lost & alone on the mcbride ride

Today was the annual Ride for McBride, a charity ride (proceeds go to a scholarship for a student at the Social Work school at UPenn). The Hill Slugs put together a team to do the 50-mile ride. On yesterday's ride, Laura OLPH, Ron S, and I agreed to meet for a ride-to-the-ride (I'm a sucker for extra miles), and we didn't have any idea how many we'd have at the start.

We left with sixteen, with varying abilities for near-A-level to kind-of-C+-level. Although we were good about getting back together at intersections and turns,we were spread out, on more than one occasion, over more than a mile. I swept, and, thinking that I had the GPS with me, and that I'd always be able to at least see the main group, I didn't carry a cue sheet. Do you see where this is leading?

Before the rest stop, I was back with one of the slow riders, and lost sight of the group. I knew we were coming to the rest stop, but didn't know where it was... and we blew right past it, and went on for a couple of miles before we figured out our error and went back. As we went back, I saw our group leaving the rest stop and proceeding on. I went back to the stop, and after a quick refresh (ahem), decided I'd try to catch up with the group. I was angry.

But he GPS kept losing the route, and I couldn't keep track of the road markings. I went back and forth (I got lost four times near one turn) and finally picked up the arrows again, and pedaled like crazy to try and catch up to the group  ahead of me. My average before the break was about 14.8, and by the end of the main ride was 16.4.

An odd thing happened to the anger as I was proceeding alone on the route. I realized i couldn't be angry at the planners, or the rest of the group, or anybody else but myself. It was my responsibility to carry a cue sheet, or to keep up with my group (which I could have easily done if I hadn't fallen back with the straggler). Even now, hours later, I'm surprised at this. Who IS this guy? What has happened to me? I was eager to explain this to the other riders on my team when I got to the end.

Except the main group wasn't ahead of me. Evidently, when I was lost, I cut off part of the route where they were, and I got into the stop ahead of them. There's a picture below of Chris C threatening to ride into me as I was aiming the camera at him. Laura thinks that I cut off part of the route when I was lost, and went around the main group. She'll look at my route (that's on RideWithGps, the Garmin site is not responding as I write this, and the route includes our rides to and from the start), and. I hope, point out the error of my ways (and how apropos is that idiom in this context!).

Some pictures below. I only got three in the morning before the cold affected the batteries.

John & Jane Danek:

The rest are from after the ride, when the batteries had warmed up:

Here's Chris threatening to make roadkill of me:

Laura and the Wottons think I found a wormhole:

Mighty Mike!

Two Rons:

My favorite part of this picture is that nobody who's in it will like it very much.

laura olph post guru fit ride

Laura OLPH got fitted with the Guru system over at Hart's, and had her flats bike, Kermit, and her hill bike, Miss Piggy, adjusted to reflect the results of the Guru fit. She wanted a hilly-but-not-too-much-so ride to test out the fit on Piggy prior to doing the McBride Ride tomorrow, so she sent out an email request to a few of the Hill Slugs.

Ron S and I agreed to go, and we hoped some others might. I met Laura before the start to get in a few extra miles (her husband, Professor Jack, says that work on his survey book on reference works is proceeding; I can hardly wait, and I have promised him at least one sale!). We picked up Ron S at the usual Pennington site... and no one else came.

So the three of us did this route. Not too hilly; we went up Poor Farm, but we went DOWN Rileyville (I didn't know you were ALLOWED  to go down Rileyville). Here's Ron coming around an early turn.

... and Laura, just long enough later for me to have the camera ready:

Here's the two of 'em:

And just because sometimes I need to get all "meta" and self-referential, here's me taking a picture of Laura taking a picture.

 I asked Laura a few times whether she thought the fit made a difference. Early on, she thought if she were as fast as Ron going up Poor Farm, that would make the difference (she wasn't), but at the end of the ride, she noticed that she was riding on the hoods of the handlebars much more than she had in the past (she usually used to ride on the "flats", which is what I call the sections of the handlebar immediately adjacent to the stem). The careful eye will note in the picture above of both Laura and Ron that she is doing a tuck, which she rarely does. At at the end, the back pain which seems to be a regular post-ride event for her was not so strongly in evidence. I came to the conclusion that she thought the fit was a success... but we'll see how she does on the McBride Ride tomorrow. (Are you comin'? Wear red - Joe's favorite color.)

icedot crash sensor

Dave H sent me the link to this video. It's the teardown of a crash sensor that links to an app on our smartphone; if it thinks you've been in a crash, it messages people on your contact list. Which is probably a good idea...

...but what REALLY nails me are the smart, earnest, alt-looking women doing the video. Between the sky-blue nail polish on the one young woman, and the pink hair on the other... and the way they rattle off those parts and their features and capabilities... well, I had a geek-gasm right here at the keyboard.

Dave's link was to the Velonews article... but I'm heading over to Adafruit videos in search of more geekly excellence. Thanks, Dave!

ride for mcbride

I don't think I ever met Joe McBride, but I know a number of his friends, and by them, I can tell a lot about him. He was clearly salty, opinionated, and well-loved. He taught at the U Penn School of Social Policy & Practice.

He was killed in a cycling accident a few years ago, and, ever since, his friends and family have a charity ride in his honor, going for a scholarship to that school. The first was a pickup ride in the November after he died; subsequent rides have been more organized. I've supported all of them (I didn't ride one due to illness), and I keep a red jersey - evidently Joe's favorite color - specifically to do this ride.

This year's ride is Sunday, Sept 15. Laura OLPH and the Hill Slugs are going. We'll be starting about 8am.

Come on out. Ride for a guy who loved riding, who was loved by riders, and who lived, but not long enough.

roly poly fish heads

So do you remember that fish head in the road on the Sourland Spectacular ride? Jackie F got a picture of it:

I'm not smart enough to make this stuff up.

sourland spectacular

Laura OLPH and I had some disagreement about whether she had formed a team to ride the Sourland Spectacular today (I thought she had, but it was news to her), but six of us got together to do it anyway: besides us, there were Ron S, Jackie, Joe M, and Ed C (first time I've seen him on a ride since about Easter!).

The organizers of the event said that the final route would be up by Thursday night, so insomniac Plain Jim downloaded a cue sheet at 4:30 Friday morning and loaded the route into MapMyRide.Com so I could get a .gpx file for the Garmin. But on the way out of the first rest stop, they had us go right instead of left, or left instead of right, and we wound up doing this route. I have never had a GPS route file for an organized ride that was accurate, and this was no exception.

It was cold at the start; one rider said he saw 46°. Here are a few of us shivering at the sign-in:

Before we left, Jackie had a flat; she & Ron repaired it... and then she had another about twenty feet into the ride, so back she went to the mechanic at the start. Here's Oscar from Hart's setting 'em straight.

And so off we went. The first rest stop was also the third rest stop; I forgot to get pictures the first time we went... possibly because just before the stop, there was a fish head the size of a softball in the road. Was it left by a huge, but disoriented seagull? Was it a message to the damn bikers that we would sleep with the fishes? The mystery has not been cleared up.

After the rest stop (and the wrong-way direction that so confused the GPS - grrr...), we proceeded along. Some pictures of that part of the route (I zipped up some hills to get some pictures of people coming behind me).

Laura and Joe M (and some people I don't recognize) below:

I like this of Jackie:

Later, Laura & Ron:

The second rest stop was at a winery (I forget which). It was beautiful.

There's Carol Heffler, below, manning the rest stop. Her husband, Michael, is one of the forces behind this ride.

Some pictures at the third stop:

This woman told us that she had seen to the disposal of the offending fish head:

There's Joe getting something to drink...

... from this delightful young lady:

Ron & Jackie. I think that's Ed you can see between them. How did I not get a better picture of him?

After the ride, Laura was complaining of back pain, so she hung from a low branch for a minute (I think she'd seen Jackie do it). Then she did a couple of pull-ups to show us how it's done:

Not only is that John W looking at you in this picture, it's Peter H sitting on the ground looking away.

Good swag at this ride. Biking caps (too small for my big head, so The Excellent Wife [TEW] got mine), pizza from Nomad Pizza, pulled pork sandwiches, brownie sundaes, and free samples of Bai Antioxidant drink. Bai may be snake oil, but it's good-tasting snake oil. Laura & Jackie at the table:

Good ride. Great day. Lots of swag, good stops, not-too-demanding route. Some of the proceeds go to the support of the Sourland Planning Council. I'd do it again.

...as a feather

The Excellent Mother-In-Law, 83 years old (& walks with a cane) lifts the new bike. That's The Excellent Wife (TEW), owner of the bike in question, in the back.

pseudo-a rider, part two

19.2 average on the loop from home, this time including going up Coppermine.

I can't do it all the time, and I can't predict when I will be able to do it... but it's good to be able to, now and again.

I guess I'm ready for the Sourland Spectacular tomorrow.

underground bike parking

Al P sent this video of an underground bike parking system from Japan:

Does anybody remember Rube Goldberg?

(And does all the nuttiness in the world come from Japan, or does it just seem that way?)

ain't what i used to be...

I just found this picture of me from a few months after I had decided to start losing weight. At the time this picture was taken, I had already lost 20 of the 45 lbs. I managed to lose.

Since going up to visit the family in Buffalo, I've managed to gain back 5 lbs., which I'm working on getting rid of again. I still have some of my fat pants, but I do NOT want to get 'em out of the closet. Back to clean livin' for ol' Plain Jim

turning my head

Don't I wish.

From today's Oddman, of course.

home again, home again, jiggety jig

The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I spent the long weekend up visiting my mother and my sister and brother-in-law. We're grateful for their support and planning for our visit... and I, for one, am grateful to be back again. The Labor Day weekend seems to me just about the right amount of time for me to be with family members; at the time we left, everybody was still on speaking terms, and I didn't notice any crankiness (which might not have been the case in another day).

Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to getting a ride or two in this weekend. I'm on Laura OLPH's team for the Sourland Spectacular. Any of youse-all comin' along?