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

On Tue, 05 Sep 2017 11:40:44 +0000, Ivan Shmakov
wrote:

I saw no need to cool my drinks, even though the temperature
here in summer does reach 80-100 F. (One trip this summer,
the water felt almost hot. Never thought of it as an issue.)

My father was extremely opposed to chilled drinks while working hard
in hot weather -- but he did like for the water we brought to him to
be at well-bottom temperature.

I use chilled water as a hydration aid. When I've poured a quarter
bottle of melted ice, I'm strongly motivated to drink it up before it
gets warm. (Since I nearly always insulate one pannier with
newspapers, keeping chilled water cold is rarely extra trouble.)

But hot water from parking in the sun goes down too. Not too often,
since there is usually shade, or I take my bottle in with me. Once,
long ago and far away, I drank a bottle of water I'd drawn from a hose
that had been in the sun several hours -- not only well above ambient,
but stinky.

But I rejected[1] water from a drinking fountain that never stopped
running hot, and thereafter gave up refilling at that fountain even
though sporadic checks never again caught it above ambient. It's only
ten more minutes to a fountain that I'm *sure* is potable.

[1] I did fill my spare bottle in case the half-bottle didn't last
ten minutes, but I dumped it at the next stop.

Won't be long before I start putting bottles in the pannier to keep
them warm. I wore a long-sleeved T-shirt under my thicker cotton
jersey when I went to the grocery for cream cheese today, and it
wasn't quite enough.

Also found a small, thick sirloin steak in the quick sale bin, and
baked it an hour at three-fifty F after rubbing it with soybean oil,
with potatoes and vegetables seasoned with peanut oil in a separate
skillet. We both liked it very much; I ate the juicy gristle, he ate
the dry filets between the streaks of gristle.

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

Joy Beeson writes:

I thought that Ride+Walk Warsaw+WL was founded or inspired by the
League Against Bicycling, but perhaps I was wrong, or perhaps it has
been infiltrated by a cyclist. The following appeared on their
Facebook page:

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

Although legal to do in Warsaw -- except in the downtown business
district, riding your bike on the side walk is not recommended for
the following reasons: 1) Other road users are not expecting cyclists
on sidewalks, especially motorists crossing intersections and pulling
out of driveways and alleys. 2) Pedestrians are unpredictable and
may not be expecting you. 3) Uneven surfaces and blind corners can
create dangerous situations.

Consider this, if riding on one sidewalk in a typical neighborhood
block there may be 10 driveways which are essentially intersections
to be aware of -- but if you are on the street there is more
visibility and room to see a vehicle backing out onto the street.

If you do decide to ride on the sidewalk follow these
recommendations: 1) Ride very slowly -- at a walking pace. 2) By
law, you must follow all the road rules that apply to the parallel
road, including one-way riding, stop signs etc. etc. 3) Yield to all
pedestrians.

Where I live, the regulations explicitly permit riding on the
sidewalk (although that's probably a recent -- as in, this
decade -- change), yet only allow pedestrian crossings to be
traversed on foot. (Thus if you don't like having to get off
the bike at every intersection, you take the road proper.)
Which I suppose covers the "motorists crossing intersections"
part above.

I'm also unsure about "road rules that apply to the parallel road"
around here, but otherwise the above sounds like a sane advice.

[...]

--
FSF associate member #7257 np. A Tiny Spaceship's Final Mission -- FantomenK

Went to a birthday party today and don't feel like writing.

And I did no riding to speak of this week.

I went to the Farmer's Market on Wednesday because I knew I wouldn't
be able to buy tomatoes today (I did steal one from the offerings at
the party). On the way back, I was overtaken by a school bus that
didn't get over any because I was foolish enough to be riding in a
bike lane, and realized that I'd gotten over my big yellow slab phobia
-- perhaps that dates back to the day I remembered what had brought it
on; I should write a detailed account of it in my training diary.

Then I yielded to the temptation to go into International Foods --
didn't find anything I wanted that I hadn't already bought -- stayed
too long, and got rained on on the way back. Not wet enough to need
to change clothes, the weather wasn't dangerously cold for an active
person who wouldn't be out in it long, and I'm sure that sprinting the
full length of the village did me some good.

The ten-day prediction had said that yesterday would be the only dry
day this week, so I planned to devil the eggs Thursday night and go
for a long ride on Friday. Couldn't think of anywhere to go, and
finally decided to check out the progress of the new Aldi, look at the
roundabout to see whether there were signs that Husky Trail would open
soon, then wander around on my way to the soon-to-be-former Aldi.
(Hope they have a buyer to put in something as good as the Big R that
replaced Walmart; not being able to stop at Aldi in sprawlmart will
mess up most of my exercise routines.)

Thursday night I felt tired and boiling eggs seemed like an
intellectual challenge and besides we didn't have any cream cheese. So
I decided on a straight dash to Aldi and back, and devil eggs right
after nap time.

Upon rising, I discovered that the dry day had been postponed to
today, and said "hey, Owen's (Kroger) sells cream cheese". The
probability of rain was dropping rapidly, so I fiddle-faddled around
until ten o'clock or so, rode 1.6 miles, enjoyed lovely weather coming
back again, and had lunch and a nap. I'd found a thick sirloin in the
WooHoo bin, so I first cut up vegetables to bake in a smallest skillet
while the steak baked in the second smallest, and then devilled the
eggs while dinner was baking. DH says that he wants his steaks baked
instead of pan-broiled from now on.

And today I spent two hours sitting in a car, three or four feeding my
face, and another two hours sitting in the car.

But I'll walk for a mile tomorrow and, if I remember, climb some
stairs.

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

On Sat, 09 Sep 2017 23:45:54 -0300, Joy Beeson
wrote:

But I'll walk for a mile tomorrow and, if I remember, climb some
stairs.

Climbed both flights, one of them twice. Considered walking home the
long way, but I was hungry, so I turned back at The Hillside
Amphitheatre

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

..

Laundry on Monday. I think it was Tuesday I rode to the nearest
grocery store to buy a dozen-and-a-half eggs. Devilled eighteen eggs
yesterday. Should have bought them a few days sooner; they were hard
to peel.

Drove the car to a funeral parlor on Wednesday, walked a mile on
Thursday, and added a contretemps to my sewing log on Friday.

Four hours as a passenger in the car today. I don't get that sore on
the bicycle. (Don't eat that much steak and birthday cake, either.)

There's a discussion of bike safety on alt.usage.english, under "Dutch
Reach"

Glimpsed two sections of the Nickel-Plate Rail Trail, one on each
Saturday; didn't see any sign of people using either section.
Thirty-eight miles would be a bit of an achievement on a BSO.

--
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.

I change my flats with a cell phone these days -- I'm playing these
gray hairs for all they're worth -- but this tip is still good for
young whippersnappers:

When you take the valve cap off, put it into your pocket. If you
forget to put it back on, at least you'll have it with you.

The same precaution applies to anything small enough to be lost or
forgotten.

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

The deadline for the Beeson Banner is today, so I won't be writing
anything tonight.

While getting dressed for a figure-eight tour (Farmers' Markets in the
morning, Sprawlmart loop after my nap) I heard the scanner report a
ten-fifty, car versus bike on Old 30. Heard same report a couple of
weeks ago and the rider is still in the hospital. (Details very
approximate; check Ink Free News. Where details will be exact, but
sparse and vague.)

And as I was putting my cell phone in my pocket, I heard the officer
on the scene report "very minor property damage to the bike. They
have exchanged information to get the handlebar repaired. I'll be ten
eight from citizen's assist."

What struck me was that the incident had been changed from "ten fifty"
to "citizen's assist" -- this crash will not show up in any data base.

I wish Gary Nieter had been on the scene so that I could find out how
they came to collide and cause very minor damage. But very minor
damage probably wouldn't have created a dramatic photo op.

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

It's obvious that emergency services would be an early adopter of
systems like "Find My Device". I just heard evidence; while dressing
after my nap, I heard someone say "can you see my location on your
map?" and the reply was "they're about seven hundred feet from you".
Who "they" is and why they want to find them hadn't transpired yet,
but they care very much whose property the trail goes through.

And while I was typing that I heard "juveniles" and "dirt bikes" and
"they are on private property; you can probably signal nine."

Opened this to say "do as I say, not as I do" As I left Owen's, I
felt my left heel hitting something. When I stopped to investigate, I
found a dangling bungee. Luckily, it was dangling down the middle of
the pannier and was in little danger of hitting the spokes. Maybe
that's a do-as-I-do: the default position for a bungee is fastened by
its middle to the middle joint of a pannier. But that's so I can
create a bungee lid on the pannier, not for safety.

Anyhow, before mounting up again I put my hand on the saddle and gave
the bike a firm shake to make sure nothing else was loose.

There's many a time I wished I was in the habit of shaking the bike
just before every mount, not just when I've put a bunch of stuff in my
panniers.

also had something else to discuss, but have forgotten what

Two of those paragraphs were typed this morning before I left, three
were expanded from notes tonight, and the sixth is a note that I can't
expand.

I was cripping around with a hip pain while getting dressed after my
nap. I can remember when a pain like that would ground me until it
healed, for fear of doing permanent damage. Now I just say "eh, it
will loosen up once I start moving" and it didn't hurt at all while I
was riding, but is threatening to come back if I sit at the keyboard
too long.

This is the last time I I'll go to Aldi on the Sprawlmart tour. To
get a few extra miles, I came back by way of the site of the new
store, which appears to be all set to open on Monday. Has more than
twice as many carts as the old store, so they must expect the new
location to get more traffic, but it's much harder to get to for me.
At a minimum, it's on the wrong side of US 30. And the shortest route
goes through Kroger's parking lot.

I was looking at the map a few days ago and was struck by inspiration:
DuPuy won't let people without cards come in the back door, but they
don't mind at all who goes out that way, so today I cut through the
campus. But even though the road I followed went around the edge, I
saw signs that prowling about the property was quite rude, and I was
probably distracting the security people. So I'll have to continue
going half a mile southeast on 30, six tenths of a mile north on 250
E, and a quarter mile west on Old 30.

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

While cutting down some trees that my lopping shears could almost
handle, I was reminded of why a cable or chain shouldn't be allowed to
droop: if the cable is low enough that a thief can put the jaws of a
bolt cutter on it with one handle braced against the pavement, he can
use both hands or a foot on the other handle.

Also note that your bike is no more secure than the object you have
secured to. If a thief could throw your bike into his truck signpost
and all, or if your Kryptonite lock secures you to the thin wires of a
cattle fence, your bike isn't locked at all.

When we lived in upstate New York, I favored mail boxes as parking
places -- they tend to be very firmly secured, and thieves have
learned not to be caught messing with the U.S. Mail.

Mailboxes are scarcer here, but I lock up only when parking at the
library, where thieves come looking for bikes, and when I intend to go
inside and stay for a while. (My dentist installed a bike rack just
for me after I mentioned that I'd been coming so long that my cable no
longer reached around the tree I'd been using. He also had a younger
tree, but this spot is under his portico.)

There is much discussion about the efficiency of different locks. And
it does matter: this morning (5 October 2017) I was looking for
pedal-powered grocery carts (found one pie-in-the-sky patent
application) when I found a "wonderful" bike lock which consisted of a
string that went through the front wheel from one handlebar plug to
the other.

Chain, cable, U-Lock? Once a U-lock fan tried to convince me that my
cable was inadequate. I replied "how do I secure a U-lock to a
telephone pole?" He said it was easy -- just put a cable around the
pole!

Me, I favor a cable because it rolls up and stays rolled, can be
locked to the outside of a pannier, will attach to whatever
well-secured object I find, and is easy to thread through both wheels
and the frame. There are probably harder-to-cut cables or chains on
the market, but I ride a bike so old* and beat-up that I once came out
of a grocery store to find a five-dollar bill** clipped to the
handlebars. So my best protection is the shiny new toy bikes all over
the place.


*exactly once, I encountered a bystander who recognized it as an
antique.

**(On the way home, I stopped at a church that was raising money for
an impoverished family, and stuck the bill and a note to the
secretary's door.)

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

I always have at least one pencil on my person. Aside from the
frequent need to take notes, a pencil point makes short work of jammed
knots in plastic bags.

For the rare occasions when that doesn't work -- or I can't be
bothered -- I also carry two pairs of scissors: one in my wallet and
one on my key chain. But I don't recall ever cutting a bag off except
in the garage, with the scissors we keep on the cupboard next to the
freezer,

Where there is also a pencil and a basket of clothespins.

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