Today's anxieties: bike parking, anemia, flab.

Today, I rode down to PNC Park after work to attempt to donate blood. Upon arrival, there's no bike racks on the street... the closest one is way around the corner near the river. A remote, dark place. I can't leave Ruby there!

Where are the bike racks?

I'm not going to hook up to a tree, being a treehugger and all. I attempted to lock to this fence and it took a great deal of grunting and pushing to get the u-lock hooked up.

Hooking to this fence was a battle.

The blood donation was just as frustrating: again, I came up short on the iron count by one point. They sent me packing. Oh, time to go for a ride! I went to the edge of the Strip trail to see if it was open yet and it's still closed. For all my minor frustrations on this evening ride, this absolutely breathtaking sunset was my reward.

Today, Fatcycyclist announced the start of the Beeminder contest.
I've done nothing in the way of weight loss in the past month... noth-ing. I need to ramp it up.

The non-fixed flat, part two.

Today was a day before another Snowmageddon. I wanted to get out and about before it got ugly. I set out to meet Hubby at his favorite restaurant in Oakland. I took the route through the Strip and up Gold way again. That hill is quite a workout... I hope I'll be able to do it when it gets warmer.

On Morewood, I turned onto Centre and felt the thud. Thankfully, I was close to the restaurant, I was early and the restaurant's lot had room for me to work on the flat.

Pump= broken. When Hubby arrived, I decided to just stow the bike in the car and take it back to base after lunch where my floor pump was.

Hubby dropped me off and I set about getting a new tube in.

Wrong size again. This time it was too big.

Not only is your humble blogger stymied and perplexed by tire sizes, but so is the shop that has sold me incorrect tubes: twice.

Oddly, the hole in the tube wasn't on the ground-side, but up the walls, almost near the spokes. I inspected the tire many times over, trying to figure out what had cause the puncture, I didn't feel anything in there.

So, I tried to patch it. It stayed inflated until I got the wheel back on and then it just went soft again.

It was still early, so I called Thick to see if they could fit me in.

Getting back on the road!

Adam kindly obliged... they fixed my flat quickly, sold me some tubes and a new pump. Note: Thick Bikes was NOT the shop that sold me the wrong tubes.


Hopefully, my third flat will be the charm... the one that I can fix quickly and on my own! If that day's in the distant future, that will be fine.

Today= 6 miles, a huge hill and much learned.

Bombarded and barraged

It was very windy on Thursday, I was getting knocked around a great deal. I stayed off the trails because they were even windier being right along the rivers. Everyone was respectful, even a PAT bus who passed me and stayed out of my lane... except this driver. I tried to catch up with her when she was stopped at the light ahead of me, but she pulled away and into the valet area.

Too close, lady! One gust of wind and I'll get blown under your tires!

Silver Chevy JDJ 8331 is in a big hurry to get to the Casino!
Gotta park your rear in front of that special slot machine at a certain time? Can't be late!

After that pass, I decided to put this on the back basket:

I'm not sure I like it. Opinions are welcome.












Who wants to see Herring gulls?

I'm childish, I know. Every so often, the 4 year old in me likes to run through groups of pigeons and today, it was a flock of seagulls. I had to indulge the 4 year old today. Luckily, none of them crapped on me.

WARNING! Music: Surfin' Bird by The Cramps! Turn down your speakers if you're not a fan of Surfin' Bird or The Cramps (one of the greatest bands on Earth, IMHO).

FIKS Hexalate reflective stickers

It's no secret that I love being reflective, being seen. I love Fiks Hexalate stickers.
I was frustrated with my inability to get the stickers nice and straight and in any semblance of a pattern on the Lilac Monster. My 'patterns' looked awful. I discovered a trick from a Japanese site where they used masking tape to get a nice, perfect pattern. I'll demonstrate on Ruby:

Cut the pattern you wish to use

Place masking tape on the stickers

peel the backing off

Press the stickers onto the bike

Peel the masking tape away....

....and....

Viola! Perfectly aligned Hexalate pattern!

First Flock and encounters ensue

Friday was the first chance I had to ride with Flock of Cycles and with the wonderful weather, I couldn't pass up the chance. I skipped out of work a bit early and headed to Dippy where about 25 of us embarked on a 10 mile ride through Oakland, Squirrel Hill, East Liberty and Friendship (not necessarily in that order).  I ran into Marko and Yale again and met Joyce, Marcel and Mick for the first time.
A gentleman called Xuth showed up wearing Xuth's Coat of LEDs. It was beyond awesome.


Here's 52 seconds of my perspective riding behind him:



Frankly, video doesn't do it justice.

It was considerable fun, very organized and plan on going again. I didn't even mind the hill or being the last one up. I hung back with Joyce and stayed with her when her chain fell off going up the hill. I think we needed a third arm to point at all the potholes. One pothole was as big as a car.

I really need to make sure my headlamp is properly charged before night riding. It died before I made it back to base. The Strip was eerily quiet when I pedaled back through. I could hear my own breathing and the faint click of the loose spoke reflectors on the front wheel.
I enjoyed the silence.
a lovely 22 mile evening. I kicked my Fitbit steps over 17K. Nice.

Saturday...

Saturday brought even better weather, the sun was out all day and so was the wind. I departed base after lunch with Hubby with intentions of returning Ruby's hospital tag to Thick Bikes. On the Hot Metal Bridge I stopped to check out the flooding at Riverview Park and Marko rolled up while I was snapping a shot. We chatted for a bit and then Terry rode up.

It was nice to finally meet Terry after having read his blog for a while. It turns out Terry was also heading to Thick so we all rode together. It was a crazy day on the South Side with a giant Soup Crawl event of some sort. Everyone was walking around with special Soup Tags and a glazed look of soup satiation in their eyes.

At Thick I returned Ruby's tag to Chris and decided to look at a secondary headlamp but I didn't find any USB rechargeable ones that I liked. I settled on *more* FIKS reflective stickers. My ridemates poked fun of me, telling me that if I put any more reflective stuff on my bike that I'll need *more* bike to do so. There's no such thing as 'too reflective', I told them.

I'm playing with the features of iMovie, here's a portion of Saturday's ride in hyperspeed:




We headed back into town and dropped Terry off at Wingharts, but not before I pointed out some of the new Hades tiles to them. Marko rode with me back to base as he was going to check out the condition of the trail down to the Bastille.

When I caught my trolley car to head back home, I looked down from the T station and there was Vannevar and SR waiting at the light! I manged to snap a shot of them as the car pulled away.

It was a wonderful day of spectacular weather, good company and chance encounters.

Leg cramps, cadence and uprooting from the South Hills

Recently, I started getting leg cramps of a new sort. There's the usual calf leg cramps that nearly all women are used to getting in the middle of the night. When we turn into adults, these awful things are bestowed onto us for the rest of our lives, and I'm told they worsen during pregnancy.
Then I started getting cramps in my thighs, these are ten times worse. It feels like your muscles are tearing off of your bones. The first one caused me to bellow like a dying farm animal in our bed. Hubby's so used to my nighttime leg cramps he just lifted his head, asked what was wrong and said "Oh." and went back to sleep. How anyone can sleep through their partner writhing and whimpering in agony right next to them in bed, is beyond me.

I'm straining my gracilis and/or vastus medialis.
Googling "gracilis and vastus medialis cramps" brings up a mountain biking forum discussion in the first two results. How about that.
I've known about and employ the drinking more water and potassium/magnesium preventions, but pickle juice? Mustard? Never heard of that! I'm reluctant to try quinine.
I may stretch, take a swig of pickle juice (because, hey... pickle juice is delicious!) before bed and try the heating pad.
UPDATE: the morning after pickle juicing, stretching and using the heating pad, my thigh didn't spasm in the night and it feels fine. Considering I went to bed with the hair-trigger feeling that they were about to go into spasms, this is good news.

Cadence notes on flat parts:

2/2
I can get up to 85-90 but no more than 9.1 MPH and I'm spinning like mad.

2/5
If I concentrate on getting there, 75-80 and 11-13 MPH.

2/6
No more than 73.

Previously, my favorite gears were 2/6 and 2/7 on flat parts. I've switched down to 2/5.

Cadence on hills: achieving 85-90 on hills in a low gear (1/3) is easy.

I'm starting to wonder why I have a third ring on the crank. I never use it.

Relocating:

Hubby is giving serious considerations to moving. We have a very long, steep driveway and this past winter was his last straw after falling several times trying to walk down our skating rink of a driveway. Getting a car up a steep, snowy driveway is beyond challenging too. I'm surprised we haven't slammed into the side of the garage or slid on the ice down into the street and killed a child who was trying to walk to the bus stop.

My first thought is "Can I commute to work on my bike?" when considering a new home. He's leaning towards something in the North Hills, O'Hara township or Fox Chapel, which is better than the South Hills as far as riding a bike into Town, but it's further than I'd like. I'd like something in the City, but he won't hear of it. *Sigh*.
We need a house with a yard for the dogs and enough room and sunlight there for a vegetable garden. Having my garden back would be fan-freaking-tastic. I can't garden currently at our house because the backyard doesn't get enough sun.

Begone, snow!

I'd debated with myself a great deal today about riding. I'm sick to death of snow... I want to see this stuff melt away and soon.
The roads were crap. I hadn't been out in several days and was in dire need of some biketime, so I put on my big girl britches and went out despite my misgivings about the roads.

Roads still have ice and slush on the sides, narrowing travel lanes.

The trails are crap too. I turned around at the EFT and decided to stay Downtown and in the Strip District.

The Eliza Furnace trail. Icy and dangerous.

The Fort Pitt Bridge Switchback and pedestrian footbridge looked great though.

I enjoyed pedaling about my limited range.
I had an abnormal number of close passes... Maybe the narrowed lanes made for a few close calls with drivers? Maybe it was the holiday? I cannot account for so many violations of my space today.

A compilation of today's squeezins from the handlebar camera:

I think I'm guilty of not taking the lane with enough authority in those instances. I tend to scoot over to the right and drivers think "I can squeeze in there!"


Sometimes I fall for no apparent reason other than I'm clumsy: