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A Week Without Cycling

11.25.2013 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

First it was our home remodeling project. Then it was a work obligation. Now, it’s the weather. All the stars have been in alignment over the past week to keep me off my bike.

Central Texas is under a Winter Weather Advisory. That’s nowhere near as serious as much of the country is facing right now, but in an area that seldom gets snow, these kinds of weather events are cause for consternation. It’s been raining on and off since Friday, sometimes heavily. That’s enough to keep me from riding. But the temperature has dropped to the mid-30s (2C), and that’s below my threshold for riding. I don’t have clothes that will keep me comfortable at anything lower than 40.

This past weekend was also that rare time when I’m tied up with work-related things. In this case, I emceed a conference for students all day Saturday. That wouldn’t have been a problem if I could get on the bike Sunday, but as I said, rain and cold together do not biking weather make.

But Thanksgiving is coming up quickly. I get to take Wednesday off work, and we don’t have to work Friday — so I expect lots of riding in the next few days. The forecast is going to moderate, too. We’ll be up to 70 (21C) by Sunday! All I have to do is dig my bike out from under all the remodeling waste in my garage.

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Categories // Cold weather, Odds 'n ends Tags // cold

Non-Biking Project

10.25.2013 by Ray Niekamp // Leave a Comment

Things have been pretty quiet on the biking front around here. That’s because our lives have been taken over by a new project — we’re remodeling our kitchen.

To be accurate, I should say we’re having our kitchen remodeled. It’s involving the whole shebang — new cabinets, new lighting, new appliances, and new countertops (granite). For the past several days, we’ve been emptying our cabinets, storing all that stuff in the dining room, filling up our trash and recycling bins, and preparing ourselves for four weeks without a place to prepare food. The toaster and coffee maker are in the bathroom, so at least we can have breakfast while we brush our teeth.

This will be nice when it's finished. Unfortunately, it's just getting started. But if we're lucky, it'll all be done by Thanksgiving.
This will be nice when it’s finished. Unfortunately, it’s just getting started. But if we’re lucky, it’ll all be done by Thanksgiving.

Because of that, I haven’t been on the bike since last weekend, and those two rides were much shorter than I would usually go on weekends. We had to get back here to do more kitchen prep.

The guys delivering the cabinets weren’t due to show up until 10 this morning, so I got in a one-hour ride early. Riding east into the rising sun isn’t easy! I clipped a pile of cut branches some homeowner had left at the curb. A little bit more to the right and I would have crashed into them, and probably done an end over in the street. I never even saw the branches until I was right on top of them.

I think we might hold off on our weekend rides for another hour because of that. I’ve got a nice bright strobe tail light, and I will mount my headlight later today, but I’ll be more at ease if the sun is at a higher angle, and I’m sure traffic will have a better chance of seeing me.

I do love riding at this time of year, though. The morning temperatures are brisk, but not bone-chilling. It was 52 degrees (11C) when I left the house this morning. The day will warm up to about 80 (26C), so we really have our choice — do we put on some extra layers and ride in the morning, or wait until it warms up and ride in summertime conditions?

What’s that? Rain is forecast for the weekend? Hm, I might wind up spending my time cleaning up after the carpenters.

 

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Categories // Odds 'n ends Tags // autumn

Maybe I’ll Get Back To Normal

09.29.2013 by Ray Niekamp // Leave a Comment

After my trip to the doctor Wednesday to attend to my gout, I was looking forward to a quick reversal of my condition. But these things don’t happen overnight.

I continued to limp around Thursday and Friday, and still had trouble walking the dogs around the block. The saving grace was my biking. As reported, I can ride with a gouty toe, because it doesn’t move when I pedal. After a morning of meetings, I was anxious to get back on the bike Friday afternoon.

I set out on my usual Friday evening jaunt, a neighborhood ride that includes a couple of laps on the Veloway. It’s been a good starter for my weekend rides, because I can stomp on it over a few stretches, and take it easy on some downhills. It’s not all that long, but does keep me out for more than an hour, so it works for me.

Except this time. A frontal system was heading through the area, and the skies opened up on me. Since I was at the farthest point away from home when the rain hit, I figured I’d be wise to cut the ride short and head home. I’ve alluded to my dislike of riding in the rain, but maybe all that public concern helped. Anyway, I didn’t feel skittish as I have in the past, and kind of enjoyed the ride home in the wet. Still, at only 11 miles, it wasn’t much of a ride.

Saturday went better. Pat wanted to ride our Mopac loop, which is about 13 miles, mostly along a busy highway. But the traffic wasn’t so bad this morning, and we moved along nicely. Until we got close to the turnaround. There, the scudding clouds passing overhead decided to let loose, and we found ourselves in a summer shower again. But this was one of those freakish things were the delineation between the wet and the dry is a sharp line — drenched on one side, bone dry on the other. I knew when we turned around that we would be in the wet for only a quarter mile or so.

When we got home, I continued on for my Saturday trip up Convict Hill. I hadn’t been there for several weeks, and wanted to see how much uphill ability I’d lost going up the hill. Yep, it was a downer. I can do it in about 2 minutes, 30 seconds — sometimes a little better. But today I took 2:55. Not my worst of the year, but a definite decline in performance. I chalked it up to the weight I’d gained because of the enforced inactivity due to my gout. I’ll do better next week.

Today, we were making plans to travel south and ride along the Guadalupe River. But that was nonsense even during our planning. Weather radar showed another frontal system — this one huge — moving in from the west. I ended our email exchange with the caveat that if it was raining in the morning, I wouldn’t ride. About midnight, the torrent hit.

It rained hard for over an hour, and lightly for another hour or so after that. My little chihuahua mix is terrified of thunder and lightning, and sat shivering in my lap until 2:30 a.m. We woke up to no rain, but drenched streets, and canceled our riding plans.

By this afternoon, things had mostly dried out. I was busy working on some things for my wife, and running errands. Finally, I got out this afternoon for a little over an hour. It was a modified version of the ride I’d done Friday — a little longer, but nowhere near what I normally do on Sundays. The result was that I ended September with my lowest monthly total since February. September in Austin is a summer month. I should have had 150 miles more.

But today, my foot is almost all better. A twinge of an ache in the toe joint still, and I expect that will be gone in the next day or two. The rain is past, the weather will be milder, and I’ll try to get back to normal soon.

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Categories // Odds 'n ends Tags // gout, Rides

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