Down hills

One of the best things about biking that is also one of the most obvious is that included in all the hills we tackle is the built-in reward of going down the other side. 

The downhill of McKeon Road is one I always look forward to. Supposedly a plan is afoot to install sidewalks as part of a master-plan style reimagining of the area, which I hope doesn't narrow the road any. I think that's why I like it so much: it's big, fat shoulders. Call them breakdown lanes, call them shoulders. They are perfect for bike travel. In the summer you have to duck your head a bit to avoid a few low-hanging branches, but it's smooth and fast and long, every time. 

Out of the frying pan

Oy vey.

It's funny sometimes, the responses you give in the course of conversation. When I talk to myself (which is all the time), deep in thought, up in the woods, I always sound so articulate; every word is chosen carefully, every sentence declarative and deliberate. In my own mind, I'm up on the stage giving a TED talk on why I like salmon so much.

But when it comes time to drop that knowledge in polite conversation, there is, shall we say, some lost energy there. I don't think I'm unique in that sense; it's just funny.

I was thinking, for example, about talking with people about observations made now that I have been back on a bike for a few years now. Typically the person I'm talking with will ask where I ride, since I live in a busy part of the city. If I go left, I go into Auburn, which is a little more low-key. If I go right, I head downtown into the city. More lights, traffic, etc. But I usually caution them that it's not so bad; I rarely feel like I'm going to get killed while I'm in the city. Remarkably enough, on balance, I find other motorists to be quite patient most of the time.

At some point, though, my subconscious takes over and I usually blurt something out about all the trash. And that's not exclusive to the city. In my 2 years (in May) back on a bike, I can say that until you ride in the gutter (or near it), you don't realize just how much trash is in and around our streets. It's disgusting. As someone who was raised by parents who looked at littering as on par with swearing, hitting your sister, or quite possibly murder in the pantheon of awful things you could do in life, I detest littering, and litterers. Especially this day and age, when there are publicly available trash bins basically outside every convenience store, shopping center, gas station, fast food restaurant, and parking lot. It drives me nuts how much people litter, which is why I felt compelled to stop and photograph this freaking frying pan on the side of the road in Auburn the other day.

It's not that it was in a bad spot, or that I could have gotten a flat. It's just that someone saw a small wooded area, had a frying pan, said to themselves, "jeez, there's a huge commercial strip of businesses with myriad trash bins right up the street. But I guess I'll just toss this frying pan out right here."

Pick up after yourselves, people. Because I said so.

Willing spring into existence

After last winter, I declared my lower temperature limit for bearable biking was 20 degrees. But it has been such a long, cold winter that this week I crumpled that up and tossed it. The screenshot below was from this afternoon; this morning it was about 14 degrees when I put my winter gear on and hit the road.

Translation: cold

It wasn't so bad, and it was such a short ride that I was back inside by the time things got too numb. But the sun was out, and the benefits by far outweigh the challenges of riding in the cold. It's not wind-in-the-hair, soaking-in-the-rays-of-the-sun satisfying. It's more of a "Nice, I grounded it out and I feel 1000 times better, because I rode my bike." 

I got out four times this week; that's by no means "laying down base miles" like the guy at the bike shop told me last year, but even after just a few consecutive rides I feel like my body is getting back in the swing of things. I adjusted my saddle height up just a bit because I had been feeling a little cramped (my Pug, I think, is a tad on the small size for me). 

I am impressed at how my off-season maintenance paid off. Well, I should say off-season repairs. The wheels are rolling sweet after bearing replacement in the fall (prompted by that broken axle on Vernon Hill!), and cleaning the freewheel and the complete teardown/rebuild of the rear derailleur seems to have worked wonders on the drivetrain, which feels smooth and is almost completely silent. 

I look forward to the day (hopefully late spring/early summer) when I roll out of the bike shop on a shiny new road bike, but today I felt really connected and comfortable on the Pug. Anything I've ever read about Peugeots makes some mention of how well they go down the road; count me among the masses. It feels solid and it feels like it is always covering a lot of ground. It might not be fast, but it feels swift. I think I will realize and be able to take advantage of the benefits a road bike will offer me: light weight, modern construction and components, the low rolling resistance of skinny tires. 

The Peugeot will stay with me, that is assured. When I first made up my mind in that regard it was, I think, due to nostalgia and the emotional connection of the 80s relic getting me back on a bike. But the more (and more and more) I ride it, the more I think it stands on its own. It stands out as a hidden gem, a relic of the dawn of mountain biking, as imagined by a bunch of French guys who really, really knew their stuff when it came to building road bikes. It's a really nice bike, and I will continue to ride it. 

Back on the road

Greek salad pizza

But first, some food.

Greek salads have been a recent obsession. Over the past few years, as I have gone a different way with my eating habits, it has been interesting to see what has filled the gap left when I drifted away from other foods.

For example, I always enjoyed pasta occasionally. Now I eat it at least 3 or 4 times a week. I basically gave up candy, but I have zeroed in on high-cacao chocolate as one of my few indulgences.

Then we have Greek salads. When I first lost a lot of noticeable weight, questions always came about my secret forumla--what was the hidden trick that was melting off all this fat? I would rattle off all the foods I stopped eating, and all the foods I started eating. Sometimes I felt this weird need to state how much I didn't eat salads. I would say similar things about tofu.

Two years later, I eat Greek salads like they're going out of style, and I love myself some tofu, though not as regularly

Truth is, I wasn't the hugest feta fan in the past. But tastes change, and I now find the sort of tangy clumpiness of feta a textural and flavorful treat. I love tomatoes, olives, onions, peppers, and lettuce, so it turned out to be a sort of natural fit. I even started making my own Greek dressing--a little Dijon mustard, some sugar, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, oil, oregano, and lemon (there are many variations).

Today for lunch I had a Greek salad pizza. I used the dressing as both the sauce and as a finishing drizzle. I used storebought pizza dough (so sue me), and added the lettuce at the end to preserve the crunch. I've never baked lettuce, but I would imagine it turns into a wet mess.

The best thing is the little bit of caramelization of the feta. Just takes a little bit of the edge off. Good stuff.

It's not June at sunset, but it will do

This weekend also marked the end of a dark month in the life of this bike rider. According to Strava (don't worry, I just have the basic free membership and I only risked my life once to get a medal on the Vernon Hill descent), before yesterday my last ride was Feb. 2. The temperature and road conditions finally agreed with my schedule and I headed out.

It's funny--I think the slightly warming temperatures creates a sort of neat uniformity in the snowbanks. They sort of peel back at this point. Dirty, compacted reminders of a brutally cold and snowy month. But the Earth is tilting in our favor these days, and the sun is getting higher in the sky. A predicted 3 to 6 inches tonight into tomorrow has faded into a dusting. Proof, I am convincing myself, that winter is losing its bite.

 I rode just 3.5 miles yesterday and today, but it felt great. That new shifter is working great, and the Pug feels strong and smooth. It's amazing how much "shape" you lose when you take just a month off from being on the bike. I look forward to building that endurance back up. I chose a nice flat route (as flat as possible, at least), and didn't push it. And it is still pretty cold. But it was just what I needed to elevate my mood.

Winter project completed, spring is now welcome to arrive

As even more (!) flakes fly outside, one of the few respites from bicycling cabin fever is wrenching on one in the basement. With my nine-year-old outgrowing his 20-inch six-speed mtb, it was time to prepare him for another size up.



This was my oldest son's bike until I rebuilt him a Fuji Boulevard last summer. It takes 24-inch wheels, and it's the perfect size for my middle guy for at least a few years. He tippy-toes the floor from the saddle with it all the way down, and his legs look good on the pedals. Here it is after I started putting it back together.


 It's a bit heavy, but it's a nice bike. It was also yet another opportunity to learn more about repairing and rebuilding bicycles. On this one I went through everything. I replaced the old steel wheels with alloys from a parts bike, and repacked or replaced wheel bearings, bottom bracket bearings, and headset bearings. Those old Shimano derailleurs work perfectly, and keeping myself to a pretty modest budget, I just cleaned and re-used this one. Partly just to have an excuse to buy a freewheel removal tool, I swapped the Shimano 6-speed from the old wheels to the new ones. The cockpit is all new. New flat bar, donor stem, new twist grips and new levers. I had amazing luck with these Shimano BL-550R levers; they work wonderfully with cantilever brakes, and I have used them on other bikes I've had. The SRAM twist grip shifters work nicely, and they come with the grips for just about 17 bucks online. I replaced the cantilever brakes with basic generic ones, with Jagwire pads. They work fine. And I swapped over my 9-year-old's computer.

This winter has been snowy and brutal.

I'm pleased with how it turned out. The only nagging shouldawouldacoulda I have is the drivetrain. The old 2x6 works just fine, but I wonder if I spent another 50-60 bucks I could have truly upgraded this bike into new territory. I think the answer is probably not. It still weighs a ton, it's still a late 80s-early 90s Nishiki hybrid 24-inch bike that's only going to last my son a few years at the most. I only paid $50 for the bike in the first place, which is also a consideration. My son will enjoy it I'm sure; he was happy with the final product. But it's nice to just take stuff apart, see how it works, and put it back together sometimes. Better to make mistakes and go down rabbit holes with a cheap little project like this. I think I'd like my next project to maybe take a little more risk, a little more reward. Maybe a nicer old Schwinn, or Peugeot, or an 80s steel Trek. Something worthy of well-thought-out upgrades. On the other hand, when you build a bike from just a frame like I did on this one, part of me is starting to think that basic, high-quality components are all you really need. The rest is just marketing.

Want of the day

I don't obsessively stalk mountain bikes on Craigslist like I stalk road bikes, but if there was any lasting legacy of that "Reveal the Path" movie the other day it was giving me the mountain bike bug. According to th seller, this is a mid to late-90s Gary Fisher Joshua X. Bike names can veer into very strange territory; there's little rhyme or reason.

I like this bike. It's well-presented, actually--I'm sure the seller didn't think much of it, but the gentle green frame goes well against the orange wall. These sort of Y-frames that became popular in the 90s don't usually set me on fire, but knowing it's a Gary Fisher along with the bike's clean, overall simplicity makes it really interesting for me.

This Joshua X appears to be outfitted with some nice hardware; I'm no expert, but Shimano's Deore XT mountain groupsets are pretty well-regarded. The selller wants $235 for it; if I was actively in the market for a nice light to medium-duty mountain bike I'd make an offer, at least.

As I descend deeper into bicycle nut territory, I find myself leaving behind my previously strong belief that for most riders, one versatile bike will suffice. I have slightly adjusted that to two bikes--road and mountain.

Oddly enough, my current steed is an ancient mountain bike converted to drop bar quasi-road bike duty, and ridden pretty exclusively on pavement. For that reason, my short-term goal is to get a new road bike, in all its modern brifting, indexed glory. But for something like this Gary Fisher, which was a pretty capable, high-end mountain bike in its day, the money seems short for such a fun toy.

To got the full ad, just click here.

Taking advantage

Taken before the recent foot of snowfall.

The winter we're experiencing here in the Northeast isn't any more or less brutal than any other year that I can remember, but it certainly doesn't fall into that nebulous category of "mild." We've had quite a bit of snow, but hey, it's winter.

I don't ride in the snow. I just never really saw the benefit of investing in studded tires for what would only likely be a few rides a year.

It is, however, important to sneak out whenever possible. At this point, it's not about staying in shape. It's just riding to take a ride. Fresh air. Body moving.

Other than that, it's winter maintenance, a project bike or two, and soaking up more and more information and perspectives on cycling.

On a whim last night I cued up Netflix and watched "Reveal the Path," a movie about a bunch of dudes who apparently went to some far off places over a summer and documented their exploits. I used to say I couldn't stand watching golf on television. It's accessible enough that you should be out playing it, not watching it. I feel the same way about bicycle stuff, but when there's a foot of snow outside, you have to get your fix somehow.

The locales in "Reveal the Path" were stunning. What were intended as backdrops for cool mountain-biking and vague talk about "taking the path" and "just going out and doing it" almost seemed to steal the show. The Scottish highlands, the Alps, Nepal, Morocco, Alaska--well chosen, boys.

It was pleasant enough, and they didn't seem to come on too strong with their whole message, although there was a website at the end where I'm sure you could indoctrinate yourself further. Above all, it was nice to see bikes going through green grass; a lack of winter gloves; and again, those bikes--very high end mountain/trekking bikes. Not exactly where I think I'm headed, but as I watched I kept thinking boy, I could use a nice mountain bike at some point. It would be nice to have in the stable.