Getting Up Off My Duff

2009-07-10T22:36:00.002-05:00

Today marks 4 weeks I've been doing taekwondo. Instructor Su got me up to 60 sit-ups in class!

It's Basics & Forms week, and almost every class has partly involved practicing with eyes closed, which is a whole special new challenge.

My stamina has been increasing, weight has going down, muscle mass has increased, and I generally feel better in a variety of ways.

I've been attending class about 5 times a week so far, as much as I'm able. The dojang is always closed on Sundays, and last Saturday was a holiday so I just went to the gym, but I'm really bringing my best to every class.

I biked to the office a few days this week and am working toward becoming more physically active just in general. I've got a doctor's appointment and then a general physical exam coming up over the next few months, and a personal goal is to be in the best condition I can by the time I get checked out. They've got records of my weight & other basic readings from visits earlier in the year, and I wanna see a comparison.

2009-07-02T07:10:00.003-05:00

It seems that at least a good part of what's been ailing me lately is the need to do a lot more stretching in order to compensate for the additional leg work. I'm taking the time for stretch breaks during the day and trying to enforce an additional rest day during the week for muscle recovery.

This seems to be helping with "discomfort" around the knees, ankles, and toes.

Of course, other anti-inflammatory measures are also being employed on an as-needed basis.

Yesterday I read that:

For the fifth year in a row, Mississippi had the highest rate of adult obesity at 32.5%.... Mississippi also had the highest rate of obese and overweight children (ages 10 to 17) at 44.4%.

What can I say, other than WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

2009-06-29T07:17:00.002-05:00

When I first started taekwondo (less than a month ago), I was immediately *more* able to sit in traditional zazen postures.

But within days, I found that I was less able to do so than before.

I've taken a couple of yoga classes now, and am learning a few things that should help balance things out a bit, but it's slow going so far.

I've noticed that taekwondo seems to be reconfiguring my basic structure (muscles, connective tissue, posture...), and I'm going to have to re-learn some things that I could do with relative ease just recently.

But in a general sense, I feel stronger, lighter, and in vaguely better than before.

I wonder where all this is going.

2009-06-28T11:18:00.002-05:00

I put in 5 days at the Martial Arts Academy this week, going just a little too long between rest days. It's a learning process, and I've resolved to take rest days a little more frequently.

I seem to be making progress in a variety of areas, from skill to weight loss. I've made it up to 30 sit-ups now, which is easily twice what I was able to manage a few weeks ago. And I'm making similar progress with push-ups, stretching, and other routine exercise elements.

My buddy Jay, who just got his kung fu green belt, wants me to get my taekwondo black belt so he can "kick my ass". We'll just see about that.

2009-06-24T11:50:00.003-05:00

Randomly, I note that I fit comfortably into pants I couldn't wear just a few weeks ago. That's nice.

Now, about yesterday's class...

I was introduced to board breaking, but it seemed I had more power than accuracy. I kicked a few instructors in the fingers.

It is difficult to even express how bad that felt, but the instructors insist that I'm getting much better. Well, if you can't motivate yourself to get it right after realizing that your screw-ups are causing immediate, intense pain to people who are trying to help you, you're broken.

I learned more about kicking from not wanting to kick people by accident than from any two given days of practice prior to this point, I bet.

I've been trying to balance my diet more. But one thing I've tried a couple of times now is just going for a brisk walk around the block a little while before class to help with the warm-up period.

Man alive, my ass is in need of some conditioning.

Knowledge and Power Training

2009-06-22T21:41:00.002-05:00

I was warned that Knowledge and Power Training Week is tough stuff. It started today, and my pudgy white belt arse got a work-out.

The hour passed in a blur of sprints, jumping jacks, kicks, knuckle push-ups, sit-ups, and more.

As I'm shiny new to all this, I wasn't involved in any board breaking & such. But I was introduced to some basics of holding a board for someone else to break.

Had someone told me a month ago that I'd be doing this stuff....

blog change

2009-06-21T12:52:00.004-05:00

As only so much of my life is devoted to actual trekking, I've decided to open the format up a bit to include general fitness.

I'd let myself get up to a staggering 260 lbs according to the scales at my doctor's office (several of which I've lost back in the last few months). Now, weight isn't everything, but that's just too much.

I was mowing the lawn several weeks back when a Korean fellow working the neighborhood offered me free Tae Kwon-Do lessons. As he approached, he saw me sweating profusely in the heat and actually asked if I was okay. heh (Really, I must've looked like hell.)

We scheduled a time, which I had to reschedule after falling while tree climbing. (People I know say I'm too old, too big, etc. to be climbing trees. I don't really argue with them, but I basically disagree. Falling wasn't cool, but I'm 38, not 98.)

When I finally made it to the Martial Arts Academy, I was really impressed by the staff and atmosphere. I accepted a month of free lessons, but applied for membership on my second visit and moved up from "no belt" to "white belt" (accepted as a student, basically) after several days.

Each session is different from the others in detail, and the main topics vary from week to week. But there's plenty of stretching, punching, kicking, sprinting, sparring, breathing exercises, etc. in a given class session.

I've even taken an interest in the Korean language, but that's another blog.

They say I have a decent roundhouse kick for a beginner.

This is me sweaty and proud with my new white belt after class the other day.

From TKD

working toward trekking again

2008-08-16T13:54:00.002-05:00

Having recently joined the Adventure Cycling Association, I've been getting mail (and cycling route maps) to help me think outside the gym.

Although I've started working out and tweaking my diet for general fitness and health, quality of life is bigger than just that. Pretty much everything has been getting easier as I lighten the load (to the tune of 1-1.5 lbs/week) and increase in strength & flexibility.

And that includes cycling! I just returned from a bike route featuring some challenging hills. We call it "the Booger route" in honor of a friendly dog named Booger we used to encounter along the way.

One hill in particular is traditionally a real beast, and more than once I've run out of steam before making it all the way up. But today I made the entire route with a few additions in about 55 minutes without even taking a break.

My workout routine is a combination of resistance training, cardiovascular work, and stretching. I believe each of these is making a meaningful contribution to my ride.

But not every workout should be in the gym. Just as in golf playing a round isn't treated like a trip to the driving/chipping/putting facility, I don't approach the gym the same way I'd approach cycling, swimming, canoeing, or going for a walk.

hit the Anytime Fitness in Richland today

2008-08-10T14:07:00.002-05:00

I am finally able to enter the Richland location, which is much closer to my house.

At first glance, I can see some obvious points of comparison between the two.

First off, the one in Madison is very quiet. People watch TV on personal-sized flat screens with headphones while on the cardio machines, but there's not a lot of background noise.

In Richland, there are TVs, but they're massive things and not dedicated to individual workout stations. Local radio station Y101 is playing loudly through the place, commercials and all. But it was tolerable, if only by a slim margin.

There are more stationary bikes in Richland than in Madison. I tried out a recumbent today, and found it to be more feature rich than the 'bent in Madison, as it's loaded with electronics. The electronics made it a stone cold mystery to figure out at first, though. But it was great to be able to monitor my heart rate on the bike.

The rest of the bikes I saw today appear to be fashioned after time trial bikes, and I will definitely give them a good checking out soon.

I discovered quickly while on the treadmill that some of what makes the magazine Every Day with Rachael Ray a fun read for me makes it terrible reading on the treadmill. The articles and features are fantastic for short attention span reading while waiting in line or killing a minute, but no good for long stretches of time.

I put in 37 minutes on the treadmill, varying the speed and incline for an interval session. Then I put in about 32 more minutes on the 'bent, sticking to around 90 RPM with varying resistance levels (10-15, mostly) for more interval work, recording a distance of 7.68 and 253 calories.

while ducking the #%$!ing heat....

2008-07-29T21:13:00.005-05:00

I've ordered up several Adventure Cycling maps of routes in and around Mississippi. And my main riding partner has been threatening to get a bike mount for his Tom Tom.

We've been making noise about doing one or more Longleaf Trace Trail rides before long, as well.

Alas, we've had some pretty sketchy weather lately. Temps (not even counting the heat index) have gone over 100° F some days, and it's been consistently as hot as hell. And summer here also means spontaneous storms, of course.

So having a place to get some exercise and blow off steam without having to be out in that misery is great. Hooray for the gym, I guess.

I'm already seeing some results in both strength and cardio activities there. I look forward to putting my conditioning to the test outdoors when the weather cools more to my liking.

2008-07-21T20:04:00.002-05:00

Today I made it back to the gym after a weekend of more normal life. (It'll be 30 days before I can go to the other locations close enough to home for me to go on weekends.)

Saturday morning I got in a vigorous bike ride, and Sunday I took a "recovery day" to let my body catch up with me a bit.

The gym was packed with people after work today, which was almost a surprise after my visits Thursday and Friday, during which I only saw a few people. One of the many people I saw today turned out to be an "ex" I didn't care to see, but I guess it's the nature of the beast.

During my orientation workout Friday, I was introduced to so many activities and machines that I was only able to figure out most (but not all) of it today. I'll have to see if I can find out what the remaining few items on my workout list are.

I put in half an hour on the recumbent stationary bike (by far my most favorite piece of equipment at this point), which reported that I had burned off 250 or so calories. I can't imagine that the calorie estimate is reeeeally accurate, but I do know that a steady half hour of cycling with resistance is a good way to get the heart beating.

I was unable to complete 2 sets of 10 reps on some of the machines, but feel that I gave it a fair effort for today.

enter Anytime Fitness

2008-07-20T08:02:00.002-05:00

I've done something I always assumed I'd never do: joined a [gym|fitness center].

This just never seemed like my sort of thing. I associated them with jockstrap football players like my brother, then later heard the universal story of joining one on some draconian contract only to never actually go and work out.

But I'm 37 now, well-fed and overweight. Sure, I can bike or walk in the hills, go play golf, or take a swim, but I haven't been really doing what needs doing to get and stay fit.

In between the workday and the commute, the harsh reality is that when I finally get out of the car at the end of the day, my motivation is drained.

A friend of mine who fell into the "sign contract but don't work out" trap a while back had brought my attention to Anytime Fitness, and I checked out the location near the office a few days back at lunch.

After a really brief look-around, I signed up. The next afternoon I showed up with a list of things I can already do and one of fitness goals. The manager looked at this and went through a session orienting me to the equipment and writing up a workout plan I can follow.

In a month, I'll be able to go to any Anytime Fitness location at any time day or night, a few of which are near my home (so I don't have to go all the way to Madison to work out, which is out of the question).

I haven't checked out these locations, and understand that there's considerable variation from location to location. But the one by the office is pretty nice in my book. I can watch the golf channel (or whatever else is on cable) while doing cardiovascular work, which is fine by me. And the prospect of an on-site shower expands my options.

I have some ideas in my head about how best to get into a workout routine, but I'll have to see how the realities of my situation play out.

Of immediate interest is the prospect of stopping for a workout while the rest of the cagers ride out the evening commute. But I may have to check out some sessions during lunch to see if this suits me. I often go out to lunch just to escape the office at lunch, so if I can hit the stationary bike and a shower instead on some of these occasions, I may even be able to save a little cash.

We'll see. The real trick is to get into a workout habit, so that's my most immediate goal.

back in the saddle again

2008-03-23T22:14:00.002-05:00

In between illness and foul weather, getting outside hasn't been super fun lately.

I took private lessons with a golf pro all winter, so I at least had something going on, but it was nice to spend some quality time on the bike here lately.

Yesterday, although feeling so sick I was white faced and nauseous, I cycled 12 miles, mostly with companions.

Today I did another 16 miles solo and in mild-to-moderate traffic. It was gorgeous.

I'm pooped, though, and have a bit of a headache.

I was down so much last year from injury that I'm really chomping at the bit to get out and do cool stuff this year.

I took a few pics of things seen during today's ride, btw, which I posted via picasa.

37th birthday

2007-12-08T11:35:00.000-06:00

For my 37th birthday, my buddy Jay gave me a golf practice net to replace my old raggedy one.

I gave myself the gift of a trip to the family physician for a good ol' check-up. Better safe than sorry some times, after all.

The golf pro also noted that abdominal weakness is one of the challenges I face in my golf swing. So I've programmed my Treo to nag me on weekends to work on that a bit.

I'm not one of those "couple of hours in the gym" kinda guys. But here lately I've been veering more toward the lazy end of the spectrum, so a bit of balance seems in order. Trekking is harder when you're out of shape.

golf lesson update

2007-12-05T19:03:00.000-06:00

This week's lesson was pretty upbeat. My daily practice has enabled us to continue moving forward.

We spent some time fine tuning my full swing, working on:

stable knee flex
rear end up into a more stable position
ending my backswing when my chin is touched by a certain spot on my left arm/shoulder

Then we moved on to putting for the first time. I gravitate toward a dragon claw grip, which he told me to keep, because it seemed to work just fine when we made a few changes:

ball position more forward in my stance
eyes not so far back from the ball
feet square inside the width of my shoulders instead of so wide

These are just the highlights, of course. We touch on a a variety of points in the lessons, but make it a point not to leave with me having to focus on "the 97 simple steps to ideal ball contact" or anything.

He told me to plan on bringing in at least a 3W & 5W next time.

golf lesson time

2007-11-22T18:55:00.000-06:00

I love playing bad golf, but have decided to see if I can learn how to play somewhat *less bad* golf, and have taken a few lessons.

Just for giggles, here are a few highlights so far...

A teaching pro from one of the local (amazingly nice) courses has set up an indoor training facility with the full treatment of cameras, computers, & such.

In the first lesson, he had me work on three things:

grip change
mindfulness of where my hands are located when I stop my backswing
posing for the cover of Golf Digest in my finishing position

Since I surprised him by actually doing daily work on the three homework assignments, we moved on to a new list based on where my work had taken me. So for the next few weeks at least, my focus during practice is shifting to:

placing a penny, tee, or other small object between the bottom right pad of my left palm and the grip to see if my hands open up, allowing it to fall
keeping my arms in front of my chest instead of opening up at the end of the backswing
beginning my address position with a new wrist position, addressing something of a wrist cock that was breaking my posture from the outset

Other details come up during the lessons, and we give them varying amounts of attention. But so far much of this amounts to the two of us working on translating ideas into language and concepts that fit my brain well.

He noted pretty quickly that my day job as a programmer forcing me to think analytically all day contrasts with how I'm inclined to approach golf. Talk of clock positions and such don't seem to connect with me as well as body sensations, visual cues, etc.

When I first walked in the door a few weeks ago, he mentioned a six month time frame to make a change to someone's golf game in general terms. I'm coming at this process in terms of "oh, I think it would be nice to play golf better" instead of "fix my slice" or some other specific goal-directed approach.

I have no idea whether that makes his job easier, harder, or what. But so far we look at what I'm doing on the video/computer system, study it in various ways, and keep making tweaks. It's a fascinating process, really.

first time flying my new HobbyZone Aerobird 3

2007-11-04T20:33:00.000-06:00

A local guru took me out for my first introduction to RC flying this morning. He brought along his Aerobird Xtreme (big honkin' plane), and I had my smaller but still formidable Aerobird 3.

I experienced no crashes, no damage, and three successful landings! I snagged some of our morning outing with my Treo 650P's built-in camera, producing the following videos (and a few others):

A perfectly good take-off...

Any landing you can dodge successfully, right...?

Juggling the camera during a hand launch...

A quick pre-flight check...

Aerobird Xtreme (in yellow) and Aerobird 3 (in orange), ready for action...

Damage free after some fascinating newbie aeronautics...

built a solar cooker today

2007-06-10T18:56:00.000-05:00

This afternoon we built a funnel-style solar cooker from household stuff & plans found at http://solarcooking.org/plans/funnel.htm.

The notion didn't hit us until the afternoon, so the first test ("How hot can we get this water?") was pretty brief. Performance seems impressive so far.

We used:

a cardboard JVC I'Art 27" flat screen TV box
about 2/3 of an ancient bottle of Elmer's glue & a roughly equal amount of water (way more than we wound up using) spread on the cardboard with a basting brush
Bell 1-qt jar, spray painted glossy black (because we didn't have any flat black on hand)
Reynold's Wrap Heavy Duty aluminum foil
box cutter (aka "utility knife")
printed copy of instructions (because returning constantly to the web during construction is just impractical)

My brother-in-law is pretty enthused & wants to take a crack at something similar, and I can't blame him. These puppies will be handy for recreation & the next inevitable hurricane.

PyCon all up in my veins

2007-03-01T20:40:00.000-06:00

First off.... Yes, yes, I know I don't update blogs consistently. I haven't had a bunch to say on the "trekking" angle for a bit, what with Winter & all. But all that's a-changin'....

I drove off to PyCon 2007 in Dallas, TX (right down the road from where I was born a life time ago) and crashed at the Marriott Quorum to see what other Python junkies look like. (More attractive than average, I found to my complete surprise!)

I went with a simple plan:

I took no computers, no books, and nothing that could seriously distract me from the actual conference & general having of a good time.
I sought out volunteer opportunities, and did a few hours as a session chair Friday. This turned out to be a great idea, a chance to meet some really cool people and help them get through some public speaking without having to worry about anything but the presentation.
I gave away to random attendees these spiffy little credit card sized multitools with my name & a link to a website I'm putting up soon. People love multitools, and I love seeing the looks on people's faces when they get one gratis & unexpectedly.
I figure I at least briefly talked to a significant percentage of the people in attendance, if only to be friendly while in the elevator.
I also attended various talks & hit the jython BoF. I aim to try to help that project out any way I can, and tried to get a feel for the current state of things. By the looks of things, if nothing else, I can write documentation.

I made the trek in a rental Pontiac Grand Prix, arriving in Dallas after dark, which translated to an additional four hours of driving lost in a clusterf!ck that frankly John Crichton would've had trouble navigating.

By the time I arrived at the Springhill (because the Marriott bumped my roommates & me at the last minute, forcing us to crash in one hotel for the night & live out of the car for most of the next day in a limbo state of sorts), I swore that once I left, I'd never step foot in Dallas again.

Once I was at PyCon, I was over it in about 15 seconds. heh

One of the first talks was Visual Python in Computational Physics, presented by some students at the University of Dallas and their professor Dr. Richard P Olenick. This was, without question, one of the coolest things I've seen sober. Whoever hires these guys when they graduate is in for a treat.

In between conference rates & a couple of roommates, having a bed to sleep in turned out to be one of my more reasonable expenses during the trip. The roommates thing worked out pretty well, and as they'd bought new Macbooks (one the day before he arrived, and the other a full two days before), they were able to entertain themselves! ;)

As for my own entertainment, I talked, ate, and drank with lots of random people, and the local night life proved ample. Fortunately, an old friend from back in the day called me up to show me how the locals party Friday night, and my nose for food & conversation took care of the rest.

I recently found myself nailed to the floor by acute bronchitis, so my body wasn't all the way back in prime, which makes for a hard trek. In between that & the weather, my conference experience included no golf. :(

I've got more to blog about later, but all in good time....

2006-09-05T22:15:00.000-05:00

My bike's been in & out of the shop lately, and the guys at my local bike shop have replaced the rear rim.

The new one has fewer spokes and reminds me of more of racing-oriented rim than the one I had previously.

I doubt it was designed with much load-bearing in mind, and I have yet to see how well it'll survive hauling me up & down these steep hills out here. But I'm putting it through its paces to see what it can handle.

On the general fitness front, I've been adjusting my diet more toward plant consumption and easing off my carnivorous ways a bit. I'm not going vegan or anything... just balancing the diet.

I've been focusing on some weight lifting, swimming, walking, etc. while the bike's been less available. It seems to me this has been making me more capable on the bike when I am on it.

The weather's been a little less oppressive lately, as August winds into September. The question of the day is whether this is just a quick reprieve or an actual seasonal shift.

Hopefully weather, finances, and schedule will allow for some actual travel soon.

fitness focus

2006-08-23T06:47:00.000-05:00

Bike's still in the shop, so I've been forced to break routine. This has meant breaking out the heart monitor and getting a little creative.

On the fitness front, I've been walking with sprinting intervals to make the heart work a little harder for short periods.

And I've added in a little more emphasis on weight training, stair climbing, push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, and the like.

Most of this activity is of the type that requires rest days for muscle recovery & such.

And I'm still working on that elusive healthy diet thing. Bleh. Parents teach your kids to eat rabbit food while they're young, because it's mighty hard to do in middle age.

hoofing it

2006-08-13T09:58:00.000-05:00

I haven't been in the best of health lately (various stresses coming together at one point in time, for the most part), so getting exercise is even more important to me than normal.

There's a temptation to reduce fitness activity when one isn't feeling well, and I've taken that path many times. But as I grow older and chalk up more life experience, I've been concluding that most of the time that's exactly the opposite of what I should do.

So I got up early for another ride, but a pre-ride bike check (a very good thing to do regularly if you put your bike through any real strain) revealed a couple of popped spokes on the rear tire.

I'm not equipped for such repairs (although I'll have that fixed soon, as I can't imagine a spoke wrench & a few spares can be insanely expensive), so I had to make alternate plans.

Fortunately, I invested in a new pair of crosstrainer shoes the other day, so I donned a floppy hat and Camelbak, and headed off for a vigorous walk (something my riding partner has been reminding me to do anyway).

I don't know exactly how far for for precisely how long I walked, but I put in several miles around the lakes & hills here.

Just as I have a more intimate experience of my environment when cycling than when driving, walking provides a closer look than just cycling.

However, insects & the many, many unfettered dogs around here are basically impossible to avoid while walking. The city dweller with no experience being attacked by dogs & bugs would've likely had a bad time doing what I did this morning.

It's good to break up the routine anyway, as trekking is more than just bicycling.

For me, it's important to maintain at least basic fitness for a range of activities including walking, cycling, and canoeing. This way I'm able to take advantage of many opportunities to explore as I stumble across them.

I also need to work on some other skills, such as getting up & down the sides of hills & caves. But the hills around here don't make it too convenient.

I have consistently good results from focusing on trekking opportunities that fall within my budget, interests, and local availability. This makes it easier to maintain some level of motivation.

2006-08-08T22:45:00.000-05:00

Unusual ride after work today. Turns out someone from a nearby town tried his hand at swimming in one of the lakes around midnight and drowned after swimming out around 30 feet.

As I cycled by the lake, his family was in mourning while the monthly Fishing Club meeting took place maybe a hundred feet away. It was surreal.

I tried to be respectful and mind my own business as best I could.

As I proceeded with the ride, I noticed that I was making certain hills in significantly higher gears with much less effort than on previous occasions. I attribute this to the longer weekend rides pushing my limits & forcing my body to adapt.

I'm just trying to think of ways to get at it more without the heat killing me. First thing in the morning's not so bad, but after work it can be much less tolerable.

How the local racing gearheads get out & hit the road for 30 or 60 miles after work is beyond me. Cheers to them!

32-mile Longleaf solo ride

2006-08-06T13:21:00.000-05:00

I made my target plus a few miles this morning.

trip = 32.0 miles
avg speed = 12.9 mph
max speed = 22.2 mph
time = 2:28:32

And I passed the 500-mile mark with a final odometer reading of 512.

Start time was 7:50 a.m. from Prentiss, as I didn't want to spend time driving to Bassfield that could be spent pedaling.

I turned around after about an hour & a half, knowing from experience that it's desirable to be off the trail & out of the heat by 11 a.m. (It is still August, after all.)

I just missed the 11 a.m. target, as I spent a little extra time at rest areas chatting with fellow riders who actually happen to live on a road near my home on which I'd actually ridden yesterday.

One of them also turned out to be a fellow Trek 7300 rider, although hers is the 2006 model. The other earned a little of my respect by making the entire trip on a big ol' Mongoose with knobby tires.

Their trip was just shy of the distance of mine, although they'd started riding at 6:30 a.m., allowing a more leisurely pace. But they picked up the pace from Carson to Prentiss when I warned them about the heat factor.

About 3 miles from the end, my right knee protested acutely, but a quick stretch stop got me going again.

Pre-ride, I had a cup of coffee & bowl of Total at the house before driving to Prentiss. My next food was a cup of mixed fruit at the 20-mile mark, and it tasted like the most delicious thing I've ever tasted at the time.

As soon as I had the bike mounted, I dashed straight for a country cookin' buffet in Prentiss without bothering to even towel or change clothes. At around 11:30 a.m. on a Sunday, I suddenly found myself surrounded by people in their Sunday finest as I drained the buffet of anything that looked calorie-laden.

I couldn't have managed more stares if I'd donned a top hat & cane to sing Hello, Dolly.

But I figure I'm not the first sweaty guy they've seen walk in to throw a little tourist money around.

2006-08-05T19:30:00.000-05:00

Not all aspects of getting out & exploring are what one might call sexy, exactly.

Today I spent around an hour of wheel-spinning time out on the bike, and it can be fun rambling on at length about that part.

But then I kicked myself for not having gotten around to basic bike maintenance lately. So I headed out to The Bike Rack and picked up the degreasing fluid I always forget when I'm there (because degreaser isn't as cool as new bar ends), then I came back and spent a while degreasing and oiling the drive train.

In no way can this be considered fun, although there's a certain geek fascination to such processes.

I also had to plot out my route for tomorrow's trip. This sort of thing is probably only interesting to map geeks such as m'self. As I'm 20 miles away from breaking the 500-mile mark on my new bike, and I didn't put in the 30 miles I'd planned this morning, I'm leaning toward something like taking Longleaf from Bassfield to Sumrall and back.

Then there's digging up food to take along, cleaning the Camelbak, mounting the bike rack on the Sentra (and covering it in plastic, so it won't be soaked in the morning from tonight's rain), and putting gear together in general.

It's not actually necessary to make a lot of fuss about all these details for most people on most trips. But as my bad memory is the stuff of local legend, and I plan to ride solo in the morning, I try to be a little extra fanatical. That way I only need to worry about getting up & conscious in the morning before starting the drive to Longleaf.

In fact, much of this isn't strictly necessary for the kind of half-day touring I do during the summer heat. One could get away with carrying only a bike, some water, and a credit card.

Even most of the bike maintenance can technically be skipped, as well as they make bike components these days. My usual riding partner's idea of maintenance mainly consists of airing up the tires every 20 riding miles and periodically spraying some WD-40 on the drive train.

He also routinely tells me I don't travel light enough, while depending on me to carry the extra load. Of course, 25 miles is the most I've seen him ride, as his mountain bike isn't much pleasure to ride after a while. So to me it seems natural that I'd be more likely to think in terms of riding off into the sunset.

Simple fact is that different people ride differently. I, for one, focus on a zillion details between rides, then figure I'm good even if WWIII breaks out while I'm on the ride.

2006-08-05T09:35:00.000-05:00

After work yesterday, I added some of what I call "scorpion" bar ends to my 7300, essentially adding several additional hand positions for bike riding. After more meaningful distances, more options correlates somewhat with more comfort.

And I strapped on a small tool kit under the seat for flat kit & such. In a nutshell, I'm making one or two additions at a time to gradually increase gear load while gradually increasing distances and more technically challenging routes.

This morning I also added in some uphill sprinting.

Add in the fact that my bud got us exploring a route I hadn't ridden since my teens (long enough that I'd forgotten a few beastly details), and this morning's ride was fairly novel.

We hit it early enough to get in a vigorous ride before heat & traffic had a chance to become just intolerable.

August heat is certainly a factor. I figure when things start to cool down this fall, what I call "bike touring season" should present some great opportunities, simply by virtue of the fact that the environmental conditions won't be so oppressive.

With all the hilly terrain out here, it's just not possible to slide into the steady cadence of Longleaf trail. I might find myself dropping as low as 5.6 mph up a long, steep hill, and 32.7 mph down the other side.

At one point, my partner expressed relief that a certain hill had finally become less steep, but seconds later we went into a turn revealing a punishing change of slope. On at least one hill I can think of off-hand out here, I find myself entering a sequence of 90-degree turns at over 35 mph.

This morning's obligatory stats: 32.7 mph max speed, 12.3 mph avg speed, 11.7 m trip, 58:13 time.

My bud's started getting a craving for a faster bike, on which he can make longer rides than on his MTB. So in the spring he may be pushing me to my very limit instead of the more leisurely rides of 2006.

exploration

2006-08-04T21:48:00.000-05:00

In my present job, I'm essentially responsible for turning (usually large amounts of) paper into digital stuff (databases, images, searchable PDFs, etc.). So I'm in the office a lot. The desire to get out and explore can be pretty intense.

My last job had me traveling around Mississippi a great deal, but seldom with any meaningful time to explore at a leisurely pace. I drove around working on computer networks, always spotting places I'd like to check out by bicycle, canoe, on foot, etc. I filled countless hours behind the wheel with Pimsleur Spanish CDs (which really do work, to my astonishment and pleasure) and daydreams of coming back and seeing more.

One of my absolute favorite ways to explore is by bike (not motorcycle, although that's also cool). When I'm cruising on my bike, I can look at exactly the same things I'd see from through a vehicle window, but I see so much *more*.

Bicycling is slower, and slower is simply better. Details aren't lost in a blur.

Sound and scent aren't blocked by the noise & fumes of internal combustion engines and sealed windows.

It's also not passive, like driving or riding. On my bike, I move myself with only the mechanical assistance of the ol' Trek.

Don't get me wrong, now. I'm not fanatically against cars. My faithful Sentra serves me pretty well and even carries my bike to places I'd like to get to know better.

It's not that cars are inherently bad, but that foot on pedal or oars in water are just that great.

1st Natchez Trace ride

2006-07-30T14:20:00.001-05:00

We went for a quick ride on the Natchez Trace this morning, along with some neighboring trails & roads.

After 11 miles, we packed it in. The sun bore down on us intensely and early, and life's demands pressed. But it was a pretty fun ride while it lasted.

At least I liked it.

Total wheel-spinning time was 56:34, at an average speed of 11.6 mph. My max speed was 30.9.

I was drenched with sweat.

The trails we hit were a bit more technical than Longleaf, not long enough for my taste, enjoyable all around.

We'll have to try some parts of the Trace farther from the metro area, although our next trip of really meaningful length will probably be Longleaf.

Personally, I'd like to see a long, looping trail around here, rolling through mile after mile of traffic-free scenic juicy goodness. Fortunately, the roads around my place for miles in every direction are great.

first Longleaf trip

2006-07-21T18:38:00.000-05:00

This morning my bud & I went bicycling down Longleaf Trace Trail for a while, bicycling a total of 24.7 miles.

Our cycling time was just over 2 hours. My top speed was 24 mph with an average speed of 11.6 mph. At the end of the trip, my odometer reported that my total mileage on the bike to date is 444 miles.

Unfortunately, my riding partner's cyclocomputer didn't survive the trip to Prentiss. We have no idea what came of it.

We took off early this morning, so we'd be able to get in as much ride time as possible before the heat of the day could kick in.

Behold my trusty bike at the Prentiss Trailhead and the facility at which one can find water, bathrooms, and such.

We'd planned on starting off from the Hattiesburg end, but figured Prentiss to be closer and a bit less trouble to access. We weren't disappointed.

The biggest vehicles we encountered during our ride were a few electric golf carts. Other people enjoying the trail were on foot, but mostly on bicycles of various kinds (including one electric bicycle, by the sound of it).

No motorized vehicles are allowed. This suits us just fine, as we're always grappling with traffic when we bicycle up here in Rankin County.

We turned around at 12.3 miles in. Our chief concern was that we stick to the time table to which we'd agreed in order to miss the worst heat. It was still bloody hot by the time we made it back to Prentiss, but our planning was sufficient for safety & enjoyment.

This weather station between Bassville and Sumrall served as a convenient turning point.

The Prentiss end of Longleaf moderately hilly, but we did encounter more or less flat stretches.

We're accustomed to riding steeper hills around home, involving a good bit of sprinting and coasting. The hilliness of the Prentiss end of Longleaf is such that one spends longer stretches of time on more gradual hills that don't allow for coasting.

We spotted at least 3 rabbits, but no really exotic wildlife. The insects were not as bad as I'd expected, but we did know they were there, and they certainly knew about us!

We had no trouble maintaining water supplies, as each of us carried 2 bottles, and I had my 1.5 litre Camelbak. I dipped into my trail mix about halfway through, but neither of us really felt like we were running out of energy from the breakfast we'd picked up on the way to Prentiss.

I recommend that anyone attempting this sort of trip get underway as early as possible for a summer trip, and bring along towel & fresh clothing for after the ride. We were pretty sweaty by the time we wrapped things up.

415 miles

2006-07-10T18:45:00.000-05:00

I figure I saved around ten bucks today by eating a bowl of rice with albacore & garlic pepper sauce I made in the office, as opposed to crossing the street and eating yummy soul food at Fanatics.

I've been eating too much high-priced, high-calorie food lately, so I'm working on getting back to basics for two-pronged benefit.

After work, I hopped on the bike and knocked out a quick bike ride: 5.8 miles, 34.9 mph max speed, 11.4 mph avg speed, 30:42 total time.

It's hard work biking these hills in this heat. But it's fun, and more biking gets me readier for longer trips touring in the fall.

quick Florence trip

2006-07-09T10:18:00.000-05:00

7.0 mile trip
32:47 time
29.8 mph max speed
12.8 mph avg speed

This was just a basic hop to Florence and back. I took the back way there (Mullican Rd.), and back via Florence-Byram Rd.

Perhaps a good goal to set would be to make this same trip in under 30 minutes. Considering how much I had to slow down and divert myself due to traffic, better conditions may make that an easy enough achievement.

Since I don't blog every single bike ride, I can't say with certainty what my true average speeds are. However, I do record enough of them with details about routes, load, and conditions, that it may be possible to work up some fairly meaningful figures.

breaking 400, CamelBak put to test

2006-07-08T12:45:00.000-05:00

When I started off to ride this morning, I noticed that I was about 14 miles from breaking the 400 mile mark on my bike odometer.

Had I know this beforehand, I'd have gotten underway much earlier (at least an hour), because it's hard to know I'm that close to achieving something like that without going ahead and making a run at it.

I thought I'd talked myself out of it after 8 miles and some change, but I pushed on anyway, breaking 400 a few minutes after noon.

Before departure, I geared up with a filled CamelBak strapped on, which I used exclusively for hydration during the ride. I carried a spare bottle in a cage, but didn't have to tap into it.

I'm working on getting used to riding with more gear strapped on to get used to touring conditions. I can already tell that carrying water on the back adds challenge points.

Stats for morning ride:
14.2 mile trip
400 miles since bike purchase
11.3 mph average speed
30.7 mph max speed
1:14:50 total cycling time

I took 3 or 4 quick breather breaks during the route. In this heat (mid- to upper-90s by trip's end), I should've taken more and/or longer breaks. But I'm not a smart man.

putting the Blackburn X3 headlight through its paces

2006-07-08T09:16:00.000-05:00

I did some night riding last night to see how good the new X3 would prove.

After a quick adjustment (literally took a matter of seconds in the pitch black) to move the light beam farther ahead of its initial placement, I found myself hauling tail through sharp turns and steep downhill grades (sometimes both simultaneously) at a maximum speed of 27.6 MPH in the dark.

At no point in this did I feel uncertain or unsafe.

Granted, these are roads I know well. But the visibility granted by the X3's 85 lumens seems quite sufficient for serious road riding under low-light and very dark conditions.

The instructions assert that you can stow the battery assembly in one's water bottle cage, and at least a few people on the web claim to have done it. I was able to do so, but found it unsatisfying. Fortunately, it looks to be quite trivial to mount it on any of several other locations on the frame.

2006-07-06T20:48:00.000-05:00

I've picked up a Blackburn X3 headlight system for the bike, having missed too many opportunities to bicycle commute or otherwise get out and ride due to lighting conditions.

That sucker is stunningly bright. I'm impressed.

And more LEDs, of course. I plan to be lit up like a Xmas tree.

Another recent aquisition is a 1.5 litre CamelBak. So I can haul more water for some longer rides I have in mind.

2006-06-20T11:18:00.000-05:00

Just so anyone who actually reads this doesn't start to think I'm dead....

Lately I've been mopping up a massive project at work, but I do still get out and about. Swimming and bicycling have been the order of the day.

Hopefully soon I'll have the opportunity to squeeze in some canoeing and golf (although not likely at the same time).

43:47; 34 mph max; 11.1 mph avg; 8.1 m trip

2006-05-19T20:37:00.000-05:00

I had to put some effort into this evening's ride.

I had a belly full of Negra Modelo and chili colorado (with tomatilla.... mmmmm), and by a half hour into it, I found it necessary to tap into some motivation reserves I don't normally need to tap.

I also got off to a late start (7:42 pm) and found myself literally in the dark before the trip ended. That meant taking off my sunglasses and getting lake bugs in my eyes.

And my brakes rather suddenly started making a rough noise I haven't yet identified. They still worked, so my best guess is that some kind of debris is involved. I'll have to get to the bottom of that in the morning.

My heart monitor reports a Calorie rate of 5 kcal/60 min. That's higher than usual, but I never really understand all that stuff anyway. I just keep collecting data.

If nothing else, saving all this heart monitor data to the PC and reviewing all the charts does give me some information about myself. I can, at the least, maintain a realistic idea of how often I exercise, how hard, and for how long (at least when I don't accidentally delete an exercise session in the attempt of getting it uploaded.... grrrrrr).

Last few times I've stepped on the scale, I've weighed in at 231 and just now at 230. I honestly can't recall the last time I weighed in at 230, beyond it having been a span of years. I stopped looking at the scale when I got/stayed up over 255. It was just too depressing.

My best bud seemingly never tires of pointing out that there's no point in weighing in. He insists that weight and fitness aren't really meaningfully related. So I guess I'll spew my thoughts on the matter one good time.

My understanding of weight loss and fitness pretty much matches up with information in this article, which states:

The good news is that you don’t have to reach your ideal weight to lower your risk of developing obesity-related medical problems.
Losing even 10% of your total body weight can significantly lower your risk.
If you weigh 250 pounds and lose 10% of your total body weight, losing those 25 pounds can have a meaningful positive effect on your health.
Losing 10% of your total body weight is a good goal to start with. You can always continue and lose more weight once you have reached your initial goal.

I look better already. I feel better. People notice and comment that I look better.

I've even started looking in the mirror again, which I'd stopped doing for a very long time.

I'm Trekking Bob (a title I only use in the blog, BTW), and I just don't see how carrying all that extra weight can do anything but hold me back from my adventures.

So cheers to 230. That's a damn fine number in my book.

57:11 time; 10.9 trip; 11.3 mph avg; 30.3 mph max

2006-05-18T21:34:00.000-05:00

I love riding the hills out here.

Good thing, because my neighborhood is riddled with twisting slopes (and blasted speed bumps!), and I have to start out pedaling uphill to even exit the driveway.

I haven't made the commute to the office by bicycle yet in 2006, due in no small part to this massive job we've been working that has the office filled to the brim with boxes of sensitive documents. No room remains for the bike. :/

My time, average speed, etc. should stand out against those of my neighborhood rides because the commute is approximately 11 essentially flat miles.

After Hurricane Katrina, it took me just under 50 minutes to make it from the front door of my home to my office door. That was months ago.

I now seem to be in better cycling condition, and I've become accustomed to how the Trek 7300 rides (whereas it was only 9 days old when the hurricane hit). I weigh considerably less, and I've been working with the heart monitor, and my cycling seems to require less effort.

Hills that I found quite challenging several months ago can now be tackled with exertion but relative ease, in low gear without rising from the seat even briefly.

I'm at a loss as to the meaning and relevance of most of the information in the heart monitor charts. But I'm able to make out enough to tweak my rides and feel the difference.

staying in radio contact while cycling

2006-05-18T06:05:00.000-05:00

I recently posted the following to the Jackson Metro Cyclists email list:

Any good tips on ways to stay in radio contact with a companion cyclist?

My cycling partner and I have reached a point at which this seems increasingly wise, because we regularly ride out into "the sticks" between Florence and Byram. Yesterday we lost one another sufficiently that he had to cycle home and call my cell while I backtracked a few miles to see if he'd come to some mischief.

I received several friendly replies, from which I gleaned the following nuggets:

Motorola Talkabouts

take a ham radio license test and get a handheld FM ham radio transceiver

Rino(r)520 and Rino 530: 2-way radio and GPS

Any of the better walkie-talkies

Motorola has a radio that is supposed to work around 5 miles

a less powerful FSR band radio has a 2 mile range, sometimes less indense cover or mountians

bike route maps

2006-05-14T11:31:00.000-05:00

Here are a few maps of where we often cycle for general fitness & pleasure around here.

http://uselesspython.com/trekking/map1.gif

http://uselesspython.com/trekking/map2.gif

http://uselesspython.com/trekking/map3.gif

separated

2006-05-14T09:12:00.000-05:00

Went riding with my periodic riding partner Gruesome Groff yesterday afternoon. We actually lost one another for the first time in a very long while, and more thoroughly than we have in years.

It wasn't my longest ride of the year (11.5 trip; 56:29 time; 22.4 mph max; 12.2 avg), although it may have been his. He rides a Moab mountain bike, so the fifteen-plus-mile rides are a real challenge for him in comparison with the relative ease with which I scoot around on my hybrid.

It's not that he's not in good shape. We're just differently equipped and train differently.

I was holding back for pretty much the entire ride, and he was blowing full steam trying to keep up while taking several breaks. At one point, he took a break I didn't expect, and I found myself ahead of him in some traffic. I took a right turn to get out of the way of a speeding motorcycle, and that's the last GG and I saw of each other.

Each made efforts to wait at what seemed like logical enough resting spots, but logical thought based on incomplete information doesn't always work out (as I know quite well from poker).

He finally decided to boogie back to his place to get to his cell phone and call me, while I opted to backtrack a few miles and examine a likely route to make sure he wasn't lying about in a ditch.

We both lived to ride another day, but we're looking into some options for staying in radio contact during rides.

52:13 time; 10.1 m; 11.6 avg; 33.8 mph max

2006-05-11T21:35:00.000-05:00

Had to take 3 consecutive days off from cycling this week. Even though I did bicycle during hurricane Katrina, my gut told me that if I got out in some of the mess this week, it would get me.

Plus, I had a wobble in my wheels on the Trek, which put it in the shop for a quick tweak, and a wicked allergy attack that set me back a bit.

Today I got back to it with just under an hour's ride. Kept my heart rate up as usual, and didn't even stop for the 2 calls I had to take from the office on my cell (although my hr did drop as low as 157 during the 2nd call).

Big news for the day is that I weighed in at 232 lbs! Damn right.

20 lbs. lost - 300 miles traveled - first over-15-mile trip of season

2006-05-10T06:32:00.000-05:00

I've been riding with the heart monitor lately, almost every day. Very educational, and I feel completely certain it's improved my cycling.

I strap it on, fire it up, go for the ride, then upload the data from the session into my PC microphone (of all things). It makes pretty graphs and charts.

During the ride itself, I check my heart rate (hr) regularly, some times tweaking my riding behavior based on the readings.

I've been getting in some very vigorous workouts. I continue the healthier diet, as well.

And I've managed to continue my weight loss. I'm down a total of over 20 lbs. now!

I've put my new Trek bike over the 300-mile mark and made my first 0ver-15-mile ride of the season already going out for a 2nd ride a few hours later (only to discover I'd somehow picked up a wobble in my wheels bad enough to encourage an abort).

The pollen counts here are killing me, though, and I'm missing a few days due to allergies. Bleh.

Got the bike into the shop to fix that wobble while I was ill. I look forward to putting it to the test, but not today. I've lost too much sleep due to the allergy problems and the meds I took to get 'em under control.

ahh, Spring!

2006-04-28T21:41:00.000-05:00

I haven't updated the blog in a while, mainly due to work. Went a good month there without a day off. Bleh.

But it pays the bills.

I haven't had a chance to get out and play any golf, but I hear there's a driving range worth checking out near here. Maybe this weekend.

I've replaced my old-ish helmet (couple good years on it, with one really minor whack on the head last year) with a new Giro (which seemed to feel better on my head than the Trek, and maybe a little more ergonomic when it comes to little adjustments).

Also new is the heart monitor I picked up. Quite a splurge, but I really want to know more about how my internals are working. The instructions aren't too inscrutable to figure out, but far from riveting prose. I recorded a session of reasonably vigorous exercise earlier, but found out the that it's quite easy to lose the session in the process of trying to transfer it to the PC. I can't not deduct a few points for that.

I'm hoping to amass some good data to take to a doctor and have a really vigorous physical. I'm a 35-year-old guy now, and I'm past due to work on the long-term maintenance plan for my life.

I've lost over 15 lbs in the last several weeks. Was in the mid-250s, and am down below 240.

I've stopped having a heavy Southern breakfast in the mornings (eggs, biscuit, sausage, etc.) in favor of a bowl of Total with skim milk.

One of the other meals of the day often consists of either rice & [salmon or albacore] or something along the lines of leafy green vegetables with colby jack cheese, bacon bits, and maybe some grilled fish. (Yeah, yeah, I know about the mercury. As a middle-aged male, other problems totally trump it.)

Exceedingly peculiarly, my sense of smell radically changed around three weeks ago. Despite my chronic allergies (compounded by a very high pollen index), my smeller has been impressive.

The lion's share of what I'm getting is scents related to women and food. For instance, automotive fumes do not strike me as increasingly odoriferous, but I can pick up on a contractor's Tommy Girl when I walk anywhere near her general air space.

My friend with science brains suggested that it may be some mammalian thing, that my body is screaming for me to eat and breed or some such. I have no idea. :D

weather changes

2005-10-23T17:03:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm healed up from recent unpleasantness (knee injury followed by some problems in the abdomen), the weather's suddenly gotten rather cold for bicycling. And my cash is tied up enough that I'm not up for a lot of golf expenses.

So I'm thinking of how to adapt.

Last evening, for example, I walked somewhere I'd normally bicycle. Walking is good exercise, and I get some during the workday anyway. This winter I may do more aerobic walking, but we'll see.

I did hit the driving range last Saturday and hit just under 200 balls. Was great upper body work, and I love getting out into nature, even if it's limited at the range.

My buddy Groff recommends that I pick up a magnetic bicycle trainer for the cold weather months. He swears by his, and I'll have to consider it.

This may be the year I finally get a gym membership and start on a more formal training. I hate to blow that kind of dough, but it may be a good call for a while.

Lots of decisions to make about this stuff, because if I don't work on improving my condition, my personal goals will suffer impediment.

pics taken during bicycle trip on the day after Katrina

2005-10-02T16:59:00.000-05:00

http://sponde.com/katrina/katrinapics1.html has several pics of my bike trip on the day after Katrina.

THOR (no, not That one)

2005-10-02T13:53:00.000-05:00

I haven't been able to get out much lately for cycling, golf, general exploring, etc. After Katrina, my knee was hurt, I had to let a whole bunch of cuts heal, and most of the places I want to explore basically don't exist anymore.

But my healing up has gone well enough so far, and I've been out cycling a few times. Yesterday, however, may have changed things for me somewhat dramatically. Only time will tell, really.

About halfway through a nearly 13-mile ride, this gorgeous dog started keeping pace with us. He trotted along with an obvious limp at easily our average cycling speed. No efforts to encourage him to go home had any effect.

The dog ran over six miles to take up residence at my place. And frankly, I hope he sticks around. Based on the looks of him, I don't think he's received the best of care, although no signs of obvious abuse are evident.

Update: We've now ID'd the dog and had someone return him to his home.

I've been so impressed by my brief experience with this canine that I'm curious what sort of dog might make a good cycling companion.

enough Katrina, already

2005-09-08T16:24:00.000-05:00

I've now got power at my house, and am told that the phone service may be restored as soon as some time next week. Cable/internet service will be restored at an unknown time.

I'm tired of whining about Katrina. heh

Instead, I will talk about my bicycle. I've added a dual basket to the back of my Trek 7300. This should prove valuable for grocery shopping, carrying dry clothes & such for the commute to work, and general load-bearing. It's a very utilitarian modification, particularly since I like to carry an assortment of *stuff* with me.

Carrying more gear with me should also help condition my body to make longer trips with more load, which is an ultimate goal of mine. I aim to rack the bike on the trunk of the Sentra, head off for the occasional weekend to some town or other place I want to explore, and go trekking. The bike's already proved its merit, thanks to Katrina, so now I just have to work on conditioning and wait for the weather to cool down a bit over the next few months.

I look forward to some golf/bike combo trips this fall and winter. Fortunately, you can play golf very nearly all year in the Deep South while weather ceases to be supportive of the game in other parts of the country. Maybe I'll wait until the end of hurricane season, though. ;D

Katrina, Day 8, 11:30 a.m.

2005-09-05T11:30:00.000-05:00

There's some sort of loud commotion (Is that redundant?) across the lake. I hope it's Entergy! As far as I can tell, power is slowly creeping nearer. Y'all will know ASAP as I get more info.

Katrina, Day 8, 10:37 a.m.

2005-09-05T10:37:00.000-05:00

By Crom, it's hot!

People said that trash pick-up would happen today. I'm maintaining a healthy skepticism, but I put the rotting food & stuff out on the streetside anyway. If nothing else, it may lure the wasps & hornets that much farther from the house. My supply of wasp & hornet spray, while ample for the moment, is still finite, so I don't want to be wasteful.

Ever seen a hornet? If a yellowjacket was an SUV, a hornet would be a HUMMER. They're frelling evil. (And if you have no idea what a yellowjacket or a hornet is, you may want to wear armor and carry lots of antihistamines when you visit scenic Mississippi. You're may not be prepared for our... wildlife, to be polite.)

I've rigged up some primitive but loud alarms on the house's entry points, which may ease my mind a little more when I'm away. And I plan to wait out the heat of the afternoon in Florence, where I can flee the heat, wash some clothes for work, and get a hot shower. I don't *think* I've had a hot shower in over a week, but a lot of the details are turning blurry. Good thing I've been journaling!

Yesterday I had the luxury of reading some gmail while I visited with my sister, and I discovered at least one other guy who had a bicycle at the ready when the storm hit. He evacuated New Orleans to Baton Rouge on his tourning bike. Seems he made it a good distance until he had a flat tire.

Get a bike! :D

Katrina, Day 8, 12:48 a.m.

2005-09-05T00:48:00.000-05:00

Try to be in at least decent health when planning your next calamity. Fitness makes all the difference in the world. So if you take my advice and get a good hybrid (although there are other fine bikes - no religious wars about bike varieties here), get out and ride the thing.

No need to get in hard gears and punish yourself for being out of prime condition. Stick to easy gears and rides of a pleasant duration. And when you feel so inclined, take some longer pleasure rides. You'll want to go farther as your body gets into the groove.

And shop around for ways to carry some stuff comfortably using your bike. Have some bags such as panniers, or baskets, or roped-on buckets - whatever makes you giggle.

If you get on that sucker & ride, particularly if you make it a point to derive some pleasure from it, you'll be much more ready for the unexpected. And in the meantime, you'll look & feel better, save money on gym memberships (that you probably wouldn't use anyway), etc.

Katrina, Day 8, Midnight

2005-09-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

I took a break from guarding the house today. My brother-in-law delivered some clean towels & other provisions and lured me away for a couple of hot meals, ice cream, a cold beer, and family. Was nice.

They're not quite back at 100%, but are very nearly so and were in great spirits. And I got to spend some time with a long-lost friend - one of my first and longest friends, in fact. His daughter & my niece carry on in so many of the same ways we did as boys.

Many pleasant childhood memories were rekindled. Heck, this was the guy with whom I got my first tattoo.

Plus, I got to check gmail a bit & update my blog. I'm trying to keep my people out there as in-the-know as possible. To my mom and everyone else who can't reach me, know that those nearby who wish me well are seeing to it that I get everything I need.

Wednesday I've got an appointment to have a dual basket saddlebag-like contraption modded onto the bike. It's just about perfect for carrying groceries, dry clothes, & other essentials for the daily commute, or whatever needs doing.

I gotta tell ya, if you've got to survive the unexpected, you could do worse than own and use a well-built hybrid bicycle. For your next apocalypse, consider a hybrid with the ability to haul as much gear as possible as far as possible and as comfortably as possible.

For me this currently translates to twenty seven gears for achieving reasonable speeds & mounting stunning steep inclines. I've got front shocks, but if I had a solid fork up front, I could attach even more gear to it. (Everything's a trade-off.) I can carry a heavy payload on the back, and two water bottles.

I *wish* I had a trailer, so I could carry more gear. And I *wish* I had a $400 high-definition headlight already, so I could ride home from work in greater safety and style. I *wish* I had these trippy spoke lights called hokey spokes, because I think they're cool. :D

But I love my bike, really. And I can't believe my good fortune of buying this particular bike a matter of days before Katrina hit.

TREK, if you're listening out there, I'd endorse you any day of the week. And The Bike Rack on Lakeland Drive, too. Without y'all, I might be in really dire straits right now.

I'm still planning on touring Mississippi towns by bicycle this autumn. But it won't be the same. We'll not be the same again any time soon.

Now don't get me wrong. Mississippi and our neighbor states hit by Katrina are all filled with people capable of fearlessness and compassion, humor and insight, and a rich, varied oral history. We'll survive and pass Katrina stories down for generations. But so much beauty & life has already been lost.

My favorite restaurant on the coast is surely gone. There's a fair likelihood that I'll find out that I know or love someone who hasn't survived. The casinos in which I first legally gambled are toast. The place where I got my first tattoo. The places I got tattoos #4 and #6, as well!

The Zen Temple, the restaurants, the jazz clubs....

Katrina, Day 7, 9:05 p.m.

2005-09-04T21:05:00.000-05:00

A couple of five-year-old girls are outside on a swing set playing Entergy linemen. They say they're busy connecting down power lines so the news channel can come back on.

This is definitely a sign of the times.

A freaky, freaky sign of the times.

I should be back guarding the house by now, but am taking my chances to enjoy a hot meal with my sister, brother-in-law, an old friend from grade school, and their daughters (the ones pretending to be restoring power).

This is the first time I've seen a television actually on in a week. It's all reruns. Go figure.

Katrina, Day 7, 2:21 p.m.

2005-09-04T14:21:00.000-05:00

I just had a hot lunch and a cold beer at my sister's place, where I've been typing up these last few entries. They and Aaron are working to see to it that I get the remaining supplies I need to take care of myself.

I'm determined to see to it that I get a more vitamin-rich diet, and they're helping as best they can. I slam on Wal-Mart as much as the next guy, but their supply chain has at least ensured that *stuff* is available to people who can get to a Wal-Mart or have someone get there for them. Some say that Wal-Mart has done a better job of this than any government, and one guy I know asserts that this is because Wal-Mart is bigger and more powerful than the government. I stay out of the middle of all this, because I just want to survive, work, bicycle, and blog (not necessarily in that order).

Entergy trucks have been spotted in my neighborhood today to begin the repair work. I've heard that it'll still be a while before we see any real effects from this because of the total failure of our local grid. Cleary Heights, a.k.a. the Hoover Lake area, where I live, was apparently hit harder than just about any place around here. From what I've seen on my bicycle tours of the area, this is an understatement. Cleary Heights has been an absolute wreck for the last week.

Katrina, Day 7, 10:35 a.m.

2005-09-04T10:35:00.000-05:00

My sister and her husband have been trying to help out, since they live in Florence, which is a few miles away and has is way ahead of Hoover Lake when it comes to utilities. Highway 49 runs through Florence on its way to the Gulf Coast, so establishing some sense of normalcy there is relatively important.

The problem with situations like the one I face isn't that people can't live without phones, power, & such. The problem is that we've built a civilization that *depends* on these things. Downed power lines are a threat in themselves (took one in the face on my bike the other day... ouch), but they can become worse when power eventually returns or some numbnuts plugs his new generator into the household power grid & sends electricity into unsuspecting neighbors outside (which has happened here lately). [For the love of all that's holy, read instructions, people!]

We need water to live, but the water coming from our pipes is deadly with microorganisms. I have to bleach everything & air dry all clothes & towels. The rotten food attracts wasps, which lurk just outside every door. Some have entered the house and behaved aggressively. If they aren't killed before they can sting me, I'll definitely have the essence of that garbage injected into me alongside the usual toxins associated with such stings.

Fortunately, they've been managed so far. I don't think any more are still in the house, so I mainly focus on keeping others from entering.

Katrina, Day 7, 8:13 a.m.

2005-09-04T08:13:00.000-05:00

The number of unexplained bruises on my body is growing. This concerns me, because it means that either I'm sustaining more damage than I'd thought (possible, considering the number of places where my skin is cut & torn) or something's going wrong internally. Possibly both. Hopefully it's nothing to worry about.

There seems to be a lot of media coverage on certain coastal cities, but not a whole lot on neighborhoods like mine. I guess our problems just aren't as sexy. I've seen military helicopters flying overhead since last Tuesday, but not they're Apaches armed to the teeth and flying just above treeline. I'd much rather see troop- and load-bearing choppers bringing MREs, water distillers, and medical assistance. Add in the fact that my brother was packing a shotgun when he made his quick trip, telling me to avoid televised news (advice repeated by Aaron upon his return from Arkansas), and I want a weapon... NOW.

I do appreciate some of the side-effects of all this. No power for miles means less light pollution, so stargazing has been considerably more gratifying. As power slowly returns to nearby towns, it's already fading, sadly. If you've never seen the milky way with the naked eye, you've missed one of the natural wonders of the world, worth a trip to the desert to see.

I've also seen more people on bicycles, and I'm hoping that drivers will begin to think of bicyclists as less odd. And I do tire of the way people tend to treat me as strange for living as though disaster can strike without warning. Now that it has, perhaps some people's attitudes will shift.

Katrina, Day 6, 10:05 p.m.

2005-09-03T19:05:00.001-05:00

Aaron & Rocky came by to offer me some things I'd love: a hot shower & a cool place to crash for the night.

If only I could accept! But if I'm gone overnight, who will guard all the stuff?

I'd nodded off in the rocker on the back porch (where I write all this stuff in between opportunities to upload it), writing that last entry when their knock awakened me. It pained me to decline, but this is one of those decisions you make not for immediate personal gratification, but out of desperation. I can't say how many of my decisions during all this are the best decisions, but I'm doing the best I can think to do. Just like everyone else.

There have been too many such decisions of late.

Katrina, Day 6, 7:05 p.m.

2005-09-03T19:05:00.000-05:00

WTF??

No, really.

Last night, Shelton & I cleaned the rotting food from a friend's freezer. Today I had to throw out my own. It's heartbreaking to have to throw out what had been a very nice pantry like that. Deer meat from a free, hunted animal... Beans, peas, fruits & vegetables bagged & jarred in our own kitchen... A small fortune in store-bought fish & chicken... All gone. Near total loss. Rob sad.

I'm completely alone now. My brother came out from Texas in a rented SUV to bring a little fuel, some food, cash, and provisions... and to extract my elderly mother. After much family drama, she grabbed a few things & went with him.

Although this leaves me so completely alone, I feel she made the right call. She needs to be in a safe place with the resources for her to stay alive instead of risking all on on a stand-off against the Third World we've become.

My brother James had seen footage of Katrina's aftermath and came armed. I understand that people *in my neighborhood* have contracted dysintery from the water contaminants merely from using the same towel twice.

I worry about disease and theft. I've been assured by a friend that I'll have a firearm soon. The sooner the better! People are acting erratically - at least some I've personally encountered. Others seem to maintain varying amounts of stoicism.

Me, I prefer to live *outside the box*. I rode with my brother & mother on a few errands in Jackson right before her departure. He pulled into the gas line, and I opted not to wait through it. I donned my helmet & gloves, rolled my Trek 7300 from the back, and zipped off down the street.

During my excursion, I chatted with a cop, rode to a nearby Back Yard Burger, ate lunch in, went to pick up a hot Kenya AA for my mother (who has suffered through a wicked hot coffee deficit), and returned. They'd moved forward maybe 50 feet.

Many of my neighbhors have spirited off to Texas or Arkansas. Some have already returned, probably due to having viewed footage on CNN or the web. I hope some of the returning refugees have brought outside provisions. Some I know haven't, but won't accept any offers of help. Wierd, eh?

I offer to deliver a hot meal to someone who I know is unable to furnish one for himself, and it's not accepted. I bike past someone stuck with a half-sunk car in a flooded underpass, but they decline offers of aid.

WTF??

I always hated my brother, but I gotta throw him a bone at this point. He came out here at considerable personal expense to drop off provisions & extract my mother to safety. Maybe he really isn't the guy I grew to despise all those years ago. Heck, I certainly wouldn't want someone to hold me accountable for every questionable thing I did when I was young, either. Sometimes we just have to move on. He really came through when so many others are letting us rot or profiting from our journey through hell.

Thanks to him, I've got another bottle of premium tequila, non-perishable food, gas, and freedom from worry about my mother's safety.

Lots of what I normally take for granted in my usual life has died off before my eyes or in my very hands. And the deepening solitude taxes me in a variety of ways.

Aaron's returned from Arkansas for a variety of reasons. The tree in his house has made it too unsafe for habitation, so he'll be crashing with a friend a county or two away, where there are utilities & such.

Personally, I discouraged him from returning. It sucks here! But it was his call.

Katrina Day 5

2005-09-02T18:37:00.000-05:00

I've just finished typing up a bunch of journaling I wrote up during the course of the week and posted it to this blog, back-dated to maintain a reasonable sense of chronology. Fortunately, I frequently thought to jot down what day & time it was while I wrote all this stuff with pen to paper, figuring I'd eventually find an opportunity to upload it.

I didn't blog anything yesterday, because I awoke to find that they'd gotten a cell phone signal up somehow, and I had 6 messages in voice mail. I'd been firing up the cell phone a couple of times daily just in case coverage came back, and now I'd hit paydirt.

Well, it turned out my boss fired me and wanted the cell phone back immediately. He'd actually fired me effective the previous day, but was waiting until I called in to tell me. Right before Katrina hit, I'd emailed him describing a job offer I'd received from another company, asking him when he & I could talk about it. So he axed me.

Fortunately, the other company was willing to let me start immediately. As in, hose off in the back yard, hop on the bike, and get to work! So I did.

It's a 10.9-mile commute from my front yard to the new office by bicycle. They're letting me bike in without complaint so far because of the hurricane. After things have gotten back to normal, I imagine they'll prefer that I at least find some way to get showered. heh

One of the guys who runs the place asked me about the cuts on my legs today. When I told him about how I'd been bicycling from town to town to move information, food, and water during the hurricane & aftermath, he seemed to approve.

Now I'm back on the web, at least when I'm in the office (which won't happen again until Tuesday once I wrap this up, because it's Labor Day weekend and I don't have keys to the building yet). It's tough leaving this place with its air conditioning, lights, phones, and working toilets every day to go home to none of the above. But I can't leave my home and 75-year-old mother unattended indefinitely.

I imagine I'll have more to say upon my return, although I won't have an endless amount of time to say it, because I'll be at work. I've spend the last few hours here typing back-dated entries after everyone left for the weekend.

Katrina Day 3, 5:15 p.m.

2005-08-31T17:15:00.000-05:00

A pair of mallards just approached me. One is clearly injured, and I suspect they haven't been getting their fair share of the food suitable for ducks as a result. I threw 'em some dried corn as quietly as I could manage. Some other ducks figured out the score and are closing in, seemingly calling the others, as well.

Well, I gotta give credit where credit is due....

We have postal service now. Once the import of this settled into the must of my mind, I wrote a brief For The Love Of Frelling Anything, Send Help!!! letter to someone in Virginia, asking that the message be distributed with some haste.

What *is* the outside world doing to help us, anyway? I *know* already that we're groping in the dark, alone together (if you can squeeze some meaning out of that). But what about the rest of y'all, watching this on CNN and discussing it from various angles? Are y'all dropping everything to organize a massive relief effort? I guess time will tell.

And where's the National Guard? Where are our Reservists? Oh, they're off in Iraq.... Crap.

Look, I'm not gonna get all political here, but if some military folk show up here with water and working toilets, I doubt we'll start shooting at 'em or organize some insurgency. That's all I'm saying.

Katrina Day 3, 4:00 p.m.

2005-08-31T16:00:00.000-05:00

The clouds have done little but tease and threaten. I'd love to stand in a cold rain for a bit, but I'd hate more rough weather slowing down relief efforts.

On the radio I hear that many others are no more fortunate than we are. People need power, ice, baby formula, medicine, food, water, gas, and pretty much everything. At least I have a really good bike & some food. My house doesn't have a tree running through it. I have enough tea to last for at least several days.

I worry about my mother, who's 75. There's no way I can cool this place down for her or arrange for any kind of appropriate diet. She's been away all day to see a doctor, who I hope has air conditioning and such, so she can get at least a brief break from conditions at the house. [Turned out later she'd had no such luck.] She doesn't even know Aaron's gone to Arkansas.

Katrina Day 3, 12:30 p.m.

2005-08-31T12:30:00.000-05:00

90 degrees in the shade, according to the bicycle computer, which also indicates that I've pedaled for over four and a half hours in the last few days, totaling 75 miles since I bought the bike 12 days ago. I guess you could call it bike training, but surviving a hurricane is more like the actual event than like training.

In any event, I've decided about the best thing I can do at this point is to pour up a shot of Don Julio Blanco, sit on the back porch in shorts, and pretend this is all jsut a really adventurous vacation in Mexico.

Ahhh.... God, how I love the smell of a premium tequila! In fact, I feel a little sorry for people who can't appreciate this wonderful substance as I do.

These last few days have given me the opportunity to actually meet some of my neighbors. So far, a little to my surprise, I seem to like them.

I've also had more opportunity to get to know the local wildlife more intimately. Squirrels, by the way, are insane. I can not express this too strongly. I thought it was crazy for me to bike in the hurricane, but these little freaks must live on adrenaline the way we do with oxygen.

I wonder how many other people are journaling & blogging their Katrina experiences. And of those, how many are writing as events transpire in a stream of consciousness, the way I am? When the power & internet connections come back online, will a deluge of personal reflections suddenly appear?

I'd love a second shot of tequila. But who knows when I'll be able to replace this stuff? Gotta stretch things out. Dammit.

I sure hope Aaron remembered to take a good, thick book to read when he left for Arkansas. Without a fair bit of diversion, he may find some of his exile difficult to tolerate.

I notice that many of the details of day-to-day living have changed for me while I await utilities & the chance to work again. I usually carry a bag of stuff with me, for just in case everything goes to hell all of a sudden.

Well, everything has gone to hell on me all of a sudden. And I happened to be home when it did so. Now I find that my emergency supplies have migrated from the bag to various places where they're generally used or at least easy to obtain when needed.

People pick on me quite a bit for carrying so many contingency-related things. I wonder if I'll seem so odd when we all go back to work....

Just a few days ago, we were thrown sideways by hurricane winds. Now, however, not a breeze moves the choking stillness. The air is still, humid, and hot.

[time passes between paragraphs]

What had been a perfectly blue sky has now filled largely with ominous clouds. Wouldn't some nice lightning storms hit the spot about now? That would be just craptacular!

I've pulled the front off a fan, so now I can give it a good twist with my hand for a few moments of light breeze. And I've re-hung the porch swing (wisely taken down during the hurricane), which brings a little relief from the stifling heat.

Katrina Day 3, 10:56 a.m.

2005-08-31T10:56:00.000-05:00

Aaron's gone. That sure happened fast.

I inherited a bag of charcoal that should last up to several days if used with care. And I'll do some light cooking on Aaron's propane grill until that runs out. If power's not restored by then, and if we don't encounter any more foul weather, we'll be able to burn debris in the back yard to boil water & such.

The ducks that come to our back yard to eat corn are starting to look tasty. And Aaron mentioned having a tackle box, so fishing will be an option if necessary.

Katrina Day 3, 9:37 a.m.

2005-08-31T09:37:00.000-05:00

Tuesday was a long day. I didn't write much in my journal beyond some notes on how bad things were and a list of crap needed before the next apocalypse. Having lost water, things were looking increasingly desperate.

I was able to find my friend, and we did some trekking about, looking for roads, food, water... pretty much anything.

I took a bit of a shower from a water hose at my sister's house in Florence this morning. They were able to even provide soap, a rag, and a small ( by my gargantuan standards) towel. It felt soooo good!

At least a few people out there recognize Aaron & me as the two guys on bicycles at this point. We've been able to carry small loads from place to place by bike, and yesterday we had the only real means to travel from Hoover Lake to Florence. Even the Rankin County Sherrif Dept. car we saw yesterday had to turn around at a completely destroyed stretch of road we were able to navigate.

I've taken quite a few pictures during & since Katrina blew through. The place looks like we've been bombed. I haven't had the heart to take a bunch of pictures of destroyed homes, big trucks with broken axles, and other identifying property damage, although I did snap a shot of a mansion gutted during the last storm some weeks back.

I've logged 74 miles on the 7300 since I bought it a week & a half ago. 35 of those miles have been logged in the last 4 days.

Sadly, Aaron now plans to leave. A relative from Arkansas is currently heading down with gas for the return trip, trying to find a way in. If she succeeds, Aaron & his family will take the same route back.

Having Aaron around has made this Katrina business a lot easier on me, if only psychologically. I don't know if my job still exists or when anything will work, and using the restroom in the traditional way ceased to be an option early Monday morning. Things like this are easier to tolerate with a long-time companion around.

Besides, he's my only biking buddy. Without him around, I'll have to be more selective about my routes for food, water, & other provisions, because I won' thave back-up.

And it'll be tough not to worry about him out there on the road to Arkansas. If they encounter problems, he'll be the only able-bodied adult to take care of several people and his cat Cheyenne. And since he's already been robbed twice, I imagine looters will consider his place a prime target. My first move will be to make several trips to bring the survival-oriented goods from his place over here for safe keeping.

Katrina Day 2, 2:25 a.m.

2005-08-30T02:25:00.000-05:00

Power is out in most of the state.

Most of the cell phone towers don't have back-up generators & depend on the power grid to be up.

The cell users who can get any kind of signal are using their cell phones constantly, which is reducing availability even further.

I just treated myself to a Diet 7-UP from the fridge. I grabbed a few ice cubes, since the fridge has been warming up since 9 a.m. Monday. There's a puddle of water in the ice box already. We are so screwed. The prospect of all our hard-earned food rotting in place is unappealing to say the least.

Because of our location, I hope we're back on the grid sooner rather than later. The more rural and remote locations will be the last, and the urban centers will be first. We're in the middle - heavy residential between towns & not too far south of Jackson.

If we can gain access to a working phone in the morning, the first task will be to find people with working freezers, so I can transport food out by bicycle. Next up will probably be to bring back more charcoal. One way or another, that bike of mine will be put to use. But I don't have any spare tubes, so I'd better not flatten any tires. If the bike shop's even open tomorrow, I'd be in shock. Besides, it's nearly 15 miles away. I can bike 15 miles, but I've just taken my last warm shower for the foreseeable future.

Katrina Day 2, 2:00 a.m.

2005-08-30T02:00:00.000-05:00

It's closer to 2 a.m. now. Sitting up and writing sure beats lying in bed wracked with anxiety in the dark.

Occasional useful bits of info come via radio, and I talk with my mother, who has her own thoughts on getting through all this. Who knows how many others are awake out there right down the block or scattered through the storm path? Most of us are unable to communicate with one another, but we have more in common right now than we'd usually imagine. A Category 5 hurricane is capable of wreaking so much havoc that we're all unified in a variety of ways. We'll need each other to get back on with the routine of our lives.

Katrina Day 1, 11:30 p.m.

2005-08-29T23:30:00.000-05:00

I went to sleep shortly after writing my poem. It had been necessary. After my bicycle tour through Cleary Heights, I'd become frankly unpleasant to be around.

My discovery that even escaping via bicycle was simply too dangerous due to all the fallen power lines & such has upset me more than I'd anticipated. Not only is there a serious risk of electrocution from any of those lines that may be hot, but the lines themselves are difficult to see. I had nearly entangled myself within 45 seconds of leaving the house when an unseen fallen line snagged in my front V-brake mechanism.

The winds were supposed to have died down somewhat by this point, but the constant howl continues unabated. We lost power around 9 a.m. & phones somewhere around 4 hours later. Stepping outside, I see a faint glow in the canopy of storm above, brighter in the direction of Byram by my best guess. Byram's in Hinds County, whereas I'm in Rankin. Last estimate is that we'll have power restored in three weeks. What a difference a few miles makes.

From the wreckage I've already witnessed, even an inch can be all the difference in the world. Some homes still had phone service earlier, but not ours. We've been struck (our house, that is) by falling/hurled debris, but we know of no structural damage. But a chunk has been torn from the neighbors' house. People I've known for years are trapped in their homes or have fled somewhere.

No wonder I'm grumpy!

I haven't been actually dry since this morning, when I'd been hanging out at my best friend's house around the lake. At the time, he had power, but we didn't. Now his house has a tree in it.

What are we ever going to do with the fallen trees? They've blocked roads, impaled homes, trashed fences, yanked the phone/cable/power/etc. grid.... They're everywhere. Some trees have been mangled, but others have simply been ripped from the ground in their entirety.

I guess I should've taken a camera along & snapped pics of the carnage out there when I rode my 7300 through the hurricane. Aaron & I had talked about heading out in the morning to take some "after" pictures. But now I don't even know to where he fled, & what I went through on my bike put fear in me.

He can't have gone too far. Fortunately, he'd freshly aired the tires on his Schwinn Mesa, so he can technically have escaped entirely (although the whole world around us seems obliterated, so "to where" would still be the question), but he wouldn't likely abandon his cat entirely. My best guess so far is that he went to check in on (and possibly stay with) family.

At times it'll grow quiet outside, & something in me hopes blindly that it's suddenly passed - that we can get on with the business of clearing roads, de-treeing homes, and generally doing *anything* not to feel like the helpless little mammals we so clearly are. Even the Governor is helpless to do much beyond wait for the morning and tell anyone fortunate enough to have a working radio to stay put.

Of course, not everyone does stay put. Some people tried to return to their coastal homes as early as this morning, when we hadn't even been fully hammered by Katrina yet. And there are also idiots like me who just can't resist sightseeing on bike, foot, or vehicle of choice. Not bright.

I burned off half the battery reserve in my laptop & a bunch of AA batteries in the digital camera during the afternoon in order to snag some digital movies of the trees swaying, waves whipping along the lake, etc.

When we discussed what preparations we should make for this, we anticipated outages lasting as long as days. Now, we face weeks without power & phones. Gods help the people with addictions to feed out there. I'd sure hate to be grinding my teeth in need of nicotine, cocaine, crystal meth, or some other substance. Heck, I'm kicking myself for not picking up enough oranges & bananas!

We've got enough charcoal to grill out one more time - clearly not enough. I'll be able - maybe - to dry out wood for fire cooking, but everything's pretty water-logged. We've got enough non-cook food to last the week, I'm sure. And there's cash in the fire safe. I'll be able to bike out for provisions once stores start opening again.

The food in the freezer will keep for a few days, but not for a period of weeks. Deciding what to do about that is high on our list, presently. We didn't have adequate warning to cover every possible contingency. I'm afraid it'll be impossible to get through this without some losses. Fortunately, we (in my family) prefer to always maintain a base level of preparedness.

We've got candles, matches, flammable fluids, rain gear, cameras, a charged cell phone (in case service resumes), books to read during daylight, and a bunch of other stuff that mostly takes up space during non-emergency situations. I even tried to park my Sentra in a spot that I figured might suffice, which is a serious consideration when one expects everything to go to hell. (And it's World War III out there - trust me.)

2005-08-28T15:49:00.000-05:00

In case anyone cares about this sort of thing, I've uploaded a pic of my new TREK 7300 and the 3 Wood that Dan (one of the club builders in the golf forum) made for me. It's in the Padre personal album at the ragingolf.com forum.

I've just returned from a 12.2-mile ride in the hills (bringing me up to a 51-mile total for the bike, which isn't bad for one week's riding, particularly since I haven't been able to ride every single day) and figured this would be as good a time as any to take a pic of the bike before the hurricane hits. (I hope y'all who are down in the real thick of the hurricane are doing OK!)

Yesterday I snapped the chain, and while I had it in for repair I snatched up a rear rack for load bearing as I take increasingly longer rides, leading up to day- and weekend-long touring rides when the weather cools a bit in the autumn. Before I start touring, I'll be adding greater amounts of load to increase my conditioning and get a feel for what all will be really needed for those trips.

Since I plan to transport the 7300 on or in my Sentra for these trips, I should have no trouble carrying along a complete set of clubs, so I should do at least some weekends consisting of both bike touring and golfing. This will allow me to visit a few of my semi-local fellow forum participants, like some of the Florida contingent.

As temperatures cool, and particularly as I migrate over the next weeks from 1.5 jobs to only 1 job, I should be able to tick off more mileage. Now that I'm on a properly-fitting bike, I'm venturing farther from the neighborhood and doing more exploring, which makes the whole process much more enjoyable.

With this oncoming hurricane, I think I may continue riding for another day or two before I take a recovery day, because I presently expect the weather to dictate one or two for me soon enough. Let's face it, even on a bike with brakes that work well under damp conditions, I'm not interested in excessively risking injury from flying/falling debris.

Exertion good. Injury bad.

2005-08-27T18:45:00.000-05:00

I took off this morning thinking I might bang out a quick 30 miles on the new TREK 7300. I did squeeze off an enjoyable ride, but my chain snapped just short of the 10-mile mark.

Fortunately, I'd taken a route near home and (by fluke) happened to be less than a mile from the house at the point where the chain failed. I looked around for several minutes for stray chain bits and walked/coasted (very hilly here, as mentioned previously) back to mi casa.

After a shower, I packed the bike in the Sentra and rolled on to The Bike Rack on Lakeland Drive, where they quickly replaced it. They were more concerned about my well-being than about anything else, with a secondary concern that I was still happy with the new bike.

Just for the record, I'm very pleased with the new bike, and feel confident that I've chosen the right shop for me. Tom, Rex, and the staff in general have catered to me with thoughtfulness and professionalism. And the bike's proving well-suited to my needs and tastes.

While there, I picked up a stout little rack for the rear of the bike, which I was able to mount with little fuss back at the house. For commuting, day touring, errands, and general running about, this is a great investment.

I'll take another crack at that ride either this evening or in the morning. It doesn't have to be a full 30 miles for me to be happy, because I just enjoy getting out and about. 30 is just a distance I should be able to cover comfortably in a few hours. 10, 15, or 20 also allows me to cover a lot of local scenery. As the weather cools (unlike the literally deadly heat we're experiencing currently), I want to be conditioned to enjoy touring some of Mississippi's great towns on weekends this autumn, so I keep that goal in mind as I set up challenges for myself in the present.

local treasure

2005-08-24T22:25:00.000-05:00

I'm so amazingly fortunate. I admit it.

I live in a place where gorgeous scenery awaits right outside my door. Lakes, hills, farms, trees, and winding roads come together in a kaleidoscope of scenery, making even short jaunts into mini-tours.

Friends I've known for years are reachable on foot or bicycle in safety. And I can bike to the office (where a shower awaits) in an hour and a half of casual spinning.

In an hour of cycling local roads, I may be honked at by a driver or two (but usually not), but now I just reply by dinging my little bell. It's usually pretty tame around here, and most of the people I encounter while riding range between neutral and friendly.

People do let their dogs run wild, though, which has both positive and negative aspects. OK, by positive I guess I'm being generous. I get to practice kicking dogs in the face without breaking any more stride than necessary. That's motivating!

The negatives you can imagine. And if you can't imagine what's negative about being chased by dogs while out riding a bicycle, you've missed out on too much of life for me to be able to help. You're just unreachable.

But it's a small price to pay for the many niceties of living on the edge of a rural paradise.

random 7300 prattling

2005-08-24T19:35:00.000-05:00

According to my cyclocomputer, I've racked up 28 miles on the new bike since Sunday morning.

Maximum speed so far... 34.6 MPH. I imagine I can top that speed somewhat on longer, steeper downhill slopes, but probably not by a great deal.

I've invested $12 in flashing LEDs for the handlebar for the benefit of semi-conscious drivers simultaneously drinking coffee, fiddling with the radio, rubbing their eyes, and reading the paper at 6:00 a.m.

This bike is crazy good for the hills around here, and it's quite comfortable so far. I haven't made any trips longer than 10 miles yet, so I don't know how how comfy it'll be on longer touring rides.

The handlebar doesn't allow for multiple hand positions, so that's probably the first thing I'll need to tweak for seriously long distances. Maybe a solid fork front fork eventually, although when it reaches that point I'll probably be thinking along the lines of a dedicated touring bike. This puppy is great for cruising my hilly rural world as-is, so I may not make many mods to it at all, and certainly not in the immediate future (except for things like headlights and panniers).

Finally got the new bike

2005-08-21T07:33:00.000-05:00

The first few bikes I tried to obtain turned out to be just too difficult for the bike shop to track down in a reasonable amount of time. Highly specialized bikes are just tougher to find. Plus, summertime is not the best time to go hunting for bikes in a picky way due to increased demand and the approach of the new model year for bikes, and more people seem to be buying bikes due to the rise in terror attacks and North American gas prices. (If only people around here realized how cheap our gas is, since our taxes subsidize the pump significantly.)

So anyway, I popped into The Bike Rack to check in with Tom, who's been helping me out with the bike hunt. I'd already stashed a healthy bit of cash in an account there for when we did settle on a good bike for Rob, and had some extra dough in the pocket. I turned Tom loose to fit me up with one that would suit my needs, because he knows the geometry of my body, what I want to do and under what conditions, etc.

Don't shop for a bike. Shop for a bike shop! If you're gonna be spending a lot of time & money on something like this, it's good to have some insanely knowledgeable pros understand you & your biking needs.

Turned out he had a couple of frames that fit my body well, and one was a Trek 7300 Multitrack. At first, I cocked an eyebrow at the front suspension and shock absorbing seat post, because I've been using stiff frames all my life. But he took the time to tutor me on tweaking the suspension, and I took it out on the road a few good times. I'm happy with it.

No disc brakes on this model, but the V brakes seem quite solid, and Tom assures me they should do what I need 'em to do. And now that I'm working two jobs, and therefore can't seriously commute by bike for a while, I don't see the disc brakes as quite a necessity for this one. (When riding recreationally, wet brakes are less of a big deal than when riding to work on a tight time frame and rain hits from out of nowhere.)

After riding it around a bit, I was sold on the ability to shift gears with a flick of the wrist instead of the more familiar (and frankly taxing) thumb shifters.

I really didn't have to change anything on it. I just had 'em tack on a basic speedometer and a couple of water bottle mounts, and was ready to roll on out the door.

And, since I'd already stowed away a tidy account, I only owed $13.83! Me gusta mucho.

2005-07-15T08:12:00.000-05:00

I haven't been blogging much lately, mainly because I've been working two jobs. Gotta find some way to pay for the new bike, after all!

But I have gotten out a little, despite my routine of mostly work/work/sleep. In fact, I bicycled to work the other day. By my best estimate, it was just over a 30-mile round trip.

My X500 hasn't come in yet, so I made the trip on my bud's old Trek mountain bike, which is still a fine machine, despite its age and mileage.

For every "less pleasant" driver I encountered, there seemed to be three or more going out of the way to be courteous and dozens who were at least far from dangerous. Cheers to drivers who share the road!

The fact that my second job (temporary though it is) often involves a lot of serious manual labor is helping to offset the reduction in trekking-type exercise. Nothing wrong with a little muscle tone, and it's certainly good to vary the kinds of workout one gets.

By this weekend (which is fortunately almost upon me), I plan to grab some pictures from the digital camera, taken right after I hopped off the bike at the office. As they said in Apocalypse Now, "Oh, the Helmet Hair!"

2005-06-10T17:28:00.000-05:00

On the bizarrely off chance that anyone reads this blog, I figure I'll point out that I was out of town a few days this week & hustling pretty much every day for the last week or so on various fronts.

My new Acer XP Hollow Core irons (3 through Pitching Wedge) have arrived. I had GigaGolf build 'em with TrueTemper Feather Flight shafts (cut with an extra half inch of length, because I'm tired of swinging too-small clubs), Lamkin Crossline grips, and a 1-degree lie adjustment.

These are some fine irons, inspired by Callaway's Fusion irons, which I want badly but can't justify spending $1200 to buy. Yeowch!

Each club has a titanium club face, hollow club head, and rubber shock absorbing thingy on the back (except for the pitching wedge, which lacks the rubber thingy). The basic idea is a wider sweet spot with a trampoline effect on the ball, which should theoretically enable one to make more off-center shots go straighter and farther.

I've only gotten them out a couple of times now, so it's too soon to give a thorough review, but I like 'em. If nothing else, it's so nice to finally play with custom-fit clubs that also happen to look nice & stylish.

Of course, it's too wet to do much golfing, but that's just nature.

p.s., My heart belongs to Annika. ;-)

2005-06-05T08:14:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I wanted to swing some golf clubs so badly it hurt. But it was deadly frelling hot outside, so I held back.

We waited as late as we could, then trekked off for a several-mile ride & some swimming. I put in a little over 3 trips swimming back & forth across the lake, at the end of which calorie debt was kicking in. That cookie I ate right before hopping on the bike had given its all, and I was having to tap into my built-in energy reserves.

I never made it to bed until probably 1:30 a.m. or so afterward, because after a quite successful conversation in Spanish with some of the guys at my favorite Mexican restaurant (in which we discussed tattoos and tasty latinas) I was really jazzed up & wound up studying much later than normal.

What does Spanish have to do with trekking? Well, not much if I never plan to trek beyond my oh-so-white neighborhood. As much as I love tequila, Mexican food, the Spanish language (with which I have just a tiny bit of proficiency), and latin music, my best bud says that one day I'm going to go for a quick visit to Mexico and never be seen again. ;)

If so, I'd better have a great bike!

2005-06-02T22:51:00.000-05:00

http://www.ragingolf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=628

I get to play a round of golf at Dancing Rabbit on June 16th, and I'm pretty stoked. At least one of the Ragin' Golf guys will be there, and I'm hoping a couple of other buds will make it as well. It's the kind of golfing location you can see in magazines. Sweet.

On the bike front, financial obligations will probably slow down my ability to pay off the new bike. So instead of having it payed off a few weeks from now, it may be more to the tune of a few months from now, but I'll just pay off as much as I can toward it. I want that bike.

In the meantime, I'm still biking as much as I can. A bout of sciatica due to lugging heavy crap around for work is presenting some problems, but I'm toughing it out. Fortunately, I'm free to sit on traditional buddhist meditation cushions at the office, which is helping the sciatica a great deal.

One day at a time. One day at a time.

What is trekking?

2005-05-30T08:40:00.000-05:00

Trekking is an interesting word, referring to the making of a slow or arduous journey. In the sense of getting out & about on a bicycle, the word is contrasted with bicycle touring, which seems to refer to sight-seeing on a bike for pleasure and recreation.

Can bicycle touring be slow and arduous? Most definitely! But it doesn't have to be.

You can bicycle tour without trekking, and you can trek on a bicycle without touring. But in the sense of long-distance recreational bicycling, there's a certain room for overlap in usage.

So, why am I Trekking Bob, and not Touring Bob? Well, I think of touring as something I'd ultimately like to do, but as a rule I'm more into getting out and doing the challenging stuff than I am into sight-seeing. I also like to swim up near my limits and do other things that are a real stretch.

According to dictionary.com...

"Trek was borrowed into English in South Africa, where the word was used by the Boers for a journey by ox wagon. A seminal event in the history of South Africa was the “Groot Trek” from 1835-1843, in which more than 10,000 Boers, the Voortrekkers, left the Cape Colony and traveled north and northeast because of economic problems, conflict with the Xhosa, and discontent with British colonial authorities, who had forbidden the slave trade and postulated the equality of whites and non-whites. The British, who seized control of South Africa from the Boers at the turn of the 20th century, seized the word trek during the 19th. Trek is recorded earliest in 1822 in the compound trektow, “a rope joining the wagon pole and the yoke to which oxen were fastened.” Trek in this compound is either the noun or the stem of the corresponding verb in Afrikaans, trekken. The earliest recorded use of the noun by itself is found in 1849, where it means “a stage in a journey by ox wagon."

2005-05-28T18:22:00.000-05:00

I've been swimming once and cycling semi-constantly over the last few days. Will likely take a day or two off from the bike at this point just to let my muscles & such catch up with me. Still plenty I can do to the tune of stretching, push-ups, and other forms of exercise. Cross-training after a fashion, I guess.

I try to google up interesting info on the bike I've got on order, and while what I can find tends to be interesting, there's little of it. (Although if I could read Dutch or German, I'd apparently be able to find more on it.) I have, however, found out that the Trek X500 is currently being used for U.S. Postal Service delivery in several major U.S. cities and for 7-day tours of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. On the website for the Vietnam bicycle tour, they describe the X500 as Ultimate trekking bike, a real achiever.

I guess that speaks well of it, because I'm certain that mail carriers cover lots of interesting terrain under heavy loads, and the Mekong Delta tour involves 50-60 km of cycling per day on a variety of roads (including dirt roads).

Not only does this suggest that the bike can hold its own, but if only because of the mail carrier gig, I won't be the only guy in the U.S. that's got one. heh

I have found a few guys making comments in actual English about their own X500's.

Says one cyclist: I have a trek X500. Heavy as a tank. I would guess about 35 pounds before any baggage. It’s advantage is that there is nothing to buy except bags. It has cheap lights (LED), good racks, bell, fenders and mud flaps, disk breaks, good kick stand, built in pump, 37mm tires and a built in lock. The kitchen sink might be there too I have not looked. It also has ridiculously low gearing. Inner chain ring 22, largest rear gear 38, that is low! I love the built in lock. Just like locking your car.

I use it around town, for shopping etc, It does not need good roads. My longest rides are in the 60-70 mile range loaded with junk. I’m planning in riding from Orlando FL to Boston MA next month. Best part of it is that it makes my Seven feel like it is nothing but a rocket engine.

And another: I purchased a Trek X500 in January 2005 and I love it. Great geometry, very comfortable and stable ride. Gearing is great for around town and commuting. The ride reminds me of the early 70s General Motors cars with the big bench seat and the smooth ride down the highway! I am a clydesdale (6', 260lbs) and this bike is built to carry not only my load, but also any cargo - it's built like a tank, with great wheels and 700X35 tires. The racks are bomb-proof, too - very high quality and very sturdy not only with mounting but with a load as well. The only cheesy thing that came with the bike is the less-than-efficient headlamp. I also have a great racing bike and a mountain bike, but the X500 is absolutely perfect for errands around town and commuting. Park the car!

2005-05-26T20:12:00.000-05:00

Today I had the pleasure of hanging out at the most gorgeous golf course I've ever seen with the naked eye. Patrick Farms, right here in Rankin County, is just stunning.

I was sponsoring a hole at a charity golf scramble (will post pics later) and got to hang out with a whole bunch of cool people in a darn pleasant atmosphere. Then I had to head back to the office, because I needed to prepare for a 4-hour training session I'm providing in Crystal Springs first thing in the a.m. Such is life.

When I made it home, I hung tight for a while expecting to hear from a bud to go biking & swimming, but we wound up going in separate directions. Worked out for me, though, because I've been craving some longer rides and wound up biking around 15 miles at the pace of my choosing. Was nice.

My hands are feeling it a bit, though, because I outgrew my cycling gloves a good while back and haven't replaced 'em yet. So all the road shock hammers into my hands. No big, of course. In a worst case scenario, I'll just not be able to do another 15 tomorrow. Will have to see.

If I do get in a few more 15-milers this weekend, I'm thinking Wednesday or so might be a good day to do a bike commute to work, which I guesstimate to be between 15 and 20 miles each way. I may drive or bike the route this weekend to find out exact mileage (and if I bike it, to find out how long I should expect it to take).

MS Laws Relating to Bicycles

2005-05-24T22:57:00.000-05:00

http://gomdot.com/bicycling/laws.htm is a MS Dept. of Transporation page listing laws pertaining to bicycles in this state.

I'd only known of a couple of these prior to this evening, so this was an interesting find.

I've made a .pdf file with this information and printed it off for future reference. I'm thinking it may be handy to have a copy sealed up in a freezer bag to carry along when biking on the roads.

MDOT's site turned out to have a bunch of info not found on other sites I've found, including:

Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinator
Sue Pitts
P.O. Box 1850
Jackson, MS 39215-1850
Phone (601)359-7883
E-mail: spitts@mdot.state.ms.us

MDOT's got a Bicycle/Pedestrian Coordinator? Cool. That info might come in handy.

motivation

2005-05-24T21:39:00.001-05:00

There are lots of different reasons to get out of the house and get active.

I, for one, love a good thrill on occasion and a good bit of novelty on a regular basis. It just keeps things interesting.

Then, of course, are the obvious health factors. I like to feel better, look better, and have a sense that I'm doing OK for myself.

Competition can be a factor at times, particularly for people with particularly competitive mindsets. Who doesn't want to earn a little esteem from peers?

My brother-in-law wants to get in better shape so he can be around to watch my niece grow up. I'm stuck staring at computer screens, circuit boards, and (worst of all) dashboards for far too much of my working life, and work takes up most of my waking hours.

You don't have to think about your motivations to get out and have a good time. Or maybe in your case it'll help. Either way, get up off your butt and go! ;)

thwarted by weather

2005-05-24T21:39:00.000-05:00

Today just wasn't my day to get out and ride, swim, etc. Weather intervened.

Was hot and swampy nearly all day, and just as we began to plot out our afternoon plans for some cycling and swimming, all hell broke loose. Torrents of water thrashed from the sky, punctuated by lighting and driven by winds so sharp my car was tossed around like a bean bag.

Days like this don't have to be a total wash, though. It's perfectly OK to take a day or two off to just rest and vegetate.

On other occasions, I'll do a few push-ups, piffle about with weights, some stretching, and/or whatever blows my skirt up. It's a good idea to do at least a little stretching even on the vegetation days, anyway. Stretching good. :)

If nothing else, knock back a shot of pure agave tequila or Hangar One. Lubrication in moderation is a great sensation and worthy of participation!

Technology and Bicycle Distance

2005-05-23T22:58:00.000-05:00

How far did you bike today, Bob?

I, like many cyclists, like to have some idea of how far I'm biking. Reasons for this range from curiosity and pure vanity to more or less vague notions of physical fitness.

Although a cyclist can use a variety of tools to answer the question of distance biked, most boil down to variations on a few basic themes.

You can use maps and/or time spend biking to arrive at (usually crude) estimates of distance, or rely on technologies such as odometers and GPS receivers, which, when used properly, will tend to produce fairly accurate estimates.

Use of maps is limited by the fact that paths and the land beneath them change constantly. Maps are generally also two-dimensional, printed on paper, and therefore can not fully express contour details. Add in the curviness of paths biked and problems related to scale, and the challenges become even more pointed.

Estimating based on the amount of time spent riding the bike amounts to educated guesswork at best.

Quality GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers can yield quite accurate estimates by calculating position based on information received from military satellites orbiting the planet. However, a variety of compromising factors can throw everything off. They can be highly accurate, grossly inaccurate, or somewhere in between. The savvy cyclist can make some determination of accuracy by examining GPS receiver (GPSr for short, but that just doesn't look right to me) output and comparing it with known values. Anywhere near home, I can generally squeeze the needed info from them, but it can be hit & miss at times.

Odometers usually work by counting the number of times a bike tire rotates and calculating based on the diameter of the tire. Inaccuracy usually comes by way of tire diameter. Tire diameter isn't the same once a rider plops down on the bike. Also, tire diameter fluctuates along with the amount of air in the tube. There are ways to compensate for these problems, and quality odometers can be as accurate as one would reasonably hope under most normal circumstances.

My preferred approach is a combination of GPSr and odometer measurements. This reflects my geekery as much as anything else. When the new bike comes in, I have in mind to see just how much geeky stuff I can reasonably fit on it. And I'm prepared to budge a bit on the definition of reasonable.

;)

first swim of the year

2005-05-23T07:20:00.000-05:00

It's been tough to get a swim in this year (due in large part to the lake in which we swim being locked off and barbwired, which adds challenge points), but we finally made it out yesterday.

Since I'm used to starting swimming season weeks earlier, I went straight to swimming laps. Just one lap across the pond & back, plus some general back-and-forth swimming to keep up the pace.

It's a way-too-short bike trip to the lake, so when the new one comes in I imagine I'll work out a longer route to & from. But I've been cautioned about ragging out the borrowed bike before returning it, and I'm not keen on having to replace the drive train on it out of pocket. ;)

How do so many people stay sane without access to trees, ponds, and back roads? Or do they?

What kind of bike...?

2005-05-22T14:41:00.000-05:00

If you're thinking of doing some bicycling, you may not be sure what kind of bike would suit you. In fact, unless you already bike so much that you've simply already figured it out, you're almost certainly uncertain (or have already been sold on a vision of the perfect bike that may or may not be right for you). If you're drawing a complete blank, you may want to check out this helpful website.

I gave a lot of thought to what I'd want out of a bike when I started shopping for my next bike. But most of that thought had already taken place in the back of my mind over the last few years.

When biking to the lake for a swim, I've found that I really wish I had some way to carry along a few things, like a towel, some sandals, maybe dry clothes, etc. And when I bike around the neighborhood to a friend's house, I'd generally like to take a few things along (maybe just my house keys, but different situations call for different stuff). The list goes on, but the gist of it is that the perfect bike for me has to be able to carry some stuff around.

My neighborhood is also very hilly, with less than ideal surfacing in many areas. So I need a bike with a wide range of gears and high-end gearing system, powerful brakes, and tires for mixed conditions. If your neighborhood is flat and well-paved, you may not need such demanding specifications for casual riding.

When I'm riding in traffic or just doing some recreational sight-seeing, I need a more upright position than is typical on a racing bike and most street bikes. The simple reason for this is that I want to see where I'm going and what's happening around me, for both safety and enjoyment. But I don't need to be as upright as a 60-year-old with severe joint trouble (and yes, they make bikes with this in mind). So my handlebar and seat decisions have been narrowed down considerably just by keeping these factors in mind.

I need fenders to keep muddy groundwater from splashing back up on myself and any luggage I may be carrying. If you, like my best bud, seriously don't care to bike in sketchy conditions, you won't need 'em.

Not planning on ever, ever, ever cycling at or after dusk? You can skip the headlight and taillight options unless your local legal system requires them.

If you're thinking of a bike purchase, try to realistically consider what you want out of a bike. Plan to take it shopping or to the office? Just going to cruise around your flat, gated neighborhood for quick social excursions? Expecting to race, or to take long trips down the Natchez Trace, or to hop from rock to rock in the mountains?

If there are absolutely no mountains or mountain-like conditions within 200 miles of your home, your primary bike probably doesn't need to be a mountain bike. If racing, touring, or other specialized riding options are similarly unrealistic for you, consider whether a bike designed for such purposes is really the right choice.

You may not need the kind of high-end trekking bike that suits my circumstances. An inexpensive bike for scooting around town and picking up groceries might be a better fit. Or whatever suits you.

What I'm getting at here is that, even if you're just buying a bike to get some exercise, you'll get more exercise on the right bike for you. You should like it and have some idea of how you'd like to use it.

Only the disciplined mind consistently decides to just ride the bike for the sake of fitness. Where discipline leaves off, your desire to see some nice scenery, or to pick up some groceries, or spend some time with the grandkids, or whatever, can pick up.

And that's when you'll really go cycling!

Ragin' Golf forum

2005-05-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

I host the Ragin' Golf forum, which is basically a free-flowing discussion about golf and whatever blows through our minds.

We have moments of civic-mindedness, such as sponsoring a hole in the Richland High School Community Golf Scramble, which rewards a worthy high school senior's efforts to go to college.

In general, we talk about playing golf, building golf clubs, improving scores, generally razzing one another vigorously, and maintaining a fun on-line community atmosphere.

Check us out!

some of what I like to do outside

2005-05-22T11:06:00.000-05:00

I've been an outdoorsy guy most of my life, particularly since I live in a place that's darn near paradise, complete with lakes, hills, and a lot of geological & biological diversity in general.

Here's a quick list of some of the outdoor pass-times I've taken up over the years:

Golf is a newer passion of mine. I started playing late in 2004 and like to get out when I can. I'm a terrible, but enthusiastic, player.
Walking is an activity I enjoy less than biking, but quite a bit when the mood strikes me. I've walked all through many towns in Mississippi, exploring nooks & crannies that most people probably never discover.
Swimming is something I learned a bit about when I was probably 5 years old in Dallas, Texas. But I never really mastered it until around the age of 12, when I found myself living with a lake in the back yard. Once I get the hang of things during swimming season, I like to swim laps across a nearby pond. We also play a game we call Suicide Frisbee, which is an endurance game of frisbee played in deep water. More on that in future posts, probably within the next several weeks.
Long before I took up golf, we used to play with slingshots and home-made slings. It's really fun to hurl projectiles out here.
I love to canoe down the Okatoma, on lakes, and pretty much wherever I can. I'm long overdue for another canoe trip.
Camping is just plain cool. I seldom get to do it but am hoping the new bike will help address some of the reasons I don't do it as often as I'd like. I have always enjoyed just getting out, simplifying things, and waking up outside instead of in one of the manufactured caves we tend to call home.
Geocaching is something I discovered a little over a year ago, leading to my purchase of a GPS receiver. In a nutshell, someone stashes a "treasure" somewhere, and posts the GPS coordinates on the web. Then you use your GPS receiver to find the location and search for it. It can be lots of fun, and a great way to find some neat places.

I'm sure I could continue adding to the list, but just working on the list makes me want to get up out of the chair and get moving! ;)

the new bike: 2005 Trek X500

2005-05-22T10:18:00.000-05:00

I've ordered a new Trek X500 bike for general use. It should arrive within the next several weeks, which gives me a little time to sock away the money for it.

It'll be the first high-end bike I've actually owned, and I've taken some care to choose a bike suited to my own tastes and goals.

I want to be able to ride the bike to work (15 miles or more), grocery shopping (around 5 miles), camping, touring some of the many cool places Mississippi has to offer (and there are many cool places to visit in Mississippi), etc.

It needs to be able to carry a big rider with lots of gear over considerable distances over bad roads comfortably. That's a tall order, but this bike should do the job just fine.

It features 27 speeds, pannier racks for carrying gear, fenders to counter muddy splash-back on soggy roads, a headlight, bell (for warning pedestrians, who might not hear or see me coming), built-in tire pump, and disc brakes (far superior to traditional brakes in traffic and quick-decision situations).

I can hardly wait for this puppy to arrive. I shouldn't have to make too many modifications to it, although I'm definitely planning on adding flashing LED lights and such, to make it easier for others on & near the road to see me.

And I may switch from mechanical disc brakes to hydraulic disc brakes. I was considering having this done at the time of bike assembly, but unless it costs considerably less to do so at that time, I'm now thinking I'll stick with the mechanicals for a while, which will free up that money for other purposes, such as the pannier bags.

the current bike

2005-05-22T10:12:00.000-05:00

This is my current bike, a Trek 8000 on more or less indefinite loan from my best friend. From what I've been able to determine, it was a high-end mountain bike at the time of its purchase, back in the early- or mid-1990's.

It's still a very good bike, with Shimano Deore components, internal cable routing, etc.

However, it's a bit small for me, as the picture shows.

I've got a Magellan SporTrak GPS receiver mounted on the handlebar, which I find handy in a variety of ways.

This bike is great for off-road, and even on-road it holds its own nicely.

hitting the road

2005-05-22T09:25:00.000-05:00

I learned to ride a bike when I was 4 or 5 years old, on what I dimly recall to have been a banana yellow bike with training wheels (which didn't last long).

Aside from a fairly sedentary period that snuck up during my twenties, I've always been something of a biker. But only in the last few years have I been riding on really high-quality bikes.

No clue how or when it happened, but at some point I fell in love with Trek bikes in particular. I've been riding one borrowed from a friend for the last few years. (A friend who loans you a $3K bike to destroy for a few years is a friend indeed!)

We like to ride after work when weather permits even a modest degree of comfort, and bike to the lake for swimming. Our current rides tend to range between 4.5 and just over 6 miles, although last Sunday I rode twice for a total of just over 16 miles.

Yesterday I rode (mostly with my companion rider) about 5 miles.

I've recently ordered a nice Trekking bike, to be described in a subsequent post and plan to use it for longer rides, commuting, tourism, etc.

In this blog, I'll be recording notes on my travels, bikes, etc.