For the past few years I've wanted to go on the tour of Historic Houses of Worship in downtown Frederick. There is just over a dozen beautiful churches in the same three or four block area downtown and they all look magnificent. But I've never been in town on the night of the tour. After almost forgetting, Jillian and I remembered about this years and decided to go.
It was very, very cold. But there was free hot chocolate and home baked cookies at a lot of the churches. We really enjoyed ourselves. One of the churches was visited by Stonewall Jackson, and he apparently tied his horse to the tree outside of it. Almost all of them were used as hospitals during the Civil War, and it's hard to imagine how they would have looked with planks laid over the pews. We also learned a bit about the history of the Visitation Academy, which is the beautiful private school down the street.
I only took a few pictures, but Jillian took quite a lot. You can go direct to our slideshow on Flickr or you can take a look at them below. Bear in mind that Jillian will probably be adding more photos to the set later, so there will be lots more to see.
These are probably the least exciting pieces of our gear that we currently own. Really I'm not even sure what to say about them.
Over winter break one of my gifts to my brother was fixing up his bike. Ok, so formally the gift was new handlebar tape, but one thing led to another. One thing we noticed was that his chain was very stretched - more than 1%. It was bad to a point where some links were visibly bigger than others. So we got a new chain and set about replacing his old one.
Turns out replacing a chain isn't as easy as I remembered. In order to do it we needed a Park Tool CT-5 Mini Chain Brute Chain Tool, which I purchased at BC Bicycles in Vestal, NY. To change a chain, you need to first use the tool to push a pin out of a link, then lay the chain flat on ground that you don't mind getting greasy. Then lay the new chain next to it. They should be pretty close to the same length. If not, then remove a link from the new chain. This is the easy part.
Now put the new chain on the bike and line up the link at the end with the pin on the other end and use the break tool to push them together. But be really careful that you line things up straight since if they're bent a little bit they won't bend and you'll have a nasty experience. This actually took a lot of work. Definitely something that would have been a lot easier with a proper workstand.
I also got a bottle of Park Tool CL-1 Synthetic Blend Chain Lube for Christmas. Keeping a clean chain is important since it makes shifting easier and helps to preserve the life of all of the gears. So we're going to need to clean our chain probably every other week, depending on the roads we ride on. This lube will go on after a good cleaning.
They're both Park tools, and Park is pretty much the name in Bicycle tools. Sorry, nothing exciting to see here.
Yes, yes, I'm one day late. But yesterday was a very busy day. We started by opening some gifts as a family. There seemed to be a theme to the gifts I received. I received one very nerdy looking helmet mounted rear-view mirror, a bottle of chain lube, a 6 pack of random cycling socks, and a heart rate monitor. This is on top of the multitool, chain stretch tool, and book about a ride around the world I got from Jillian's parents. It's almost like I'm going to be doing some bike riding.
The socks were especially fun, since they're a random six pack of socks that were originally misprinted. One pair had a Kent State logo on them, but had been dyed white and purple. They look pretty awful and since they also seem a little small, they might soon belong to Jillian. But this is what happens when you buy a grab-bag of socks. The heart rate monitor also came with a dead battery. I'll need to play with that more when I get home.
One of the gifts I gave my brother was new handlebar tape (sensing a theme?). So after gifts and a trip out to see some family for brunch, my brother, father and I cleaned his bike really well. Today he's going to buy a new chain and after I've put that on for him his bike will look brand new.
That evening we went out to my grandmother's house and had a delicious dinner with more of my rather large family. While there I played with her cat. I need an animal.
David came over Christmas evening with Rock Band. My friend Kate was planning on coming over, so we were going to make her sing. This would have been good, since Kate can sing quite well, and even sang in an a capella group in college. However, she wasn't able to make it. My mother and I sang a lot of the songs together. It was painful, but a very good time.
We were all really bad, except for David. I'm not sure what was going on in this picture, but I imagine that David and Kevin are probably making those faces because of the singing. Only two more days of Binghamton adventures before I head back to Maryland.
David (future best man) drove North from Tampa in a marathon all day driving session. He fell asleep on my floor Monday evening while still talking to me. Words just gradually changed into mumbling and then he was out. The plan was to convoy up to New York together on Tuesday. While it's a sad story, there was a water main break in Bethesda. Suddenly half of the schools in the district I work for didn't have any water (You can read the story here, but this link will probably go dead eventually). So they canceled school and we all went home early. I like to think of it as a Christmas gift.
David and I were on the road by about 3, probably two hours earlier than originally anticipated. We first stopped in Lancaster, where Jillian's mother was kind enough to make some dinner. Her mother also wanted a gift for Jillian from Ikea, but since both her and I don't live anywhere near Ikeas, we weren't sure how to get it. David came through though, stopping at an Ikea on his marathon drive in Florida and bringing it up. So we dropped the gift off.
We finally made it back to the Greater Binghamton area around 8:30. It is much colder here than I remember, and there's more snow on the ground now than I've seen in at least two or three years. My parents were all excited that temperatures were climbing above freezing for a few days so that some of the snow could melt. But that first night I was here there was freezing rain, leaving the driveway looking like these two pictures. Fortunately it melted off a few hours later.
I'm trying to take advantage of my break and ride a lot. I put in almost thirty miles today, but Jillian retains a massive lead.
Jillian is going home tomorrow, so we decided to celebrate Christmas this morning. First I got up and went for a freezing cold outdoor ride. But when I came home we pretended it was Christmas morning and opened our gifts under the tree (or as close as we could manage with our mini tree).
That's pretty much the whole story. Enjoy some pictures.
Jillian's roommate Sabrina got us life. You know, since we're starting one and all.
Note the dog on the card. We're slowly winning Jillian over to dogs. Though to be fair, she was attacked by a bunch and does still have a nasty scar.
We got Paper Towns! Jillian and I, long time Brotherhood 2.0 fans finally own a John Green book! It's our secret wish to meet him during our cross country ride. (You too Hank!)
Ever since a particularly nasty job tearing down a barn during a thunderstorm I've wanted a nice rain jacket. For a cross country bike ride, when we'll be riding in almost any weather we encounter, having a nice rain jacket is imperative.
Since the first week I moved to Frederick I've made it a point to stop by the Trail House downtown and browse the clearance rack. While I got some awesome things (like a backpack), it was three years before I saw a Rain Jacket. But I was fortunate enough to purchase a Marmot Precip Rain Jacket for half list price.
I've been very happy with it. Despite terrible rain in the Hammersley Wilderness area and dense fog on top of the Range Trail I've always managed to stay dry without getting too hot. The material certainly isn't a substitute for real Gore-tex, but it does what it needs to do, and if I do start to get too hot there are pit zippers.
The only complaint I have is the pockets. They just don't feel right, and often they'll get a little wet if it's raining and your hands are in them. But this is a minor inconvenience, especially if I'm wearing it to ride.
I figure that when I choose gear for a cross country ride, I have three concerns: durability, comfort, and weight. I'm not sure what I'm going to be using for shoes while riding (maybe some Keens?), but I do know that I'll probably want to wear something else once I'm off the bike. Recently Bike Nashbar was having a clearance sale and had some Zinetic Pocket Slippers on sale. The big advantage of these shoes is that they're small - rolled up they can't be more than 4 cubic inches. At $7, I thought I'd give them a try.
They're undoubtedly the smallest shoes I've ever seen. Plus, they're light. I don't have any way to weight them, but this morning I put them in the pockets of my jersey and went for a ride without even noticing they were there. So that means they meet the weight requirement. I'm not so sure about the durability. The stitching around the elastic band is single stitch, and I can already see loose threads here and there. I won't be wearing these much, I just want them as an alternative for when my foot is sick of a riding shoe. The slogan of the company is "Boots off. Happy on." That's a pretty true statement. I can see how they'd seem ridiculously comfortable back at camp after a long hike. But then, a lot of things seem comfortable after a long hike.
The sole is very thin, but looks to be reasonably nonslip and durable. I wore them to and from my car this morning (I didn't drive to ride, but I do store my helmet in my car, since carrying it up and down from a third floor apartment is a pain), and I certainly felt every part of the road. But the little stones on the road didn't feel overly sharp, either. The big comfort problem is actually the size. I bought an Extra-Large, which is advertised as fitting sizes 10.5-11.5. I'm an 11, so I figured that'd be about right. However, as you can see in the picture, perhaps I should have purchased a large.
So the jury is still out. I'm going to keep using them as a slipper around the house and as shoes to get to and from my car when I ride. If they look like they won't stand every day use, then I'll need to find something else. It might come down to if I'm taking both regular riding shoes and riding sandals (like those Keens). We'll see.
Yesterday had some really awesome weather for December. Temperatures were in the low 60s and it wasn't raining. Since we were expecting pretty bad winter weather tonight, Jillian and I decided to take advantage of yesterday and go for a bike ride. When we left it was only 4:30, so we assumed we'd have at least an hour of riding.
We were mistaken. By 5:00 it was very dark and we headed home as fast as we could. Riding in the city wasn't too bad, since the streetlights are good, but riding through the industrial section of town on South Street was pretty bad. Although we're not expecting to do any sort of night riding again in the immediate future, I did buy us both tail lights tonight (one is for Jillian for Christmas, so shhhh!).
Still, we did manage to put in a quick seven miles at a good pace. Plus we had a lot of fun. When we got back we decided to take a picture from the roof of my car since we matched so nicely. You might notice that my jersey is lit up like crazy. I got that jersey from the professor that ran the lab I used to work in. It's by a company called illumiNITE and has almost little pieces of reflective something in it. They're incredibly reflective, as you can easily see. But anyway, that's why I appear to glow.
So as previously mentioned, I bought tights recently. With temperatures climbing into the forties over the last few days, I felt compelled to give them a try. Plus, I'm behind Jillian on the 1000 mile challenge, so I needed a ride outside to catch up. First, I decided to get all dressed up in my winter riding gear. Jillian thought I bore more than just a passing resemblance to a Ninja. I told her that was ok, since I wasn't going to be passing any particular pirates on this ride, so I'd be safe. She was still worried though. For the record, I did wear brighter clothes on the actual ride.
I tried to use the ride to find a magical route from Frederick to Gaithersburg, where I work. My quest was less than successful. I did find some fun roads to ride on, but nothing that I think would be safe between 4 and 6 in the morning. I also saw some very depressing views which I just couldn't seem to capture with my camera. This picture came out best (click it to see a bigger version). The farmland nearby was awesome looking. The development past it was tremendous. It really stole a lot away from the view and reminded me just how much I hate suburbia.
Jillian has been taking advantage of her break to log some serious miles for the challenge. She looks pretty intense riding on my trainer. She also didn't want me to take this photo. Something about that trainer is simply punishing. You can ride outdoors for a half hour and not feel tried at all. Thirty minutes indoors and you're dripping with sweat, begging to quit. They sell special covers for your bike to keep it safe from sweat. It's just a little bit ridiculous. Jillian is getting some really good training though, and much more than me.
We also recently set up our Christmas tree. I am that more than a little cheap person who buys a tree only because it's on clearance for $5. But Jillian and I have decided that our tree looks awesome.
One of our favorite features is the garland made of monkeys.
You should also know that I had a lot of bubble wrap. I actually have a lot of packing materials in general. Some time ago my former roommate and I decided to get a ball pit for our apartment, much in the spirit of XKCD. One of the ways we were fund raising was by Ebay-ing people's junk. Consequently, we had a lot of packing materials in general. I've thrown away at least 30 square feet of bubble wrap as well as three trash bags full of packing peanuts. Sadly, my roommate opted to move closer to where we work, so we will not have a ball pit. So we had to get rid of the packing material. We did the only logical thing:
We've been at it about a week and a half, and it looks like Jillian is winning the Thousand Mile challenge. Originally I was very optimistic that I'd be able to crush her. After all, I can ride in my living room, playing my Wii as I do it. She needs to make the long journey to the gym and ride there in twenty four minute segments. But then she started riding twenty mile days, which I simply don't have time to do.
So as of right now she's ahead by 8 miles. Plus, she's moved to Frederick for the next week, so she'll have access to my trainer while I'm at work. While that does mean we'll be riding on equal footing, I worry that her increased access will really allow her to pull ahead.
The only way I can think to regain my lead is to start riding to and from work. That's 60 miles round trip - I could win the whole thing in five weeks. Plus, I already spend two hours a day commuting and an hour riding. If I can ride 60 miles in four hours, then I'd only be losing an extra three hours a week (assuming three bike commutes per week), but be gaining 180 extra miles. I know that simply adding long miles isn't the way to train effectively, but I prefer long distance cycling. Long miles is what we do.
So last night I started my quest for finding a good commute route back and forth from Frederick. No luck so far. Maryland roads are not so great for riding.
This last weekend I took a trip down to Charlottesville. One of my favorite parts is taking a look at the mountains from the highway. They make me miss mountains a lot.
My other favorite part is the dinosaurs!
This was a pretty short weekend for us. I went to the English Grad student holiday party, which wasn't nearly as bad as it sounds. The food was delicious. But the whole point of my trip was to bring Jillian's bike back. So in another week when she comes to Maryland she's going to have a lot of time to log miles and beat me in the challenge.
Back when I lived in upstate New York, I used to ride every month of the year outside. My mother used to make me wait until it was at least 32 degrees outside before I'd go. I was never sure why. At 32 degrees there was still no shortage of roads with ice on them. In reality it just meant that during January and February I could only ride once a month. But now I can see how it would have made her feel better. I don't think I'd let my hypothetical 14 year old go out for a two hour ride during a 32 degree December. Certainly not without a cell phone (I used to ride with a quarter tucked in a wedge bag, but there was only two or three pay phones I was ever near, and they were quite far apart).
At the time I used to wear all cotton, including a pair of thermal windpants. How I loved those windpants. Now I'm starting to think about riding outdoors again. So far this year I've logged the better part of 200 miles on my trainer. I sit in my living room, with my computer monitor a few feet away from me. This set up has some advantages. In addition to being warm, I've watched a lot of Hulu, drastically improved my Mario Kart racing abilities, and read three or four books. But it's boring. I don't get to go anywhere or see anything. It's hard to motivate myself to simulate a climb. I want to go outside.
While I still own those thermal windpants, I decided it was time I buy some real winter weight cycling clothing. So after work today I went down to Wheelbase Bikes in Frederick to buy some tights. It was like being welcomed to an exclusive club. Both the owner and the wrench thought I was some sort of real cyclist, who logged real miles. They even invited me to group rides.
So now, with my ego sufficiently padded, I feel like a real cyclist. So I'm going to go ride the trainer. It's a little too cold out to go outside. I'll do that tomorrow. Really. Honest. Unless it's cold.
This was a big deal in a state where you could get your license just a few weeks after you turned 16. I don't remember much from before the test. I do remember that my parents wanted me to have a license so that they could stop picking me up from work late at night. I also remember hoping that I'd pass in order to go on a date that night. The test itself I remember quite well. Everything went flawlessly, despite the fact that the gentleman testing me looked a bit like an angry backwoods hippy troll and smelled similar. Then I got to parallel parking. Unlike my colleagues seemingly everywhere else, we parallel parked with real cars, on a real busy city street. I drove my mother's big green Ford Aerostar right up over the curb in downtown Endicott. My examiner even gave me two more chances, which I completely screwed up. Ultimately he had to talk me back onto the street, and he pretty much sweat bullets the whole way back to where we'd started. Still, I fared better than a friend who managed to drive into a stop sign on her first try. And then fail the second. And third.
I passed flawlessly on my second attempt, thank you very much. Still in that big green van, which could easily have eaten my current car and still had room for an entire Sumo wrestling team.
The driver's license marked the end of my career as a cyclist. Starting in the 7th grade I rode everywhere. I started by riding to the top of the hill by my parents' house and back. It was only two miles round trip, but the first mile was a 300 foot climb. I rode it daily for a summer in my ridiculous basketball shorts and sneakers. By the next spring I'd graduated to riding to my friend David's house (my best man). His house was only three and a half miles away but involved about 3200 feet of climbing round trip. I'd get home from school and sprint there as fast as I could, since he had a Super Nintendo. The ride home was often more of a sprint, since I had no lights on my bike and there are no streetlights. At least once it was so cold I stopped at the only store on the way to buy gloves.
It wasn't long before I'd ride to David's house and drag him out for a ride. A pretty common ride was to head off to two other friend's houses. Unfortunately for us, one of them lived on top of the hill. In addition to the normal ride to and from David's (7 miles, 3200 feet), we'd cover 10 or 12 miles with another 3000 feet of climbing. For me, this would mean a 17-20 mile ride with more than 6000 feet of climbing on a weekday after school.
My Sunday rides were always the same. I'd get up early and see if I could make it all the way to another friend's house and back within an hour. She lived almost exactly 8 miles away. I'd start by almost coasting downhill, just warming up. Then I'd ride as hard as I could for forty minutes, leaving myself twenty to get home. The ride was about as flat as can be expected - maybe a few hundred feet in short spurts. Then there was a monster climb to get to the top of the hill. Just steep enough that I could really power to the top, coast a little down the other side, then turn around and try to sprint back up, only to try to average thirty or forty mph all four miles back down the hill.
Looking back, apparently I knew what I was doing. I was doing hills three or four times a week, with sprints and long rides along the river (the only place in the county that was flat) on the weekends. About 150 miles per week.
But then, cycling was the only way I had to get around. My parents were gracious enough to drive me around, but I usually beat them home by an hour and a half. If I had to work before my parents were home, I rode there in the black pants and white collared shirt of a grocery store clerk.
So I rode on my little steel ten speed. And by ten speed, I don't mean 10 on the back cog, I mean 5 in the back and 2 in the front.
I started this post thinking that I was going to write something about training for our ride. Instead, I just want to say that a big part of me wishes I'd never gotten that driver's license, and thus still rode everywhere.
I've been trying to plan our routes. Last night I planned all the way into Ohio. This is an interesting stretch of the country for us. Due to the number of people we know in the east, to make it our first week we figure that we'll need to get a hotel twice. That means we should be able to keep expenses very minimal. It's also a part of the country where I'm familiar with a lot of the road. I've driven more than half of it before, and even ridden some of it. But once we're past Ohio, I'm in completely unfamiliar territory.
There's this wonderful organization called the Adventure Cycling Association who publishes a set of maps that describe more than 30,000 miles of suggested bike routes around the country. These maps are made with cyclists in mind and they help point out nice places to eat, friendly bike shops, and generally use country roads without a lot of traffic. Although there isn't an East-West Adventure Cycling route near where we'll start, I had hoped to join their route as soon as possible.
But we also have a time problem. We're hoping to start our journey in the middle of June. I need to be back at work by the middle of August. Jillian isn't sure when she'll need to be back. That means we need to move pretty quickly. For example, the first section of the TransAmerica route goes from Astoria, OR (our original intended destination), to a little town called Coburg, OR, which is just outside of Eugene. This is a East to West distance of roughly 65 miles on the road. It's a North to South distance of 170 miles. If we decide to use the TransAmerica route, then when we end up in Eugene we can save an entire day by simply going due West to the ocean instead of traveling two days to Astoria. On the other hand, if we get off the TransAmerica route right out of Astoria and head straight for Missoula, we can save almost exactly 100 miles from our trip - about one day. Plus we could stay with some friends of Jillian's in Portland. But we'd be off a well traveled and thought out route. Traveling to Astoria gives us a nice section along the Columbia river. Traveling to Eugene gives us the terrain around Hell's Canyon.
And this is just at the end. There's more difficulties in Kansas and Colorado. Eastern Colorado is a long, dry place. There isn't much to stop at (at least from what I've read). If we stick along the TransAmerica route, then we start in Southeastern Kansas, go to Pueblo, Colorado, then head directly into the mountains, skipping Denver. We need to stop in Denver. Plus, we'll be coming from the Northeast corner of Kansas. Certainly between the two of those things we could shave a day off the TransAmerica route. But again, we'd need to be way off route.
So I remain unsure what to do. I'll probably carefully plot out the sections of the TransAmerica route that we're definitely riding (like Rawlins, Wyoming to Missoula, Montana). Maybe from there I'll think again about Kansas and tackling my Illinois problem.
We've wanted comments on this blog for a while - comments help to build a community. I've tried comments on my other website before, but they've always filled up with two different types of spam. The first type, normal spam, was easy to combat. A combination of Akismet and JavaScript magic cut it down to a level I could manually handle. The second type was from my students, who insisted on making ridiculous comments on months old articles, making them hard to track down.
This last weekend I sat down for a few hours to try to get commenting working again. PyBlosxom, the software that powers this website, has a wonderful commenting plugin that supports emailing new comments to you and providing you with the ability to manually approve comment. Unfortunately, our hosting provider doesn't provide easy access to an smtp server to set up email. I ended up spending a long time trying to trick the plugin into authenticating with Gmail's smtp server and sending email that way. No luck. Another day or two might have done it, but this will be a busy week. I'd need to push it off until the weekend. I thought I'd explore other options.
I'd been wanting to use Disqus for a while. It gives us more advanced features to help make comments feel more interactive and more like a conversation. But there isn't a Disqus plugin for Pyblosxom. Disqus does offer an API, so it should be possible to write a plugin to do what we need, but before this weekend I'd never touched Python. Then I stumbled on IntenseDebate. Rather than provide an API, they simply give you some JavaScript. It was beautiful.
Right after school today, I sat down and in a half hour modified another plugin to work with IntenseDebate. Aside from a ridiculously dumb error I made (note to self - find time and money to mirror the blog so that I don't make changes on a live server), it was totally painless. So now we have comments. With lots of features. Not only can we batch approve comments, but comments can be threaded (you can respond to a particular comment), comments are emailed to us immediately, and we can approve comments without directly connecting to our server.
Keep in mind that in order to combat both types of spam we'll be manually approving all comments. Not only does this mean that it might take a day or two (At worst) for your comment to show up, but that if the material isn't appropriate, it will just be deleted.
Feel free to grab the Plugin on my other website. When you save the file, don't forget to add the .py extension.
Please email if there are any commenting problems! And thank you IntenseDebate, for making commenting ridiculously painless.