SpokEasy

December 2019

South Africa

BACK ISSUES, bicycling /

South Africa This blog/page may contain affiliate links. “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.” Cycle South Africa? Sure, why not? Many tours are available; and if you’re not keen on climbing, much of the country is flat. The catch? How high is “high”? I think I’d want to train up using a hypoxic mask! Cape Town & the Garden Route follows the nation’s southern coast. Along the way is a penguin colony; and you’ll roll along the fringes of two oceans during this trip. Daily mileage is 31 miles or less; and this tour is rated Easy to Moderate. It’s suited to riders at all skill levels.   This moderately difficult South Africa Cycling Tour takes in beautiful scenery (both coasts and mountains); includes wine sampling; and you’ll get to visit a penguin colony. The roads for this route are paved; you can use a road bike; e-bike; or hybrid. Daily distances are about 19 miles to 44 miles. A support vehicle will assist you if necessary. For the MTB enthusiast, there’s the South Africa Mountain Bike Tour. Along the way, you can sample some of the nation’s top wines; and roll through a nature preserve. On a scale of 1-4, this one rates 3 for difficulty. I suspect it isn’t for me! ABOUT ME I began this website primarily as a way to present the story of how I accomplished a century ride on an adult tricycle. Other riders of adult trikes might want to know whether it’s possible. It sure is! You can read all about it in My Story. I live in New Orleans; and  retired in January 2023. More time for cycling! Website designed by Cecile Levert © This website is the property of its author. DISCLAIMER I am not a cycling coach; nor a health professional. This site is based on my own experiences, opinions, etc. If you need help, please consult the appropriate professional.   FRESH FROM MY JOURNAL Holiday Food December 16, 2023 Glad I’m Home December 15, 2023 Getting Wild December 14, 2023 Sooner or Later December 13, 2023 Load More TRANSLATOR

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Big Nuisance!

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Trains are a big nuisance sometimes. I was almost home from my ride this morning, with just a mile to go. I rounded the curve and saw a LONG freight train just sitting there. Such a sight invariably elicits an inward groan. How much longer might the train sit? How far might I have to ride to be able to cross the tracks in front of the lead locomotive? I was down to a quarter-mile to go when I heard the metallic creaks and groans that mean a train is getting under way. That meant that I could wait it out at my usual crossing, but it seemed to take an awfully long time for that train to get by. A lesser nuisance today was the wind. It wasn\’t strong, but as always I could really feel it. My left ankle is behaving itself much better, which is a good sign. I actually feel that I\’m pedaling more strongly than I used to. At one point I even got a bit over 19 mph! It was only for a second or two, but I guess it means I\’m making progress! Also a big nuisance is fixing a lunch. Today I bit the bullet and did some work in the kitchen for a change, and made a real lunch. In fact, I went Mexican. I cooked a pot of brown rice. When it was about done, I got out some of the canned stuff from the salvage store: refried black beans and green Mexican salsa. I heated some of the beans; stirred in some Cheddar cheese; put the beans over some rice; and put some salsa on top. Ole′!

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Sawi Proba

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Sawi Proba “Sawi proba” is an expression that crops up in Agatha Christie-Mallowan’s “Come, Tell Me How You Live”. According to the book, it means “make trial”; and was a favorite saying of one of the drivers who worked for Max Mallowan while he was conducting archaeological work in Syria. Isn’t “sawi proba” what we cyclists do all the time? If we want to improve our speed, we might try interval work. If we have our sights set on a century, we try longer and longer rides to get our bodies ready. We try different food and drink on the bike, so we’ll know what agrees with us; and will be suitable for a long event. It could also pertain to girding one’s self up to go out and ride in foul weather. That’s a trial, all right, as is braving cold and wind to get in some miles. Since we’re only a week into December, there are at least three more months of it ahead of us! “Sawi proba” + bicycles of course brings to mind the time trial. That event even has its own special kind of bicycle! Sometimes when I’m out riding, I hear a peculiar whirring sound coming up from behind; and it turns out to be somebody riding a bicycle with one of those disc wheels. Gosh, will I ever get around to doing another century? Well … sawi proba.

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Wrapping It Up

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Wrapping it up? Oh, my, yes! It\’s already December 7! That means getting Xmas gifts ready to ship off. Merely getting the presents ready has its own difficulty. The rolls of gift wrap which are so popular are far too wide for most of the things I\’ve bought. That means that I have to cut out chunks of it. The edges usually come out ragged because 1) I\’ve never  been good at cutting on a straight line unless there\’s a marked line to follow (and sometimes not even then!); and 2) I don\’t have a solid surface to work on. Neither am I good at wrapping things neatly. The presents in this pic here must have been done up by professionals. No way can I get the packages that I do up to look like that! And what do you do when you\’ve got, say, a pair of slippers that doesn\’t have convenient angles to follow? Find a box to put it in? I\’m glad I\’m not trying to wrap up a bicycle. Wrapping that up would be a major headache. Despite my lack of enthusiasm for gift paper on large rolls, I bought one at the salvage store this morning. The regular price was $6.99; I got it for ninety-nine cents! Now comes the nuisance of getting all those gifts packed into sturdy boxes for shipping. I\’m glad I\’m able to get to a Fed-Ex where I work. It would be a lot harder if I had to get to a regular post office on a Saturday. It\’s also Christmas -card time. I\’m glad I don\’t have to bake cookies, too!

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Winter Activities

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Winter activities can mean quite a lot of things. If  your area gets a lot of snow and ice; and giving up cycling until Spring is anathema to you; check out icebike. If, like me, you live where year-round riding is possible, keep riding. Just don\’t burn yourself out before Spring! Maybe even take a day off here and there. If you\’re in Russia, where I hear that Winter can be quite gloomy, perhaps a ride in a troika would lift your spirits. Just think of it! Gliding along over the snow, perhaps under the full moon. Or even the midnight sun? Snow is very rare here, but it it weren\’t, I think I might like to learn snowshoeing. I\’ve seldom had the fun of building a snowman, making snow angels, or participating in a good old snowball fight. Other winter activities take place indoors; there\’s all the culinary cavorting. Cookies, roast turkey (or roast goose, in some countries), eggnog, plum pudding … we need all those outdoor activities to burn off all the calories!

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This Would Have Helped

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This would have helped a lot: if only I had received the instructions shown in the video linked below when I first began working at riding on two wheels! Here you see my hybrid\’s \”cockpit\” when I was able to do longer rides on a BIcycle. By then I was using a Camel-Bak, and I\’m probably about ten miles from home! But when I first got that hybrid, it took some doing to get going! It would have been easier, I believe, if I had had someone to talk me through me this. It sure would have helped; I could have skipped the \”glide biking\” stage, and might have gotten the hang of pedaling sooner. If I were to try to teach someone to ride, I\’d approach it as I demonstrated in the video. I\’m not strong enough to hold up someone, even a child, on a bicycle. An adult, needless to say, would not want to be held up. I, for one, would have felt exceedingly foolish! Some advice I could add: watch out for the front wheel. It tends to swing around, and it took me a while to remember to hold the left (i.e. front) brake to prevent it. I had had fenders added to the hybrid before I even wheeled it out of the shop, and the ends of the supporting struts were sharp. They cut through the rubber caps, and more than once cut my legs! The effort paid off, though. Now I can hardly imagine being unable to ride a bicycle!

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Mind Games?

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Do pro cyclists play mind games in addition to the on-wheels tactics? What do they think about on the bike and off? It might sound odd that \”what to eat next\” can be a problem, but apparently it can. Riders in a Grand Tour have to keep enough fuel on the fire; they need to learn  when to eat what. Do I need an energy gel now, or a rice cake? Will this or that food upset my stomach? Knowing \”when to push\”, it seems to me, is largely a matter of experience. For the individual rider on a solo ride, anyway. If the team director says \”Push Now\” during a race, the rider doesn\’t have much choice, right? How many riders think,\”Not AGAIN?!\” when the order to push arises? Transfers don\’t sound like fun at all. Who likes the thought of a long bus ride immediately after hours of intense racing? As for problems getting, sleep, how can they get up and race the next day after an unrestful night? Maybe that\’s another of their mind games. Just grit your teeth and ride, even if it feels like sleep-biking. Thinking about taxes isn\’t unique to pro cyclists, of course, but most of us don\’t have to be concerned about having earned money in several countries, each of them with its own tax laws. It must take quite some mental gymnastics to figure it all out! And \”who to sign with?\” could be difficult without knowing something of a team\’s financial backing, sponsorships, and so on. How does a rider find that info to begin with? It\’s a lot to think about. Let the mind games begin!  

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It\’s Always Too Soon!

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It\’s always too soon when the time comes to prepare for Christmas. I\’m not equipped to bake, so at least I don\’t need to worry about making cookies. The problem is that I don\’t know what to get for anybody on my list! A calendar is a nice gift, and just about everybody needs at least one; but giving calendars every year gets boring. I\’ll send my brother and sister some groceries that they like, but that are unavailable where they currently live. That starts to seem rather thoughtless, though. Suppose I had children, and were buying Xmas gifts for them? Maybe a Strider Balance Bike if I had a toddler. It\’s supposed to be easier for a child to start with a balance bike and then shift to a pedal-bike, and skip the training wheels. For a very young child, the Steer and Stroll Trike lets the little one ride for a while; then Mom or Dad can push while the youngster rests a bit. Any cyclist would probably be delighted with gifts of leg warmers, gloves, and other accessories. Clif Bars and GU-Gels are other possibilities. Many cyclists would be thrilled to get a new bicycle for Xmas, but bicycles as gifts are way beyond my budget. To be honest, I don\’t want to get a new bike at present. WHERE would I keep it? Fortunately I still have a week or two to finish gift shopping; then I\’ll have to ship things off. It\’s always too soon!      

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More Than the Vuelta

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More than the Vuelta This blog/page may contain affiliate links. “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.” There’s than the Vuelta to a cycling tour of Spain. There’s the Basque country in the North. It’s interesting that the Basque language is unrelated to either Spanish or French. I wonder where it came from? Did it just ride in from nowhere? Are self-guided tours your thing? There are many to choose from that will let you see different parts of Spain. Lanzarote sounds interesting. For some reason I’ve had a thing about volcanoes since I was about eleven. The bigger the eruption, the more interesting it was! Hence Krakatoa was one of my favorites. For the enophile, the Rioja tour awaits. This 8-day guided tour takes you through Logrono, and three other towns as well. I think I’d find it interesting to visit the villages; but if doing so means I’d be expected to try the local vintage, I’ll have to skip that tour. My tolerance for alcohol has always been rock-bottom. Like old architecture? How about the Conquistadors tour? Visiting such places is like going back in time. Oh, and do you enjoy climbing? There’s the coast-to-coast Route des Cols des Pyrenees! There are other tours, too. If, however, you don’t like rain, you might want to avoid the plain! There’s more than the Vuelta to cycling in Spain. So grab your maps, clap on your helmet, and Ten un buen viaje!   ABOUT ME I began this website primarily as a way to present the story of how I accomplished a century ride on an adult tricycle. Other riders of adult trikes might want to know whether it’s possible. It sure is! You can read all about it in My Story. I live in New Orleans; and  retired in January 2023. More time for cycling! Website designed by Cecile Levert © This website is the property of its author. DISCLAIMER I am not a cycling coach; nor a health professional. This site is based on my own experiences, opinions, etc. If you need help, please consult the appropriate professional.   FRESH FROM MY JOURNAL Roadie Again! January 5, 2024 Pomp and Circumstance January 4, 2024 I Bee’d Lucky January 3, 2024 Sunblock Day January 2, 2024 Load More TRANSLATOR

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If Only I Could!

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If only I could retire, like those guys! Not to sit around on a beach, though. I wish I could retire primarily because of health issues. I\’m so tired of wearing filter masks all day every day because \”fragrances\” are everywhere, and I\’m so sensitive to them. The cost of those masks does add up, and I have some concerns about possible long-term adverse effects of inhaling filter mask for hours a day. Leaving that aside, being able to retire would mean more time for riding. First, I could sleep until my body is ready to wake up; not when an alarm clock says it\’s time to get up if I want to fit in a ride before going to work. I wouldn\’t have to keep an eye on the time as I rode. With no time clock to answer to, I could do longer daily rides. Maybe I could finally get in another century or two! Retirement would mean more time for my web site! I could work on it and still have time for things like cooking. Maybe I could even try some more Feed Zone recipes! I would have more time to listen to music, and to read…if only I could retire.

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