My Final Excuse for 2013

Today I offer up my final excuse, err, accounting of the year as to why I’m not riding my bicycle as much as I’d like. I could blame it on the weather, you know, days and days of unending rain followed by cold, cold temperatures. How cold was it, you say?

THERE’S A PRESENCE IN MY HOME!

June 3, 1944.. From the daily diary kept by S.Sgt. G.C. Watts, while stationed in Italy during WWII… “2 planes go out of squadron. Repaired but 2 come back in. one crash landed – other blew tire. Plenty of work.”

 

I’ve been away. It has been 12 days since my last post. The Navigator and I have purchased her family home following the passing of her father this past New Year’s Day. Getting one home ready for market and one home ready to move in to has left me with limited time to write. Yet, much has been happening on the cycling front. Unfortunately, I’m acutely aware of more recently having been “talking the talk but not walking the walk” when it comes to riding…

AND THE BEAT GOES ON…

February 5, 1944 From the daily diary kept by S.Sgt. G.C. Watts, while stationed in Naples, Italy during WWII… “Rain: All day. Sleet and hail. Snow in Mts. Wind blows many tents down …”

As I sit here on Sunday, February 5, 2012 in 60 degree temperature with mostly sunny skies, it is hard to imagine what my father-in-law, S.Sgt. G.C. Watts and his “brothers in arms” were experiencing 58 years ago as they huddled together in tents in a war zone as rain, hail, and heavy winds surrounded them. My toughest decision so far today has been…

PROFORM LE TOUR DE FRANCE ONGOING REVIEW…

January 29, 1944 From the daily diary kept by S.Sgt. G.C. Watts, while stationed in Naples, Italy during WWII… “Week of 01/25 through 02/01 has note “Huge Air Forces operating over Germany) Daily note for 01/29/44 – Go to air field. Joe E. Brown comes down and gives us some good laughs. Eat supper and go to Foggia to USO and see Humphrey Bogart and wife. Cold- …”

 

This may not be pretty… Even after a night’s sleep, I still may have a RANT getting ready to erupt. Just be warned. Maybe it won’t be more than a mini-rant. It will certainly be about my ongoing review of the ProForm Le Tour De France spinner bike.

But first… A cyclist’s dilemma…

(This is a test provided by a local survey crew…What’s a cyclist to do?)

Imagine if you will…

SMART PHONES MAKE ME NERVOUS

Given the headline I’ve chosen, you may have jumped to a conclusion that this post is going to be a rant about drivers and cell phone use. I can understand why you would think that and, a minor element of today’s post just might go somewhere along those lines of thought. But, I think I’m mostly going in a different direction…

RIDES, ACCOMPLISHMENTS, AND PROBABLY A MINI-RANT!

This past week has been interesting with a couple of rides in the evenings and an accomplishment of note. I’ll also go ahead and warn the readership that there is a high probability of a mini-rant included in this post.

The rides…

I didn’t get back on my Fuji CCR3 until Tuesday night following last Saturday’s Blue Ridge Breakaway. By Tuesday night after work, I was ready to let go of work related stress and get my legs moving again. The Navigator was headed for her water aerobics course and then we had plans for supper out with the Wood-man and the Navigator’s sister. So, a quick spin was in order for me. I decided to circle in and out of Waynesville.

The weather was most excellent. Skies were clear and we’re just beginning to get a touch of fall in the air. You don’t really see anything different. It’s just more of a feeling than anything although the cool foggy mornings are certainly a harbinger of things to come. Our daytime temps have been in that almost perfect range of upper 70’s and very low 80’s. Tuesday evening was just a fine time to be out on a bike.

I simply crisscrossed my way around and about town and took a moderate climb up Hyatt Creek Rd. to connect back to Old Balsam Rd. before traversing town. I had only been on the road about an hour and wasn’t ready to stop so I headed east out of town by riding some residential streets and connecting to Sunnyside where I began a descent to Raccoon Creek Rd. My intent was to circle back around on Raccoon and head to my LBS, Rolls Rite.

As I was descending Sunnyside and enjoying the scenery, I was jarred to the bone when my front wheel struck some kind of object followed by my saddle attempting to scratch the base of my skull from the inside of my body. Almost immediately, my rear wheel popped up and then I knew I had flatted.

I walked the bike to a shade tree and started replacing the tube. At a nearby house, a party seemed to be underway on the porch. I’m still not sure that anyone there even noted my presence. After removing the blown tube and while checking the tire casing for foreign objects, a jeep drove by me only to stop some 25 yards past my location. The driver backed up alongside me, looked at me, and said “oh, I thought you were a friend of mine.” Having determined that I was not, in fact, a friend of his, he started to pull away and then seem to have an afterthought and inquired if I needed assistance. I thanked him and assured him I was fine.

I finished my repair and headed out to the LBS and, unfortunately, was accompanied by a thump, thump, thump as the tire rotated. Apparently, I didn’t get the tube in properly. I also experienced rough gear shifting. The jolt seemed to have thrown my drive train out of alignment. I was concerned that I had bent the rim on my rear wheel but that turned out not to be the case. John, the owner of Rolls Rite, had me back in good condition and ready to ride by our group ride on Thursday evening.

The accomplishment…

Our local bicycle advocacy group, BicycleHaywoodNC, has been sponsoring Thursday night new rider/newly returning rider groups. The focus has been on helping cyclists get back into shape and to learn to ride properly on the streets. We’ve been blessed to have good turnouts each week although most of the riders have been well experienced overall. This past week we all celebrated the accomplishment of one of our truly new riders. Previously, she had ridden with us and was worn out after about 25% of the route. We hadn’t seen her for the past couple of weeks and wondered what had become of her. We were pleased when she pulled in this past Thursday and was ready to ride.

This time she completed the full 12.5 mile route! We were very pleased and proud of this accomplishment as it was a the fulfillment of one of our goals. Of course, Carolyn did the work! We congratulated her on the accomplishment and told her how proud we were of her. She was going home to call her son and report that she had made the full route this time.

(The ladies celebrate Carolyn’s (far right) successful ride!)

WARNING! MINI-RANT AHEAD…

This has very little to do with cycling so feel free to skip ahead… I’ve been without my primary computer since last Sunday due to ongoing problems resulting from an upgrade in my operating system (Vista to Windows 7 Pro). After the upgrade, numerous Dell programs including my Verizon broadband account would not work. I spent 2 hours on the phone last Sunday with Dell support to accomplish the deduction (on their part) that “it isn’t working.” This resulted in kicking the problem up to an on-site visit. I purchased next day on-site protection when I purchased the computer so you’d think that meant someone would be out on Monday. You’d be wrong… It took until Wednesday before the Dell on-site tech support arrived and then until Thursday for me to get the computer back. Unfortunately, the computer was the equivalent of a paperweight as NOTHING worked. My computer is now residing with my local CRS (computer repair shop) getting yet another Windows 7 install, which means installing all of my programs again. The only good news for Dell in this is that their tech support is miles and miles better than Intuit’s (Quicken,etc.) If there is a sorrier excuse for technical support than Intuit’s “we’ll call you back” approach, I don’t ever want to see it, hear of it, and certainly not use it! O.K., I quit because I’m now approaching the cross over from mini-rant to full fledged rant and I choose not to spend my time or yours with that escalation. Let me just say that if you have submitted comments to this blog and NOT received a reply, please accept my apologies as I’m working back and forth between two different machines and things are messy…)

Some updates…

Gary Williams, the 61 year old cyclist from Belmont, NC, (near Charlotte, NC) that was so severely injured last week while participating in the Blue Ridge Breakaway remained in a coma into Thursday morning. The last update I had was that the swelling of his brain had receded and the medical staff was hoping to begin bringing him out of the coma yesterday (Friday) and hoped to take him off the ventilator. His wife remains in Asheville, NC near Memorial Mission Hospital. The family asks that they be kept in everyone’s thoughts and prayers with hopes for a full recovery… The cyclist involved in the incident in Clyde in which he was pinned under a horse trailer was treated and released at the hospital. He has been in contact with the Blue Ridge Breakaway officials and reports that he is fine… The Smoky Mountain News provided coverage of the ride. Bro Dave reports that he enjoyed an excellent 2.5 hour ride on his Salsa Fargo in and around Santa Monica, CA on Friday. He reports that BikinginLa perfectly described the ride and even wonders if they weren’t riding near each other at the same time. I do have to go find out what the Greasy Wiener truck is…Meanwhile, Jim Artis over at Cycling Experiences has been hard at work featuring articles on iPhone Apps, the new Garmin Edge 800, and the changes he has made in his design and layout of his blog… The VeloHobo is prepping for his ultra-light tour of the Blue Ridge Parkway and is sharing with us what he intends to include or not include on his upcoming tour.

Until later,

- Zeke

LOOSE THOUGHTS ABOUND TODAY!

The last several days have seen me doing more reading and writing than riding, which is a condition that I need to correct in order to be prepared for my first metric century ride on August 21st. I was “gifted” with a fine piece of writing by my friend Nick on Monday morning – an ugly day at the time and the usual, for me, Monday morning blahs of being back to work. The piece titled “Four Corners, Two Wheels” by Christopher Solomon appeared in the July 29th edition of the New York Times travel section. I expressed my displeasure with my good friend for sending me such a fine piece of writing about cycling knowing that I had to be enclosed in my office as computer networks and equipment failed all around me. The piece definitely made it hard to stay in the office.

Quite popular in the cycling-related blogosphere today is People For Bikes. Both Ecovelo and BikingInLA featured stories on the organization. Check out both of these sources for more information on People for Bikes and BE SURE TO SIGN THE PLEDGE!

Bro Dave out on the West Coast took some time away from his basketball coaching duties and  has been making some mods to his recently acquired Salsa Fargo. He reports:

… I have made some mods to the Fargo. I didn't have the "Woodchipper" bars that came stock on it, but I really liked the Albatross bars that I had installed on the Crankforward. I thought I would give them a try on the Fargo. Switching the bars was pretty easy. I didn't have to undo any cabling so that helped tremendously. I'll try the Albatross bars out and see if they are going to work for me. I also mentioned that I was switching my tires over to tubeless with Stan's Notubes. I had tubeless ready rims on the Crankforward and liked them. After my roofing nail flat last weekend, I decided to go for it. This too was pretty easy. I just watched the Youtube video of the installation on the Stan's Notubes website and followed that. I had a little trouble getting the rear wheel to seal up initially, but it finally did. There is no way you could do this without a CO2 inflator. Better yet, if I had a good air compressor it would have been even easier. All in all the "wrenching" went pretty well for someone who has no "wrenching" skills. Of course if I roll a tire or my bars fall off on a descent, then I'll have to revisit that boast!

 

Check out the mods (sideview, topview, cockpit view)…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s also good to see Jim Artis getting back to one of my favorite “ladies”. Jim has been working the last couple of days on getting “Silk” back roadworthy. Silk is Jim’s Catrike 700 that is one beautiful ride. “She” donated some wheels for Jim’s recent excursion with his HPV Fargo but she’s coming back together now in a slimmer, for the moment, form. Jim is applying his knowledge and experiences from the recent Fargo tour regarding lighting to Silk’s new incarnation. Check it out at Cycling Experiences!

I’m curious if anyone has used the Garmin Oregon 400T on their cycle as a replacement for a bike computer. I purchased the Oregon 400T last year but haven’t really gotten much use out of it. I realized that some of its accessories are a heart monitor and cadence sensor. The travel screen seems to show all of the other essential data that I would want PLUS it gives me topographic and mapping utility. It almost seems to be a larger version of the Garmin Edge 705. I would have to invest about $150.00 in order to use mine on my Fuji. That is substantially cheaper than purchasing the Edge 705 but, at the same time, would be a large investment for something not to work. I tried my old model Oregon Scientific heart monitor but it wouldn’t pair with the Oregon 400T. If anyone out there has tried this particular setup, I’d sure appreciate some feedback!

Finally, if you still need a fix for Tour De France topics, you might just consider pre-ordering what sounds like an interesting DVD box set of movies. The set entitled “Heart of the Peloton” features 3 DVD’s covering in-depth and behind the scene stories of professional cyclists. I’ve already sent a short email to the Navigator suggesting that this might be a very nice gift for SOMEONE close to her. I hope I haven’t slipped down the list of people “close to her…”

Until later,

- Zeke

LUCK AT GATHERING LEMONS CONTINUES

I’ve always been “blessed” to be able to reach into a pile of assorted fruits completely blindfolded and pull out the only lemon in the bunch. This skill has kept me entertained, flummoxed, and busy through the years. Apparently, I haven’t lost my touch!

On Sunday, I made the trip to my local REI to finally purchase a SPOT 2 GPS locater. I’ve been intrigued with the concept since watching the 2009 Tour of Discovery in which Rafael Geraldo made his way cross country and allowed observers to join him through the use of technology.

Arriving at the store just before closing, my Sales Associate reached into the proverbial “bunch of fruit”, except this time it was the stock of SPOT 2’s on hand. Drawing back his hand, he gives to me a nicely wrapped brand new SPOT 2 in black and orange dressing. He assured me that REI had returned all of their stock of the original SPOT 2 after so much negative press highlighted problems with that version.

With lots of duties to take care of for our long planned vacation beginning at the end of this week, I didn’t get to do the initialization until lunch time on Monday.  Everything went smoothly. All of the lights blinked green just as the manual indicated they would. A GPS location was locked in quickly and the send message cycle started properly.

I eagerly looked forward to getting emails from those individuals that I had already listed as being the recipients of my hopefully “all is well” message. I eagerly looked forward to receiving one for an hour. Then, I began to look forward with some trepidation to finally getting acknowledgement that the messages had been received. Finally, when no message arrived from anyone, I gave a short “thanks” that I wasn’t critically wounded and in need of the SPOT service.

Following work, I tried to send the “track progress” messages. Upon arriving home some 1.5 hours after initiating the latest message, I logged in to my SPOT account only to be informed that I had zero, the big 0, in GPS locations.  Fortunately, I recognized my deck and knew where I was currently located even if my SPOT somehow didn’t process that information.

So, a quick call to SPOT tech support and an approximate 10 minute wait resulted in a pleasant conversation with the SPOT personnel, who had me retry everything making sure I had a clear view of the sky. We had a nice conversation for about 15 minutes and the SPOT tech dude properly announced, “Yep, you’ve got a defective unit there. Take it back to the store where you bought it and they’ll replace it.”

Yet another quick call to REI and the Sales Associate assured me that they had more lemons, err SPOTS in stock and that they would be happy to replace my 1 day old unit. So, I’m heading out shortly to Asheville to replace the busted one. I’m testing the replacement BEFORE I leave the store!

In a related matter…

I ordered from Amazon a RAM mount for the SPOT so that it can sit nicely on my truck’s dashboard or windshield as we travel. I paid extra for 1 to 3 day business shipping so that the unit would arrive before our departure date this weekend. If my math is correct, I ordered on Monday and 1 to 3 working days should end by this Thursday giving Tuesday as the first working day following the order. Imagine my surprise when I received an acknowledgment from Amazon that my unit was shipping and would arrive by May 17th. Hmmm, that seems to be the week AFTER we depart… I guess that, as in all things, time will tell!

Until later,

- Zeke

(Update to this story 12:30 p.m. 05/11/2010)  I am back from the REI store where I swapped out the faulty SPOT 2 for one that works. I had a very easy swap out with REI and then a quick response from SPOT to get the ESN switched over to the new unit. I was able to quickly initialize the new unit and started receiving messages, as did my intended recipients, within 10 minutes. All in all, things are working nicely at the moment!)