saturday, in the park

This weekend I was supposed to head over to the little house in the big woods for holiday shenanigans with my family, but then someone on TV said “Snow, maybe!” and my mom immediately canceled. Which sounds a little alarmist, but here’s the story: Several years ago me, my sister and my oldest, dearest friend got snowed in over there for days. And the power went out. At first it was fun in a Little House on the Prairie way, but then the booze ran out, and playing yet another board game by candlelight seemed like the worst kind of torture, and it started to feel a little too much like The Shining. Especially since even on a good day, my stepdad isn’t too far from Jack Nicholson’s character. It ended with my friend and I shoveling snow well past midnight to get her trusty VW bus out of the half-mile driveway and back on the road to Seattle. So, with that empirical evidence that there is such a thing as too much together time, even with the people you like the most, we are very careful not to get in that particular pickle again.

Which means I suddenly had a free afternoon, and it happened to be beautifully sunny. The lad decided to head out for a ride, but it was too chilly for me and also I finally got my fancy camera fixed (yay!) so I opted for a nice long walk in the woods instead. The pup was really happy to hear this:

walks rule, bike rides drool.

She and I headed out, seeking squirrels and photo ops, respectively. Like this one!

Everyone loves a log.

I don’t know much about photography and camera settings and what have you, but does it really matter when things look like this?

good grief.

Back in the woods we came across a little stream that was frozen on top, but you could still see running water below:

Cold! As! Ice! You know that you are!

The pup tried so hard to drink from it, but she just kept bumping her nose on the ice. While I laughed and took pictures (this is why I don’t have children):

sigh.

All in all it was the perfect way to spend a winter day, especially since this song wouldn’t stop playing in my head all the way back up the hill—such a great soundtrack for a chilly winter walk.

Wind + Chill

Having chickened out all week – on Monday I suited up, opened the garage door, wrinkled my nose at the sparkly street and the instant cloud of breath, closed the garage door, took off the boots and ran back inside, jumped up for the SurlyLady to catch me while asking her “don’t say anything, just hold me” – I finally rode the bike into work today. It wasn’t as bad as I expected in terms of the icy slickness fear factor, but it was bitterly, bitterly cold.

Immediately the tactility of how the word windchill must have been invented caused my right fingers to get strangely frostbitey, to the point where I almost couldn’t stand it. I had not one but two sets of those hand warmer thingies (wow, they work great!) but no joy for the fingers. Then at the end of a long downhill stretch where we invariably catch a red light I pulled up, stopped, exhaled and promptly covered the inside of my glasses with a fog mist which then promptly froze! I couldn’t wipe it away, it was quite truly frozen. I threw the glasses in one of the panniers and gritted my crow’s feet the rest of the downhill stretches, oy that was cold.

Later when I hit the U-District a reader board there claimed 18 degrees, and so I have to believe it was even worse than that up here in Snohomish-King border country. One new piece of clothing (not counting the hand warmer packets) I tried out today, to great effect, was a SmartWool wool neck gaiter. It was amazingly warming around my neck. It’s essentially a tube-like scarf, or, if you will, the bottom half of a balaclava. It worked great stretched over my cheeks, nose and ears, which were in turn covered by the new hat SurlyLady got me from Etsy.com. They made a great combination. The only problem with having a covering over my mouth was the sort of tantric exercises I had to employ, i.e. breath in/out/in/out via nose, hold breath while suck up mucus via nose, repeat. The outside of the neck gaiter became covered in frost, formed in a halo circle around my mouth, it was crazy. And, my darn water bottle almost froze solid! Interestingly, while toward the end of the ride my toes were starting to hurt, those new Endura booties again proved their worth.

The plus side? I didn’t see a single solitary biker till almost to the U.W. campus, and so aside from a few hardy walkers I got to experience a most touching sunrise, spiraling frost/fog whorls rising from Lake Washington against a robin’s egg blue and peachie orange sky, absolutely gorgeous, the kind of morning where you just have to go Woot! out loud – and the kind of morning where you know you’ll be the only one around to hear it.

The down side? It was darn cold. And lonely. The frostbite feeling in my right hand was pretty severe in the morning; I almost turned around to head home. Maybe if I got some Lobster Claw gloves I’d be set? Overall, it’s kind of shocking what you can get away with on a bike, in terms of your core/torso/head warmth. As long as exposed skin is kept to a minimum, and if you can keep your fingers and toes from falling off, it’s amazing what you can pull off. I rode in 16 degree (that’s a guess) darkness wearing essentially the same outfit I’d wear if it was 50-degrees out, save the wool gaiter. That’s kind of crazy when you think about it.

Here’s to the winter bike commuters ’round the country and world who’re probably laughing at my 16-degree 3rd degree, my balaclava’s off to ya.

Health Care Bears (warning, political)

After receiving a Republican chain email from my Pops the other day, regarding the Coburn/Vitter health care plan amendment bluff, I was amused to read about Sens Brown and Franken’s calling of said bluff on Friday. Here’s the email I sent back to my Pops, along with a personal message (not included here) to stop sending us such bullshit:

“Of course, it would seem that, even to the most casual observer, this amendment wasn’t intended as a substantive effort to get the country moving toward a better health care system but was rather a juvenile prank. I think what Coburn/Vitter don’t realize is the unintentional implication they’re drawing:

1) the health plan enjoyed by Congressional members is REALLY GOOD, it’s a gold-plated health plan

2) what they’re proposing for a plan for the rest of the country is REALLY BAD because you have to wait in line with a bunch of smelly, scary people who will almost be ripping the tax money right out of your pockets

3) therefore let’s make them choose the BAD plan and that’ll… make them think twice?

The problem is at least some of the Democrats have called the bluff, and have signed on to the amendment, and so I guess these Republicans are left with… well, what exactly, beyond providing the kind of background noise that will play well on the 24 hour FOX news cycle? Unless the commercial sponsors of FOX suddenly decide to at least partially underwrite national health care costs, this stunt was a waste of time. A recent Harvard study found that 45,000 people die each year due to lack of health care: how many people died while Coburn et all pulled this stunt?

How about instead flipping Coburn’s dialectic formulation on its head: why not include an amendment that would provide for all citizens the same apparently first class health care plan that Congress offers itself?”

My Kingdom for an iPhone!

By that I mean my cosmologically small, imaginary, in my head, in the interstitial quantum physics part of my head, kingdom.

Regarding phones, truth is my old cell has been dropped, punished, bounced, neglected, frozen, driven over, driven through, chewed on by three different species, been repainted at Maaco, had the chassis rust out (seriously it has rust; see species chewing), makes my voice sound like the ‘trombone with the rubber plunger’ Charlie Brown voice over, erratically switches between tones for ringing and more freaking importantly it freaking beeps every minute to tell you the battery is low. That would be the equivalent of a car trying to get your attention that the gasoline is low by squirting some of the dwindling gasoline on the windshield as a friendly warning. All of this is to say I hate my phone and want a new one!

But what to get? I’m sort of a reformed anti-luddite sans any social friends; do I therefore get overkill with a smart phone? Are there options out there for a ’sort of smart’ phone? Maybe a polite and well behaved and able to follow clear directions 6th-grade reading level phone? Or should I get the one I’ve sort of lusted after since its introduction… the iPhone.

I got on the elevator with some of the guys from my team as we were all going out to lunch; two immediately whipped out their iPhones and simultaneously accessed some kind of widge-gadget that displays the weather forecast for the next week… I basically embarrassed myself by saying out loud, “That is the coolest thing ever!” Oh well. That sort of thing will only help me in the situations where I want to play dumb.

So if I have to get a new phone, I’m mighty tempted to get one of them. However, with the clear-case caveat that I’d need some sort of protective holder thingie because I do tend to drop phones a lot, either on hard floors or while in a kayak.

iExamples

These pictures represent apps from here and here, respectfully. I got this example image from this blog, where it talks about all kinds of iPhone cycling apps, including one that our buddy SpecializedLad told us about that ’twas on his Android-based phone for calculating gear ratios and something about ’skid mark management for fixters’ – which to me would mean just wear the brown corduroys, ya wanna be messenger. Anyway, it’s a whole new world out there. In yesterday’s post I was talking about the indelible virtues of old-school wool versus all the fancy schmancy tech fabrics; today, I’ll gladly admit my ancient Motorola phone (circa 2001) ain’t got no indelible technical virtues other than it does, technically, keep ticking even if only holding a charge for three hours.

GPS stuff, heart rate monitors, cadence monitors, odomoter, bike logging… oh be still my beating techno heart! It may be time to take the plunge! Maybe if I’m super nice to the SurlyLady (as in, wiping down her bike yet again after a rainy ride) I’ll get one for Xmas!

Now I’ll dream of iPhone sugar plums dancing in me head. Good night.

Wool Pulled

Ya gotta give it to us winter bike commuters – we’re a hardy breed. Due to cold necessity, an inventive breed as well. I have my winter gear just about dialed in – and just about in time, too, given the 30-degree ride in today.

How hardy? Today, on the ride home, after a nearly 11-hour day where the back six of those were spent eating-less ‘cept for a few bites from moldy apple I got so hungry in Sandpoint that I pulled out a Clif bar, ripped at the wrapper for about five minutes with my teeth (no time to dismount or take of the Pearl Izumi Soft-Shell gloves; see below) because dang it I had to hurry home to then go pick up the Lady from some fancy pants work party, humph and so once I got the wrapper open I put the whole damn Clif bar in mouth (see all reasons above) and spent the next several minutes without oxygen to the brain because both nostrils were plugged and I couldn’t farm biker blow without tossing the Clif bar and it was so incredibly good and I almost passed out but it was worth it (see below for other stupid stuff that only guys would do).

Regarding the dialing-in of winter gear I say just about (previously mentioned Endura booties that not only serve as great city rain slickers but also insulate/protect from cold much better than the bare vinyl of bootie ghosts past; new biking handmade hat that SurlyLady bought for me from Etsy that has super nice ear flaps – it looks a little like either a WWI Piedmontese Italian infantryman’s cap or the cap worn by that one Empire Admiral that got choked by Lord Vader for insolence; Canari jacket over track jacket over wool jersey and wool arm warmers; leg warmers; knickers; wool socks) because the one thing that’s missing so far this year are the gloves.

Last year I think I may have mentioned in many posts how when it came to next winter I wasn’t going to mess around with crappy inefficient cold weather gloves. I’m oddly curmudgeonly about spending money on things like that, even though I’ll turn around and not blink at buying a third bike, heh. But a few months ago in prep for winter, the ‘Lady and I each got a pair of these super soft and plush Pearl Izumi Soft-Shell gloves:

Mother of Izumi

And, mind you, they’re great. They’ve worked well in full-on downpours, and for the most part have done the job through fall. But now that we’re in below-freezing mode, and since our daily commute starts with a lot of downhilling in the first five miles that just about takes your breath away and where Jack Frost is actually painfully ripping and not nipping at your nose, these little fellas, while better than what I had before, aren’t cutting the cold mustard. I think I need to rig together some sort of double glove system again, at least for those first five miles.

Speaking of all the wool, from the list of clothing above, I just have to say: wool rules. When I first started riding bikes, I kind of picked up on the idea that a lot of riders, particularly the randonneuring and retro-grouch crowd were really into wool, while the crit-racer types were all about the lycra. I found myself leaning t’ward the latter; newer must be better, technical fabrics yadda yadda. Well, I’ve since (and for some time) learned that wool does rule. I have an Ibex jersey that I’ve been wearing all fall which, together with the wool arm warmers and wool socks, have contributed a world of warmth and comfort and convenience for the cold-weather riding. Someday I’ll splurge and get wool leg warmers too, but the ones I have are working okay for now. The great thing about wool beyond the adaptability regarding temp (I was wearing wool socks even in the hottest summer) is the stinkiness factor. Now ladies, grab hold of your office chair, because I’m going to lay some privileged truth on ya: guys are like 18th century British Naval surgeons filled with detached and prurient curiosity, like stolid scientists sitting on a stool examining someone’s stool under a microscope, which is all by way of saying all guys like to sniff and/or visually inspect lots of things, including socks. If there were such things as belly-button cozies, we’d sniff and visually inspect them too. The great thing about wool socks then, and wool jerseys (and arm warmers) is that they don’t stink! I know, because of that sniffing/inspection thing! In fact I wear my wool socks as my work socks, unless I’m interviewing a really choice systems analyst in which case I’ll put on my eau d’cologne socks. The ‘convenience’ truth is, wool is handily handy for us hardy near-daily commuters (and I imagine more so for the dailies). I don’t even have to wash the jersey every day if I run out of time, and I only wash the arm warmers every week or two. In stark and stinky contrast, I have a Nike ‘technical material’ track jacket that I wear on the super cold mornings, and after one ride, holy olfactory batman! Yeeesh. I almost have to torch the thing as a service to humankind.

december first!

Today we totally time-warped through the trail and the commute was over before I even knew it, but I still wanted to commemorate this supremely beautiful first day of December, where I saw the blessed sun rise from the saddle (and set from my office window in the early afternoon, but never mind that depressing tidbit), so here’s what I remember: a tale of three scents.

Riding down the hill by Fred Hutch – vomit. Overwhelmingly pukey odor, I’m not going to lie. Gross.

Riding through UW – patchouli. Strong, pot-masking patchouli. Exactly how college should smell.

Sand Point through Lake Forest Park – some kind of succulent roast, I’m going to say beef? Delicious. I almost went door to door.

And then we were home, which smelled like christmas tree and tail-wagging puppy. So happy to see you, December!

5000 Miles in the Thanks Tank

At some point toward the end of the commute last Monday I did it – 5000 miles for the year!

That includes overall ineptness/newness; learning how to train, sustain, measure while not forgetting the pure biking pleasure; a demoniac personal trainer in a gym filled with people half my age and twice my fitness; a “very weak core” according to my first professional fitter in Feb and “not a bad core” per the second fitter later in the year; super crappy weather with intermittent snow days in Jan – March; hitting my long-ago weight goal in June and then setting a new one; getting the Poprad as a result of the former and an inspiration/path to the latter; the broken collarbone which threw me for a loop right when I was at my Icarus/hubris heights post S-T-P, spending the first month eating like an ascetic monk then getting depressed and alarmed and eating like an anathematized monkey, downward mental-physical spiral and then slowly clawing my way back by focusing on the one constant, bike commuting to work while learning that it’s not a good idea thinking you’re going to start your ‘new training year’ during Rains-giving November; and finally, the main achievement, along with SurlyLady and KonaLad, planning, prepping and completing said S-T-P – my main goal for the year.

So here’s to adding to that number in 2010!

And here’s to all the folks who’ve been so nice to me: SurlyLady of course, but also KonaLad for training/partnering and IbisLad for advice. LitespeedLad too, for daily “on your left” encouragement on the Burke. And most of all I’m thankful to the bumpy, bruising Burke Gilman, that long concrete thread that’s tied the story together for myself and the ‘Lady in 2009 and hopefully beyond.

Novemberment Plan

November, I forgive you for everything. All that rain, all those dark days…it’s okay. You were so perfect today that I totally want to be friends again.

hello, gorgeous.

The lad and I went to work a little late and ducked out a little early, so there was some glorious sunshine in both directions. This meant I got to see all my favorite things. The leaves, the puffy little clouds, the “Eat My Ass” graffiti…especially that. I love graffiti that’s both nonsensical and clearly issue-driven. What would make someone say that, much less write it on pavement? Are they driven by the urge to write it, or the urge to have it read? Fascinating. I have this profound curiosity about the human mind and what motivates people, especially when it comes to language and communication. Because of this, I’ve determined my ideal career lies in Corporate Anthropology. I’m pretty sure no one would pay anyone to do that, but they should! Think about it: as things are now, managers are expected to first identify and understand their employees’ behavior, then to either correct or validate it. Lots of people are good at one of those things, but hardly anyone is good at all three. So in my scenario, everyone would go about their business as usual, except in my official capacity as Corporate Anthropologist I would observe all the meetings through a two-way mirror (ideally soundproofed so they wouldn’t hear my giggling, but I’ve gotten pretty good at that trick where you make an incredulous guffaw sound like an uncontrollable coughing fit, so soundproofing’s not completely necessary). Once I determine whether someone’s train of thought is chugging toward Crazy Town or staying at Sensical Station, I route them to the Validation Department or the, um, Department of Corrections. I think this would improve productivity by approximately 5000 percent, and probably make me eligible for a peace prize of some kind. But I’m not greedy, all I really want is a sweet parking spot:

Reserved For Employee of the Month

Holy Poseidon Adventure!

This morning couldn’t have been lovelier, rosy sky, vapor-trail lines of clouds that contextualized the rosy expanse. I was Crank-along Cassidy this morning, feeling pretty good until I hit a vicious headwind coming up the Fred Hutch hill that caused my legs to seemingly turn to oatmeal.

Note to self: come up with lyrics to an old sailor’s dirge/lament/ditty along the lines of how bikers always seem to be headin’ into the headwind, sung in a style of a cross between Woody Guthrie and Phil Liggett. Then sing it while watching the Poseidon Adventure on days when I feel my world is turning upside down.

At work, while wistfully watching most everyone else crowd out early for the holiday-eve get-out-of-jail dispensation I wrapped up some work then wrapped myself in woolens to get outside to try to catch the precious last bit of rain-free dusk only to find: rain. Lots of it. Horizontal, frontal. Bleck.

In the absence of having anything substantive to say, and in a change of pace from the strictly correlative/scientific/objective journalism normally present on this blog I might as well indulge in more gear reviews, exercise those subjective muscles which, if I may so, are primed for the gun show! I mean, bike show! Or, gun & bike show!

So on those lines, tonight proved a good test ride for the new rain gear. Happy to say both key pieces, new jacket and new booties, did very well. The booties finally gave way about 15 minutes away from home in that I could feel the shoes getting a little wet, mostly from the top around the ankle. However, when I pulled off the booties in the garage I was surprised to find the shoes were only wet in splotches, and my wool (the smell of Defeet) socks were mostly dry. Huh. I guess, even after the hour-plus breakdown, these booties kept my toesies mostly warm and dry. That’s just awesome, considering the rain tonight was about as close to riding through a bathroom shower (horizontal, plentiful, and whenever Surlylady metaphorically flushed the toilet, even from a distance, I found the water to suddenly and sharply get hot for a minute or so). The jacket similarly held up, and while there was some sweat equity inside (don’t think I’ll ever find a way around that) it definitely breathes better than my old one, and in fact kept me way drier on the inside. The only water spot on my wool jersey was at the neck where I had unzipped the jacket a bit.

Next, I must make mention of my knickers. Ladies, please, calm yourselves. I mean, self.

A few months ago I purchased some Cutter Tech Knickers:

I'm too sexy for my knickers.

Basically, I love ‘em. I didn’t realize at the time what I was really getting, to be honest. I hadn’t read any reviews etc. I just knew I was a little tired of walking around my department wearing lycra shorts and having to tell girls and guys, “Hey, eyes up here!” These knickers have worked out very well. No chamois, so I recommend a pair of padded underwear. No, not Depends. Although if it comes to that it would strictly be for monetary/comfort reasons. Best of all these things are kick ass during cold weather and rain. I don’t have to wash them often, due to the separate underwear (or I even use a removable insert from my mountain bike shorts), which is nice for a commuter. I wash them about every three rides, I should say. Secondly best of all are the pockets. I love putting in the garage clicker, seat cover (easy access in sudden shower) and a granola bar. I know that bike jerseys have pockets, but there’s something so killer about having side pockets, cargo pockets if you will, Mr. Gap. The only down side is that these are expensive. I bought some when they were on killer sale, but I think that the regular price is more like $150, which is insane when I think about it. $80 is more than I’ve ever paid for any work pants/trousers, to tell the truth.

As a back up, I also picked up these knickers, by Race Face:

I'm not nearly sexy enough for my knickers.

These are only $45 at Universal Cycles. They’re pretty darn good. There’s more of an articulation in the knee. There’s a contrast stitching, and the pockets have heavy-duty zippers with grommet-style button closures. Can you tell I used to write for an online retail company? What got me fired was my Woody Guthrie attitude and Phil Liggett accent. Hmph. Any rate, these pants are the bees knees as well. They do almost as well in the rain as the Cutters (the hem tonight got very heavy with rain and in the pedaling action sort of swung up against my shins, not a big deal but felt kind of weird, but this was mostly uphill). If I had to choose between the two, the edge would go slightly to the Cutters: their fabric is a little softer, and the fit is absolutely perfect. However, the Race Face ones are about 1/3 the price, so you could get three of ‘em. Sheesh.

Enough gear review. Book review time. Started reading Lolita again. Never made it very far before. It’s not the subject or subject matter. It’s the style; not a bad thing, but almost like it’s sort of insipid. I already have a tendency to mimic things that I read/hear/see and so Lolita is sort of like a big juicy donut sitting on the table that nobody seems to want, in the eyes of a serial overeater. That’s uh, referring to me. There’s this pithy antipathy, this sort of pre-post-modern gadfly style based on a stew of post-antebellum (WWI/WWII) émigré intellectual posturing preening punning thing… ack, see, I don’t know if I can continue. No, I’ll continue. This time I can do it. Next up, Gravity’s Rainbow! But then I’ll get so sick to death of bananas I won’t be able to go on. Maybe I’ll alternate between the two.

I’ve got a review too!

I am not a fan of shopping for clothes. Partly because I’m a tightwad when it comes to that kind of thing, and partly because I’m built like a plumber (“a lady plumber”, says the lad reassuringly) and surprisingly few clothes are designed for the lady plumber demographic. But I finally managed to find a real rain jacket! I got the Endura Gridlock, modeled here by a happy lady who is not me:

I’ve had a really hard time finding a waterproof jacket that fits well – most are ridiculously huge in the arms, which makes my poor little muscles feel inadequate. This one fits fairly snugly, though I still had room for a woolly base layer and armwarmers (my poor little muscles get so cold). Best of all, it has a nice mesh lining so I don’t have to touch that creepy, crinkly waterproof material that makes me think of that scene in Silence of the Lambs where the psycho is making the girl in the well put lotion on to prepare a skin suit.

Anyhoo! I’m trying to avoid rainy day riding, but I rolled out this morning after that lying liar Rich Marriott said it’d be dry until the evening, and surprise! It was pouring within 15 minutes. The new jacket was great, nice and breathable, and it totally held up in the driving rain. Then, this afternoon when I accidentally dumped my water bottle out on the inside of the jacket while I was heading down to the bike room (haha! this was not the first time!), the quick-wicking liner, um, wicked it away quick!

So, in summary, if you’re lady-plumberesque with puny arms and a tendency to spill water on yourself, you will probably love this jacket as much as I do.