Large Fella on a Bike

Picnicin'

Had a beautiful, but windy, day on Tuesday...

so it was time to load out, head out, cook up, chow down, and ride on: all with The Gals.

Two fully loaded Ortlieb 'Back-Packer' panniers plus Chloe's piccolo = One Heavy Bike!  But my BBC rode like a Caddy, once I had a nice comfy gear frictioned in, I could have ridden all day.  Rock Solid, Stable, and Zero Shimmy.  Even out of the saddle, not an ounce of lateral flex that I could feel.  Bob, ya done good.

Only thing we couldn't fit onto my or Amy's bike...

The Grill.

No worries, we have a Special, Secret, Custom, "Rack" for just such issues:

*Click All for Big*

So, after loading up...

Chloe announced, "It's time to go have some FUN, YOOHOO!!"...

Rode through rush hour traffic, got lots of odd stares, and smiles too... arrived in one piece, safe-n-sound.

Started setting up the cooking area while Amy pitched Chloe's "Princess Castle" tent in, what turned out to be, 25mph winds [ouch].

The "Genius" at work... attaching the high quality handles to a $5.99 grill from the Dollar Store. 

Dig it... Man & Grill, and bikes too.

After Amy fought the tent and the wind,



and I fought a 4 year old bag of MatchLight charcoal [intended for some long forgotten BBQ years ago] and the wind too... both of us obtained: Success!



Chloe was extremely pleased...



and it was time to grill:



Good food, outdoors, nice bikes, beautiful day... downright Great:

Menu: grilled broccoli, sweet red peppers, asparagus and tomatoes; roasted corn on the cob & cauliflower; some hummus and pita for dippin'... H2O and a nice Spanish Rioja [placed covertly in a pannier as the Park Police don't take fondly to such things].

Eatin' Time:

Makin' New Friends Time:

Two twins that came by, loved Chloe's tent, asked to hang out, and ended up staying for a few hours while their dad sat on a bench and slept [hmmm].  Even though their dad told them they could hang, they couldn't eat... because they were going out for KFC later on.  Chloe told them that food will kill 'em, they agreed, so they ended up eating 3 ears of corn, half a head of cauliflower and a lot of pita & hummus- all, just between the two of them.  The little guy in the middle [Justin] said to Chloe & me, "Your dad can cook like a Playa".  The other little guy [Keiwaan, on the right] said he normally didn't like "vedgatables" but knew they were supposed to make people live forever and be happy.  After he ate some grilled tomatoes, he smiled a big missing-teeth smile at me and said, "I think I want more of this kind of food from now on".  Cool.

As the sun was growing long, it was time to break camp and head home... but not before Captain Moron [me] caught a trash can on fire with, what I thought were completely dead ashes of, charcoal:

Some water did the deal, and we were off, back home...

Keep Movin' Forward... Always

Best Day, This Year, So Far

Lots of humanity on today's ride... but still lots of Great Weathery Goodness out there to be had, so partake we did.

About 8 miles into the ride, Chloe, who was zipping along on her Piccolo behind me-as part of me, yelled at the top of her lungs, "WHEEE!!!!!  This is the BEST DAY EVER TO BE ALIVE!!!  Mom, Dad... am I right, or am I RIGHT?!?!".  Amy and me, we smiled large and, well, we agreed too... and how could you not?

I think I'm going to surprise Chloe and Amy with a Secret Picnic, one last one before we jet west, on Tuesday.  Pack up our lil' Porta-Grill, some Ti cookery items, lots of fresh veggies for roasting & grilling, Chloe's favorite outdoor toys, a nice big kite... and the item of Items: Chloe's big, huge and pink Princess Tent.  After setting up her tent outdoors [it's only ever been sent up inside], we'll set about to some kite flying, grilling of roots and sprouts, and general smiling & happiness.  I'll take the camera too.

Yes, that's what I'll do.

Keep pumpin' your feet, the rest will follow quite nicely...

The Move-->

Moving is fun, and moving isn't fun.

We are slowly getting our act together for the move to the Twin Cities. 

S L O W L Y.

It seems the more we do, the more we need to do.  Also profound is the realization that no matter what we've collected over the years, even when we didn't feel that we were collecting much... has turned out to be Much.

Initially we were going to reduce things down so drastically that we were going to move with only our car and a smallish trailer behind said car.  Sadly, we've given up to The Stuff of Life, and will be renting a 16 foot truck for Stuff Hauling, and towing our car on a car trailer.  Stuff can be like that.

Still we are quite proud that we not only own less Stuff than the average family of Stuff Collectors, but we are reducing our Stuff massively too.

The ultimate upside, I guess, is this:

When we moved here, we arrived with a 26 foot truck, filled to its limit... over a decade later, and with a child now that we didn't have then, we are leaving with a 16 footer.  I assume that's some type of positive progress.  Not sure what, but it seems to be.

Amy is set with Minnesota licensure, and now all we await is an appealing assignment for her.  She's had numerous offers for various nursing gigs in Duluth... but the problem with that is, well, Duluth isn't Minneapolis or St. Paul.  By the end of next week, she should have a number of offers.  And that'll be that.  One more thing to strike off the list.  Good.

After that, we head to New England to say goodbye to some friends, a few Going Away parties to attend... and a more-than-likely Goodbye/Send-Off recording date to play on, and then it's travel time westward.

At this point, Amy and me are mostly excited about the change... but apprehensive about Minn.  For her, being from Michigan, she's worried that it'll be a tad bland after living here for so long.  She doesn't miss Michigan at all, and found the Midwest, in general, to be, as she calls it [and herself back in those days], "Politely Boring".  Mostly though, she's excited for something new and/or different.  For me, I look forward to the change of pace... but fear that both of us are going to be a triangle trying to fit in a square hole, at least at first.  Time will tell.  One thing we both are holding our breath on... Winter out there.  That'll be a deal-breaker, perhaps.  But we have a backup plan for that anyway.

So forward we go... with Big Hopes, and small fears.

Agreeing with Someone...

...I thought I'd never agree with:

A Corporate Mouthpiece.

Normally if someone is "Corporate"... as in "Of the Corporate World", I want to think bad things first and consider good things later.

But not with this...

Perhaps, there is hope... I hope so.

Ride Much, and Often.

Bone Ride + Nor'easter:

A One/Two Punch to the Spleen.

Well the Big Day finally came, the day of "The Epic: The Bone Ride".  Having someone to ride with is a really nice, and rare, treat for me [and then eventually, The Girls too].  The ride itself made me realize how much solo riding I do generally.  Perhaps, too much.  Having some company felt-and was-great... having some great company: felt better.

Bone is a super nice cat... and I still think it was/is just fantastic that someone would take so much time away from their day to day life to make the drive from central Penn. over here, specifically to ride with me.  Pretty great place this world can be from time to time.

Speaking of Bone, he posted about the ride HERE on his blog.  It was at least as much fun for us, entertaining and riding with him, as he mentions having that day as well.

Couple pics from the historic meeting [clicky for big]:

Bone and his new/old ride [this bike is stunning up close... my nose would grow if I weren't to admit it made me want to dunk him into the Hudson River and ride home on his steed].

Bone, Chloe and yours truly [on tippy toes so all of my Manly Humility wasn't flushed straight down the toilet standing in the shadows of Bone's Stately Shadow].

One of the things we made reference to on the ride was the impending storm that was supposed to hit later that day, on Saturday.  Well by late evening, after The Epic had ended and Bone had long since left, it still hadn't hit us.  In fact, it was very calm outside... eerily so.

By 1am all that changed...

Bring out your Ark, Bring out your Ark, Bring out your Ark.  Man did it, RAIN.  And... is still is.  I never thought rain could reign like this rain has reigned.  This is some serious rain.

By 8am, our entire street was underneath, yes... UNDERNEATH, much water.  All the Garden Apt's were flooded.  Wind was 30-40mph constant, with 50+mph gusts.

So... what to do?  Yep, go for a ride!

No pics, woulda killed the camera in no time flat... but I did snap 3 pics from our stoop before mounting up [clicky for biggie].

Sorry for the poor lighting but Nor'easters tend to not care for having their photos taken...

Chloe, like her daddy, must experience all forms of weather [mom isn't so into this... but Chloe & me, well, we're different that way]

More watery.

The ride was fun, but extremely difficult.  I don't think I've ever ridden into nonstop headwinds before that felt like the Hand of God saying, "No, ye shall go no further".  10 miles is all I did, and that took 2 hours to boot.  Areas of the city were so flooded that I wasn't certain where the street/curb/sidewalk were... it was very odd.  A Port Authority cop saw me by the Holland Tunnel and yelled from his car window, "You're either brilliant, or the dumbest motherfucker on earth".  I smiled and waved at him.

On my way back home I came to an intersection that looked to be under about a foot of water.  I thought to myself, "Hey, you've been wanting to get your bike de-gunked and cleaned up... go for it" [my BB area is so caked with grime and crud that I've even taken to carrying an old towel in my Carradice in the hopes that I'd meet up with some puddle significant enough that it would thoroughly moisten all the crap on my drivetrain and bottom bracket, and I could then wipe it away... at that moment].  This looked to be my moment...

so in a flash I plunged in.  It was a little deeper than I estimated though, and at 100 yards long, I had to stay committed to seeing it through too. 

Mostly I focused on not panicking, and trying my bestest to recall from drier days since past, where the potholes were/the grates/the curbs-all of it.

Two most odd moments?  Just mere inches into the lake, and feeling water up to my knees.  And #2...

Looking down for one brief second and seeing flood water higher than my hubs [or at least my front hub-the Schmidt hub] and then noticing my Schmidt E6 headlamp completely submerged underwater, still glowing brightly, like I had become a submersible Large Fella on a Bike.

On the other side of the 'lake'... I pulled over.  And in the huge gusts, parked my trusty friend against a fence, swigged some nice cold water from my bottle, quickly text Amy & Chloe from my cell that I was having a ball... and then set to work cleaning my bike of gunk & crusty road schmutz with the towel I'd been carrying around for over 3 months.

Some weekends are better than others, and they're all great in their own wonderful way:

this one was, Epically Fantastic.

Keep riding... always.

Riding Diapers...

Tried a nice longish ride, through some of the meaner streets of the city tonight, in my first-ever chamois.  Felt great.  Also felt like a diaper at first... but now that I'm home, comfy, onions happy, watching Baby Einstein by myself, dribbling soy milk down my chin from a bicycle water bottle and shaking a rattle furiously with my left hand-as I type this with my right-I feel good, and normal.

Seriously though, after a lengthy talk last night with one of my two riding gurus: Bob Brown , he steered me into some late 20th century thinking, and that brought me to "The Power Of The Chamois".

I'm going to keep experimenting with different types and sizes, as well as some creams for the chamois itself, and see what comes of it.

That is all...

for now.

Keep Ridin'...  Always