Archive for the ‘cycling’ Category
DWA: The Boy Who Lived
So, I took my life in my hands today and took my first ride out of District 1 solo, all the way to District 7, which sounds farther than it is. It is actually only a few miles — about 5 or 6 kilometers, according to my cyclo driver friend Den. But the only option I had for a route was on major thoroughfares — imagine 3 or 4 lanes of road clogged with motorbikes and the occasional smog belching bus or truck, and the odd cab (and taxi drivers here drive like they do all over the world). Then consider the fact that this is Southeast Asia, where the rules of the road are different and largely unwritten.
Oh, and I forget the odd pedestrian and street vendor pushing their cart along the road.
In fact, you see people doing things all the time that would get them killed in a place like the U.S. But here, everyone does it and everyone expects it, and it works. The trouble for someone like me is, understanding is one thing, putting it into practice is another. For example, you’ll often see people running lights here, and turning left into oncoming traffic — but sussing out when you can do such things and when I can’t is where things get tricky. I suspect it’s just that I’ve been conditioned for years not to do such things; my instincts are the exact opposite of the locals. Furthermore, often times when I react to a situation and ride defensively, it’s usually the wrong thing to do — it’s much better to placidly ride on like the Vietnamese do, and let the other guy doing something crazy just do it.
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Brain dump vol. 372:
There really is something rotten in Denmark: www.somethingrotten.dk. This makes me enormously happy, knowing that some English bloke (if her were a Yank, I would have said dude, I suppose) keeps a blog about his new (apprently he’s been there for a couple of years now) life in Copenhagen, the world capital of bike commuting. And he calls it Something Rotten, heh.
Yet another cool blog that I discovered via Dave Moulton’s blog, Dave Moulton being a frame maker of some repute, not to mention a musician and author (I don’t think you could come up with a much cooler combination, really). I suppose it’s only natural that as I sit in the coffee shop post Saturday morning/afternoon ride, drinking espresso and getting caught up on my blog reading (i.e., goofing off, when I should be doing my taxes), that I would be turning to bike blogs. I must say, the weather cooperated—to a degree (a somewhat chilly one, heh); at least it wasn’t pissing down the entire time. But of course after returning to Cincy to warm, April 70-degree weather, it was a crisp 40 degrees Fahrenheit when I rolled onto the Little Miami bikepath around 11-ish. For the record, I got up at 8:37 a.m., but by the time I got all ready and drove (I know, I know) to Loveland, it was almost 11.
… I never got around to posting this last week, as there was no place to plug into at the coffee shop—all the tables that have access to an outlet were taken; the weekend scenesters and suburbanites up for some shopping and a dose of urban coolness were out in force, in spite of the weather. When I got home I got distracted; I don’t remember by what. My ride was probably ill considered in retrospect. The cold I had been flirting with since the day after my return from La La Land (SoCal), finally became intimate with me early this week, and pretty much kicked me in the ass, hard. The too-long bike ride probably didn’t help, I imagine, nor did going to to the gym Monday night and doing walk/run intervals on the treadmill. By early Tuesday morning I had turned into a green fountain of phlegm.
Technorati Tags: Denmark, Copenhagen, bike commuting, Dave Moulton, bike, treadmill
Hello Bianchi my old friend …
So I got on my beloved Bianchi for the first time in—I’m ashamed to say this—in almost two years. I remember the last time I was on it, and even by then, I wasn’t riding much at all. It was summer of 2006, and I delivered the rent check to my landlord’s house on my bike. That was the last time, until last night, that I indulged in cycling.
I guess I finally decided after I quit playing World of Suckcraft for the second and final time (even deleted my ‘toons) that it was time to get off my ass. MMORPGs just frustrated me, pissed me off, chewed up all my time, made my gut ginormous and the rest of my body flabby. Not really sure what the attraction was, in retrospect—but no one is to blame but myself though. This watershed moment was a couple of months ago, but there’s been a lot going in those two months. But yesterday afternoon, I decided it was time; rain be damned (the MidWest has turned into a temperate rainforest this spring, apparently). I have had my bike ready to go for two weeks, and I finally just got tired of waiting. Besides, I lived in Northern California for five years, and it’s not like I’ve never ridden in the rain before.
It was less than an impressive performance. I road 20 flat miles on the Little Miami rail-trail, and my average speed was 11.2 mph; my top speed was 16.9 mph. My average heart rate during this time was … sigh … 156 beats per minute. It was only three years ago that such a 20-mile flat ride would have been what I did during lunch, banging out an 18 mph average speed with my average heart rate around 140, if that. Today my legs are stiff, particularly my calves and hips, and you could probably pluck a note on the IT band in each of my thighs. If my legs could talk I think they’d say “WTF!?” Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, they would say, “About time, lard gut; we’ve gotten bored sitting under that damn desk all the time.” And as for the flesh directly underneath my pelvic bones that contact the saddle, well, let’s just say I’m aware of it every time I sit down or shift positions in a chair—like the rest of my now unconditioned body isn’t used to cycling, my ass isn’t used to a racing saddle. I feel Cartman’s pain.
I Don’t Miss Her, I Miss Who I Thought She Was
I’m sorry; there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to state it straight out: I think it’s time we broke up.
I’ve had a declining interest in you for years, really; ever since I went to college—since I was a teenager, actually. Oh, I know there were times when I seemed to get excited about you, even get worked up emotionally on special occasions, but that was really more about the celebration and the alcohol involved, and the camaraderie with our mutual lovers.
But lately, I’ve been feeling particularly estranged from them, too, not just you. I read their passionate letters to the editor on Velonews.com; I see them walking around the city on Sunday afternoons bedecked out in their colorful jerseys professing their love for you. I listen on Monday afternoon to their recaps of making love with you on Sunday, seemingly either ecstatically rapturous or heart-crushingly sad—it’s almost always tumultuous, though, and I only can shake my head in wonder.
Hot Blog on Blog Action! Triathlon Insanity! Operators are Standing By …
Life has been pretty quiet the past few days; work is rather slow – unlike the chaotic hubbub leading up to Thanksgiving and my friend’s wedding trip.
On the other hand, I’ve gone insane.
After being in the best shape of my life in 2004, and spending all summer in 2005 training to be a raft guide, and then deciding my heart wasn’t in it enough to continue to do it, I basically spent most of this year sitting on my ass, playing World of Warcrack. And my middle-aged body responded in kind; my gut expanded as my muscles and V02 max decreased. I’ve made several half-hearted and half-assed attempts to start training again, but I guess with no goals in mind, and no friends on this side of the continent obsessed with either cycling or rock climbing, I haven’t got anywhere. I’ve always known since college that I’m goal oriented, when it comes to motivation; I need a concrete, well-defined goal to reach, in order to get off my ass and moving. I perform best when I have a drop-deadline hanging over my head.