Laid back (redux)

I was talking to a friend about recumbents after church last night. He's been kicking around the idea of building his own lowracer (read "land luge"), which may explain his patience and the appearance of interest throughout my periodic recumbent conversion updates.

He seemed surprised when I mentioned that I was still working through some self-image issues stemming from my perception of recumbents as the final resort of fat, old, broken down, pocket-protector-wearing engineers and ham radio operators.

"I was shocked to see recumbents in the pages of your publication. Since when did it become the magazine for people who sit in chairs while riding with little stick-on mirrors on their helmets? I guess it's not the end of the world, but I'm sure Style Man is ashamed."

Tom Spehar; Dulith, MN. (Reader mail, Bicycling, June 2006)

"You're kidding!" he said. "I always thought recumbents were cool."

"Yeah, but you're an engineer, aren't you."

But here's the thing: after yesterday morning's ride, I'm on the cusp of not giving a flip whether my 'bent and I are or are not considered cool.

Ride report

For the first time this year, I joined a group of about two dozen cyclists for what has been dubbed the Plano East ride. For the first time ever, I took my new recumbent.

I've always enjoyed the Plano East ride and the core group of people who frequent it, but this time I was out to answer some questions for myself:

1. Could I still ride with a group?
2. Could I keep up?
3. How would I handle starting from the various up-grades and busy intersections?
4. Could I still climb Dump Hill without making the rest of the group wait while I finished my climb?

The short answer: No worries.

The blow-by-blow

Riding with the group. The drafting dynamic was a bit different, but I'm probably the only one who noticed. As we were riding single file down a two-lane road, it appeared to me that some of the riders were struggling against the wind. My recumbent sits pretty tall compared to some designs, but it's still tougher for an upright cyclist to draft off me than another upright cyclist. So, when there was room, I tried to ride alongside the draft line (it wasn't really a "paceline") instead of screwing up the draft for the riders following. This was enlightening, as well, because it told me that my recumbent really is that much more efficient than an upright bike, aerodynamically.

After about 30 miles of this, I saw one of my friends go off the back of the draft line. When I looked over at her, she was looking a bit grey, so I asked if she was okay.

"I'm whipped," she gasped.

I was surprised. She's a very strong rider who's usually at the front, doing long pulls. She was gassed; I'd been riding out in the wind all morning and felt like I was out for a cruise around the neighborhood.


Keeping up. This ride sometimes splits up with some of the fire eaters going off on their own to hammer, but it's essentially a social ride that usually in the high 13-14 mph range. Yesterday, we averaged 14.8 mph and I never had a problem keeping up. In fact, there were times when I was sitting on the back and wishing the folks in front of me would pick up the pace a bit.

Getting started. There were a couple times when I had a little trouble at intersections. I'm still not 100% comfortable with starting, and riders tend to crowd too close, eager to be at the front of the pack when the light turned green. I think this was mostly psychological, because as soon as I worried that I might wobble into another rider on take-off, I did. Every other start was smooth and straight.

Dump Hill. This is a great "climb" (as we in the Texas flatlands reckon such things) for hill intervals. Steep, maybe 150 yards, it's the one I always tried to hammer on my upright bike, so I was eager to find out how much slower I'd be on the recumbent. The answer, it seems, is "I won't".

I started the climb at the rear of the group, not wanting to get in the way of faster climbers. I hit the base running, spinning, downshifting as my cadence started to lag. As I bore down on a rider in front of me, I didn't want to give up any momentum, so I pulled off to the left and passed him. Then I passed another. And another. Puffing, breathing in time with my decreasing cadence, I kept downshifting until I hit my largest cog. I was nearly to the top and, rather than risk a blown shift to my granny ring under load, I powered on. Once on the flat, I eased back and continued on to the regroup point, where only half a dozen of the group were waiting.

I had passed 3/4 of the group on the climb, and it didn't feel much different from when I'd done it on my Trek. So I guess there's something to the Corsa's reputation as a "hill eater", after all. It's a Good Thing™.

Up the fashion. All I know is I rode 37.38 miles yesterday, and at the end of it my neck felt no worse than if I'd sat in a chair all day, watching TV. No groin numbness. No hand numbness. My legs are a bit sore this morning, but I think I'd have been a bit disappointed if they hadn't been.

I'm 'bent.

Darwin thwarted

With more than a little trepidation, I clicked on the button that would bring a fresh batch of e-mails into my inbox and watched as my filters sorted the new arrivals into the appropriate folders. Rats. Four of them had landed in the folder I'd set up for my volunteer webmaster activities.

I opened the first one.

"Mmfph ffmpph mmmph," it read.

Okay, not really, but that's roughly the equivalent of what it did say.

"You say you're having trouble breathing?" I asked, helpfully.

"Ymmmph."

"I see. Well, had you considered pulling your head out?"

You can see where this is going. For the past three days, I have been inundated by a digital parade of ignorance and laziness so vexing that I've had to wrap my head in duct tape to keep it from exploding.

Sometimes I just wish the doorway exiting Darwin's waiting room led to a 10-story drop into thin air.

Weekend update

Blogger seems to have got something caught sideways this morning, so we'll just have to see how we make out with the "blog by e-mail" feature. Maybe I've even remembered the address correctly.

Onward...

Another great weekend in north Texas. First thing Saturday morning, we loaded our assorted human-powered conveyances and headed down to White Rock Lake. There, we met up with the group that Turtle had organized to undergo some performance testing that would help the participants to fine tune their cadence and riding styles.

The process began with each rider having some very scientific looking electronics strapped on to his/her handcycle. Some of it was for analysis of the rider's exhaust gasses (exhalations, Susie; not what you're thinking); some of it was telemetry for transmitting the readings to the laptop of the guy doing the testing. The rider then got to strap on a breather mask with a 1" diameter tube connecting it to the test equipment.

I kept making lame Darth Vader jokes (which the perfessor had obviously heard far too many times before), but with the masks and their sunglasses, the riders looked more like jet fighter pilots.

I may have some pictures to post, but it will require a certain alignment of the planets for that to happen. First, I'll have to see if anyone thought to snap a few shots of Turtle with my camera while I was running around, helping some of the other test subjects. Then, I'll have to make sure that Turtle doesn't mind being plastered on my blog. Finally, Blogger will have to get with the program.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I sloped off for a quick lap of the lake on my Corsa. It took me a mile or two to get settled in, but by then I was cranking along between 18 and 21 mph. Maybe everyone else was feeling like a leisurely ride, or maybe it was an indication of what sort of performance I can expect from the bike, but I was passing pretty nearly every other cyclist I came upon.

At least, until my route took me off the street and on to the bike path, at which point things got more crowded and forced me to focus more on safety than speed. Still even after I'd finished dodging wobblies, cloud gazers, and stroller zombies, I arrived back at VO² testing central with an overall average speed of a little over 16 mph.

Sunday...

...was another beautiful day, so Turtle and I were out riding again. We tooled around the neighborhood together until Turtle got tired of me hanging around and told me to go climb some hills. Which I did. I picked a few spots where I'm accustomed to going for hill intervals and attacked them. For the first time while riding the Corsa, my heart rate went through the roof, which tells me where I'm going to have to concentrate on developing more strength and endurance.

In case you hadn't thought about the physics of it, hills are the recumbent rider's Waterloo because the only things you have to work with are your gears, leg speed (cadence), and leg strength. Standing up and throwing your weight into the pedals to mash your way up a climb is simply not one of the available options.

People doing yardwork smiled and waved. Colorful lycra-clad roadies smiled and waved. I returned their greetings with enthusiasm and was really feeling pretty darned good about the whole thing until the homicidal inbreeder in the black S-10 pickup pulled out of the main lane on to the shoulder where I was riding and tried to run me down.

I wasn't scared at the time, because I saw him coming in my helmet mirror and was able to safely roll off the shoulder and through a broad ditch. I was (and am) pissed off. But the more I think about it, the more it sinks in that I came close to being one of those people whose pictures I'm in charge of posting on the Ride of Silence web site.

You can never be too alert. Especially when you're the only guy who knows how to keep the web site updated.

Later...

...we cooked chicken on the grill and settled in to watch The 40-year-old Virgin. It was a funny movie, but I probably would have enjoyed it a bit more if Turtle hadn't gotten so much entertainment from how close it came to reading like my biography.

When homesickness trumps self-preservation

"They took us away in buses and said we were leaving for three days. We came back eight years later. I cried every night. I wanted to go home. Thank God, we are here in the best place on earth."

If you didn't know Chernobyl's history, you might understand her delight.

Link (Reuters)

This article—one of a series that Reuters is doing this week to focus on the future of nuclear energy—reminded me how easily disasters are forgotten by those of us not directly affected.

I have a difficult time comprehending the scope of the evacuation, but for a photo essay posted a couple years ago by Elena (Lena) Filatova (Russian: Елена Филатова) at www.kiddofspeed.com. Despite allegations that Filatova staged some of her photographs, it's unlikely she could have staged everything, and the images are compelling.

Another photo essay, by Robert Knoth, focuses on the human toll.

Laid back

If you've been reading along, you know that I've spent the first few months of this year visiting doctors, getting x-rays and MRI tests, and going to physical therapy sessions in the attempt to get my neck sorted out and me back on my road bike. After all that, my situation was improved, but not enough to allow me to ride without pain.

2006 Bacchetta Corsa

And then it hit me. Why go through all this for a slight improvement, when I could switch to a recumbent bike and, after retraining some muscles, be able to do most of what I was doing before my neck crapped out on me? Sure, I'd have to part with my image of what's "cool", as well as a large-ish chunk of cash, but I could be riding a bike that's at least as fast (except on hills, where I was pretty slow already) and more comfortable than anything I've been riding since my '67 Schwinn Stingray.

That's how, after test riding throughout Easter weekend, I ended up with my new Bacchetta Corsa. My

obsidian steed

. My chase [sic] lounge.

Riding one of these things is very different from riding a DF bike. For one thing, you're pretty much one with the bike, whereas with a normal bike you're constantly moving the bike around under you. Another difference—a big one—is that starting out can be a challenge. You're lying on your back. The pedals are out in front of you at about the same level as your hips, so the usual technique of pushing off with one leg while throwing your weight on to the pedal with the other... just isn't happening. Starting out is a whole new level of commitment. You either succeed and pedal away, or you fall over. There's not much middle ground.

But ohhh mama, this thing's fast. (Even with me on it.) Because of the more aerodynamic positioning (i.e., the rider isn't acting as a drag chute), it takes about 20% less effort to attain the same speed as on a comparably geared, skinny-tire DF bike.

At least, that's what They tell me. I won't know for sure until I've had a chance to get the new bike set up with a computer (the digital watch equivalent of the clunky old bicycle speedometers we had back in the 1970s).

And my neck doesn't hurt.

Health workers would bail

I've always been lucky to be fairly resistant to colds and the sort of crud that laid me out for a few days, back during the Olympics. It's my hardy Teutonic genes, I tell people. The karmic trade-off for that seems to be that I'm deathly allergic to flu vaccinations.

Within 10 minutes of receiving the injection, I just break into a running sweat and fall over. So (at the risk of being obvious) I don't do flu shots.

That's why I was more than a little concerned and irritated when I read this:

Researchers called for more training, better equipment and counselling on Tuesday after nearly half of health workers questioned in a U.S. survey said they would not report for work during an influenza pandemic.

The poll of more than 308 workers from three health centers in Maryland revealed that more than 40 percent would be unlikely to report for work and 66 percent thought they would be putting themselves at risk if they did.

Link

Here we have a group of professionals who will certainly have dibs on the available supply of anti-flu shots, and they're not going to show up for work?

Let me just go on record with any of you health care "professionals" out there who plan to let me puke to death while you cower in your shower stalls: If I catch the bird flu and die because you decided to blow off your job when you were needed, I'll haunt down each and every one of you and follow you around, wailing Yoko Ono compositions 24/7.

Belie' dat.

Career guidance

I've been seeing this Lamborghini in the parking structure lately, and it's prompted me to ponder my career choices.

Maybe I should have been a drug lord. A lawyer. A corrupt stock broker or CEO. A high-priced call girl. Maybe a steroid-sucking professional athlete or a coddled Hollywood movie actor. A rap star making a killing off "songs" glorifying drugs, crime, and violence.

Nah. I'm too much a slave to my principles.

My nearly ten year old Honda's just fine.

Randomness

I happened to check in on what search terms are leading people to my blog, this month. Much of it's the usual "what is synaptic misfire" kind of thing, along with half a dozen variations on "if tomorrow never comes" combined with "randy jackson"; but a few were entertaining:

• sweet taters computer virus email
• carry on my wayward partition
• dream involving large mall Comforting to know it's not just me...
• beaverskin coat
• female members shaved
• roof rats+attics+glasgow Oh my!
• mtbi pat piles "MTBI"? Mild Traumatic Brain Injury? Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator for mis-ordered acronym spellers? Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute? Please be specific and don't pat your piles.
• "drinking too much water"+"stomach noises"
• the ice cream man's route for
• abbreations

The last one's my favorite. I love the irony of someone searching for information on abbreviations and not finding what he was looking for because he'd inadvertently abbreviated the search term. Just left out the 'vi' altogether (as, I'm sure, a lot of you UNIX geeks wish you could do).

But... this raises the troubling question of how a search for "abbreations" led to my blog. My poor wife is probably going to have to distract me with Shiner Bock and pizza to prevent me going all OCD and tearing my blog apart to find where the heck I've misspelt "abbreviations".

Now playing: Marc Bolan & T-Rex, 20th Century Boy: The Ultimate Collection

Timely words (Coming To America)

"In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birthplace or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American.

"If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American.

"We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt,
as quoted in The Chicago Daily Tribune, p. 4
7 January, 1919

Ooh... la la

Goldfrapp. Just saying it out loud makes me giggle. Like an onomatopoeia for the lactose intolerant villain from an Austin Powers movie. Goldfrapper. Frapp Bastard.

Okay, I'm done.

Since acquiring my new computer with its bountiful memory and 21^st century operating system, I've rediscovered my mojo. The synergy of a high speed internet connection, a free subscription to Rhapsody, and a near worthless Dallas radio market has rejuvenated me. I've been transported back to a time when disco sucked and I bought vinyl albums based on nothing more than intuition and interesting jacket art. Just to hear something different.

And that's how I stumbled on Alison Goldfrapp. Her infectious "Ooh La La", came stomping out of my speakers with no more thought than a T-Rex trampling an electric fence in Jurassic Park.

Seduced by the infectious, modern but somehow familiar sound, I searched for and found a video for the track. I watched it. And then I watched it again. Genius! There were pasty-faced boys with strap-on keyboards and fur boots. Converse high tops and glam rock posing. A slow motion sequence with a horse made of tiny mirrors. Giant bell bottoms and vertigo-inducing platform shoes.

Holy mother of Marc Bolan and Norman Greenbaum! You have to see this!

Hoop & Tink Foo & Turtle Conversation

Foo: I just realized that I haven't marked the back yard since we moved in.
Turtle: Marked. You mean, peed?
Foo: Yep.
Turtle: You're kidding, right? You wouldn't really pee in the yard.
Foo: Why not? It was just about the first thing I did when I bought the other house.
Turtle: Why?
Foo: Because I can. It's, like, an imperative of home ownership.

[insert clever title here]

I had one. I did. Honest. Unfortunately, it must've fallen off the edge during my post-ride nap.

This morning was the annual Lancaster Country Ride put on by the Greater Dallas Bicyclists club. I had committed to serving as a ride marshal back in January, when I still thought there was some hope that physical therapy would solve my neck problems. Because I don't like to back out once I've committed to something and because I wanted to do the ride, I comprommised and rode the shortest route, which was 24 miles.

For some reason, the Lancaster rally always seems to be very windy. Maybe the fact that it's held in early April is reason enough, and certainly it was reason enough for Turtle and I to jointly decide that today wouldn't be the best time for her to push her longest handcycling attempt to 24 miles. That was tough, because she was excited about it and had already sent in her registration fee; but in hindsight, I think it was the right choice. There's always next year.

During the ride and after, I saw a few things that made me go "hmm":

• While helping to stage the riders to the proper areas for their chosen routes, I got "sirred" by an attractive woman. It's bad enough when it's some gum-cracking, cheer-leading creature at the Chick-fil-A® drive through, but this woman was old enough to be my prom date. But, as Turtle pointed out, at least she didn't "hon" me. Getting "sirred" makes me feel old and genderless but, from kids at least, displays a quality upbringing. The "hon" from anyone but an aunt, my mother, or my wife is just plain condescending.
  
• An absolutely adorable adolescent dog—do baby Labs come in white?—sitting calmly by the side of the road with his head cocked, just watching all the cyclists ride by. No barking. No chasing. Just half smiling and enjoying the day.
  
• During the ride home, the roadside sign that read, "Prison area: do not pick up hitchhikers." (Wonder why.)
• The truly ugly little hybrid car with a pair of whip antennas mounted on its rear bumper. The antennae were half again as long as the car and made me think of the feelers on some sort of weird insect.

Still breathing

Being the current status in the TurtleFoo household, as well as the title of one of our favorite romantic comedies.

Turtle's around, and well; but she's very busy with her job search and the various related organisations that she's involved in. In fact, I'm only now finding time to compose this entry because she's got a "thing" going 'til late tonight. So I'm batching it.

My own status is SSDD. Alternately busy and frustrated at work (I lose 20 points off my IQ every time Gigglepuss opens her mouth). Busy spells with the pro bono web thingummy. Lawn mowing/trimming/fertilising/weeding.

I've also been getting out occasionally to test my ability to tolerate riding my road bike, in the wake of all the mechanical fiddling and physical therapy. There hasn't been as much improvement as I'd hoped and, as a result, I've finally admitted to myself that I'm just the sort of broken down old fart you typically see riding around on a recumbent bike.

Except... well, I'm a geek, and who better to be tooling around on a flying la-z-boy (as a friend calls his recumbent)? A chase [sic] lounge. A roll-away bed.

So I've begun shopping around, asking questions, getting an idea of which of the many mutant variaties would suit my goals the best. It's looking like this would fit the bill—fast, short wheelbase, up high, no tiny wheels—but it will be a couple weeks 'til I'll have time on the weekend to do some test rides.

Meanwhile...

I haven't forgotten that Anne infected me with The Indie Virus. Now, my wife could tell you that I'm not the most social of creatures and that I don't make friends easily. I don't have a long list of blogs that I read faithfully, but I see a couple that need to be and haven't been infected.

First, there's Bret who needs The Indie Virus because he understands the Dilbert-esque world we both live in and addresses it with more restraint and humor than I could.

Then, there's Tink who needs The Indie Virus because, surprisingly, no one has infected her yet and because she's a student of human nature and more than a little twisted, to boot. Takes one to know one, and I count that as a positive.

Finally, but not leastly, Susie needs The Indie Virus because she's manic and doesn't have nearly enough to do with her time.

Now, what was I gonna say?

I know there was at least one entertaining thing I meant to blog about, this week, but I can't think of what it was. Guess I'll have to wait until that second No. 7-and-water has metabolised.

Now playing: The Vines, Highly Evolved

April Foo

With yesterday being the first of April, I thought I should probably post up some fictitious but almost-plausible bit of news and then, at the end of it, add the pun/disclaimer "April Foo!"

But then I remembered that I've always found April Fool's "jokes" to be highly annoying.

I guess it's appropriate, then, that April Foo's Day should be a day late and have no ill effect on the gullible, whatsoever.

Later...

It's a beautiful day and I wanted to get out on the Trek to pedal around and see how my spine is doing. Not having spent much time on two wheels so far this year, I had sort of forgotten that I need to plan my routes so that the wind is at my back for the portion that's uphill. But the good that came of battling my way home with Lexus/BMW/Infiniti/Mercedes-driving yuppies mostly patiently waiting for me to wave them by is that I now know just how much conditioning I've lost over the winter and while dealing with my neck.

What a beautiful day for a ride, though. Sunny and warm, and on the way out I picked up some karma points when I spotted this turtle parked in the right wheel track, in the road. I'm no turtleologist, so rather than risk losing a finger I chose the better park of valor and nudged him with my foot 'til he was safely off to the side. It was probably a good thing, since the next vehicle down that side of the road was a big, black monster truck full of testosterone. As they roared by, I was suddenly glad that I'd stopped for the turtle, else these clowns would have been on my wheel.

Karma. I saved the turtle; the turtle may have saved me.

Here, you can see part of the reason I ride. Turtle—and by this, I mean Sweetie, not the one I scooted to the side of the road—and I are lucky to have built our home in one of the spots in the metromess where one can still hop on a bike and be in the country within 10 minutes. How long that can last is anyone's guess.

The 10^th Circle

I'm quite fortunate in that Turtle does 99.9% of the household grocery shopping.

Occasionally, things work out so that I'm available to go along with her to push the cart and carry our purchases into the house. At such times, I'm reminded why, when I was single, I ate out a lot and only ventured into the supermarket about once a month. When I finally couldn't figure out anything edible to create from a can of salmon, a heel of whole wheat bread, a slice of processed cheese product, and some semi-liquid lettuce, I broke down and went to the store.


Seriously. If supermarkets had existed when Dante Alighieri trod the earth, would there have been a 10^th ring to his hell? Would it have looked awfully like a Wal-mart grocery store?

There's just something malevolent-seeming in the blank stares of the shoppers. Something eerie and wrong about the lighting. Sponge Bob hanging execution-style from the rafters, his death rictus a parody of a grin.

And over in the refrigerater section, something wicked this way tongues comes. What was their former owners' sin? Gossip? Bad karaoke?

Sweetie, you're a saint.