SpokEasy

SpokEasy

Author name: CAL

Cycling enthusiast; classical music lover; experimenter in the kitchen!

Break the Bank

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Break the bank — not! That’s why I go to the salvage store so often. I went again this morning; but tried not to bring home too much canned stuff. Even so, I had quite a load, because I bought a 6-pack of rolls of paper towels! That’s where that trailer comes in handy. The store still has Gatorade Whey Protein bars on sale; and as long as they have them, I’ll keep stocking up. There was on-sale Valentine candy; and today I found hummus! For quite some time, I’ve seen boxes of rice pudding in the refrigerator section of the store; and I finally got some to try. It’s good with cinnamon and clove on top. There was little wind today, which was a pleasant change. Last Saturday it was quite a battle, with the trailer catching the sidewind. I wish it were like today more often! It looks like the wind will be somewhat stronger tomorrow; and that’s not the best news. Of course I’m planning a long ride; and I get SO tired of headwinds during those long treks. I want to extend my distance to 50 miles; and sometimes I wish there were more cycling routes available. I ride the same old path over and over; and that does get monotonous. I think I need to get a new red blinkie for the back of my helmet. The switch on the old one doesn’t seem to be working well. Sometimes I’m sure I turned off the light; and later I’ll find it blinking away. I guess it’s worn out; and I don’t think a new one will break the bank.

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Basket Case?

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Don’t worry about being a basket case! Just use this hand-woven, willow wicker one. It can carry your picnic lunch or other small loads. Adjustable leather straps fasten it to your bicycle’s handlebars. Designed for adult bicycles. Size: 15.3″ x 9.4” x 11.4″/38.86 cm x 29.87 cm x 28.95 cm; and can carry up to 15 lb/6.8 kg. I haven’t tried using such a basket, although I suppose a handlebar bag comes close. I used to have one for the hybrid, before I got the road bike. It was great to carry my on-bike food during long rides; and this basket can do it, too.

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Grandiose Plans?

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I’m coming up with some grandiose plans; and let’s hope I’m not jumping the gun. Let’s say I’m really going to do that century ride next month. It’s none too soon to plan my route; and I think it will be better to do it in shorter segments. I don’t want to get too far from a pit stop, because by April it can already be getting hot; and that means drinking more fluids than when it’s cold. We know what that can do to us! Come Sunday, I think I’ll test part of that route. If I ride to the local park; make six circuits; and go home for a pit stop, I’ll knock off about 12.8 miles. While I’m home, I can top up my Camel-Bak. I can replenish my ride food supply as well; and then head out for my usual pit stop 14.5 miles away. Total so far: ~25.18 miles. Then I can ride on for about 5.5 more miles; and head back home. That should give me a total of 50 miles; or, a half-century. My longest ride so far this year was a bit over 45 miles; so extending my distance to 50 miles should be doable. It looks like the weather will cooperate; and that’s always a good thing. Of course hours spent out there on the bike means sunblock; and before long it will be too warm for those leg warmers. That means a lot more sunblock. We’ll see how things go for the next few weeks; and I’ll keep an eye on wind conditions! Fighting the wind all day is not fun; and can ruin my grandiose plans.

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Half Cocked

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If I try to ride a century next month, isn’t that going off half cocked? I suspect that it is; but April is another Love to Ride Challenge; and I think it would be great if I could get in that century during the month. My Sunday long ride is up to 45 miles; and while I’m not exhausted at the end, I’m certainly tired. Is the jump to 100 miles too much, too soon? On top of that, I’ve had several weeks of short mileage recently. If I attempt a 100-miler next month, I’ll have to accept that I won’t be able to ride it as fast as I wish I could. Even if I wait until the end of April to do it, I have only a few weeks’ time remaining to work at improving my pace; and let’s not forget about the taper in the final week before the big ride! At the very least, “tapering” means no force work that week! Of course I don’t want to gun for 100 miles on a day of strong winds; and even less do I want a day with T-storms! Warmer weather is setting in; and that’s good for long rides. Cold weather saps my energy, especially if there’s also a stiff wind! But I don’t want to wait to do a century until afternoon temperatures are climbing into the 90s! Mulling It Over What shall I take for ride food? Maybe, for such a long ride, a mix of savory and sweet is better than all chocolate-covered bars! The main thing is not to go off half cocked; and carry too little food. I’m also pondering the route I might take for a century. When I ride straight out to the Spillway, I cover about 24 miles; and there are few places where I can make pit stops. As the ride goes on, I’ll need to make such stops more frequently; and I’m thinking of laps between home and my regular pit stop spot, at 14.5 miles from home. The catch with boomerang-ing back home is that I might be too tempted to call it quits before I’m finished. It will also mean considerable doubling back and forth to reach 100 miles; but there’s an advantage to that. If I have a headwind, I won’t be fighting it for as long!

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Resurgam!

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Resurgam! I shall rise again, said Old Man River; and proceeded to rise. During the past week or so, I thought it looked like the river was rising; and now I know that it is. This morning I spotted my first gator eyes of the season; and I expect I’ll see more of them before long. I hope those eyes, and their owners, stay in the water; and away from the path! They probably will; but it doesn’t hurt to be careful around alligators. Yesterday it got very warm for March; and in the evening, bad weather pushed through. Those poor folks in Saint Bernard Parish got clobbered yet again. It’s a case of “resurgam”, even if they don’t have that particular word in mind. They’re quite resilient; and I wish them the best. In my immediate area, we didn’t even lose power; although the lights flickered a bit. It was probably right then that the tornadoes were passing through. I got an email with a weather statement about the tornado warning; and didn’t see it until the warning had expired! It came through right when I had left the laptop to fix today’s lunch; wash dishes; and wash the morning’s cycling shorts. Overnight it got cooler; and, thank goodness, the wind diminished considerably. It had felt like May for a while; and now it feels more like March again. I won’t mind when it’s warm enough for half-finger gloves; and then I can finally wash the full-finger gloves. I need at least one more pair of them, so I can wash one pair and use another while the first pair dries. It’s going to be chilly tomorrow morning; and I’ll need hand warmers. I’ll see how the river’s doing, too. I hope it doesn’t resurgam too much!

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Hope for the Best

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At 6:28 am: I’ll have to hope for the best today. It isn’t raining just now; but the wind is already 22 mph! Thanks to the wind, I decided to go ride a few circuits of the local park; and I made it a short ride. I think it will be wise not to ride to work today. The forecast predicts storms and strong wind right at the time I’d be riding home; and I’m going to chicken out. As to getting back home on foot, I’ll have to hope for the best. Waiting for the Storm At 2:20 pm: I got to work dry; but by 10:40 am we were under a tornado watch. The wind had risen to 21 mph; and we hadn’t seen the sun all morning. About half an hour later, the sun came out for a brief time; but then the clouds moved over it again. We had been under a wind advisory for several hours already; and when we were given the option of leaving early I seized the opportunity. I jumped ship, so to speak, at 1:30 pm; and got home about 2:00. Perhaps that was premature; but when potentially severe weather is looming, I’d rather err on the safe side. During the walk home, it didn’t seem that storms are on the way; except perhaps for the strong wind. The sun came in and out of the clouds; and it actually wasn’t bad out there. Who knows, though. With wind like this, a power outage is always possible; and during the last hour or so that I was at work, there was an occasional flicker of the lights. At 2:15 pm, the wind was SSE 21 mph; and both wind advisory and tornado watch were still in effect. I’m glad I didn’t ride a bicycle to work! For at least half of the ride home, that wind would have been right on my nose; and strong winds also make me nervous about falling tree limbs and flailing power lines. When I do ride when it’s so windy, I just hope for the best.

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Plan for the Worst

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Plan for the worst; and hope for the best. That’s all we can do when it comes to cycling and weather; and it looks like our weather will be terrible tomorrow; especially from early afternoon onwards. By late morning today, the wind was already 20 mph. Tomorrow morning T-storms are possible from 7:00 am; and I hope I can ride before I go to work. The forecast says, some of the T-storms might be severe; and naturally I don’t want to get caught out in such a storm. At the same time, I’m tired of being on tenterhooks about bad weather. A forecast will sound like doomsday, and it’s most irritating to skip riding because of such predictions; and then nothing happens. It makes me feel cheated; because I could have gone for a ride, after all! And why does the weather have to turn nasty during Ride Anywhere Week? I can’t do anything but wait and see how things are in the morning. If it’s storming, I can put the hybrid in the trainer; and get a little “exercise” that way. If there’s no imminent threat of rain and lightning, I think I’ll ride in the park. Sometimes I wish I had a book to help me figure out what the weather is going to do. There may well be signs that I could “read”; but I’ve never had the time to learn them. And so, after a lifetime in this place, I still can’t tell what the weather is going to do! That’s why we have to plan for the worst; and then hope the worst doesn’t happen.

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Down Pat

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There are things that I should have down pat by now; or at least, so I think. Among them is handling a water bottle on the road bike. I still can’t do it consistently. Sometimes it goes fine; and sometimes I waver all over the place while I struggle to get that bottle back into its cage. Windy conditions make it even trickier; and especially a gusty sidewind. Sometimes I’m tempted to use the Camel-Bak for any and all rides; but for my Sunday long ride, I need the Camel-Bak for plain water; and a bottle for electrolyte drink. Thus I’ve got to be able to manage it. Today I extended my ride to 45.2 miles. On the way back home, the wind seemed to keep getting stronger; and indeed, there were gusts up to 20 mph. Of course I was tiring; and that didn’t help matters. My legs love to ride; but prolonged spinning wears them out! I apparently don’t have my fueling down pat. Today I tried eating slightly more than I did for my last few long rides; but it still might not have been enough. Even plodding along at an average of 11.73 mph, I seem to need a lot of fuel! Two Gatorade Whey Protein bars and one GU-Gel amounted to 780 calories; and I burned off 1100 calories! I did a lot of fast, low-gear pedaling; and when I do that for a long time, my stomach begins to feel uncomfortable. That’s quite an appetite-killer; and I have to remind myself, Train Your Gut! So, for my next 45-mile ride, should I eat three of those Gatorade bars? The wind tomorrow will be 15-20 mph by 10:00 am. I’m glad I won’t be riding 22+ miles against that!

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Spoiled by Nictemaw

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I’m really getting spoiled by Nictemaw! I began to use it three weeks ago; and it’s a much faster method of doing laundry than using the James washer. If I set it on the “soft” cycle, it takes only about 30 minutes to do a load; and with the James washer, it took at least an hour and a quarter. At a commercial laundromat, a cycle takes about 45 minutes; and even when I use fragrance-free detergent, I wind up with my “clean” clothes stinking of everybody else’s laundry products. That makes me furious! I’ll never understand why anyone wants their clothes to smell like that. The Nictemaw also gets much more water out of things than the wringer of the James washer. In fact, that wringer has been worn out for two years; and I was tired of having to wring so many things by hand. Of course a sheet or bath towel is too much for me to hand-wring; and I was tired of having dripping things all over the place. I can put down a tarp on the front-room floor; set up my six-foot stepladder; and drape a sheet over it. At least that keeps the dripping water from getting on the carpet; but a bath towel just had to drip on the kitchen floor. I rather miss the physical workout of using the James washer; but with rheumatoid arthritis affecting my hands, this is probably a wiser method. I miss being able to save all the water, too; but at least I can still save some of it. The Nictemaw also gets my clothes cleaner than the James washer did; and I like that. Spoiled by Nictemaw? You’d better believe it!

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Both Ways

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You can’t have it both ways, they say; but that’s not always accurate. I had a lot of headwind both ways today. That happens when it’s blowing from the NNW! I rode to the salvage store; and today I took the trailer. Sometimes the wind was from the side; and it was strong enough that the trailer acted like a sail. I could feel it pushing me around. The grab-bag bins were nearly empty again. I got spoiled when they were heaped with all sorts of things; and I might find six FitCrunch bars, in addition to many other items. But for several weeks, the salvage store has had Gatorade Whey Protein bars for sale, $1.11 each. That seems expensive after the bargain-basement prices of the grab-bag bins; but it’s still cheaper than the regular price. I’m buying them up while I have the chance. I keep saying that I have too many canned goods at home; and I still bring home more! I already had plenty of dried beans on hand; and I got more lentils! Do I expect a sudden doomsday to keep me indoors for several months? That’s what all that COVID-19 business did to me. Where I live it never came to shut-in orders; but I keep on as though it still might happen. Oh, well. Be prepared, they say! Long ride tomorrow. There will still be a wind, but at least I won’t be dragging that trailer along; and a Northeast wind probably won’t give me a headwind both ways. I’m thinking about ride food; and that reminds me, I’ve got to get some cooking done.

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