Saturday, April 7, 2007

Day 65: Uncle Paul's Life Lessons From The Road

Update: 223.6 lbs, 34.6 lbs so far, 3.4 left to reach goal.

The other day Nick told me about a 13 mile loop that takes off from my neighborhood, circles around the boonies, and then back, for a good bike ride. For those who know the area it takes off down Shoreline, which crosses to Windsor Island Rd, out to Ravena, cut back down Wheatland to River Rd, to Lockhaven, back to Windsor Island, Shoreline, and then back into the neighborhood. As is usually the case, a new venture like this for me is full of little lessons...lessons which today, Uncle Paul would like to share with you.

You CAN Teach An Old Dog New Tricks
Remember the pitbulls from last week's ride..yeah, well I avoid them now by taking a different route. Today from a distance I spotted an old, chubby German shepherd guarding a farm, that I would have to ride by. I picked up just a little speed to be sure, and as I got closer, he started barking and started moving towards me. I could tell he wasn't going to catch me as long as I didn't slow down, but I decided to act like I needed to speed up anyway...to give him a little thrill chase. I'm sure as an old, chubby dog, he was going to go back and tell his other dog buddies how he nearly mauled this big brown guy on a bike -- "you should have seen it, like a ginormous double scoop chocolate cone on two wheels!"

Well just about the time I was patting myself on the back for boosting this old dog's ego, I picked something up out of my peripheral vision -- a younger, slightly less chubby german shepherd that was coming from another part of the same property, making a bee line to cut me off at the pass! Santa Maria! This time, I actually had to kick up the horses a bit so he wouldn't take out my front forks. Close call, but I staved off the sneak attack. Later on, I was pretty sure the Pitbulls from across K-town called the G-Sheps and told them they'd need a blind sweeping attack to fake me out. I don't know who let the dogs out, but call the score: Attack Dogs - 0, Mex-On-The-Bike - 2.

Don't Spit Into the Wind
Ok, this one I actually learned from Jim Croce back when I was a wee lad, (or Wii lad these days.) However, I'd forgotten what a pain it is to ride in the wind. Today I realized that a good tailwind can make you feel like you're Lance Armstrong, whereas a strong headwind actually reduces you to Lance Bass...(yeah, I'm not really sure what that means either, but I needed a good Lance-Lance drop there.) With no wind, I actually had some pretty good cruising speeds, but once I hit some of the open fields of the backwoods the winds slowed me down to nearly half speed, which stinks. I'm not sure how this works, since I made one big loop, but I managed to have a headwind for about 2/3rds of my ride...which is nice. Check the wind before you ride. If Something Wicked This Way Comes, maybe hold off for a break in the weather.

Easy Does It
On the gearshifting that is. As I hit one particular hilly area, I decided to shift down to make life a little easier, but actually went the wrong way and geared up making the pedaling twice as hard. I panicked, and shifted right away two gears the other direction. This was on the front sprocket shifter, so it's actually jumping by 10's, if that makes sense. Anyway, since I didn't allow for the chain to fully engage before shifting the other way, and since I was standing on that crank at the time, I derailed it. Thank goodness I still had a runny nose from my cold, because I had put tissues in every pocket of my shorts (all 4 of them) in case I needed them. Turns out I did, but to wipe the grease off my hands. Now I realize carrying a few tissues, or some sort of rag is a good idea. Also didn't realize there was a U-Pick Tulip patch (farm, garden, villa..???) on Wheatland, but I do now, and a mom and daughter got a great shot of me from behind bending over to fix my chain...sorry ladies.

No Means No!
At about mile 7.3 of this loop is a road that runs uphill named Ravena. It's named for the late famous hispanic cyclist Edwardo Ravena who died instantly when he attempted to actually ride up this almost completely vertical stretch of road. He made it about halfway, and simply gave out from exhaustion. The local townfolk decided to memorialize his effort by calling that Ravena's Hill, or simply 'Ravena' nowadays. Anyway, my eyes were bigger than my stamina today.

I saw the hill from a good half mile to mile away, and started mentally preparing for it. "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can." But my legs were saying, "yeah, aint gonna happen my friend." Having been recently inspired by an episode of Friday Night Lights I began to encourage the legs that 'they really could, if they'd just dig down deep.' As I neared the throat of the hill, I downshifted (no derailement this time) and proceeded to dig on in. Everything was going great until about a third of the way up, when something strange happened...my bike simply stopped. No slowing down, or rolling to a stop, it just up and stopped. Really, the wierdest thing I've had happen on a bike in my life. There was no more energy in my legs, and we were at such an incline that gravity pulled us to a motionless state. I quickly hopped off and pushed it the rest of the way up the hill.

I later noticed something odd...I have a shifter on the right side of my bike too, and if I move that little dial thingy, I can actually change the gears on the back sprocket, which makes life much easier. I had tried going up that hill in about gear 8, instead of something like 3, or more realistically, 1. Anyway, I know better for next time. And since I remembered that whole 'other gear thing' on Wheatland, it made the hill by McNary Golf course easier to get up and over as well. Use them shifters, they're there for a reason.

Well, there you go...dont' say Uncle Paul never gave you nothin'!

Hasta.

PS - you know what stinks? Riding to work and back, playing golf, and playing basketball on Friday, riding for an hour on Saturday, and staying under 1500 calories for 3 days in a row (eve over a holiday) and going up .4 of a pound, not losing.

5 comments:

Michael said...

I just had a thought. I might have a solution to your dog problems.. and I can't believe other bikers haven't been using this. Which might be an answer as to why it wouldn't work... but I think it would.

Here at work.. we get customer who come in with rodent nests in their cars. In the engine compartments.. people who live in rural areas often get mice, and rats and stuff climbing up in the heater boxes and stuff like that and we find piles of dogfood stored up, and nexts and poop and stuff like that. People don't want to have poisons in their households, and so I advise them of this product you can buy that you just throw on the ground under where you park your car.

It bascially just puts out an ultrasonic noise that animals can here, but humans can't. And it keeps the rodents away. I always have to disclaim that it wouldn't be a good if you have pets cause it will disturb them. So I wonder if you could just carry something like that on your bike and it would be like a force sheild agaist these guys.

The only problem is that I don't know if you can turn them off and back on again or not. Cause it would suck to take it home to Duece if you couldn't turn it off.

Anyway... worth looking into.

**

On a different note. I don't think I'll win the date, but I think I'll be closer than any of the other posts.

Paul said...

Well, that is an interesting idea...I'd kind of feel like I was riding the Night Rider bike or something. Seems like someone would have made a product like for just such an application.

I think you're right about the date, although this bug thing is kind of messing with the old insides a tad (sorry, too much info) so who knows, we may all be surprised tomorrow.

But in any case, I think probably sometime this week yet.

Michael said...

Well I know they make those whistle thing you put on the bumper of your car for deer. It's the exact same concept except the wind makes and ultrasonic whistle and that keeps deer away, and thusly you don't have to worry about deer jumping out in front of you.

I just wonder if you would create enough wind force to make it work.

hmm... I'm gonna figure this out.

Michael said...

Since we're on the subject:

Click here to read about preventing dog bites while cycling.

Sydney said...

Paul, yet again, you have caused laughter on this end of the screen ...I think you should start TIVOing the Dog Whisperer...You'll have those dogs in calm submission in NO time flat...Seriously, it helped me get over my fear of dogs...Either that, or have some milk bones in your pocket...just toss them like a paper boy to those g-sheps... LOL... Love the story, and the life lesson...good tips...