Semi-Annual Long Ride 2007, Part 1

Well, it is Memorial Weekend so that means it is time for the annual Telescope Mercenary Semi-Annual Long Bike Ride. By 'Long' I mean about 50 miles in one trip. Which is chicken feed to some riders, but a trial for me.

I decided that the ride would follow the same path as last September's ride, going down Route 537, only I stopped at Route 206 rather than punching my way to North of Fort Dix. I didn't play the same 'getting lost' game as last year, either. Although I didn't want to take the 537 back (its kinda awkward) I went down Route 41 instead towards Haddonfield. I planned to take the Camden Park trail back to the bridge, but it is a dirt path and yesterdays massive thunderstorm left it too muddy for my road bike. So I cheated and went to the PATCO station and caught train for the rest of the trip.

Considering that I almost could not stand up on Saturday due to the exertions of the fencing demo, I rode pretty well. No real problems, and no annoying wind. But I think I will avoid wearing the thick padded shorts next time. They just don't do the job well.

In September I must find a different route to take.

Into the irrelevant holiday weekend.

I had a fencing & fighting demo today with Brunisennde (Matilde) and others at a school in West Philadelphia. It was part of their annual Shakespeare day. Kinda cool. We did fencing and fighting demos that were done mostly for effect and were very exhausting. It doesn't help that today was the hottest day of May at 90 degrees. Forst group was enthusiastic, the second were the 7th & 8th graders who didn't give a shit. The last group was small but very enthusiastic. Because of the more exagerrated nature of demo fencing my legs were very straessed in muscles I don't normally use when bout fencing. Ow.

So what do I do next? I drive home, take a shower, and then bike back to West Philly to visit Bill. Oh yeah. This'll cost me.

The hard part is that it is time for my semi-annual long ride (Memorial Day and Labor Day). I don't think I'll be trying it tommorrow.

Odds & Ends

I went for a long bike ride on Tuesday. Didn't quite crap out but was swaying at certain points. Gatoraide did wonders. I don't know why I haven't used chamois cream until now for these rides. I even had a tube of the stuff.

Brother is now playing with Zot. Although it usually means he just bops her on the head while she charges in for the grapple-with-something-four-times-her-size tactic.

Zot has also now learnhed how to go down the stairs. This was a surprise since I thought she was unable or unwilling to go down them. But to my surprise she was sitting at the deck door looking outside when I got out of the shower this morning

My oldest brother his wife are moving out of Seattle and back to Indianapolis. They are buying a new house. It looks good:



Oh, and thanks to Bruni for pointing out some more Madness from Weebls-Stuff.

Ouch!

Riding over to my friend's place in West Philly today, I had a bit of a spill. I was coming around Eakin's Oval near the Art Museum. There was a lot of traffic and as I came in front of the Museum I saw a car parked in the Bike lane (during rush hour...thanks). Going left of the car looked a bit dicey for room, so I thought I found a solution when I spotted the wheelchair ramp leading up to the sidewalk. I went for it!

Then I realised that the wheelchair ramp went down short about 2 inches from the asphalt. I was coming in at a very flat angle and so did not have enough motion to bring my bike over the bump. I hit it, and flew, landing on my right forearm.

I wasn't going too fast, so I just got a nasty bit of road rash. No real bumps, or anything. Just annoying. Had to apply Bactine.

A Medium Length Ride.

I've been feeling sluggish and fat of late. So I kinda forced myself to go out on a bike ride today. I intended to just push out to Norristown or maybe all the way to Valley Forge, but I mostly just wanted to get some pedalling in. On East River Drive (Kelly Drive for you non-natives) I ran into the Dad Vale Regatte crowd, but not before encountering this:



It looks like the Channel 6 Van, but it actually is an infatable mock-up.

Anyway, I rode onto the Schuylkyll Bike Path, then got misdirected onto ridge avenue. I had to turn around and head down the road that goes past the entrance to what I knew as the Schuykyll Valley Nature Center when I was growing up. These days it is called by the needlessly complicated Delaware Valley Center for Environmental Education. Rolls off the tongue, eh?

Anyway, that road went past the center, and then started to dive towards the river at a very.steep.angle. It is at this point that the road is no longer paved, but merely covered with rough Belgian bricks. I had to get off the bike and walk it down.

Once on the bike path, I found the entrance to the new Cross-County Bike Path. This leads off the path and heads up towards Plymouth Meeting. It cuts through a field, then past the IKEA, then past some more shopping centers. Then it just ends like this:



Thanks for the sign, guys. I might not have figured it out, otherwise.

Not much else to do at that point but head home.

Life with Zot.

So its been a week and a half since I got the little girl. She's managed to fall through the gap on the spiral staircase (which damn near gave me a heart attack and scared the heck out of her) she's shredded my legs pretty good (wants to climb into daddy's lap), Brother has flipped her waterdish at every chance (Stupid Brother!). Her eyes have lost their kitten blue and are now all green.

The other cats took to her OK. Lyra hates all other cats, but is tolerant of Zot being in the area until Zot tries to appraoch her. There's been one swatting incident. Brother is better: He will sniff her head, but if she raises a paw to play he runs away. I think he's gotten a little better about this and will soon be more able to deal with her approaches.

Anyway, here's some more pics.