Saturday, June 8, 2013
108 miles!
Ode to the 18
"Man, I wish I had an 18 (tooth cog)"
As I flip back and forth between the 17 and 19 tooth cogs; one is just a little too hard, the other just a little too easy.
Just call me Goldilocks, I guess.
But longin' fer the 18 is like longin' fer the good old Colonial days, back when the 13 "original" British(/French/Spanish/Dutch) colonies were sore about their "taxation without representation" reality - and the "glory days" of "the Boston tea party". No one HERE is goin' back to bein' just "colonies", believe you me.
It's like longin' fer "the Constitution", in abstract, without knowing a single one of the Amendments to that Constitution; without recognizing that "the Founding Fathers" KNEW that the times would change, that they and their document were NOT perfect, that a way to adapt and update it was vital. When "the Constitution" was read on the House floor after the recent Congressional election, "the 'tea party' revolution of 2010" - they DID NOT READ the part of the Constitution that the Founding Fathers wrote into it about "slaves being counted as 3/5 of a person" for the census - to make sure Southern, slave states would pass it - giving them more Representatives in Congress than they would have gotten based only on "land owning white males". So when people like that make a big public spectacle about loving "the Constitution" and being "strict originalists" and being "pure" and say they'll "never compromise on my/our principles" - are they saying they want slavery to make a comeback? That they want black men to not be able to vote? (Whoa. That's a little "close to home". Apparently some "tea party Republicans" ARE currently saying that!) That they want women to not be able to vote? (Can you say "Equal pay for equal work"? Congress can't!) Do they want to undo all the Amendments to the Constitution, go ALL the way back? (Should I assume that they know the first 10 Amendments, known collectively as "the Bill of Rights", were passed WITH the Constitution? Probably not, eh?)
Longin' fer the 18 is like longin' fer the days of "the Confederacy", that brief period in "American" history when "the South was 'free'". It ain't gonna happen, no matter how proudly the Confederate flag (or state flag with the Confederate flag embedded in it) is flown, no matter how sweet the thought might be (for some [white] "Southerners".)
So you can be sure that when I say "I long for the 18 tooth cog" that I don't have on my cassette today - I only mean it "in theory". While I would love to have the 18 - and would use it a lot - there is no way that I would be willing to give up the 24 and 27 tooth cogs that I now have to get the 18 back. The 18 was good, the 18 IS good. But the "amended" cassette that I now have on my bike, while not perfect, is a better cassette for me today, a better real world compromise for the real world riding that I am doing, today.
Long live the 18!
But God bless my 27...
Friday, June 7, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Wow
"Holy crap. This sucks."
To
"Holy crap. This is amazing."
In the space of about an hour, yesterday.
We had a nice stay at the Little Grassy Lake campsite in Shawnee National Forest, and were making our way back towards the Mississippi river and the ACA Great Rivers route after "going rogue" to meet Joe, our friend from way back in Wickenburg, AZ, for lunch on his way East on the TransAmerica route (the original ACA route?)
We got a decent start. We were woken up by some fishermen/campers arriving on Sam's Point at sunrise, exclaiming "Holy cow! Awesome!" (I think there was cursing, actually. But I can't remember their exact exclamations, unfortunately.) I can only imagine, as they slammed their motor vehicle doors, that they were excited to have such a cool place to camp, on a nice lake, (almost) all to themselves. Ah, car alarms and car doors slamming. Heidi knows how much I love the "Bleep Bleep!" when campers keep going back to their motor vehicle late at night/early in the mornin' - and lock/alarm it - EACH time. (Just a warning - if you camp with me and do that - you may find some of your wiring cut in the morning...just sayin'. Unfortunately I'm not very good with cars, so I may end up cutting a whole bunch of wires, "out of ignorance". Sorry.)
We get on the road, have nice weather, pretty nice road - and less hilly than it has been the last couple days. But then I heard a metallic "Ping!" from my bike on a short, but very steep uphill before town - and my immediate thought was "Uh oh. There goes one of my pawls." (One of the tiny ratcheting things inside the hub which allow the rear wheel to "freewheel" when coasting, and then spring out and engage when you start pedaling.) We stop and I look at my bike, check for broken rack bolts etc. But I don't see anything and the bike is "working", so we keep going.
We only get chased by one angry dog with his hackles up, that I can recall...into Murphysboro. We only get aggressively/dangerously passed by one or two motor vehicle operators on the downhill into town. We stop, look at our bad maps, try to recall Joe's "tax-avoidance-scheme phone" map/directions - and figure, yes, we will go the way of the Bike Route green sign, even though it is in "the wrong direction". (Everyone has played those "brain teaser" games where you have to "think outside the box" in order to solve the puzzle - well, bike touring in America without a[n ACA] map is kinda like that. "Use 'the force', Luke. Use 'the force'.")
We wiggle around the poor, descendant-of-American-slaves side of town and onto "Main Street" - and I say "Let's go to the 'Market' instead of the gas station for snacks and restrooms", figuring I would rather support them (this time. We have spent a lot of money at "gas stations", and none of it has been on gas; it has all been on the higher margin stuff. They should LOVE us!) The 'Market' won't let us use the restrooms. Damn! I really gotta GO! So after snacking we go back across the busy street, for the 2nd of what will be now 3 times, to the gas station for a can of Coke and a Clif bar - and their restrooms. I get some serious "fish eye" from the poor white trash dude driving the beat up garbage truck as he pulls out of the gas station. I can only imagine that he was admiring my shorts. I figure my stink, which surely was in powerful form, wasn't what was likely bothering him given what was behind his ass.
The checkout lady didn't seem to mind my shorts so much that she wasn't willing to give us route info, and say "Be safe!" She confirmed that my hazy memory and rough idea were, in fact, heading us in the right direction. I was glad Joe let me stare at his phone, as the recent retinal image was coming in handy.
The only problem, I thought at the time, was that I was now feeling nauseous (too much chocolate milk and a banana pounded, quickly, on top of a full bladder? Did I wait too long "to go"?) I biked very slowly, but any forward progress felt like the right thing to do, at the time.
We passed the big red SUV up on blocks in front of the "descendant of poor white trash red-neck" house with the Confederate flag flying proudly out front. I wanted to take pictures, but my dizzy head and sense of self-preservation - plus my lack of CCP permit - made me "just keep ridin'".
A train passed us at about the same time: definitely on "the wrong side of the tracks", hemmed in between the freight train and the Confederate flag wavin' Colt 45 fan (either the cheap beer, or the handgun. Or maybe both?)
A short while later, after leaving the sleepy hollow of poverty and accessing the smooth highway of prosperity on the outskirts of town, I was beginning to feel like I was weaving more than desirable. I told Heidi that I had to stop, and pulled over onto a deserted side street. She wisely told me to get my ass down the road a piece, to find a little shade. After peeing there, again, I noticed my rear brake was rubbing, slightly. So I adjusted the right/left tension to get the left brake pad off the rim, and we set off again. Heidi pretty quickly says "Your wheel is out of true", as she has a Birdsville-eye view of it, riding directly behind me (and my stink). I stop, briefly, right on the side of the small, smooth, rumble-stripped highway and feel some of my spokes, and sure enough, there is a "broken spoke" on the rear wheel, drive-side. So I open the brake up as far as I can with the barrel adjuster and go forward a hundred yards or so and pull off in the next driveway. I figure I'll true the wheel up a little bit and we'll keep goin'. We're in the middle of nowhere, in Southern Illinois; nowhere near anything like "a bike shop". I take the tent, sleeping bag, lock, and two rear panniers off the back of the bike, as well as "the top lid" off the handlebar and flip the bike upside down on the grass. I dig out the spoke wrench from the bottom of "the extra tool bag", the one full of stuff you hope you don't ever need. I start looking at the rim. How bad is it out of true? I find "the broken spoke" and figure I'll try to get the rim at least a little straighter...
Now this one wheel, of our four, is the Sesame Street "Which one of these things is not like the others" one. The other three are Shimano XT hubs, with Mavic A719 rims (I don't recall the spokes, sorry. Strong spokes; not light, triple butted race-weeny spokes. Probably straight gauge, 14? 15?). When I originally ordered the wheels, years ago, I wanted two exact wheelsets, so that I could just swap out wheels when bike commuting in the winter in the Upper Midwest; so that I wouldn't have to change tires, regular for studded, depending on that day's meteorological reality. And it worked out great. Want just a studded front wheel? Grab the matching one outta the basement, swap it out, done. No need to adjust brakes, take tires off/on, pump up tires etc. Easy. Awesome. When Heidi ordered her frame for this trip and we were puttin' the parts together I figured she would just use "the other" set of touring/commuting wheels. Solid, strong, comfortable.
But. This one rear wheel is NOT a Shimano XT hub. It is an Onyx DT Swiss hub. And? The spoke nipples are (likely) NOT the same size as either the other three OR my one spoke wrench. I would have cursed (more) about that realization if I had not noticed that it was, in fact, more than one spoke. It was more than the two loose spokes. It was the dang hub flange! WTH?! Boom. Hub flange cracked, metal missing, spokes dangling free in the space where aluminum used to live. Well, this changes things. It changes things a lot. That is not repairable. That is "replace the rear wheel" kinda bad.
It's Wednesday. We're equidistant between two small towns in Southern Illinois, neither of which likely has a bike shop. And, as it turns out, the "forward" town has no camping, no motel, "nothin'".
We look up, and where are we, stuck on the side of the road? A campground. We are in the driveway of a campground.
Heidi looks it up on "tax-avoidance-scheme" internet search engine and calls the number. I text Kevin and Laura and Terry. Heidi tells me the "new" phone number for the "campground" and I dial. Anna answers, luckily, and tells me that they don't take over-nighters, that they rent by the year. But she's on her way out from town to clean up the cabin she rented merely 2 hours ago to another fella, or we could have had it. Dang! So close!
Miraculously, our friends Terry, Kevin, and Laura work it out such that they are going to get me a replacement wheel from my mountainbike in our basement - in 2 days. What?! Crazy. Laura has been thinkin' about joinin' us fer a stretch of the ride, and she has worked it out to get a ride down here from Gary on Friday. She already has my wheel, with a different cassette on it, and will have it to me tomorrow. Wow. Crazy. Awesome.
And Anna?
She shows up, talks to us, takes a look at my hub, and shows us around. We can set up our tent beside the "rec room" building, use the shower, do a load of laundry, stay a couple days. She even drives us into town to buy groceries - and back - after she finishes changing the sheets and cleanin' up the cabin we wished we could have rented from her; that a return renter is using starting tonight. We use the kitchen, sit on the couch, and watch Colbert on the big screen. Crazy. Nice. Generous. Trusting. Awesome.
As I was takin' a shower yesterday, after settin' up the tent, I was thinkin' "Man, this situation went from 'Really bad' to 'Really good' in about the space of the last hour. How frickin' lucky. How frickin' lucky to have such nice people helpin' us out."
So thanks.
Y'all are amazing.
Some things we've learned from the U-Tour
I've been thinking of things we've learned from the trip:
1. Don't eat gas station prepared meals, especially if it has meat.
2. We averaged 40-50 miles a day, with breaks included. The total trip will be close to 5000 miles and 110 days (we estimated 5000 miles and 100 days).
3. We spent most nights in the tent, but used motels and restaurants as we wanted/needed to. I think it is costing us around $60/day for food and accommodations for the two of us, on average. A trip like this can certainly be done for a lot less (and a lot more).
4. Talk to the locals. Besides interesting conversations, we also learned important information, like what time the local factory shift change was (a good time not to be on the road). We never had to make an effort to talk to people, people often came to talk to us.
5. The ACA maps are awesome. It would be a completely different experience (not bad, just different) forging our own route from standard state road maps. We really like all the information and suggested routes on the ACA maps.
6. Don't let all the negative talk from people before the trip get you down. Although the negative stories weren't incorrect, they were a very small part of the whole experience.
7. Weather is everything. We don't have control of the weather, but time of year and direction of travel are related to temperatures, storms, and prevailing wind direction. We've been VERY lucky so far. Like Kevin Tita said to me 3+ months ago, "if its raining, take a day off", which we did. We also took days off for strong head winds or wind/sand storms. Sometimes a day off is more productive than wasting energy battling the weather.
8. Take care of your bike. Greg has been diligent at keeping our drive trains cleaned and lube'd. We've paid attention to strange clicks and pings from our bikes, hopefully preventing failures that might have happened. I found and tightened a loose bolt which was holding my rear rack to my bicycle frame (it would have broken, for sure), and Greg replaced his shifter cables. We've also had the bikes checked, cleaned, and adjusted 3 times along the way at bike shops. Not that we can or will prevent all failures (Greg's hub!), but we can try do what we can.
9. Flat tires are inevitable. A heavier sturdier tire is worth the extra weight. We've liked using the schwalbe marathons with reflective sidewalls, especially on the rear wheels.
10. Be visible. Wear bright colours (fluorescent yellow is the best). Use the brightest blinking front and rear lights all the time. We also had reflective slow moving triangles on our rear racks. Other people use flags as well, which work really well.
11. Avoid rush hour.
12. I liked using panniers. We had plenty of room with 4 panniers each. Some people use trailers, but I think they are added weight and rolling resistance, and more tires that could get flats.
13. We've met so many nice people.
... that's it for now ...
A day off gives time to fix things
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Benefiting from the kindness of friends and strangers, again
Google maps gave me the phone number of the "camp ground" whose lawn we were sitting on, to find out its not a nightly kind of camping ground, but the owner was coming in anyway and she would see if she could help us out. As we have found many times on this trip, there are so many kind people! We set up our tent next to the park's community building, and our host gave us the keys so we can use the bathrooms, showers, laundry, and kitchen!
Meanwhile, Greg, with a few txt messages has already arranged a replacement wheel, thanks to our good friends, Terry, Kevin, Laura and Gary. Only this morning, Laura confirmed that she and Gary would be joining us from Madison on Fri. Now they have a second reason to drive down ... they will bring Greg's replacement wheel!
Camping in the South
Tired today
From another 3,000+ feet of climbing day
With panniers again now too
Oof da!
When is our next day off again?
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
We had lunch with Joe!
"That's a wonderful way
Them lights."
Says the dude gittin in the big red pickup truck at the market, with a cowboy hat on and a thick Southern (Illinois) accent.
I figure a great way to not get run over
Is for motorists to pay attention to drivin'
While drivin'
Drive at or below the speed limit
Slow down and move over when passing - give 3 feet of room, or more at higher speeds
Use yer turn signals - it helps communicate to other road users, even cyclists.
And if it's not safe to pass?
Don't pass.
And cyclists?
Wear "chartreuse" (especially if yer a bass fisherman)
Use flashing front and rear lights, even in the daytime. You might be surprised how many motorists will thank you fer havin' 'em - and usin' 'em.
Ride single file, anytime there is a remote chance that it would be appropriate; in terms of safety, in terms of "sharing the road".
Stop away from intersections when "checkin' the map", comparing power numbers, etc. - it is confusing for others if you stop right at the Stop sign with no intention of going through it (as soon as it is clear)
Wear a helmet.
Write yer legislators
Askin' 'em for more cycling infrastructure. It makes cyclists safer - and motorists less irate.
I mean, if we can afford $3 Trillion to remove the threat posed to American cyclists from Saddam - we can afford "more than zero" of our tax dollars being spent making American cyclists safer on the roads - from American motorists.
Thank you.
So sad our SAG left today
Coincidentally, we also hit some of the hilliest terrain so far on this trip, which felt that much harder after the gift of bag-free riding. And tonight we are back to camping, glad to have a site with a picnic table, and access to showers (that don't even need quarters). Its a beautiful and quiet campground on little Grassy Lake, IL. I think I will sleep well tonight.
Our "support crew" has left
And gone home.
And as I look around at our stuff
I'm thinkin'
ALL this has to go on our bikes!!
Monday, June 3, 2013
Dinner tonight is
Bon Appetite!
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Happy Birthday Big Brother!
Hope you had a great day too, and ate some cake for us!
The funniest thing I heard today
So today when I saw a fishin' lure on the side of the road I was kinda excited. I have been carryin' a "rubber worm" for ages now. We found it on the ground somewhere along our travels. I regretted not lookin' fer a hook, after I got the worm, this one time when there was fishin' line all over the lakeshore where we stayed. We could totally catch some fish with a piece of line, a hook, and our found rubber worm!
So today, when I saw the tiny spinner bait I was trying to describe it to Heidi, since it was in a curve and several motor vehicles were around - and I decided to not try to go back and pick it up. I said, "It's like the one we have in my 'top lid' (i.e. handlebar bag), only it has a silver spinner on it and it's chartreuse."
Heidi comes back, calmly, with
"Everybody knows bass love chartreuse."
LOL.
