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Apres

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Apres Noel! With Christmas past, I have to try to pull myself out of the holiday haze of goodies. I have some broccoli in the fridge; but it\’s been there a long time, and I fear it\’s no longer fit to eat. I still haven\’t cleaned the carrots I bought several weeks ago; and I hope they\’re still good. At least I kept up my regular riding over Christmas. Today, in fact, I worked on pushing the pace hard. I hadn\’t done that for a while. It wasn\’t the \”force\” workouts; I stayed on the small ring. But for a minute at a time I rode hard, working to stay at 15 mph or more. I did shift onto smaller cogs during these efforts. After each of these intervals, I shifted back to a larger cog and rode easy for two minutes. I hope the weather doesn\’t prevent my riding in the coming days. I need to burn off some calories! Unfortunately the forecast isn\’t too good. It isn\’t expected to be cold; but we\’ve got a flash flood watch for tomorrow. It hope I can get out and ride first; then it may pour. Apres moi le deluge?

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No Pedigree??

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No pedigree? It\’s gotten warm for the time of year. People used to call it a \”weather breeder\”. Does whoever breeds that weather have a proper license? Maybe there\’s something in the expression \”weather breeder\”. The forecast currently shows 30-90% chance of T-storms right through next Sunday. And can you imagine the genealogy table for tomorrow\’s forecast? Showers and T-storms paired with 15-20 mph wind = disgruntled cyclists; myself, for one. I especially want to get in my distance because the road bike\’s total long-term mileage is closing in on 21,000. Only 72.47 miles to go, and I hope to make it by December 31. The bright spot regarding the weather forecast is that I don\’t go back to work until the day after New Year\’s. If it\’s storming early in the morning, I can go out later. Right now NOAA says \”fair\” for my location, but all the same it\’s drizzling on and off; and it sounds like the wind is strengthening as well. I\’m debating whether to run a couple of errands or to stay home. At least I got in my stint on the road bike. Even then the sun was dodging in and out; and a couple of miles before I got back home, the wind suddenly got stronger. Twice I had to stop in order to get a drink of water, because the wind made bike control tricky. It remains to be seen whether the weather will be a \”purebred\” or a \”mutt\”; but it looks like the latter is much more likely: no pedigree.

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Anticipation

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Anticipation is sometimes more fun than the longed-for day itself. Oh, what shall I do tomorrow? I want to go for a ride. Unfortunately there\’s a 30% chance of rain; and there might be some patchy fog. I do not like fog! Shall I ride first; and open my presents when I get back home? Or the other way around? Of the gifts from my sister, I\’m sure one is a book. Its size and shape are a strong hint! Yesterday as I was starting my ride, the Garmin gave me a \”low battery\” message for my speed sensor; and today I tried to change the battery. I got the cover off of the battery compartment; but I couldn\’t get the battery out! I had to go to the bike shop with it. That they were open today is a Christmas present in itself. Normally they\’re closed on Mondays; but since today is Christmas Eve, I had an idea they might be there. I called to be sure, and they said they\’d be open until 2 pm. So off I went; and now my speedometer should be OK. Last week I bought a quart of eggnog (which I drink \”without the nog\”, as my sister says); and I put most of it in smaller jars and froze it. Frozen eggnog is wonderful when it gets thawed enough to be slushy, with big, crunchy  crystals in it. Grab a spoon and dig in! Thinking of enjoying that slush tomorrow is delightful anticipation! Have a wonderful Christmas, full of delights!

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The Night Before Christmas

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Remember \”Twas the night before Christmas\”? And A Christmas Carol, when it was so foggy? When I was a kid, the evening of December 24 was very exciting. We had trimmed the tree after breakfast that morning, and it was still something new and wonderful. Our tree was always a real one, and it smelled so good! We had a \”whirligig\” ornament, shaped like a little carousel, that had a small propeller suspended horizontally in the middle. It was meant to be hung over one of the light bulbs on the tree, and the heated air rose and made the propeller spin. It was a great favorite of us kids. Naturally we hung up our stockings. When I was about six, an aunt made felt stocking for us. Each of our stockings had our name on it. Of course as we got older, those stockings were much too small for all the \”loot\”. Playing records (this in the days of 33-1/3 rpm albums) of Christmas music was always a major part of the holiday, although naturally we didn\’t wait until December 24 to start playing them. When I was about eleven, my mother brought home an album with the title, \”Round the World Christmas\”, which became my favorite Christmas record. For some reason the one from Australia has been running through my mind lately. On the record the accompaniment was organ, but this YouTube is still the same song. What do you do the night before Christmas? Bake cookies? And sneak some icing to eat while trimming them? I always did! Make wassail? Caroling, snowmen, even going for a bicycle ride through the snow? Whatever it is, May your days be merry and bright!      

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Shimmy!

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There\’s the shimmy on the dance floor, the way Kate did it. It was considered quite naughty at the time. Now and then a cyclist\’s wheel goes naughty and starts to shimmy; and that\’s an entirely different matter. Look here for advice on the cause of this problem; and what you can do if it occurs. As with so many contingencies, the first rule is: Don\’t Panic. So far I\’ve been fortunate enough not to have had trouble with speed wobble. I guess I don\’t go fast enough. Yet. Since it\’s only two days until Christmas, \”shimmy\” gets me to thinking about \”shimmer\”, as in light glinting off of tinsel. Any other time, I\’d get to thinking of \”chamois\”, as in cycling shorts. Maybe I\’d better stop thinking about it.  

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HIGH FIVE!!

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Here\’s a high five for me! Today my mileage total (road bike + hybrid) for 2018 passed the 5000 mark! For a minute I was afraid it hadn\’t. I had double-checked by going over my week-by-week totals; adding them up in short columns of three or four weeks at a time, to make adding much easier. First I did the road bike\’s; and then the hybrid\’s. Then I added up the two grand totals. I was dismayed to come up with 4778.47 miles. Uh-oh. Then I looked at the road bike\’s miles again, and saw that I had missed adding in three weeks\’ worth of miles. Those were the miles that brought my 2018 total to 5031.91. And I may get in another 100 or so by the time New Year\’s arrives. That\’s a great excuse for a high five. Now, shall I aim for 6000 miles in 2019? Or is that getting overly ambitious?

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Christmas Star?

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I hope I\’m not what Joe Friel calls a \”Christmas star\”. By that he means riders who are in shape for racing during the Winter, but are gone when the Summer\’s serious racing begins. (See The Cyclist\’s Training Bible, 4th ed, pg. 109). Today I got out there and rode 40.3  miles. I wasn\’t racing, goodness knows. Leaving out the first mile (to \”get going\”) and the final 2.5 miles (I tried doing a \”cool down\”), I averaged about 14.2 mph. That really isn\’t so very fast. At one point I was passing another cyclist. Yet another rider was approaching from the opposite direction. I put on the steam so I could finish getting around the rider in front of me before the fellow coming head-on got too close for safety. I hit a max speed of 21.1 mph, so apparently the potential for greater speed is there. Come to think of it, there was a time when hitting 15 mph for a second or two took hard work. Now I sometimes average that for as much as 10 miles or more. It\’s not a stellar performance, so apparently I\’m not a Christmas Star, but hey — it\’s progress!

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Basketry

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Sometimes I take up basketry as Christmas approaches. I don\’t mean this kind of basket. But you can easily make woven paper baskets! When I was still pretty young, we got a Golden Magazine Christmas Annual for Boys and Girls. We had it for years; and eventually I appropriated it for my own box of Christmas stuff. Finally I passed it along to my sister, when her daughters were young. This magazine had several stories, including one about a giant named Grummer; who lived in a castle made of Limburger cheese, and \”was a very bad giant!\” He said he planned to steal all the Christmas stockings and presents (by reaching down the chimneys) and destroy them; he couldn\’t stand the thought of people being happy. One Prince Topsy hatched a plan with Santa Claus to foil Giant Grummer\’s intentions and save Christmas Day. Query: was Giant Grummer inspired by the Grinch? My favorite feature in that magazine was the Countdown to Christmas; with different activities for every day until December 25. I still remember some of them, such as 23 days \’til Christmas: \”It\’s time for window shopping, and we have just begun. We can\’t get everything we like; but looking\’s half the fun!\” And there were instructions for making a wreath; making Christmas stockings; putting up a bird feeder; and so on. Three days \’til Christmas was time to make Danish baskets. The ones in this magazine weren\’t heart-shaped; but it was the same principle. I never tried making them until after I was grown up. Then they were fun to make for  \”goodie bags\” to give to everybody at work the last day before the Christmas holiday. Just be careful not to get so carried away by this basketry that you wind up a basket case!

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Neck Check

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What\’s the neck check? Every cyclist has the occasional day of waking up to realize, \”Oh, no — I\’ve got a cold!\”  Should you ride, or not? Do a neck check! Are your symptoms above the neck? Stuffy head and scratchy throat? But no chest congestion and no fever? Then it\’s OK to go for a ride; but go easy. If riding makes you feel worse, turn around and go home. But if your symptoms are below the neck; if your chest feels congested and/or you\’re feverish, don\’t bother with exercise. The Cyclist\’s Training Bible even mentions the risk of developing Coxsackie  if you train while ill. It can take a long time to recover from that, so don\’t risk it. Something the neck check seems to omit is this: even if you lack below-the-neck symptoms, you might feel dizzy, and/or off-balance. I\’m quite prone to that when my head gets stuffy. Dizziness doesn\’t mix well with balancing on two wheels. Oddly, I\’ve had much less trouble with colds since I took to pushing the pedals. I\’ve even gotten caught out in the rain on a cold day, which people once believed meant, \”You\’ll catch your death!\” Well, I\’m still here. Of course we now know that colds are caused by viruses, not by getting cold and/or wet. But next time I wake up feeling like a cold (and it\’s bound to happen some day), I must remember the Neck Check.

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