I wrecked. I was more than halfway home and in my one crossing of the busy road when the hookless old Rigida let go of the oversized Pasela. The tire jammed in the brake and the tube popped. I was tangled in the bike. No one ran me over before I freed myself and limped to the roadside. I gathered my wits and checked out the bike. Other than the tube, the major damage was a bent handlebar. I replaced the tube, shoved the stem straight, and started again. I treated myself to a light pace, a handful of non-prescription pain meds, and an early beer

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OMG! So glad you weren't hurt worse or run over!

I had some good commuting miles yesterday on my slow gravel bike:

• The usual 2 mile commute in. No wind; nice.
• 6.8 mile ride downtown for lunch and back. It was a neighborhood soup contest to fundraise to repair the theatre of some flood damage. (pix below) Seeing the state of the masonry above the awning, I believe it. They should fix that first, then there will be no more flood damage!
• 2 mile ride home

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The theatre. You can see my bike locked by the trash can out front.


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I daresay it was a big hit; the place was PACKED!


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I got a commemorative soup mug and a ballot with my $20 entry fee.

History of the theatre: (SOURCE)The original Rhode Opera House was opened in 1891 and was destroyed by fire in 1896. A new opera House was built on the site and was screening motion pictures by 1901. In 1924 it was taken over by Saxe Amusements. They demolished the theatre in 1926.

In 1927 they built the Gateway Theatre on the site, which opened on December 29, 1927 with Bebe Daniels in “She’s a Sheik”. It was equipped with a Barton theatre organ. The theatre had 1,800-seats. In 1963 Standard Theatres leased the theatre and it was renamed Lake Theatre, reopening on April 28, 1963 with Jackie Gleeson in “Papa’s Delicate Condition”. On March 12, 1976 it was twinned and renamed Lake 1 & 2. It closed on March 14, 1984 with Paul Newman in “Harry & Son” & Rachel Ward in “Against All Odds”.

From 1988 it became home to the Lakeside Players, a community theater group. In 1989, they purchased the building and it was re-named Rhode Center for the Arts.

Jeez, feel better Darth Lefty.

I rode in again today. I felt good, largely because we had our second staff exercise class after school. We'll be doing this on Wednesdays. This time we did yoga. I've always been very stiff, so if someone were observing me and how little I bend, they might think I'm not even trying. But I was bending/stretching pretty hard for me. And it did me good. Maybe I'll be able to do it more often.

I overdressed for the ride in. I didn't feel too hot, but I notice I smell bad. Embarrassing. Well, no one is mentioning it.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2319:

I kind of weenied out this morning. When I woke up the air temp was 52°F, which is a rather pleasant temperature for a March morning in South Dakota. However, I could hear the wind howling, and the forecast said that we'd already experienced the day's high temperature and it would continue to drop. My ride home tonight is projected to be below freezing.

My original plan was to ride to our company office, then at lunch ride to a client, then at 5 PM ride to the theater, then when our performance ends around 10 PM ride home. With this morning's temperature and a strong tailwind pushing me, the 8 mile ride to the office would be easy. However, I was dreading the 10 mile ride across town to the client fighting the strong winds. I don't get a whole lot of sleep as it is during a theater production, and I was worried that fighting that wind for 10 miles was going to suck all the gas out of my tank.

I didn't want to show up at the theater completely drained, so I made the decision to just ride directly to the client. That way I would only have to fight the wind for less than 5 miles, and do it while the temp was still warm. That also allowed me to snooze in my chair for a few minutes, seeing as I didn't have as far to ride. It shortens my day from 22.5 miles to 9 miles, and eliminates a good chunk of the headwind. Hopefully this route modification leaves me with plenty of energy for the stage.

Coincidentally, the theater is only two blocks from the client which is quite convenient. Call time is 5 PM, so I don't have to leave the client's office until 4:55. We're doing a "soft opening" tonight for about 175 people who received special tickets. The official opening night is tomorrow.
https://www.thepassionmusical.com

I'm fine. A few square inches of low speed road rash and four bruises on three limbs. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. I'm down to one bike, though! The pink bike dot com, which I rode today.

School I think doesn't do a great job of teaching nutrition and fitness. For fitness I'm trying to teach the kids that there's three components - strength, endurance, and flexibility. This of course makes no sense to them. They want to fight, and otherwise not do anything. Some kids want to race, but not mine

Tundra Man - whenever I'm in farm country and there's a crosswind I imagine having a sail or a kite that would pull me along and I could lean against the pull like a tacking sailing ship. But in reality the intersection every mile or half mile would surely spoil the fun

Darth Lefty strength is how much weight you can lift. Endurance is how many times you can lift it. I'm sure you know that, but maybe they'll follow if you put it that way.

A few years ago I was an aide in a kindergarten class. The gym teacher was leading some yoga. One of the little kids was familiar because his mother did it regularly. He tried to correct me when I bent, and he got on top of me to make me fold further. My body just doesn't bend that far. He was little and innocent, so I didn't get annoyed. It made me laugh.

I too am glad that you are more or less unscathed!

I turned 65 in January, and in recent years, I feel myself getting weaker. I plan to work on doing what I can to regain strength. I got home from work today after bike-commuting, and I was extra tired. I can't see bike-commuting five days a week at this level of strength. Maybe I can build up to it.

Mind you, my job is also physically demanding. I stand for most of the day, and I walk a lot from class to class. (I'm a SPED teacher.) I climb 10 to 20 flights of stairs every day, mostly between two floors, and I do that vigorously, two steps at a time. Plus it requires huge amounts of mental energy. So that accounts for a lot of the fatigue.

My blood tests could explain things. Hemoglobin and red blood cell counts are low, as is hematocrit. The doctor is helping with these things.

Smaug1 and his Zizzo inspired me to take the Dahon Boardwalk 20" folder today. I also felt guilty for not riding it more, but it's not like the bike feels neglected...or does it?

I don't know if it's the warmer weather loosening the grease or maybe I had a slight tailwind, but the bike was fast! I averaged 17.5 mph on the way in to work! It was already 53F when I left so I wore just shorts and a T.

The trails were uncrowded and the ride was uneventful EXCEPT for at the one traffic light. I, and a couple other bikes waited for the walk symbol and started across when it came on. Then this one car tried to speed through after the left turn arrow ended. I layed on my airhorn and he stopped, blocking traffic. Having to wait now for the crosswalk to clear. It felt more threatening than the video replay indicated.

I gave into temptation today and bought a small bag of Mike & Ike fruit-flavored candies. While I couldn't stop eating them, I did pace myself throughout the day and avoided a post-sugar crash. But towards afternoon I started feeling inflammation in my knees, shoulders, fingers and elbows, and still do. Oh, well.

The wind kicked up out of the north for the ride home, swinging east so that it opposed me for most of the ride. However, I handled it better than I thought I would, perhaps a testiment to the power of caffeine and sugar.

The 20" Boardwalk felt faster and sturdier than I remembered...and more stable. And the 1x7 52/11-34 gearing gives me the lows and highs I need for Colorado. Plus with the bull bars the riding position suits me well. If for some reason it had to be my only bike, I'd be happy with it, although even with 6 bikes now I keep dreaming of others to add to my stable. N+1 is real.

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6am meeting today (8 central). With my roadgoing bikes in a state, and my lights broke down, I chose the drive. :-/

No bike commute yesterday. It rained all afternoon.

Since I took the car, I took the opportunity to also bring in a big box I needed to ship and stopped for ingredients for hamburger soup on the way home. I could've done it on a bike with my messenger bag and the small rack bag. I used this recipe, but I replaced the barley with about 8 little red potatoes diced up and half a head of red cabbage. I made a double dose; filled my stock pot. Most of this is going in the chest freezer. I like making soups like this that are a whole meal on their own, then making a huge pot of them, so they're worth the effort. I found grass-fed beef was expensive, but only a buck a pound more than grain-fed, so I splurged on $27 worth of ground beef.

Today, it's about 20 ° colder than it has been recently. The high temperature will be 41 °. I wasn't feeling a leaned-over ride, so I took the ZiZZO Forte folder. I regretted that decision when I turned into the cold north wind and was brought down to about 8 mph. Might be time to put this bike away for awhile, as it's always quite windy in the spring here. At least it's not raining though!

Tom, are you getting enough sleep & enough protein? You may have lost some fitness by not cycling to work much over the winter. It sneaks up on a fellow. The other activity you have does count as activity, but it's not the cardio workout a bike ride is. The stair-climbing should keep the legs fairly strong, but not like bike riding. I know a lot of people your age start to lift weights for the upper body, to fight muscle loss there. Re. the yoga, at my last job, they had afternoon yoga available for everyone for 20 minutes. I remember feeling so good after that, esp. the neck & back stretches. (I'm a desk worker)

Oh, I missed that post where Darth Lefty crashed. Seems like you're mostly OK, but the bike will need some TLC. I don't know what a Rigida or Pasela are, so I can't tell what happened.

Rigida was a brand of rims, one of the good ones. Pasela is a tire model by Panaracer. Years ago, some rims didn't have hooks to hold the tire beads on because we used to use low pressure in our tires.

Thanks for the thoughts. I've increased my protein in my diet by a lot. Some might even say it sounds like too much, but luckily for me, I seem to have that gene that keeps my cholesterol low even with a fatty diet. The other tips are worthwhile, too. I got my results from my latest blood test, and they make me worry. I might be looking at them too negatively since I know so little about medical matters. But I'm following advice, so we will see how I do. The older we get, the more energy we have to put into maintaining good health. I remember when I was 43, a friend invited me on a century ride. I had hardly ridden that year, and I was able to do it with no training though it was hard. I was able to use the conditioning from my previous years. That would not be possible now.

Are you concerned the blood issues might point to something more sinister? That maybe the doctors should be looking for a root cause, rather than just medicating for the effects?

It seems like lots of people are coming up with Stage 4 cancer out of the blue when something could have been caught with previous blood tests. Two years ago, I lost a cousin when he went in for peeing blood. He had lower back pain, which he attributed to redoing floors. Stage 4 cancer, gone in 2 months.

A decade ago, something similar happened to an aunt. She stepped off a curb badly and broke her ankle. Attributed it to getting older and more brittle. While being treated in the hospital for that, they found out she had stage 4 breast cancer. How the hell was that undetected when she was up on her mammograms and checkups? She was gone in 3 months. When they gave her the news, her response was: "What happened to Stages 1 through 3?"

I think you said elsewhere, your wife is fighting cancer too.

I would push them to dig a bit for a root cause, Tom, if you're not already doing so.

35F and clear up high; I missed the pink clouds when I got to the opening but on the mup in the woods still some atmospheric sunrise & fog


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Woah really sorry to hear! Sounds like you came out about as well as could be hoped. Do you think that rim was telling you it's time for a new wheelset?

I haven't gone over it yet, but probably not. The bike is 49 years old. It's not special to me; I got it for a lark. But it's not entry level, it's all good quality stuff for its time, alloy rims included. It's a model Motobecane made for a few years where they replaced the French drivetrain, which seems to be the part France couldn't get right, with Suntour.

This tire is the wrong width for the rim (1-1/4 vs 1 inch) and I probably over-pumped it at 80. I can move these tires to Dad's Paramount and get the 1in versions.

I get to choose a handlebar now, which can be fun. But I guess I will need to learn about French stems. I was thinking of a shorter stem and rando handlebar anyhow.

HardyWeinberg Your recent photos have been amazing!

Fridays are definitely the best day to ride home


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Thanks, Jeremy. Yes, my wife has MPN, considered rare, and I believe it's recently discovered. There are various types of MPN, and they don't know exactly what she has because it's acting like several at once. She beat breast cancer twice but it seems she won't be able to beat this. There's a chance it could be "chronic" which in the cancer world is a good thing, i.e. she could live with it for years. I really freaking scared because I don't know if I'll be strong enough to deal with her decline or her absence. And it's not something I can talk about with her.

As for the root cause of my symptoms, yes, I have several doctors looking at things, so I think I'm in good hands. I got my GP to admit that all these specialists have been unable to figure out my propensity for fainting. I'm a little scared I'll faint while at work because that could traumatize a lot of people. But I usually catch myself before I fall so it probably won't be a dramatic thing if it happens at work. Fortunately, fainting never happens while I'm doing vigorous exercise so I feel safe on the bike.

I just looked up my kidney signs, and they are at "reduced function" but there's a decent chance they won't get any worse. I'd like an explanation of how all the systems interrelate. I have a bad mind for medical matters, and I tend to forget whatever I'm told. Oddly enough, chatgpt can make things clearer for me, so I've started using that.

I've had stories like your cousin's. My ex-wife's mother (my mother-out-law?) had lower back pain which turned out to be ovarian cancer. It took her quickly. I miss her. I will press my doctor to list the possibilities for me. I might be worrying more than I need to because maybe this is normal for a person my age. But normal doesn't necessarily mean inevitable or acceptable. It seems that more water and exercise are key to getting back into shape, but they are mysteriously hard to accomplish for me.

it's basically been warm since I rode home on Friday, in the 50s, so it was bracing to get out into 34F fog this morning to ride to work (prob cold Saturday & Sunday am but I didn't go out...). Then I ran into 4 oncoming trucks at the cemetery shortcut I take through a college campus. I think it must be working its way into Waze or something.

skipped it today, errands to run

Best bike commute day in a while!

It was 48F and sunny when I stepped out of the house. I wore shorts and a windbreaker. I picked the '84 Nishiki International 700x28 12-speed. The riding position is the most perfect of all my bikes. And the ride is the most magical, with the skinny steel frame and fork flexing as if they were breathing and working with me. Not quite as quick or light as the carbon/aluminum Felt, but more comfortable and organic. The trail-to-trail was mostly empty with only the one traffic light in 8 miles now that construction is done on my side of the new bridge by my office.

An afternoon video shoot for a restaurant commercial ran long (as expected) and I left the office an hour late at 6pm. Despite standing for 5 hours with equipment load in and set-up I did not feel fatigued and I was eager to ride. It had cooled from a high of 80F to 68F and I was perfectly comfortable in just the high-viz T-shirt. The wind was out of the west so the north portion of the ride was easier than the last few, and turning east I found a gentle push from the breeze.

On the way in and back I was listening to the "Version History" podcast, a pop-tech podcast from some people who used to do the Vergecast for the Verge site. (RIght earbud only). They were recounting the development and launch of the first Apple Macintosh computer in 1984. Very interesting and entertaining.

About 3 miles from the house I saw a bike to my right on a street parallel to the trail. It was Craig!...a fellow bike commuter who worked a couple doors down from me at my old job and with whom I shared the last 4 miles of most of my old commute routes. He takes that street until it meets the trail. He still works for the Colorado Department of Transportation. When I first noticed Craig about 20 years ago he looked like an old Swede in his 60s, tall, thin with thick, white hair, a bushy white mustache and round wire-rim glasses. He rode an old steel touring bike and I'd watch him in my mirror gaining on me and eventually overtaking me on the long street we shared. But then a few years later he switched to an old, black, Schwinn 26" Typhoon single speed with a coaster brake and a basket on the front. I had recently acquired the Nishiki I was riding today and with our new respective rides I more often than not reel him in and pass him. On my MTB-based commuter it was an even deal. After so many encounters and shared traffic lights we eventually got to talking when our commutes synched up. Turns out he was only three years older than I was. He's now 67 and planning to retire next year.

The last time I saw him was on one of my "fake" commutes while I was working for myself at home in 2021-July 2022.

He was still on his single-speed Schwinn and we slowed and chatted for two miles, caught up on our lives and then I peeled off at my trail exit.

I rolled into the backyard just as my wife wearing one of her beautiful afro-tastic outfits stepped gracefully out onto the patio with the cat in tow and flashed me a big beautiful smile.

What a great commute day!

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From this morning's ride in.

I told myself that I would ride today. Tuesday is generally a good day because of the extra miles required. When I got up, I asked myself is it still a good idea? My reply: it's a short ride, and it's not hard, and not much is likely to go wrong.

I got a late start, and of course, it's NOT good for a teacher to be late. My commute has a little leeway, though, and even though I left 5 or 10 minutes late, I arrived on time.

I notice that the problem I had a year ago is less. I was having trouble swinging my leg over. I'll keep doing those exercises, some strengthening and some stretching. It will be really nice if it becomes downright easy.