Screws In My Coffee

Yesterdays evening ride was the first time that I rode home with my arm warmers on. Hurricane Sandy, now a tropical super storm generated strong winds down here in southwest Georgia.  Most folks in cars never notice a 20 MPH wind.  To  a cyclist like myself anytime I am on a ride and I notice blades of long grass bending over I know that there is at least a 10 to 15 MPH wind blowing.  I always know that if I am riding and I do not feel the wind then I am riding with it and when I turn around I'll have a head wind instead of an easy tail wind. Yesterday I was riding home hauling the Burley trailer and the wind was so strong from the north that the trees were swirling violently above my head.  Normally on my bike this would have been a challenging ride home, but the Burley really sucked up the wind.  I was slowed down to 8 MPH on my ride where I would normally be riding at 14 to 16 MPH.  It was a great hill simulation as I did not change gears and just cranked trough the head winds. ...

My ODO reads 895.7. I rode 84.79 miles this week. I averaged 15.2 MPH. Based on Runtastic data I have cycled 592 miles this year. I went to a conference this week so I will not get in three days of cycling. I rode on Saturday 40 miles.

My ODO reads 810.8. I rode 131.62 miles this week. It took me 8 hours and 53 minutes to ride those miles back and forth to work.  My maximum speed was 25 MPH. I averaged 14.8 MPH. Based on Runtastic data I have cycled 506 miles this year.  I started bike comuting on September 24.  So far this month I have cycled 388 miles. I have to go to a conference this week so I will not get in three days of cycling.

Every once in a while I get to a point in my life when I know I am in the sweet spot.  The sweet spot is sometimes hard to define, but I know when I am in it.  When I was younger I could only know where the sweet spot was after I was out of it and I was in the middle of tough times and I found myself thinking of better times.  For a while I accepted the fact that I had no control over when or where or how long the sweet spot would last. Now I know that there is a difference between random occurrences and choice. The sweet spot on a bat is different for every bat so the sweet spot in life is different for all of us.  What is a sweet spot for you could very well be hell on earth for someone close to you in one part of your life. Ideally the sweet spot is an enjoyable zone that does not infringe on anyone's space in a way that is detrimental to them. This morning after an enjoyable ride to work a calm rush came over me as I was changing from my riding gear and getting ready to prepare...

Last week I rode 124 miles.  My ODO is at 679.  Hauling the Burley to work with my weeks worth of clean clothes. Still have mornings where it is 100% humitidy.  Today it is 64 degrees at 4:42AM. I am riding in my big chain ring in te front and my fourth from the smallest in the back.  I am not shifting as I ride to work.  I have never ridden in a single gear for so long.  It has been about three weeks sind I have shifted my gears with the intent of making it easier to ride.  Albany is basically flat so I am working to build up my strength for some future hill rides in north Georgia,

James Brown was from Macon Georgia about 90 minutes by car from where I live in Albany Georgia.  Today as I rode to work in the fog in 54 degree air temperature and 100% humidity I finally got the meaning of Mr  Brown's lyrics, "cold sweat".  I had to wear my arm warmers and I knew that I had to ride hard and fast to get warm.  What I did not realize is that I would be cold and sweating like a pig at the same time.  This is a new experience for me as i'm use to riding when it is cold and dark, but not sweating so much that my Gutr Guard still overflows like it does on a hot summer day.  Truly I got the "cold sweat" Georgia style. Today's pace, 3.44 minutes per mile and I averaged 16.0 miles per hour over 12.46 miles.

On Monday October 8, 2012 I hauled my Burley cycle trailer to work  I needed to change out a weeks worth of clothes and did not want to drive my truck to do it.  I have not pulled this Burley this far (12.4 miles) since my two kids were small enough to ride in it.  One is 18 and the other is 23.  When I whine about SW Georgia not having enough hills I will haul the Burley. There is something that I enjoy when I am hauling a trailer.  I like hauling one on my bike and I like hauling one with my Dodge 3500 Cummins diesel.   One thing I like about my truck is the fact that it has a lot of towing tourque.  I thought about this when I was riding into work towing the Burley, I want to build up my legs so they can power me anywhere. One amazing feeling that i get when I haul the Burley is the feeling of independence from fossil fuels.  with this trailer I can go grocery shopping and not worry ow i will get my food back to my house. When I lived in Portland, I use to hang out with a cycle clu...

I have felt that students in school today are not learning how to learn, but how to memorize. They are being taught to think less and follow the rules to get a good grade.  I am a self learner and this computer science course as described by Shimon Schocken is one that I would love to take.

I finished the may latest drawing.  I started it on September 2, 2010 and finished it on October 1, 2012.  The title is as usual based on some of the music that I have been listening to as I draw.  Famous Jane , the low spark of high heeled Ghitas in the Jungle room .  The hyperlinks go to web pages with the lyrics for the songs that inspired my drawing.  Most of the time I am sitting with my drawing and music is flowing into my ears through headphones.  The  music enters my head through my ears, then travels to my brain it sends the feeling from the music into my eyes that then move my fingers to manipulate the color pencils on the drawing board.  The interaction with the music plays a big part in my drawing. I based this drawing on a photograph that I took of a statue while I was in north Georgia.  I liked the statue and the fact that it was not in good shape.  It has lots of pits and cracks. The statue appears to be an Indian w...