AG: Aunt Granny's Advice, or How to become an elderly cyclist:

On 2017-06-11, Joy Beeson wrote:
So I was on a long, straight north-south road, slogging into a high
wind in a very low gear -- and came upon a sign saying "reduce speed
ahead".

I'm not sure that it's even *possible* to ride any slower!

Perhaps my greatest frustration while commuting is riding into a strong
headwind on a slight downgrade and having to pedal hard just to keep moving
forward. Around here, Spring and Fall winds seem to shift such that I
rarely get a tailwind on either leg of the ride...

Tom

Tom wrote:
On 2017-06-11, Joy Beeson wrote:

So I was on a long, straight north-south road, slogging into a high
wind in a very low gear -- and came upon a sign saying "reduce speed
ahead".

I'm not sure that it's even *possible* to ride any slower!


Perhaps my greatest frustration while commuting is riding into a strong
headwind on a slight downgrade and having to pedal hard just to keep moving
forward. Around here, Spring and Fall winds seem to shift such that I
rarely get a tailwind on either leg of the ride...

Tom

Headwinds obviously take some of the joy of riding away. It's somewhat like
doing a continuous climb.

But what always bothered me was more in my head during serious climbs, like
the Rockies/Cascades or Appalachians. One would work so hard heading
towards that pass, slowly gaining altitude, where every down hill didn't represent
a "free ride" but instead, more altitude that had to be made up! One's rebellious
mind would do calculations, knowing that pass was X miles ahead at Y thousands
of feet, and you just lost a couple hundred in that downhill!

The shorter the distance to the pass, my calculating mind would say that height
loss had to be made up over a shorter distance; i.e. a steeper grade to come! I
really came to hate seeing a steep downhill before a pass. Too much altitude
lost with too little gain towards the pass, that had to be made up.

To add insult to the thinking, an automobile, passing you going around a curve
where you *hope* the pass crest resides and your legs are about to enjoy a
nice easy coasting of perhaps some miles on the downhill side of the pass, but
instead, you hear the automatic transmission in the car ahead, that you can no
longer see, kicking down gears!

Not good!


SMH

Sometimes two wrongs make a right.

When I got back from last Saturday's windy ride, I threw my do-rag
into a bucket of water and started slicing left-over corned beef and
frying it. I did have perishables in the pannier, but they were on
ice, so I waited until after we had eaten to unpack.

After unpacking, I wanted to throw my jersey into the other bucket,
but my black tights were sweaty too, they had never been washed, and I
don't have a third bucket. So I undressed into the washing machine
and set it for "rinse and spin".

Sunday morning I was horrified to see the "done" light on the washing
machine -- my red bra and my white do-rag may have been pressed
tightly together all night! I started another "rinse and spin" cycle
in case something had started growing in the clothes. When I took
them out, I couldn't find the do-rag.

I'd forgotten to take it out of the bucket and put it in with the
other stuff.

----------------------------------------

Bearing the above incident in mind after yesterday's ride, I set a
timer to go off every two minutes after I found the washer spinning. I
got the stuff out of the washer a minute or less after it stopped
wringing, and put it all on hangars (except for the do-rag, which I
dry on my brake cable).

I felt pretty smug about not repeating the mistake I'd made before.

But when I started to put on my hat and gloves this morning, I
remembered that I'd put the gloves into a bucket because they were
crusty with salt, and they bleed like a stuck pig.

Which they haven't gotten over yet; the water was quite black. I
poured it off and put fresh water on, then went to get my shabby old
gloves, but I would have had to clean the entire cupboard to find
them, and I'm not at all sure they aren't still in my mending basket,
so I wore my all-plastic winter gloves. (The mesh-back gloves are too
thick to wear under other gloves.)

Today's trip to the farmer's markets was perfunctory, but I did come
back by the Beyer Farm Trail and stop at Owen's for milk and
anchovies. Last Saturday's return was -- pretty much like yesterday's
ride, except that I went north of Winona Lake instead of south of it,
and stopped at Aldi instead of Big R. And crossed 30 on 350 W instead
of Fox Farm. And had a single-decker tostada instead of the
double-decker Taco Bell calls a "Mexican pizza". And got home in time
for supper instead of having french fries at Burger King.

And I got an idea that could have been made into this week's Aunt
Granny post -- if I'd written it down.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

Joy, rather than using a colon in your subject line, could you use an em dash or some such so that you start a distinct thread?
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO

16 June 2017

On the gravel portion of 300 N, I got off and walked halfway up a hill
that I was handling just fine -- I was bored. That wasn't too long
before I reached the northernmost point of my route and turned south.

All the way from Kohl Plaza to Sprawlmart, I was thinking "oh, man,
I'm not ready for a ride this long, oh, man, I should have made tea
last night; the glassful I had at Taco Bell was too little too late,
oh man, it's way past time for my nap."

After half an hour or so of walking around in Big R, I perked right
up. I wasn't tired, I was fried.

Time to break out the linen clothing, I guess.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

It's lucky that I decided to dash out for needles yesterday even
though we used only two needles and what I had on hand would have done
fine.

On the way back, I realized that I had a slow leak in my back tire,
and by the time I got to the Cerulian's parking lot, it was soft
enough that I had to get off and walk. I don't remember why I didn't
backtrack to the Trailhouse and have them change the tube at once. I
think I was short on time.

No time this morning, either; I didn't make more cardboard circles or
cut and fold the extra sewing kits for giving away floss;
http://wlweather.net/PAGESEW/RUFFTEXT/SEWKIT/SEWKIT6h.JPG didn't
need that, either; our only two customers left so suddenly that
instead of winding their floss neatly, I just cut some and stuffed it
into their bags.

And I forgot to give them ribbons and backing paper. They didn't have
time to choose ribbon color anyway, but they *need* backing paper.
Perhaps I'll make some white papers and put one into each of the
sandwich bags in the envelope. Or the bags are transparent; I could
put a different color of paper into each bag and let them choose which
bag I put their take-home work into.

We had a ball nonetheless, and were shocked when we were told to go
home. Denise is a lot of fun to talk to.

I wonder whether we'd have gotten more business if our shill had
showed up?

Wednesday was a good day for a ride, but I couldn't work myself up to
Mentone and back, or Nappanee-Bremen. Though I did get so far as to
figure out that I could avoid SR 15 (which is desperation-only for the
summer because of work on the bridge over the Tippy) by going to
Bremen instead of Nappanee. But there are no major supermarkets in
Bremen where I can park for a few hours un-noticed. The high point of
the tour is to be an investigation of Rentown Country Store, and I
might well buy something there that I want to keep in a cooler in the
car. And it's small enough that I can tell them why I'm leaving my
car in their lot. Except that it would be the truck, because I can't
get my bike over the ledge in the trunk without help.

So I went to look at the roundabout work on Husky Trail; to my
disappointment, the approaches don't allow for future widening of the
road. But 175 E is only a little farther than 100 E. Came back by
way of Big R because we were almost out of cat food, but they had only
huge bags of Perfect Weight food, so Al is luxuriating in a very small
bag of elderly-cat cat food. But when we put him back on the
weight-control food, he will pig out again; he loves a change of pace.
You'd think he was an omnivore, were it not that he is disgusted by
all human foods, including cheese. He makes a very grudging exception
for liverwurst; perhaps I'll let him sample the liver pate' when I
open it.

Anyhow, when I suited up, my do-rag wasn't on the brake cable where I
dry it after washing it. Oh, ar! It's still in the washing machine!
But it's hot; I won't mind putting it on wet. But it's not in the
washing machine, or anywhere else that I can think of. It was already
late and I didn't want to spend all day hunting my do-rag, so I
borrowed one of Dave's and rode off.

When I got home, my do-rag was still in its second rinse in the
bucket. So I spun it out and hung it on the cable. Dave's do-rag has
a spot on it and should be washed next Monday anyway.

The next time I see a pile-up of traffic in Culver's parking lot, I'll
turn around and go back to Martin's for one of the snacks that I will
have just rejected. A small order of onion rings was *not* worth the
wait. I liked the lemon custard at Ritter's later on. But it made me
long for sweet-cream custard. I haven't tasted sweet-cream ice cream
since my only trip to Union Station (which folded shortly thereafter;
all the shops were looking shops; the only places actually taking in
money were the snack bars).

I think I had some sort of structure in mind when I sat down to write,
but it's past time to brush my teeth and go to bed.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

No time to polish up a sensible post this week.

Monday was washday.

Tuesday morning, I pumped up my slow leak and rode to the Trailhouse;
when I handed my spare tube to the mechanic, I told him that I'd
decided to stop carrying a spare tube, since being grounded ever since
Friday hadn't been sufficient motivation to change it myself. I do
have Fastcab on speed-dial. I really, really, must find out how I can
learn the proper etiquette for riding a taxi.

After I got home, I drove to Owen's East (Kroger) to stock up on
seltzer and five huge potatoes. (Not one weighed less than a pound.
After zapping and baking, they were really easy to peel.)

Wednesday I took a lap around Pike Lake. It's a pleasant route, but
there was only one intersection where I consulted my map, and that was
because both right and left were correct and I wanted to decide which
one. Not only is the route all too familiar, Arden's Gardens has been
downsized to feed only Arden, so I can't look forward to a stop at a
farm stand to break the monotony. Did stop at Tractor Supply to buy
peanuts in the shell. Bought onions for the potato salad at Aldi, and
an over-ripe tomato at Sweet Corn Charley's.

Thursday I drove to Aldi to buy chips for tonight's party. (Since
everybody comes to my back yard to view the fireworks, I put out chips
and soda and call it a party.)

I spent Friday making potato salad and dip and simple syrup for the
lemonade, etc.

I spent this morning helping to set up for tomorrow's church picnic,
where the potato salad will make its first appearance. I'll also take
it to the family picnic on Monday.

On the Fourth itself, I plan to sleep in.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

On Sat, 01 Jul 2017 20:18:48 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:

On the Fourth itself, I plan to sleep in.

On second thought, I need to wash clothes on that day.

--
Joy Beeson, U.S.A., mostly central Hoosier,
some Northern Indiana, Upstate New York, Florida, and Hawaii
joy beeson at comcast dot net http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.

And on the fifth, I get to go on a ride! I cut the planned miles
because I bruised my knees on Monday; they appear to be healed, but
why take chances? Besides, I hate the two miles of hilly gravel road
on the circumnavigate-Center route; the roads on Circumnavigate Pike
are all paved, and comparatively level.

A landmark: I put on the "wicking"-synthetic capri-length tights that
I've been wearing ever since it got too warm for full-length tights,
thought about how nasty they felt in the air-conditioned house, threw
them into the laundry hamper, and dug a pair of linen knickers out of
the back of the closet. I'm still wearing a thick cotton short-sleeve
jersey instead of long linen sleeves.

Perhaps I should put another layer of sunscreen on my arms.

Perhaps this ride will give me an idea I can make into a column. It
looks as though my schedule allows time to write it up.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

At one time, some brands of lip salve came in tiny round screw-top
boxes. This was handy in a New York winter; a Chapstick in my pocket
often got too hard to apply, but lip salve meant to be put on with a
fingertip could be rubbed until it thawed.

After my bottle of olive oil leaked all over my tool kit, I began to
carry a lip-salve box filled with Eucerin (original formula: almost
thick enough to slice) for cleaning my hands after fixing a flat.

I've stopped carrying a spare tube, but I still carry the sole
remaining lip-salve box; now it's filled with A&D ointment, and I
carry it in my pocket. A&D is better at cleaning and also heals
shallow injuries. And if it's in my pocket, I can use it to clean off
the chainwheel print when I change into walking shoes.

I ran through a lot of Subway napkins on Wednesday (5 July) -- I
unshipped my chain, among other things, but the chain dirt came off
with just the napkin.

--------------------------

I've seen clear-plastic boxes very like lip-salve boxes in
craftsy-waftsy stores (but not lately), and once I saw them at Sally's
Beauty Supply labeled "empty nail-art boxes".

"A + D Ointment" is a mixture of petrolatum (petroleum jelly),
lanolin, and cod-liver oil. Knock-offs usually add the word "vitamin"
and change "+" to "&" to avoid trade-mark infringement. The last tube
I bought went a step further: it changed the maroon background for
pinky orange, and called it "Vitamin A&D Diaper Rash Ointment".

Subway is a chain of fast-food restaurants; the name is a pun on
"submarine sandwich", which is customarily abbreviated to "sub". The
chain started in New York and until recently sported wallpaper that
was a map of the New York subway system. On my last visit (on
Wednesday), the menu still included one of the sandwiches that were
named after subway routes. It's a good place to get a nice big hunk
of bread.

---------------------------

I'm tempted to cross-post this to alt.usage.english -- I dithered so
over whether to say "unshipped" "shipped" or "re-shipped". The
incident was unshipping, but it was shipping that got my fingers
dirty.

On an international forum, I suspect that my best bet would be to get
wordy and say "I had to put my chain back on the chainwheel".

When I first heard the term, at least forty years ago, the speaker
elided the "un", and I heard "'shipped chain" as "shipped chain".
Considerable confusion until I looked it up.

--
Joy Beeson, U.S.A., mostly central Hoosier,
some Northern Indiana, Upstate New York, Florida, and Hawaii
joy beeson at comcast dot net http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/
The above message is a Usenet post.
I don't recall having given anyone permission to use it on a Web site.