Eye Candy

I can't explain it but there is a simple pleasure in seeing a beautiful old bicycle. A part of me thrills at the lasting power of a well built bike, and I get joy from seeing my beloved simple and efficient machine as it was years before I was born. The classic clean lines will suck me in for hours of browsing just for the simple pleasure of seeing another bike of yesteryear on my screen. Intellectually I enjoy the fact that these old bike have often outlasted some of their infantile cousins. I love to see the colors and the insignias, the trademark decals, and when I see a bike today in a condition where the original paint and logos are intact it sometimes makes my heart beat a little faster. The revered old brands that inherently carry a bit of honor through the years. I find myself wanting to buy more and more of these old beautiful bikes, just to have access to them.

In that spirit, I have decided to post some pictures here for the simple purpose of eye candy. I enjoy posting about rides and experiences and breakthroughs and thoughts, but again and again I find myself finding it semi monotonous to say "hey, today I rode my bike". I like sharing my thoughts and my trials, but sometimes, dammit, I just want to oggle some nice bike flesh. So I have taken the opportunity to do some scouring and find what, to me, is bike porn. I often find myself looking at a bike and then thinking, "What would that be like with X handlebars?" or "I wonder if that paint color is original?" And thus begins another little journey onto the "internets" to see what I can see.

Disclaimer: There's bound to be some disappointment all around as I'm not always going to take the time and energy to positively ID these bikes. I want to look at them not do a thesis on the history of bicycles. If the details are at hand I will include them, but this is not an attempt to catolog the bikes. That said, if you happen to be reading this post and you happen to have some latent bike knowledge please feel free to put it in the comments. That way we can all benefit from your knowledge! One last thing--these are not, for the most part, professional pictures. I'm just gathering some shots I've found lying about the vast world of the web.

Without further ado:

The dashing Peugeot.

The classic Chicago Schwinn.

The irristible Sears Austria.

Step-through 3 speed.

Schwinn Suburban.

Typhoon.

Peugeot.

Tiger.

Eat it up

I never would have believe it but I actually had the urge to lift weights today. I wrote before that I abhor the gym and "working out" as an activity serparate from anything useful. But since I live in an apartment and not on the farm anymore, well there just isn't a boatload of things that need done that require physical activity. The biking has been great but we tend to do that on weekends. During the week we do yoga, walks, and even some Wii sports or fit. But reflecting on all the hours I poured into working out in the past, especially in college, I do remember fondly the wonderful "strong" feeling I always go from lifting weights. It never really seemed to help me lose or even manage my weight, but I did like feeling that ache in my muscles that reminded me I had used them. So without any other reason or explanation, I had the urge to lift some weights yesterday. Now granted I am much, much weaker than I was 5 or 8 years ago. But this time I didn't let that discourage me. I figure with my other success propelling me, this would be a good adjunct activity (at least for one night!). Though I tend to gravitate towards free weights, the machine offer much needed stability at this point. An hour and a half later I felt great about my (small) success of hitting most major muscle groups and proud that I had got off my ass. I guess it's true that "success begets success." The better I feel the better I want to feel the more I want to succeed which leads me to trying even harder the next go round.

Anyway, tonight I just wanted to do a quick post with some super easy and tasty recipes.
Oh these are potato-product/sugar free due to my potatoe allergy. But they are damn tasty and there's nothing like breakfast for dinner.

Pancakes:
1 egg
1 cup milk (rice, cow, whatever--I used creamline whole cow's milk)
2Tbsp oil (we used olive)
1 cup flour (unenriched--we used white whole wheat flour from King Arthur)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder (we substituted 1Tbsp corn starch + 1/4 tsp baking soda as baking powder affects my potato allergy)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt



Mix all ingredients well. We use 1/4 cup batter for each pancake. Smother with real butter and some real maple syrup or...

Berry Sauce
1 cup raspberries
1 cup blueberries
1 cup blackberries
(I had two half bags mixed frozen blueberries, raspberries and strawberries and substituted. I'm sure any combinationg would be fine.)
1/2 cup sugar (I used 1/2 cup maple syrup).
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water

In a saucepan, combine berries, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Bring to a boil. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine the cornstarch and water, stirring until it dissolves. Add the cornstarch mixture to the fruit to thicken. Stir until smooth and simmer slowly for 2 to 3 minutes.



Let me know if you love this or hate it, if you would like to see more, or if you end up skipping over it.

Beauty

This morning we did a quick 5.5ish mile ride on the road again. The ride was beautiful--60ish degrees, sunny, and the road was along a golf course community with a bike lane. The only difficulty with this ride is the road connecting us to the Preston community. We had to cross the railroad tracks again, took a left turn going downhill without a traffic light, and on the way back that road is one steep bitch for a short while. I wanted to share the beautiful pictures we took along the way. I might also post the recipe for pancakes that we used this morning as they were absolutely delicious!

Happy Easter to those of you who observe it.
Happy Sunday to everyone else!

Road Ride Virgin No More

Did my first all road ride today. I was so nervous thinking about the ride and as we pulled up to the intersection to leave the apartment complex, I felt like I was at the top of a rollercoaster. My stomach was in knots and I was so jittery. The light changed and we pulled smoothly across the intersection. The first mile or so is downhill but it is also the highest traffic volume part of the ride and is the section with the smallest shoulder and riding room. As we began picking up speed my first thought was "shit, I hope my bike doesn't fall apart!" As we approached the first major intersection I was feeling a bit wobbly. I was having a hard time looking over my shoulder to assess traffic and we needed to turn left. Llama stepped in and smoothly merged with traffic and then singled and pulled into the left turn lane. I'm glad we had a green light as I had been worrying about the particular intersection since we decided to ride. We needed to turn left from one high volume road onto another and there are railraod tracks halfway through the turn. I had read about taking them headon so as to not wipe out by getting my tire stuck. Since the light was green when we reached it I had no time to think and worry over it and just plowed on through. A short distance later we made a right turn onto Church St which is has far fewer cars on it.

Church St was the first chance we had to relax and we both decided to pull over and get our breath and just calm down for a few minutes. We were both puffing pretty good at this point, but felt like the hardest and scariest part was behind us. Church St ended up being a bit more challenging then we imagined. It had a very slight grade. The kind that just slowly wears you down. Before too long I had to pull off and get water again. Quick sidenote: our wonderful "vintage" bikes do not have cages on them as yet. Truthfully I almost don't want to "sully" them. But it does need to take some priority as it is pretty damn inconvenient to have to sotp for drinks. Anyway, by this point I realized I wasn't going to make it the entire circuit we had planned, so we decided on a modified route and got back on the road. Our next intersection was another left hand turn and this time no turn lane and no turn arrow. It went very smoothly and before too long we had turned onto Town Hall which had been the least stressful in my mind pre-ride.

Town Hall was effortless. I don't know if it was the road being smoother or if there was a slight downgrade but it was effortless and took very little time. There was also a bit of a tailwind headed back home. There are two lanes going each direction which put me at ease as there was plenty of room for cars to go around. It was also nice because we were able to ride side by side and chat. Before long we were back at the railroad tracks and on the last leg of our ride. There is a "small" hill (which to me might as well have been the fucking Alps) and this is the section where there is a very small shoulder. I shifted down and plodded up and before long there is a slight levelling out. I took it slow and easy and when the grade increased again, I found myself clawing my gears for the granny gear. I made it as far up as I had wanted. The road widens just where it departs from the railroad tracks and there is a second lane and a sidewalk. I was shaking so badly I slowly made it to the sidewalk and crumpled off my bike. I stumbled up to where Llama was waiting with the water. We caught out breathe and decided to use the sidewalk to go the last 200 yards or so into the apartment complex.

When we reached our building I felt so excited to have a "real" ride under my belt. And I have a new appreciation for bike paths for leisurely rides and a new respect for roads. I feel exhausted and exhilarated. Oh and my legs are like jelly....

1 month, 2 riffs and my Blue Beauty.

Today marks the one month mark since I quit smoking. Everyone keeps asking if it was hard and if I'm going crazy. I'm not and it wasn't. I truly believe that once I got my head in the right place, once I was mentally ready to quit, it was that easy. The first week I didn't know what to do with my spare time. I ended up cleaning and reorganizing a bunch of cupboards. Now it's not a big deal. It wasn't traumatic for me. I think the thing is this: I wanted to quit. Why on earth would I miss an activity I hated in the first place? Why should I be aching to get that wicked drug back into my life? Why should I miss it? I'm finally fucking free! And I feel excited about it every single time I think about it. I wanted to give a quick plug to the book I read that made it easier than anything for me to quit. I went from smoking a pack and a half (that's 30 cigarettes) on a good day to zero without a problem. I went from freaking out if I got down to only one pack left to having 7 packs sitting on my bookshelf for over a month and never even wanting to light one. So thank you Allen Carr:



I also purchased the remainder of my supplements the other day. I now need to reorganize the "medicine cabinet" so they actually all fit. And then I am going to tackle the spreadsheet needed to keep track of them all. Hopefully if things go well I will be off a lot of these within 6 months. I don't like "taking" anything, so the sooner the better. Other than that there's not much new on the health front.

I did go on a wonderful bike ride last weekend that I didn't post about. I wanted to share the route and give a quick blurb about it. We decided on a route that would let us start and end in the same park via different bikepaths. We also included some road riding on roads that had bike lanes. This was our first trial with riding on roads instead of paths and it was a lot of fun. It was exhilarating and a bit scary at the same time, but I am always amazed at how quickly the same ground is covered riding a bike vs walking. We did have a small maybe 1/2 mile section where the road was two lanes, no bike lane and we would be turning left at an intersection with no traffic light and I was not quite up to that, so I wussed out and used the sidewalk. I know--shame on me. But I figured I would rather that and live to ride again than take my inexperienced bicyclist life in my hands and never get another chance.



I do wanna riff on two things real quickly. Every single time we pass people walking on the "multiuse" trails, we call out "2 on your left". Several times, people thank us for the warning. I guess my riff is that I feel every bicyclist should extend this same courtesy to other trail users. In general we are travelling much faster and coming up on people much more from behind. I know that when we walk these trails, it is frightening and irritating to have a bicyclist go whizzing by and nearly knock you off your feet without so much as a "yo, I'm behind you". I feel like it would be a great thing for the bicycling community if this was standard practice. it's one of those ways to get more people "on our side" as it were instead of alienating them with rude behavior.

Riff #2. "multiuse trails". As denoted on the "biking/hiking" maps provided by our town there is no distinction between a hiking and a biking trail. They are both marked with the same color line. Of course, we didn't actually know this until we were rather lost several miles from our car looking for a trailhead to the "path" we saw on our map. This path was actually more like a deer trail for the first hundred feet off the road. But it took us about 20 minutes to actually find it as there was not even a sign posted indicating where it was. And I don't know if anyone else has ever attempted riding 30-50 year old road bikes on a gravel and dirt "path", but let's just say it wasn't fun. So our bike ride ended up having this long "bike/hike" section smack dab in the middle of it. Not a huge deal, but pretty inconvenient. And all it would take would be a simple ink difference to indicate this trail was not "bicycle" friendly. At least we weren't on rollerblades or something...


One last thing. I think I forgot to share that I got a "new" bike about 2 months ago. I got a Schwinn beauty and have absolutely enjoyed every second on her. Her 10 speeds make a lot of difference to a novice like me and make our rides feel a bit less intimidating. She is yet unnamed. I wanted a nice movie star from Chicago type of name, but a quick search failed to produce anything interesting and I ... lost interest. I call her "Blue" sometimes and it seems appropriate if not exactly inspired. So here are some pics of the Schwinn on her first ride and on our bike hike ride from this past weekend as well.

My "Blue Beauty" on the first ride--sheer joy!

Gorgeous-and look at all those speeds!

Tricky part of our ride where about 1/2 mile was paved, and then it turned back to gravel.