Changing Tires

Last February when I was preparing for my cross-country bicycle trip, I decided to change my tires.  The tires I was using were fine–Performance Kevlar tires with about 1,500 miles on them.   But there had been some buzz in the emails that went back and forth among my soon-to-be companions about the best tires for the conditions we would encounter in the Southwest.  The consensus was that Continental’s Ultra Gatorskins was the way to go.  I decided that I could treat myself to a fresh set of tires, and so I replaced my tires with the Gatorskins.

There was something exhilarating about starting the voyage with new tires.  The Gatorskins were there when I dipped my rear tires in the Pacific Ocean, and carried me almost to the Mississippi River before the “flat tire day” when I got 4 (rear) flats and finally had to replace not only the tubes, but also the rear tire.  It had two half-inch gashes in it and clearly was not going to make it to the ferry.

But the front tire stuck with me to Florida, where we ceremoniously dipped our front tires in the Atlantic.  I continued to ride on the Gatorskins throughout the summer.  They went to the Fingerlakes for the Bon Ton Roulet in July and held up through the Blazing Saddles Century in August.  But last week, riding in Vermont with my friend Peggy, I noticed the tell-tale flattening of the curvature that indicates the end of the reliable life of bicycle tires.  It was time for a change.

So a couple of days ago, I changed back to my Performance Kevlars.  They had waited in the dark for all of these long months for their faithless owner to return and reclaim them.  Now they are reinstalled and eager to undertake the POMG 100/200 challenge in two weeks.  These tires, which cost far less than the Gatorskins, will undoubtedly carry me through the remainder of the riding season.

But the Ultra Gatorskin tire that saw me across the entire country, and then some, will always have a place in my heart.  It has been carefully packaged for posterity.  My fantasy is that someday, when my grandchildren are riding their own bikes across the country I’ll be able to pull it out to show them, and they will think that it is really cool.

A weekend with Grandchildren

There is a reason that they are called “grand” children.  These babies are so much more perfect in every way than I remember their parents being at this age.  Or at least, in those rare instances that they are being difficult, there is someone available to hand them off to.  This weekend we had the rare pleasure of having the babies visit (from Oregon and Maryland) at the same time.  The last time they were together, they were really too young to appreciate each other.  That has all changed.

Alden (who is two months older, and two pounds lighter) is much more sophisticated.  She is capable of carrying on conversations on the telephone.

And is training for the 2026 Olympics.

Ori prefers to remain on dry land, but, spurred on by cousinly competition, has agreed to train for the luge.

There was some sharing and some not sharing.

There were tasty treats, like cinnamon rolls.

And popsicles.

The adults had some odd ideas about what might be fun for the babies.

But generally the babies were good sports.

And, as grandparents, Dean and I just got to enjoy them.  I could get used to this.

Loving diesel

Three weeks ago, Dean and I bought a new car.  Ostensibly, it is my car.  In fact, of the 367 miles that we have put on it to date, the vast majority have been “his” miles.  The car is a Volkswagen Jetta Wagen, TDI.  That TDI stands for, I think, turbo-diesel injected.  Translation:  This car is going to get really good mileage. It is also beautiful.

One of the cool things about the display in the car is the DTE (distance to empty) indicator.  When we got the car, it registered 400.  As we drove it, the DTE number increased!  Our official odometer reading is now 367, and the DTE is reading (drumroll) 200!  I drive it very little, and I do a lot of coasting.  I am mezmerized by the display.  I know that eventually I will have to fill the tank, but getting “free miles” until then is pretty satisfying.

Mixed Marriage

Dean and I don’t always agree.

For instance, he is a night owl, while I am definitely a morning person.

Recently we had a disagreement about bicycles.  We both love to ride, and for a couple of years we have been researching  travel bikes.  These are bikes that are able to be packed in a standard suitcase.   (My desire for such a bike was recently reinforced when my beloved Trek was badly damaged by FedEx when I shipped it home from Florida.)   My investigations led me to Bike Friday, a company based in Eugene, Oregon, which is generally acknowledged to be the leader in packable performance bicycles.

I fell in love with the Pocket Rocket Pro Petite, and ordered one  custom built to my measurements.

This is what it looks like, except that mine is British Racing Green.

It is small and light, and I can take it apart and pack it in under 10 minutes.  It has excellent components, and it rides as well as my Trek.  If you have never seen a Friday before, you will probably be struck by the fact that it has small wheels. Honestly, you don’t notice it when you are on the bike, but Dean couldn’t get past it.

Instead, he decided to order a Bilenky. Bilenky is a real person.  This guy.

Dean went to his workshop, in a pretty sketchy part of Philadelphia, to order his bike.  It is  a custom-made steel bike with an S&S coupler connection.  The connection makes it possible to disassemble the bike and it just barely fits in a square (but still airline-compliant) suitcase.  However, it is MUCH more complicated to assemble and disassemble the bike.  More than I wanted to take on.  But Dean is delighted with it.

Given our experience in failing to agree on travel bicycles, I dreaded the negotiation that would be required to purchase our new car.  For a decade I have wanted to get a hybrid, and the last time (6 years ago) that Dean and I bought a car I got out-voted and we ended up with an Acura.  I began this round favoring the 2010 Prius and the new Honda Insight.  But then my son Alex suggested that I look at the Volkswagen TDI Jetta Sportwagen.

We began looking in December.  (Looking was complicated by the fact that all three of these cars are very popular, and hard to find.)  Eventually, (miraculously) Dean completed his “due dilligence”  and we agreed that the VW was  the car for us.

We took delivery last Thursday, and we are really pleased with our purchase.    We have driven the car 300 miles, and have barely made a dent in our first tank of diesel fuel.  Thanks, Volkswagen, for promoting  harmony in this mixed marriage.

1,000 hours

Counted cross-stitch embroidery is a very slow pastime.  To do it you have to pay  attention to sometimes-complicated graphs which indicate where to place the x’s, and what colors they should be, but it is basically mindless.  Since my work requires me to engage my brain for long hours at a time,   I have long been attracted to cross-stitch for its ability to induce a zen-like trance.

Hence, when I found a really cool cross-stitch project involving primary-colored dinosaurs, I enthusiastically began to work on what was to become my grandson’s first birthday present.  That was during college basketball season.  By March, when I left for my cross-country bike ride, I had finished about half of the embroidery.  My roommates on the trip were treated to updates each night as we settled into our quiet evening routines after an energetic day of riding.  I finished the bike ride before I finished the dinosaurs, and so I took it on our river cruise vacation in May.  Then I took it when I went to visit my family in Atlanta.  Ori’s birthday came and went, and I was almost done.

With the embroider finally finished, I set out to make it into a rainbow-bordered quilted wall hanging.  This is how it looks.

If you look closely, you can see that T-Rex is holding a sign that proclaims “Orin Rules!”

He definitely does.

Pizza on the Grill

My birthday was in April, and Dean decided to get me a Kindle 2.

I was away at the time, so he decided to “test” it.  He became addicted to  it, and so I never received it.   He felt guilty enough that he said that I could have anything I wanted.   I decided that what I really wanted for my birthday was a new gas grill.  My previous gas grill (15 years old–Alex assembled it for me when he was 8!) finally gave up last year, and I have really missed it.  I don’t like to have to plan far enough ahead to use charcoal.  After significant deliberation, I chose a Sears Kenmore 3 burner grill.  It is red, sturdy, and quite beautiful.  One could make burgers for a small army of grandchildren with this grill.

Andy has been visiting, and so she helped me pick it up.  We invited Meredith for dinner, and she got to help and assemble it.

We decided to inagurate the new grill by making wood-grilled pizza.  I made the dough and a salad, and then sat back while Andy and Mere did all the rest of the work.

The pizza turned out great!

I am very happy with my birthday present.  After all, you can’t eat a Kindle.  And now I don’t have to shop for Dean’s birthday.

Palatka, FL to St. Augustine, FL – 47 miles; 3,066 total miles.

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And now the great adventure has come to an end.

We rode, mostly in one big group, in perfect weather.  Thr route took us quickly out of Palatka and into beautiful country roads.  We wore our WomanTours jerseys and paused for a picture at the SAG.

We cruised along the St. John’s River on the way to the firestation where we were to meet for our official escort into St. Augustine.

It was another photo-op.

Finally, we lined up for our parade.

The police cars took us the last five miles, with their lights flashing and sirens going.  We rode through the historic district, which was filled with people.  They cheered!  It was pretty amazing.

Our escort took us all the way to the beach, where our families and friends were waiting.

We carried our bikes over the sand to the ocean, to dip our front tires into the Atlantic.  I couldn’t resist picking my bike up.

We posed for our official picture.

Peggy and I posed for our own picture.

And then we had a picnic to celebrate.

This has been the most incredible journey of my life.  I am deeply greatful for the opportunity that I have had to see the country in this very personal way.  I am honored to have made the journey with 22 of the most amazing women I have ever known.  It is hard to believe that we were strangers two short months ago,  because we have now formed friendships that will last the rest of our lives.  We have been warned that “re-entry” can be difficult.  I know that tomorrow when I wake up, I’ll be ready to say, “Hey, does anybody want to go for a bike ride?”

Sisters of the Southern Tier, let’s ride together soon.

High Springs, FL to Palatka, FL – 77 miles; 3,019 total miles

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We are really wrapping up now.

This morning Linda cooked us breakfast for the last time.  Tonight is the last installment of “roommate roulette.”  This is our last real riding day.  (Tomorrow is a largely ceremonial ride of only 46 miles.)

We are taking pictures of each other rather than of scenery.

Reeentry is not going to be so easy.   There is an exhileration that comes from facing and meeting a challenge.  We have been flooded with endorphins.  This is a high standard to apply to “real life.”

Partway into the ride this morning we crossed over I-75 and encountered, briefly, what I think of as “the real Florida.”

We reluctantly passed up the free oranges.

It was Carol’s last SAG day.

The “Three Musketeers” rode together, as usual.

The first 40 or so miles today were pretty nice.  We rode through an area of small farms, and the terrain featured rolling hills.  I finally got a picture of an irrigator.

To my great relief, we were not chaseed by any dogs.

After 40 miles, the route deterioriated.  We turned onto a highway with a bad road surface and lots of debris in the shoulder (when there was a shoulder.)  A few miles in, a lady pulled up next to us in a car and directed us to a bike path.  “Does it go to Palatka?” we asked.  “I think so” she replied.  Think turned out to be the operative word.  The bike path was lovely, but we did foour miles of “extra credit” before we realized that it did not, in fact, go to Palatka.  It was back to the highway.

The ride in was long, hot, and crowded.  Seven of us rode together and took turns at the front.  Of course, we had a significant headwind.  The 2009 tour will be remembered as “the year of the wind.”

Arriving was excellent.  Lots of family members who are attending the closing ceremonies tomorrow have arrived oday, and we had an enthusiastic cheering section as we turned into the hotel.  Even the hotel welcomed us.

The bee hanging from the sign was placed there by Peggy’s cousin Barb, who surprised her by coming down to cheer her in.  Connie knew that her husband was coming, but she was surprised by her younger daughter.

It’s getting very real now.

Perry, FL to High Springs, FL – 76 miles; 2,942 total miles

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Today was easier and more interesting than yesterday, because we seemed not as far from civilization.  We passed farms, and cows, and other signs of life.  Yesterday we might as well have been on the moon.  We also traversed an amazing corridor of wildflowers.  Sweet William is to Florida as the Bluebonnets are to Texas, to judge from today’s ride.  We passed acres of them, growing wild.

They ranged in color from pale lavender up to a bright red.

They were everywhere.

And after awhile, they started mixing with Black-eyed Susans in a spectacular display.

Of course, the disadvantage of being back in inhabited territory is that where there are people, there are dogs.  I had a dramatic encounter with a dog today from which, by sheer luck, I escaped without serious injury.  Peggy and I were riding along, and quite without warning two medium-sized dogs bounded after us, barking and snarling.  One of them was very fast, and cut around in front of me, lunging with open mouth towards my bike.  I instinctively turned the handlebar slightly and hit him from the side, rather than straight on.  He literally bounced off of my bike, and dropped back.  The other dog dropped back as well.  We pedaled fast, and were out of danger.  The kind of encounter that I had very frequently results in a downed rider.  Falling off of your bike in that situation can be more dangerous than a bite.  After hearing my story, several of my friends have told me of similar incidents in which the rider ended up with broken bones.  I feel very lucky!

Nancy was SAG today, and we met her shortly after the dogs,  heading back to warn the other riders. (The dogs had chased the group right in front of us, and they called her.)  Nancy spoke to the owner, and the dogs were brought in.  No one else was bothered.  I asked her to check on the dog’s condition, since I had not stayed around to find out if I had hurt him.  She said that he was limping.  Maybe he won’t chase so readily after this.

We crossed the Suwanee River today.  Of course, that called for several choruses of “Way, down upon the Suwanee River…”  We didn’t know all of the words, but we sang with great enthusiasm.

After crossing the river, we took a seven mile detour to go to Ichetucknee Springs.  It was beautiful, and the cool water felt great on a hot day.

We started by soaking our tired feet,

But then several brave women went swimming in their bike clothes.

We even had a little impromptu water ballet.

It was a great day for playing in the water.  Even the turtles thought so.  These felllows were resting on a log in the middle of the river that we crossed as we came into High Springs.

According to my calculations, we will pass 3,000 miles tomorrow.  However, one of my friends whose odometer is more reliable than mine, says that I am off (short) by 60 miles, and that we passed that milestone today.  In either case, WOW!

Wakulla Springs, FL to Perry, FL – 52 miles; 2,866 total miles

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Today, for the first time on this trip, I did not get a “biker tattoo.”  A biker tattoo is the greasy smear that cyclists get on their lower legs as a result of incidental contact with their chains.  My chain is currently too clean to produce the tattoo, because Laurey spontaneously cleaned my bike yesterday.

Team Hill Country posed for our official picture this morning.

I sort of messed up the picture by having the sleeves to my jacket on, but it was cold.  For about five minutes.  The day quickly warmed up, and the wind came up with the heat.    We are down to our last four riding days.  We were tired, and it was not easy to maintain a steady pace.  Remarkably, even Peggy was a bit cranky. (She had won an award at our variety show for her ready smile, and I had to threaten to rescind her certificate.)

We had nothing to distract us.  The road was flat, and straight.  We had two turns all day, so we couldn’t even stay engaged by paying attention to the cue sheet.  There were no convenience stores, no houses.  We didn’t even have the adrenaline rush of a good dog chase.

Nothing to look at but swamp.

Because of the swamp, there were bugs.  We got almost all of the way across the country without serious bug problems.  They finally set in in Alabama, and really arrived in Florida.  We can no longer sleep with our windows open, because the no-see-ums get through the screens.  The bugs swarmed us so badly today at SAG stops that we basically just slowed down long enough to fill our water bottles, and then kept going.

For once the highlight of the day was not on the ride, but rather at the Hampton Inn.  The hotel honored us with a reception that featured wine, cookies, and fresh strawberried with dipping chocolate.

The other highlight of the day is that I have done the LAST load of laundry that I need to do before the end.  We have three days to ride, and I have three pairs of bike shorts. These milestones are making the end seem real.