SpokEasy

June 2019

Thor?

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Thor, of Germanic mythology, wielded a hammer. Such was his effect that they named a day after him! Cyclists call riding fast and hard \”putting the hammer down\”. To me that sounds like a sudden, final sprint, when a rider abruptly surges ahead of the others in a dash for the finish line. On the other hand, I\’ve also come across the expression \”hammer away\”, which sounds like riding hard and fast for hour after hour. How good am I at \”Thoring\”? I\’m not sure. I\’ve never really tried to see how much of a sprinter I might be, and I can\’t ride full gas for very long. Low anaerobic endurance, I guess. Or maybe my legs aren\’t as strong as I like to think they are! Maybe my \”force intervals\” count as hammering? Here\’s what I do: I keep shifting into harder and harder gears until my cadence is down to about 50 rpm; then work to push the cadence to 70 rpm; anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute or even a bit longer. It sure is hard on my legs! Sometimes my quads start to burn as soon as I begin the effort. The purpose? I\’m trying to develop better force (aka strength) so that my cruising speed will improve. Hey, that\’s kinda funny. HAMMERING to BUILD strength. Sounds like carpentry, doesn\’t it? But I hope Thor doesn\’t decide to start tossing his thunderbolts while I\’m out there hammering away.    

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Notions

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I sure do get notions. I daydream about doing bicycle tours. I imagine what it might be like to ride day after day, getting to see the country. I have notions about doing more century rides, even if just on my own. I also have ideas, admittedly rather vague, about writing an ebook based on this web site. Now, that\’s an enormous job. IF I do it, it won\’t be finished any time soon. How would I go about developing a small web site into a full-length ebook? Luckily I have all my cycling journals, going back to the early days of the tricycle. Having them should be helpful. Another idea I have is to get a flash drive to use solely for the purpose of composing an ebook. Yes, I have this site\’s pages backed up on a flash drive, but I don\’t want to be mixing up site pages and ebook pages. It sound odd for me to be thinking about doing an ebook anyway, when I\’ve always been one for BOOK-books. Reading from a screen means missing the tactile sensations of holding a book in my hands. I seem to remember things better when I\’ve read actual print. Besides, if the power goes out, I can still read a BOOK-book. A BOOK-book isn\’t likely to break if I drop it, as I suspect an electronic device would. But loath as I am to admit it, it seems as though print books may be drifting down the path to extinction. I wonder, when print books first appeared, did devotees of papyrus scrolls eye them with disdain? And did they ask, who came up with that crazy notion?

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New Product Report

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New product report today: I\’ve tried sun sleeves! I first read about them some time ago, but hadn\’t gotten around to using them. Just before I bought mine, I was chatting about sun sleeves with another rider who was wearing a pair. He said they feel pretty hot when you aren\’t moving; but once you are, you feel cooler for not having the sun directly on your skin. Today I tried mine — on both arms this time! –and found what he said to be true. I pushed for 45 miles this morning, and got in 45.6 miles. To my surprise, my average speed was the same as it was last Sunday when I rode 40.4 miles. I felt very slow on the way home (headwind of 10 mph much of the time); got very tired; and was thinking that 45 miles might be a bit too much. WAS I going for too many miles? Did I need more electrolyte drink? More water?  Good grief, I downed some 3 liters of water during that ride, and over a liter of electrolyte drink. Did I need more food? Maybe I was pushing too hard? Possibly I\’m not acclimated to the heat yet. I saw plenty of wildlife today: an alligator, a small turtle, lots of dragonflies, and a snake. I\’m glad the snake was on the opposite side of the path, and pointed away from me. By the snake\’s color and head shape, I\’d say it was a cottonmouth. I sure don\’t need to get snake-bit! If I did, I\’d be doing another new product report about a snake-bite kit. I\’d rather spare myself that trouble.    

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Here We Go Again

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Yes, here we go again. Oh, that season that nobody living near the Gulf or Atlantic coasts wants! Or, for that matter, any coast. June 1 is the start of the official Atlantic hurricane season. Here in New Orleans we\’ve been lucky since Katrina (2005), but how long will we continue to dodge the bullet? Nobody likes to think about it, but someday we\’ll get walloped again. Before \”The Big Bad K\” came along, we hadn\’t had a direct hit since Betsy in 1965. At that, Katrina wasn\’t quite a direct hit. A last minute jog to the East actually spared us being slammed head-on. If not for the notorious levee breaches, things might not have been so terrible. So what can we do, cyclist or not, to prepare? Lay in supplies! Bottled water. Canned goods of all sorts, such as tuna. Other non-perishables, such as crackers and cereal bars. Don\’t forget to be sure you\’ve got working flashlights on hand, with an ample supple of batteries. I could go on and on. Suppose the threat of a hurricane means you can\’t ride outdoors? Get that trainer set up. Or perhaps a set of rollers. It\’s nice to know that we don\’t have to miss our riding because of tropical weather. Oh, and one last thing: let\’s all hope that the butterfly on the other side of the world doesn\’t flap its wings too hard. If it does, we\’ll be groaning, Here we go again. Another hurricane!

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