Racks and rides

 This morning marked the debut of an old rack I threw on the Pug. It's a nice Blackburn that I took off of the Fuji I rebuilt for my son a while back, and it went on pretty good, although the braze-ons on the bike were not threaded like they were on the Fuji, so I had to use a nut and bolt instead. It seemed to work out fine. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about a recent post on Lovely Bicycle; the discussion revolved around how short a bike ride can be while still being enjoyable. The comments were interesting--you can tell a lot about what kind of bike riders people are without them coming out and saying it, but it made me think about what kind of bike rider I am.

 When I got back on a bike about a year and a half ago, the big goal I had in mind was fitness. Walking simply wasn't enough of a workout, and I had never been able to make running work for me. Fitness was not a singular goal; I had always loved riding as a youth, and I was excited to feel those sensations again. As I kept riding, I wondered if the motivations and inspirations were changing. I don't think they were changing as much as they were fluctuating. What does it matter, anyway? If I'm out on my bike, that's the point. I think every time I go out for a ride I look forward to checking off the fitness box, but I also just look forward to riding my bike.


 The other night, for example, I had been jonesing all day to get out for a ride. I finally got out and rode through Kelley Square, up Vernon Street, and down Vernon Street. I felt great; God knows how many calories got burned, but those 7.5 miles made my mind and my body feel better.

 A few weeks ago, I tagged along with Worcester Loops, a sort of underground riding group (they tend to drink in parks after they finish), for a 13.7 mile loop around the city. It was thrilling, challenging, and invigorating. It was a beautiful, warm evening, and it was lovely to see parts of the city on a bike I had only ever driven through.

 I wasn't thinking about how many watts I was pushing out; I was having such great fun leaning into the Washington Square rotary like I was a MotoGP rider.

 One of the comments on the Lovely Bicycle blog post went something like "If it's not worth starting up Strava, it's just transportation cycling..." I've never done Strava, but when I read that I thought, hey, I resemble that remark! Most of my rides average about 5-8 miles. I'm probably putting in 40 miles a week. I simply don't have the long stretch of time that a longer ride requires. That commenter probably does as many miles in a week that I do in a day. But is he getting what he wants out of how much he rides? Am I getting as much as I want out of my rides? Hey, maybe the answer to both is yes. I think I have some longer riding in me, but right now, I don't know any better. I rode a few miles to the library with my cool new (to me) rack, dropped off a book, and rode home. It was immensely satisfying. I don't know what a 25-mile ride feels like, but at this point, it's all relative.

Zucchini Provencal

I've been making this at least once or twice a week for about a month now.

Trek 1100

I'm a little conflicted. I bought this Trek 1100 a few weeks ago for $25 on Craigslist, and I don't know what to do with it. Perhaps it's good that I sort of haphazardly picked this one up; perhaps I'll turn it into a "teachable moment."

My long-term goal over the next year or so is to purchase a new road bike. I already ride a vintage Peugeot, so I want something new, light, fast, and trouble-free. So I didn't even want this bike, which is an '89 according to the former owner.

It has a Suntour Edge 4050 "groupset," which bascially means a related group of components. Crank, brakes, derailleurs, shifters, etc. A guy in Charlton sold it to me. When I went to pick it up, his wife was the only one home, and said she "hadn't been feeling so well lately" so had stopped riding. I felt a little sad.

It just seemed like if you have a chance to buy a $25 Trek that's in great condition, you should just buy it first and ask questions (why did I buy it? being the first one!) later. Craigslist is flooded with overpriced bikes; this simply was too good to pass up.

It doesn't fit me. I may have actually considered keeping it, but part of the reason I want a new road bike is that I want one that fits me. I think I should be riding a bike that's 58 cm from the middle of the crank to the seat tube. This one's 54. My wife was a little irritated--she said I should have gotten rid of some of the junk bikes I have piled up in a short period of time before I went taking on another project. She was right, of course.

So my dilemma is this. It could use new tubes, tires, wires and cables. Maybe some new bar tape, and some brake pads. That's basically it. It's in really good shape. Do I invest in those parts (I can do it all myself) and see if I come out in the black? Or do I simply send it off into the universe for what I paid plus maybe some labor for wiping it off? Will the Gods of bike karma look kindly upon that, ensuring that I will be rewarded down the road?

The Fuji

It's not quite refurbished, it's not quite restored, but it rides well and it was great fun working on this bike.

As the cracked and peeling decals illustrate, this is a Fuji Boulevard from around the late 1980s-early 1990s, judging from the online catalogs I've looked at. The above photo shows what it looked like the night I brought it home. It had been posted on Craigslist for months, and something caught my eye about it every time the price dropped. I keep thinking it was the rack that sealed the deal, but who knows? The price hit $30, and I pounced. I visited the guy's house, made it look like I knew what I was doing in giving it the once-over, and drove away.

The Fuji Boulevard is a very heavy bike. Slotted at the lower-end of Fuji's line, it appears to have been a sort of pre-hybrid: definitely not heavy-duty enough (well, it has the heavy part down!) to be an off-road mountain bike, but big and solid and comfy enough to make a nice city cruiser. The advertisement was weird. It was described as a "teenage" bike with 24-inch wheels. But it was  most definitely a smaller-to-medium size adult bike with 26-inch wheels. It was a 10-speed, with a Sugino double crank up front and a Shimano 5-speed freewheel in the back. The seller described the rear wheel as slightly bent, which was basically accurate. The spokes were corroded and rusty, too, so I decided early on the big find for this project would be new wheels. I figured that when complete, I would have my oldest son try it on for a possible upgrade from his 24-inch Nishiki. If he didn't feel comfortable on it, I figured I would just sell it for what I paid, or try for a small return.

Any experienced bike flipper would not have gone near this bike. Like I said, it's heavy. It's pretty basic. It was not a hugely expensive or unique bike when it was new. It needed more work than, quite frankly, it was worth. And I only paid $30 for it! The wheel issue should have sent me running--that's a big expense on a bike that I wouldn't be able to sell for much. But the other big reason I dove into this project was to teach myself some repair and refurbishing techniques. The big ones on this bike were the bottom bracket and the headset. It's such an uncomplicated part--just a spindle, some bearings, and "cups' that hold the bearings against those spindles. But I don't think a lot of people would attempt the repair. Two tools are required--a crank puller and a bottom bracket tool. But they're not too expensive, and will be used on future projects.

It all came apart pretty easy, and all went back together pretty easy. I stayed with the Sugino double for two reasons--I liked how it looked, and I didn't want to spend the (admittedly short) money for a triple that most modern mountain/hybrid bikes come with. Just figured I could always add it later. I might need a longer spindle, but hey, now I know how to remove a bottom bracket. Which was half the point of this project, like I said.


I had disassembled everything and cleaned everything, and the project kicked into high gear when, one afternoon a few weeks ago, I came across an 2000 Fuji woman's bike described as a "beach bike" or something like that. It was $10. I emailed the seller to ask if the wheels were true, and he said yes, adding that he had inflated the tired and took it for a spin around the driveway with no drama. I scooped that up, and had my wheels. The freewheel on the rear wheel was a 7-speed, so I transplanted the rear derailleur as well. I had to slightly squeeze in the new, wider freewheel, but it didn't seem like it was too much of a stretch. The original setup was friction, and the new 7-speed setup was indexed, so there was a nice upgrade. That led me to the only real new parts I bought (besides the bb bearings. cables and wires): the SRAM grip shifters. I had some extras from another parts bike, but they were horribly difficult to re-cable, and were hard even to get back together. They were older no-name units; newer grip-shifters are much easier to service. It seemed like a splurge, but I had already committed to an indexed system with the rear wheel. Plus, I knew I needed new grips for the straight bar setup. New grips, I figured, would be $8 to $10. The basic but pretty-good-quality SRAM grip shifters are only $17 for the set on Amazon, and come with their own set of grips. So I thought that was a pretty good value.

The only parts of the project I farmed out to the bike shop was the new chain (I just wasn't ready, particularly considering the frankenbike 14-speed setup) and brake adjustment (I fiddled with them for five minutes and threw in the towel). Labor charges well-spent, I say.

It rides true and smooth, and miraculously enough, the new drivetrain works like it's factory. My son loves it, although he checked off the "rack delete" option, and requested the kickstand be reinstalled, which is fine with me--it's his bike, now.

What a great feeling, riding it without any drama for the first time after putting it all back together. I'm sure there will be another project down the road that will do its best to discourage me from further projects, but this one was a great way to start out.

Routes

There were periods of time -- sometimes months, sometimes years, sometimes only weeks -- over the past 15 to 20 years during which I went to the gym.

 I largely enjoyed it, but it never seemed to stick. Typically, what started as pretty developed workouts would end up reduced to simply half an hour on the elliptical, maybe some pointless situps, and that was it.

Chalk that failure up to many things, but I always suspected boredom played a major role in my vanishing act. Having music or television to watch always helped, but it all just became dreadfully repetitive after a while. With that in mind, I decided that riding a bike might go a long way toward addressing the boredom issue as I was putting together a sort of path out of this malaise about a year-and-a-half ago.

Turns out I was spot on. The scenery, the concentration required not to get killed or injured, and the ability to stop and snap a picture of something cool have allowed me to create a routine for doing something that's good for me and enjoyable. One of the biggest advantages over watching a half-hour of closed-captioned Food Network is that I am not captive to any particular route.

There are shorter routes I take and longer ones, but among those, I tend to keep returning to a few favorites. Living in a pretty centrally-located section of the city, I enjoy ready access to a lot of different routes on my bike. One of them is the Blackstone River Bikeway.

Completed several years ago, the bikeway runs about four or five miles. It starts in Worcester and ends in Millbury. There is  a grand plan to run it from Union Station all the way to Rhode Island, but that's eons away. For now, it's a nice little spot, that's super kid-friendly.

Scallops

It's hard to convey with words the excitement of the first couple weeks of the CSA. It's just my second year, but I hope to continue this great relationship with food for as long as I can afford it.

It's a challenge every week to figure out how to use the veggies in as many dishes as I can. One crop we get a lot of right off the bat is green onions. They are a double threat--the bulbs can be basically used like onions or shallots, and the stalks are great in salsas or as a garnish.

So the other day I was at a playground with my little one, and the playground just happens to be near one of two fish markets I frequent. I think shellfish has a reputation as being sort of an expensive luxury, but it's really not. I think the scallops Ihave drying out here ran me about 6 bucks, which is less than I would have spent on a take-out lunch that day.

I also had some cilantro from the CSA, so I figured a little light sear and a little sauce and I would be good to go.

Scallops are not hard at all to cook. The biggest sin is overcooking them. That probably goes for most meat--you only want to cook meat to the absolute minimum it takes for it to achieve doneness. That might be hours for a big pork butt, or just a minute or two per side for a tuna steak. Cook food until it is done. That's easy enough, right?

Here's how I cook scallops. After they dry out (and after I further trim off the little connective muscle remnants) I roll them with a little kosher salt and cracked black pepper. I get a small iron skillet really hot (medium-high, or between teh 5 and 6 on the oven dial), and add a little butter and olive oil. The scallops go right in, and catch a good sear right away. About two-three minutes. If they're huge, maybe a little longer. If they're smaller, then less time.

Flip them over, another minute or two, and they are done.

CSA

My CSA shares return tomorrow. It can't come a moment too soon; I have looked forward to my weekly organic veggie bushel's delivery since the last day of last year's program. I split a large share at Many Hands Organic Farm in Barre with a friend last year; this year, I went with my own medium share, which I think will give me the same amount of vegetables.

For those who don't know, Community Supported Agriculture  works like this: you pay ahead of time over the winter for a "share" of the farm's vegetables. Every week, they drop them off. Every week, you wonder how you will ever be able to buy grocery store vegetables ever again.

I started cooking competently soon after I got married, just about 12 years ago. I had always had an idea of what cooking entailed; I spent most afternoons of my childhood loitering in the kitchen; I think enough culinary vernacular sunk in by osmosis, enough to buoy my confidence that I could handle myself with at least a minimum amount of skill.

Starting out, cooking involved basically asking my mother how she cooked certain dishes. I had the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook to help me fill in some other gaps and try a few new dishes here and there. A subscription to Bon Apetit sort of showed me what's out there. Food television proved seductive; I still use some recipes from Ina or Giada or whoever, but I think you just evolve at some point.

That point for me came last year with the arrival of my CSA. There was something very educational about not really knowing what mix of vegetables would be arriving every week. Making do with what was dropped off every Monday at the Living Earth was, to call back to food television, sort of my own personal episdode of "Chopped."

"Next up, we have beets, collard greens, and garlic scapes. Go!"

The true development of skill came from two sources. That unpredictable assignment of what was picked that week up in Barre put a premium not so much on what recipe to use, but how to cook each particular vegetable. Does this one get steamed? Is this one better raw? How long do I roast this root vegetable?

On a more cultural, or even spiritual level, getting the CSA every week helped develop more respect for ingredients. The food is so good, so fresh, that it seems almost inappropriate to prepare it one bit more than it needs to be. It's not about slathering food with cheese, or hot sauce, or salt. What should a properly cooked beet taste like? What is the absolute minimum this zucchini should be boiled? Do I need to go with a full-on tomato sauce, or can I just saute this tomato with some garlic and herbs, and I'll be all set?

The dish pictured to begin this post is grilled salmon with a Thai cucumber-basil sauce I cribbed from one of my favorite websites, Serious Eats.

Cookson

Cookson Park is one of my favorite places. It's a dinky little spot long ago relegated to the bottom tier of the Worcester city parks hierarchy. It's named after Walter Cookson, a longtime school board member and Republican mayor who died while attending the 1936 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. The hilly 18-acre spot once afforded spectacular views of the city from atop Mount St. James. It's all overgrown now, save for some decently maintained trails. Still, there's something to be said for an unassuming, scruffy spot. You're usually the only one in there, which is nice. It's quiet and pleasant and just a bunch of trees and brush. What else do you really need?
The park serves as a jumping off point to some nice bike-riding roads. I received clearance to depart after dropping the kids off at school on a recent morning, and took off. I just ride through the main trail that runs the length of the park. It's actually a road, and I'm told it once carried trolleys through the neighborhood.

It was a beautiful, warm, morning, and it was a nice, refreshing ride. Riding in the winter -- all the gear, the numb extremities, the windchill -- seems like a lifetime ago. Since installing the drop bars on the Pug, I feel like my speed has really picked up, which probably has less to do with aerodynamics than a more thigh and butt-friendly seating position. I have also been trying to get in the habit of riding on the big chainring most of the time (big chainring=harder to pedal, but more speed).

There's always a lot of second-guessing about any big purchase, and God knows what I would have went with if I knew back then what I know now about my riding style, bicycles in general, and the preferences I've developed. But by starting out with a heavy older bike with friction shifting and well-made but fussy mechanics, a new bike, when the time finally comes, will be a revelation. And by then, my fundamentals and my knowledge base will be such that I will truly choose the bike for me. I'm always thinking of what my next bike will be, but I enjoy every moment on the Pug.

The Pug

Just about a year ago I bought a bike. It's a 1980s Peugeot Paris Express. It's heavy and old and hopelessly out-of-date, but it's mine and it's special. It played an important role in my losing around 70 pounds over the course of a year; I'm forever in its debt. I may buy a new bike at some point, but I will never get rid of the Pug.

My first ride on the Pug was a short lap around the showroom floor at the bike shop. It seemed big enough for me--I'm tall, and I was still a bit beefy at the time. A road bike just seemed a little too spindly for me at the time.

My rides started out pretty brief. Compared to more serious riders, they still are. Four, five, six mile bursts are about all my schedule can accomodate at this juncture in my life. To say I'm not on the level of "serious riders"is perhaps a disservice to how far I've come; given the time, I would likely make quick work of long distances.

A big part of losing all the weight was really trying to understand this notion of our emotional connection to food. Certain smells and tastes trigger powerful memories and emotions that either leave you happy and satisfied or wanting more. Controlling that emotion, savoring it and enjoying it for what it is, rather than letting it consume me, was a pretty key element in my long-term success. With bikes, it's sort of the same neighborhood in my brain, but it's all positive. Nothing to be controlled or regarded with caution. I ride and ride and ride and I can't get enough, and there's no real negative. Perhaps I get a bit obsessive about it, feeling anxious on days when I don't make it out for at least a few miles. Perhaps I get caught up in the volumnous amounts of bike enthusiam on the Web more than I should. There are people out there who are way, way, way more into it than I am.

There was a time when I got myself into some expensive trouble tinkering with cars. I still enjoy automobiles and I do repairs when I'm confident enough, but the days of "oh I can fix that"when I really have no idea what I'm doing are long gone. Bikes, on the other hand, are pretty simple and relatively inexpensive machines, and parts are by and large easy to come by and generally standardized and interchangeable. So I indulge my gearhead urges on the Pug.

The most recent project I undertook was the conversion from upright mountain bike handlebars to drop handlebars. It was a bit tedious (my Pug's Frenchness often proves to be the exception to the "generally standardized and interchangeable"comment above) at times, but it was fun to do.




I learned a lot about different handlebar styles and sizes, and I really like the look and functionality of the road setup. And it cost me about $40 total. Now, as a percentage of what I paid for the bike last year, an insurnance agent would have long totaled my bike than do the repairs and upgrades I have performed, but life with the Pug is truly a labor of love.

When I started losing weight, I hoped I would stick with it, and I did. When I started riding a bike again, I hoped I would stick with it, and I did. May the same go for writing about it.