "within the range of the ride" in the previous paragraph is a link. In most browsers, it's a different color; in some, it may also be underlined. I set my links so they open in a new tab or window, so you can come back here if you want to. Or not.)

Well before the break in New Egypt, we had split into a faster and a slower group, and there was a difference: one of the faster riders had an average of 16.1, and I, mostly with the slower group, had an average of 15.3 when we got back to Cranbury.

The route (that's a link, too), which includes my 8-mile ride-to-the-ride after my customary bagel, and my 4-mile ride back to the car, went into the wind on the way down, and the wind was at our backs on the way back (unusual for Larry's rides). We were probably faster on the way back than on the way there.

I'm not going to attempt to list all the names; I'm sure I'll forget many. I was glad to see people I haven't seen in months, and some others I've been seeing regularly. For you two new guys, we're not usually that fast (see this ride, and this one)... but, now that I check it out, sometimes we are. More or less.

Oh, well.

leading a d ride

The Excellent Wife (TEW) has agreed to come along if I lead a few D rides this season. I just sent off the announcement for the first one:

Sunday, May 19 D 14-18 mi 8:30am
PURPLE COW RIDE: Almost as rare as a purple cow is this Freewheelers D ride! No attitudes, no lectures, lots of stops, nobody dropped – if you can stay upright on your bike for the distance, you can do this ride; we'll go at the pace of the slowest riders. If you've been thinking of trying out a group ride, this may be the one for you. Details on my blog: seemingverb.blogspot.com a few days before the ride – ride will be cancelled for weather, insurrection, or the Zombie Apocalypse.
LEADER: Jim Brittain (email & phone)

Tell your friends, if they have any inkling to do a group ride. We're more likely to be too slow than too fast! Rated speeds for D rides are 8-9mph average, and I know that I can keep a bike upright at 2.3mph (as Quaker founder George Fox said [even though he never heard of lycra or carbon fiber in his life], "This I know experimentally").

not quite spring

The email from Cheryl on Friday said:

I didn't see a hilly ride in the book for tomorrow, April 7th.   Any takers for a ride starting at 9 AM out of Pennington?  I have to be back by 12:30 PM so that's why the early start... Let me know if there is any interest.

... but  between the young lady with the multiple-dyed hair and the multiple suicide attempts, and the guy who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from his own history of gang membership and violent crime, I didn't get a chance to get back to her until late in the day, by which time Dave C had emailed asking me to come on Cheryl's pickup ride, too. So I responded that I was planning to go, and Cheryl emailed back that she thought I was avoiding her because I'd responded so late. Hrmph. Some of youse-all take me way too seriously.

I am roundly sick of cold weather, so during the week I took off the pedals that take the winter shoes and put on the ones that take the summer shoes. And despite predictions of temps in the 30's at the time I left the house, I wore only three layers instead of the customary four for cold weather. I paid for it, too; I was cold when we first started to spin out of Pennington. It warmed up later, but just barely enough for the gear I had on.

The regular reader will notice that I have no link to the ride route. After my rant a few days ago, I set my GPS to show the map instead of the ride data... and then forgot to turn it on to collect that data. Cheryl promised to send me a link to the route; I'll plan to edit the post when she does.  Edit: Dave C sent me this link to the route he saved in his GPS... and here's Cheryl's link to her route on RideWithGPS.

Five of us: Little Joe joined Dave from the Pennsylvania delegation, and Ron S came. We left Pennington for a ride up into the hills, and Cheryl told us we'd have most of the hills after the break. I remember going to Peacock's at the bottom of the long hill at Lindbergh, and then going across the ridge. I remember Rainbow hill, and going up the hill at Crusher Road to see the tree with the big burl... but we did cut the route a bit short to make sure Cheryl got back for an appointment.

As we were coming down Pennington-Rocky Hill road into Pennington, we took the left onto Old Mill, which is now open, apparently for the first time in living memory. That led to a back way into Pennington along Federal City Road, which was blessedly free of traffic and nicely surfaced; and, when we got to Pennington-Lawrenceville Road, I actually knew where I was and how to get back. I don't know who was more consternated by that experience, me or Little Joe, who was next to me at the time.

Don't worry, Joe; I don't expect it will happen again soon.

ride for the ride's sake

I work a nine-days-in-two-weeks schedule, and I'm off every other Wednesday. In season, I like to ride with a group of the Princeton Freewheelers (I call 'em the "Old Guys") who ride together three times each week, but in this cold, they don't usually go out. But temps were up in the 40° range by late morning yesterday, so I got the bike out.

Regular readers may know that I'm trying to avoid competitiveness in my riding: I don't compete for speed, I don't post my aggregate distance ridden, and so on. On yesterday's ride, I didn't take my computer.

Here's what I noticed: I started off into a headwind, and I pushed hard for a few miles to keep my average speed up, even though I wasn't registering my average speed. But when I turned onto Canal Road (sideways to the wind, and the canal has tress enough to block much of the wind), I set a different pace: not slow, but one that I could maintain, probably for hours. I decided not to climb Coppermine (and I think that decision was related to not having the computer on), and to stop at the Philly Pretzel Factory in Rocky Hill for lunch (which decision was solely related to feeling deprived; I've been trying to get my weight back down). Three for $3; I ate one right away, and had another in Griggstown. Gotta keep the energy up.

Tailwind on the way back, and I was cranking to take advantage of it. I know I was going fast because of how the traffic was passing me on the local streets (not as quickly as they sometimes do).

It was a fun ride. And I think I'm going to ride without computer more frequently. When I do ride with the computer (my GPS), I'll keep it on the map setting so I don't see the numbers.

After all, if it isn't fun, why bother?

(The next time you come on a Hill Slug ride, ask Laura OLPH about "Tell It To Strava".)