Vacation Biking and the Internet

I'm on the second week of my biking vacation in Va Beach with my brother,
and having a great time. I thought it would be fun to share our regime...

When I arrived, Jay (the bro) had set up the garage to allow two bike stations
with a nice waist-high plank on wooden horses, upon which to lay out one's
biking gear. That was nice! I plunked my two boxes of biking paraphenalia on my
plank and propped the bike up in my own bike bay.

The day before a ride, we go to one of several Internet map sites. One of the nicer sites
besides mapquest and yahoo maps is:

http://mappoint.msn.com/

Here you can pick several sizes of maps (top right "map size"), after you type in
your address, and you can use the 'get directions' feature to find the distance.

We find the route we're taking and do a "get directions from here" to mark it, then print
it out on the color Inkjet printer. After trimming, the map is put in a clear plastic page
protector. This map goes on my handle bars on a very small clipboard, along with a 'sharpie',
to allow notes and other annotations.

Just before departure, I get the weather report:

http://www.wunderground.com/

....and then skibble through the house like a nut, announcing the temperature and probabiliy
of rain, causing the non-biker members of the family to cringe; heh, heh.

Then at the respective garage bike stations, we don our 'Third Eye' mirrors, get a stick of
sugar-free gum, check the tires and brakes, and slip on the biking gloves, and check the
walkie-talkies (in case of getting lost). Then my bro, who rides in cut offs and t-shirt teases
me about my latest spandex bike jersey, to which I offer a raspberry'd 'jealous' epithet.

Our spouses mutter about 'acting like a couple of kidz', but we take it all in stride.

At the end, we race to the computer room to enter the mileage and comments in Excel. I
can usually be counted on for a good taunting comment on his page of the spreadsheet, which
he reads later and usually exclams 'hey, I did not dump the whole contents of my waterbottle
on my head on purpose...somebody didn't screw the lid on or something!'. ;-p

OK, goofy post, but believe me, it's the most fun I've had in years!

-Badger

Badger_South wrote:
I'm on the second week of my biking vacation in Va Beach with my brother,
and having a great time. I thought it would be fun to share our regime...

My brother is coming out to visit in two weeks. I'm definitely planning
on doing some cycling with him. Last time I visited him, I kitted him
out with bike accessories (late birthday/xmas presents) to help him get
back into it. Recently he's been putting on quite a few miles
and has started to lose weight (and has been needing less insulin).

When I arrived, Jay (the bro) had set up the garage to allow two bike stations
with a nice waist-high plank on wooden horses, upon which to lay out one's
biking gear. That was nice! I plunked my two boxes of biking paraphenalia on my
plank and propped the bike up in my own bike bay.

I take it you drove down? My brother's flying in from Philly, so I'm
planning on lending my brother my good bike (commuter) and riding my
grocery bike. I'd really like to ride a tandem with him, but I'm not
sure where a good place in Seattle to rent one would be.

OK, goofy post, but believe me, it's the most fun I've had in years!

In that vein, I was climbing 23rd street (steep and long), and a jogger
I was passing challenged me to a race to the top. We were both blowing
like horses and nearly keeling over from oxygen debt (he won).
The *******. We were both grinning like fools. Quite a lot of fun.

--
Dane Jackson - z u v e m b i @ u n i x b i g o t s . o r g
Time Lords rule! Everything. Forever.