SpokEasy

SpokEasy

Author name: CAL

Step Lively!

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You can step lively with this adjustable workout stepper. Useful for an aerobics session; practicing coordination and/or balance; or for off-bike leg exercises. This lightweight but sturdy product allows you to work out in the comfort and safety of home; especially important as long as the pandemic continues. If, like me, you are \”height challenged\”, this stepper is also handy for giving you a boost while working at the kitchen counter! Non-skid, shock absorbing surface. Height can adjust to 4, 6, or 8 in/10.16, 15.24, or 20.32 cm. Length, 31 in/78.74 cm. Weighs 4.5 lbs/2.04 kg.

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Freaky!

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No, I\’m not freaking out; but wearing leg warmers in May is freaky, all right. When I went out to ride this morning, it was below 70 degrees! Overnight lows of 80 degrees are far from uncommon this time of year, and it was a bit odd to go out in those leg warmers; long sleeves; cycling jacket; and skull cap. As it turned out, a long-sleeved blouse with vest might have sufficed. With that jacket on, I actually got a mite too warm; but then again, I don\’t enjoy feeling chilled as I ride. Friday is a work-from-home day, so I could take the time to ride a bit extra. It gets light before 6 am now, and I enjoy seeing the daylight grow. I appreciate the improved visibility, too. It\’s helpful when I work at hard efforts, and my speed gets over 20 mph! When I ride hard in the dark, I worry that I\’ll outrun my headlight. No interesting sightings today: no gator eyes; no shooting stars; and the next full moon isn\’t until May 26. Maybe next time! Tonight it will be freakishly cool again; down to 62 degrees! That\’s like October, not May. But this freaky weather is good for riding; it\’s cool, but not too cold. It will be good for tomorrow\’s trip to the salvage store; and for the Sunday long ride, too. I hope I can keep myself from getting too many canned goods! In a way it\’s good that I have a big supply. With hurricane season almost here, I must set aside some things as an emergency stash. It would be terrific if no hurricanes formed at all; but that would be downright freakish!

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Not My Fuel

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Gasoline is not my fuel; and am I glad of that! I think we all heard about that cyber attack, and consequent shortages at the gasoline pumps. About 99% of the time I\’m glad I don\’t have a car; and now I\’m gladder than ever! My fuel is food, especially during long bicycle rides. Over the last ten years or so, I\’ve tried many foods as on-bike fuel: Clif Bars; FitCrunch Bars; roasted chickpeas; even mini PBJ sandwiches. What\’s the best on-bike food? Choosing ride food can seem overwhelming, because there are so many options. Which one(s) are best depends on many factors: how far you plan to ride; whether you\’ll be riding at a steady, moderate pace or doing hard intervals; and perhaps even the weather conditions. On weekday mornings, my pre-ride snack is a banana or a cupful of grapes; often with peanut butter. That seems to be enough to hold me until I get back home for breakfast. I carry a few GU-Gels with me, in case I guessed wrong! For Sunday long rides, I like to try different bars. I\’ve tried rice cakes made according to Feed Zone Portables. Unfortunately my rice cakes often came out too soft; and when I tried to eat them while riding, they fell apart. That drove me crazy. Special Needs The things I use for long-ride fueling might be \”not my fuel\” if I had diabetes. I was reading about athletic activity and Type I diabetes; and it sounds like a very complicated balancing act. I don\’t want to develop any such special needs, so I intend to keep working at my prediabetes diet. Exercise should help to keep prediabetes at bay; and Sunday long rides are still very much on the agenda. But I don\’t think I\’ll ride past any filling stations if I don\’t have to. That stuff is not my fuel.

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Wake Up Legs!

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\”Wake up, legs!\” is what I felt like saying this morning. You know those days when your legs just don’t feel like doing anything? That was me today. Maybe the extra efforts of April Love to Ride are catching up with me, or maybe I got to bed too late last night. Or do my legs need a good dose of Jens Voigt? At any rate, my legs felt tired, heavy, and stiff. So I rode easily, and stayed off the big ring. I kept it pretty short, too.  The weather was still quite uncertain, and there were a few raindrops here and there. The farther I rode from home, the more frequent the drops became; and I was concerned that I was heading right into heavy rain. Speaking of weather, things got really wild in the wee hours. I think I remember hearing heavy rain and a lot of thunder. When I was out on the road bike, I rolled past some areas that had power outages; and I saw some branches on the ground. I later learned that a severe T-storm warning went out at 2:22 am; and there was even a possible tornado! I was lucky; the worst of it missed me. In other parts of town, trees were down; I saw at least one report of a car being hit by a falling power pole; and power lines were down. Last I heard, they\’re still working to determine whether there was an actual twister. It looks like the weather will improve overnight; and the weekend looks good. So wake up legs; I want to go to the salvage store Saturday; and do a long ride on Sunday!

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Atmospheric Dodgeball

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Atmospheric dodgeball is the name of the game this week. When the forecasts don\’t look so good, all I can do is hope for enough of a weather window to do a ride without getting soaked!  Mondays I usually don’t go out on the road bike; and unless there’s some kind of Love to Ride challenge in progress, I don’t ride to work on Monday. This is Bike Month, so I ride to work on Mondays – but yesterday I made an exception. I\’m lucky it wasn\’t raining hard when I left for work; and lucky that the sun was out when it was time to walk back home. Round Two Today was Round Two of atmospheric dodgeball. This morning I lucked out for my jaunt on the road bike. The forecast last night predicted overcast skies; and cloudy it was! I didn’t realize how just overcast it was until daylight; and then I could see that the clouds looked quite ominous. I was relieved to get back home before the weather broke bad.  Shortly before 7 am I was getting ready to ride to work; I heard something and thought: Uh-oh, was that thunder? It was. Somebody not far away was getting a T-storm. I decided to take the chance, and rode to work. There were already a few small drops falling, and I wore my poncho in case it started to pour.  On the way to work, I was eyeing a huge, stormy-looking cloud off to the South; and saw a big bolt of lightning! That made me nervous, of course. I remember an unnerving ride to work a year or two ago, when a T-storm swept up from behind me; and I felt like it was chasing me through the park! I’m glad it didn’t happen today.  In fact, I won the atmospheric dodgeball game: shortly after I got to work, things got much stormier. Thundery weather came in waves all day long. By 4 pm the sun was out. Tonight and tomorrow? More rain; and we’re still under flash flood watch. T-storms, of course, are small beer compared to the atmospheric dodgeball game of dealing with hurricanes. I’m puzzled now as to when hurricane season actually begins. I’ve seen both May 15, and the traditional June 1; so which is it? I’d like to know exactly when the game begins.

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Skip It

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I decided to skip it today, and left the bicycle home. The weather this morning wasn\’t at all conducive to cycling! At around 3 am, I woke to a T-storm. There was another T-storm in progress a couple of hours later, when I got up. I checked NOAA at around 6:45; and also my email. I get severe weather alerts via email; and sure enough, there was an alert about strong T-storms. We also had a flash flood warning, and that was bad news. I didn’t want to risk having to ride through water up to my bicycle wheels’ hubs, so I didn’t ride to work. It also isn\’t pleasant trying to get a bicycle hooked to a rack during a downpour. Yes, I know – May is Bike Month; but sometimes we need to skip it. It wasn’t raining very hard when I left home, but it steadily got worse; and by the time I reached work, it was pouring. At 8:45, the sun was out. Forty-five minutes later, things were looking very gloomy again. Weather is so fickle! When I left work for the day, the sun was out again. There\’s still some chance of further T-storms tonight; but it looks like tomorrow morning might be OK for a ride. I hope so, because Wednesday looks like it will be as bad as today. They don\’t expect it to clear up before Friday. My legs felt stiff and tired today. Was it because I rode 45 miles yesterday; or have my legs become too unaccustomed to walking? Back when I first got the adult trike, and immediately fell in love with riding, I told myself that I mustn\’t forget how to walk. It looks like maybe I really have forgotten how to walk!

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Not Depression Food

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Not Depression Food My ride food sure is not depression food. Just check out this video! Some of those things do sound weird; maybe because I’ve never had to desperately scrape together whatever I could find in order to eat at all (spoiled, aren’t I?). And hunger, as the old saying goes, is the best sauce. The segment beginning at 5:55 did give me an idea. “Mulligan Stew” sounds considerably more palatable than “garbage soup“! I guess that the foods that I use for on-bike fueling were undreamed of in the 1930s; hence they’re not depression food. I do get things like FitCrunch bars on the cheap whenever I can (grab-bag bin finds at the salvage store); and economizing was certainly something that people had to do during those bleak Depression years. Maybe my ride food isn’t quite as un-depression as I think? Yesterday evening I planned today’s ride food; and I got my drinks ready. And, of course, checked the weather. The forecast predicted 73 degrees at 7 am; and up to 82 degrees by 11 am. Skies, mostly sunny to partly cloudy. I didn’t like the wind forecast. I think that 14 mph is pretty strong; and a South wind seems to give me headwind trouble both going out and coming back. Bare legs, of course, meant I had to use a lot more sunblock. By the time I was back home, I had applied four layers! Often I don’t bother to wash it off; but my skin feels better if I do. Now my thoughts are turning to lunch. I haven’t decided what to eat; but not depression food.

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Good as a Mile?

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A miss is as good as a mile; or so the old saying goes. Today I gave the salvage store a miss. Let\’s face it: I stocked up so much that I\’ve got to use up some of the stuff! If a hurricane struck tonight, or a sudden COVID-19 surge hit; and I were literally stuck indoors for two months; I probably wouldn\’t run out of food. This miss wasn\’t exactly \”good as a mile\”, because I went out on the road bike and put in 10.2 miles! I tried to take it easy; and maybe I really should have given that ride a miss. I think my allergies are acting up, because I\’m tired and my head is rather stuffy. I ate a snack before the ride, but at the turnaround point I decided to eat a GU-Gel; and maybe that wasn\’t a good idea. The GU made me very thirsty; and you know those days when you have trouble getting the water bottle back into its cage? It happened to me today — yet again. The wind was a bit of a problem as well. I did a quick check of a weather site before I went out; and it said the wind was 5 mph. After I was back home I checked the 3-day weather history; and it said the wind was 12 mph! That\’s quite a difference. It looks like tomorrow will be great riding weather: warm enough to leave the leg warmers off. (I wore them this morning, and got a bit too warm!) Clear skies. Wind 10-15 mph, which I don\’t like; but at least it won\’t be cold. In fact, May is National Bike Month. A miss is as good as a mile? Not when I want to put in the miles!

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Rack and Ruin?

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We don\’t want our bicycles to go to rack and ruin. But a rack over the rear wheel is a great idea! This sturdy rack from Ibera can hold up to 55 lbs/25 kg; and lets you turn your bicycle into a pack mule. Hang on the panniers and bring home a load from the grocery store; or pack them up and go on a tour. This rack is also useful for carrying a cooler (mine is the size of two six-packs stacked up) with my lunch to work. After I got a diagnosis of prediabetes, I needed to watch the carbs; and couldn\’t get away with compact, sandwich-and-apple lunches. Now I need the cooler to bring along what I need to eat during the day; and having the rack lets me put the cooler into a pannier and hang it on said rack. So don\’t go to rack and ruin. Get a real rack!

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Trailblazing

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True trailblazing, I suppose, is a thing of the past. Most of our planet has already been explored and mapped. Even trailblazing in the universe beyond our solar system is getting more and more common. This morning, however, I saw a meteor blazing a trail across the sky. That\’s a rare treat! I seldom see meteors; and most of the ones that I do see are tiny, and so fleeting that I feel like I was looking at the wrong place. The one I saw today was a big one; and lasted long for a meteor. It was white, with a pale greenish tinge. If only it hadn\’t been for the treetops, I would have had a much better look at it, as it lasted several seconds. After that it faded quickly. I saw the moon, too. It\’s still a few days away from old-fingernail-paring stage; but it was nonetheless beautiful. I might not get to see the final remnant of the old moon, because by Sunday evening more clouds, rain, and T-storms will arrive. It looks like Sunday\’s weather will be OK; low 62 degrees; and high 82. Perfect cycling temperatures! Getting back to trailblazing: even if I can\’t blaze a new trail, I could follow someone else\’s. There are many: the Grand Canyon! For the truly hardy, there\’s the Hotter n Hell ride. If you want something cooler, how about Lappland? Soon the Summer heat and humidity (\”the muggies\”, some people call it) will set in. I\’m trying to get leg warmers and other cold-weather gear put away; but this morning it was in the low 60s! That\’s too cool for bare legs, as far as I\’m concerned; and I don\’t have any embrocation cream. Saturday I think I\’ll skip the salvage store tomorrow. I considered going to a thrift store for a new pair of (non-cycling) shorts, but maybe I\’ll just sleep in; and then go \”trailblazing\” on the road bike. Usually I skip the road bike on Saturday, but now and then I do go for a ride. I\’ll keep it pretty short; I want to save my energy for the long ride on Sunday!

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