Yesterday, I ate a large amount of green sauerkraut (St. Patrick’s Day) and a smoothie with beets in it. The resultant was a green material that leached red.
It was great!
Archive for shenanigans
Roadie Snob OC
Similar to Bike Snob NYC, I stereotypically hate roadies. And by that I mean that I like to make fun of them. That stereotypical runner or cyclist athlete seems to only care about splits, heart rates, effort zones, gear performance, and a bunch of petty crap. . . yet at the same time I have interests in some of those areas. It’s rare to see this stereotype oriented towards functional transit (cycling or running), group inclusion, concerned about others’ health, or having fun.
It is with mixed emotion that I turn from trail running marathon distances to shorter, higher-paced runs, for a bit. It’ll be great to decrease my resting heart rate and increase my lung capacity. However to do so, I’ll need to be a little bit more of a slave to a schedule, AKA a freakin’ roadie.
So, I’ll just make fun of their compression socks, their running flats, and pre-run rituals. Eh, not really, but I don’t want to become one of those do or die competitors. For me, that’s a recipe for burn-out disaster: my biggest enemy.
At the same time, I want to ride out whatever wave I’m on right now.
I plan to follow a Runner’s World Smart Coach 1/2 Marathon plan, but only as a guideline. It has a lot of easy zone running, with a few days of harder runs.
Regardless, I’ll get a 1/2 marathon PR at Surf City! In searching, I just figured out that all my 1/2 marathons were either in 1/2 IronMan’s or bandit runs, oops.
Yeah, first non-roadie move: bandit running! Think about it.
Rabbit!
If you don’t like rabbits, then shoo.
Toby Tortoise says don’t be like Max Hare, instead pace yourself.
Trans- Tour: Planning
Bender and I like ridin’ bikes.
We like ridin’ bikes so much that we are going to ride for a whole week during our summer vacation! From July 19 to July 25, we are going to cross Glacier National Park on the famous and historical Going-to-the-Sun Road that cuts across the park, as well as circumnavigate the park. We are following an Adventure Cycling route, from the North Tier section starting and ending in Whitefish, Montana by taking the train from/to Portland, Oregon.
We are covering about 50 miles per day. That’s nice. The fun part is that going trans-Rockies, trans-borders (USA/Canada,eh?), trans-rail . . . that’s when Bender figured out we have a lot of trans-! Hence, we titled the tour and set our main objective: attain as many trans- endeavors as possible.
Here are a few on the list:
- trans-saturated fat
- translation
- Trans-Siberian Orchestra
- Trans-Am, Pontiac
- trans-water
My current list is 21 trans-‘s long. Three trans-‘s require prior preparation. One of the items, transport, includes a social experiment that could fail from diffusion of responsibility.
At any rate, we are asking people to send us items, general delivery for us, to Cut Bank, Montana, so that we can get them in the middle of the trip. We would really appreciate transporting such items such as, but not limited to, food, a tour mascot, postcard, or a social experiment idea. Huge volume items that would be hard to hold down on a bicycle tour would be hilarous, but only after the fact and not during.
We ask that you keep this in the back of your mind so you can join our cause! And, you could become a part of our tour! A good time to send stuff will be in a couple of weeks, and I’ll remind people here.
Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh!!!
Riding a Horny Bike
I had a dream! . . . I thought of the idea in this post in a dream. Crazy? Fun? Cool!
Dreams occur right before awakening. Leaving a light on makes you sleep less efficiently. So a few years ago, I left a light on with a “dream notebook” right next to my bed. I did this for about a week, with so-so results, until I woke up soaked in sweat, full of adrenaline, and freaked out that my 2nd grade teacher figured out that I never dug up my time capsule after the 10 year period. There was never a time capsule from my 2nd grade class, but such a ridiculous awakening easily puts a kibosh on an experiment that doesn’t seem promising. I digress.
I read the Bike Commuters’ The Well-Tempered Cyclist post shortly before bed one night. Before falling asleep that night, I reflected on my agreement of the past five years of riding. Riding with other members of the Purdue Tri Club, we started smiling and waving at angry drivers, who often like to honk at us. The waving and smiling often confuses drivers, which makes it enjoyable. Plus, what’s the point in continuing the anger? It doesn’t solve any problems, and some of us believe in karma!
Ironically after thinking about how relatively calm of I rider I am, I had a dream including the opposite behavior. My dream involved me trying to get a semi-truck driver to “Honk it!” This is another cycling hobby of mine. However, I didn’t notice that I drifted over into the middle lane, while riding my bike. The truck driver did end up honking it, but he also cut me off in traffic, too! Somehow, I had an airhorn mounted on my bike, so I honked back!
I talked about my dream the next day at work. Within a few hours, I was at West Marine in Newport Beach. Here, I learned that employees do not like when you test out horns in the store. More interestingly, I found an Eco Horn. This horn is 115 dB, marine grade, and sustainable! The air power comes by pumping it up from a Schrader valve, common to cycling (and even car tire) pumps. The 80 psi charge, on full volume, lasts several miles, even on liberal use. I do not have any more data other than that information, for now. And for a frame of reference, 115 dB is slightly louder than a loud yell.
Additionally, the pump fits nicely into a water bottle cage. I mounted a water bottle cage to my 2001 Lemond Buenos Aires, as shown here.
I’ve had the horn for about 150 miles of bike commuting, now. The horn provides gratification by communicating to drivers that I can honk louder than they can, on average. The drivers, for the most part, are confused. I look forward to future social experiments, including a zip tie to hold the horn in “honking position,” honking back at semi-truck drivers :-), and my new road rage outlet, in general.
AdventuresInMissingThePoint.com 