Friday's Trolley Lane Obstruction: Ride the Ducks

This monstrosity is DUKW amphibious landing vehicle from World War 2, fixed up to haul ignorant fat-asses around the harbor. Some moron in city hall gave them a permit to park in the trolley lane so nobody else can use it.



Here are the jerks who think making money hauling fat-asses around the Inner Harbor justifies denying use of the trolley lane to everyone else.

Scofflaw Jerk Cab Driver for Thursday

I'm taking this week off work to do work around the house. Since I was productive yesterday, I did an evening bike ride. As usual, the trolley lane was blocked by an illegally stopped cab.



The cab driver exults in his selfish, hog-like behavior.

Aquariums must go.

Due to impending dramatic life changes, my days keeping aquariums must end.

Here's a link to my aquariums at their best.

Here's a link to a description of all the fishtanks, fish, plants, and equipment.

If anyone reading this wants any of the aquarium stuff, e-mail me with an offer. If nobody offers more in a week, it's yours. Whatever's left at the end of June is going to the landfill.

Camera Found - 400k Pictures!

I was cleaning out my panniers tonight from the 400k, and I found my camera! It had burrowed into my food bag and was hiding under some Goo packs and Luna bars.

My new camera is much nicer anyway. It's always good to have a spare camera, though.

Now I have pictures to go with the descriptions from memory in the 400k report.

Imaginary description:
picture of the "campsite". Interior of Debra's Element seen from the passenger side rear looking forward. privacy curtains hang over the windows. The passenger side front and rear seats are folded into a cot with a lumpy sleeping bag on it. Clothes are strewn about and draped over my recumbent bike, which occupies the driver's side of the rear of the E.

Actual picture:


Imaginary description:
all black picture with a constellation of red, orange, and yellow lights, caused by the camera flash reflecting from everyones taillights, arm and leg bands, vests, and stick-on tape. If you look really hard you might see dim silouhettes of people on bikes.

Actual picture:


Imaginary description:
picture of an attractive restored Victorian storefront with a bunch of bikes leaning against it. A couple sweaty bikers are loitering around fiddling with stuff in their trunk racks. If you look through the window of the sweet shop, you can see more sweaty bikers sitting at tables stuffing their faces with sticky buns and muffins.

Actual picture:


Imaginary description:
picture of gas pumps with a crappy 1980s Pontiac LeMans with West Virginia plates getting filled up. In background is a convenience store with the garish red and yellow Sheetz awning on top.

Actual picture:


Imaginary description:
picture of a big stone wall about 20 feet high.

Actual picture:


Imaginary description:
picture of a very old two-story building. A bunch of bikes are leaning on picnic tables out front. People are milling about in period costumes from the frontier days. Unfortunately, none of them are semi-naked native Americans or hairy French trappers. (They need to be more creative in these historical reproductions, I say.) A big fat jerk is sitting on the porch smoking a cigar and polluting the air that everyone is breathing with cancerous death fumes.

Actual picture:


There was no imaginary description for this one, because I forgot I had taken it. This is a picture of what "Out of Water" looks like.



Imaginary description:
picture of a pizza joint in an old storefront. Down the street are a bunch more similar storefronts. There are bikes leaning all over.

Actual picture:


Imaginary description:
picture of narrow road through forest that appears to be flat.

Actual picture:


Clearly my imaginary pictures are better than my actual pictures.

Bike Ride Report - 400k Brevet

Saturday, I rode the DC Randonneurs 400k Brevet.



It took me 20 hours and 48 minutes, to go 251 miles. The ride started at 4:00 am.

For me, the body holds up OK, but the mind goes. I do stuff like forget to zip up my pannier when I leave the convenience store. My camera is somewhere between Arendtsville, PA and the point outside Thurmont, MD where you have to flip over the cue sheet. That's where I realized the pannier was hanging open and there was no camera.

So thanks to my fellow Randonneur Bill Beck, who let me photograph myself with his camera and mailing me the picture.

I'm going to make do for this blog entry with no pictures. I'll just pretend there are pictures and describe them in words.

picture of the "campsite". Interior of Debra's Element seen from the passenger side rear looking forward. privacy curtains hang over the windows. The passenger side front and rear seats are folded into a cot with a lumpy sleeping bag on it. Clothes are strewn about and draped over my recumbent bike, which occupies the driver's side of the rear of the E.

I slept in the back of Debra's Element, as usual. No problems with the police this time, since I avoided parking lots, and parked on the street in a little residential neighborhood across the street from the Holiday Inn, behind the Red Horse restaurant. It was cozy and quiet.

Here are the intrepid 400k riders, at 4:00 am, about to leave from the Frederick, MD Holiday Inn parking lot.

all black picture with a constellation of red, orange, and yellow lights, caused by the camera flash reflecting from everyones taillights, arm and leg bands, vests, and stick-on tape. If you look really hard you might see dim silouhettes of people on bikes.

It was raining lightly when we left, but it soon cleared up, and the day turned out to be beautiful, with temperatures in the 60s. There was a very strong wind from the west in the afternoon.

The route headed south from Frederick, across the Potomoc into Virginia at Point of Rocks, to Airmont. It was flat and speedy, easy cruising as the sun came up. After Airmont, the route turns east and you climb up to Bluemont and over Snickers Gap. Then there is a screaming descent to the Shenandoah river. I hit an all-time speed record on the Royale of 42 mph. I was riding the brakes. I am a big chicken on high speed descents. My all-time high speed on the T-Bone is 48 mph.

After the Shenandoah, you turn north and go through West Virginia to Shephardstown. This leg is also flat and smooth sailing. I was having fantasy visions about how early I was going to finish because I was making such great time.

I've never been to Shepherdstown before. It's gorgeous. It's really old and historic. It has a great downtown with lots of interesting shops.

Here is a picture of the Shepherdstown control, conveniently located in a pastry shop.

picture of an attractive restored Victorian storefront with a bunch of bikes leaning against it. A couple sweaty bikers are loitering around fiddling with stuff in their trunk racks. If you look through the window of the sweet shop, you can see more sweaty bikers sitting at tables stuffing their faces with sticky buns and muffins.

I passed on the pastries, because I knew there was a Sheetz just a short way ahead in Williamsport.

picture of gas pumps with a crappy 1980s Pontiac LeMans with West Virginia plates getting filled up. In background is a convenience store with the garish red and yellow Sheetz awning on top.

Sheetz. Fuel. Yum.

picture of sleek, low, carbon fiber recumbent leaning on picnic table in park. Sheetz in background. On top of picnic table is a quart of Gatorade in the most unnatural color available, a hot ham and swiss soft pretzel sandwich, and a big bowl of macaroni and cheese.

After Williamsport, the hills start. The route goes along the Potomoc, in and out of a bunch of valleys to Fort Frederick State Park.

Fort Frederick is cool. It's from the French and Indian War, built to guard the frontier from the savages.

picture of a big stone wall about 20 feet high.

The control was in the gift shop across from the fort.

picture of a very old two-story building. A bunch of bikes are leaning on picnic tables out front. People are milling about in period costumes from the frontier days. Unfortunately, none of them are semi-naked native Americans or hairy French trappers. (They need to be more creative in these historical reproductions, I say.) A big fat jerk is sitting on the porch smoking a cigar and polluting the air that everyone is breathing with cancerous death fumes.

From Fort Frederick, the road heads north into some hills past Whitetail Ski Resort and Indian Springs. It's very scenic, but you have a little steep pass to climb to get to Pennsylvania. You come screaming down the other side and emerge into a broad valley with a howling crosswind.

Here comes the big surprise challenge. At Mercersburg, I discovered I was low on water. There is no convenience store in Mercersburg, just a pizza shop. But according to the cue sheet, there is a store about 10 miles ahead. I decided to press on and have a snack and a Gatorade at that store, and refill water there.

The store was closed.

The next store was the control at Pino's Pizza in Newville in 30 miles.

I rode it. It was flat, and there was a tailwind. That's a long way with no water, though. I was pretty parched when I got to Pino's. And I wasn't the only one who arrived at Pino's thirsty, either.

picture of a pizza joint in an old storefront. Down the street are a bunch more similar storefronts. There are bikes leaning all over.

It turned out just fine. I had a couple pizza slices and a couple bottles of water and I was refreshed and ready to go. And filled with dread, because the biggest climb of the ride was coming up: Big Flat.

I had some discussion about this with my fellow Randonneurs at Pino's. Ed and Mary, for example, said there was no big climb, and the route did not go over Big Flat because all the construction made the descent to dangerous, especially if it was dark. But I had mapped the route beforehand, and I was pretty sure that while the route did not go quite all the way up to Big Flat, it went almost to the top, and while it didn't go up the absolute steepest part by the top, it still went up a great deal, and it was not going to be easy coming 190 miles into the ride.

It was about 5:30 at this point. I was hoping to get over whatever the climb was and down the other side before dark.

As it happens, there is a double peak, and the last parts before the peaks are very steep, but most of the time you riding up a valley alonside a stream. It's kind of a soul-crusher, because the road climbs steadily and evenly, and it looks flat.

picture of narrow road through forest that appears to be flat.

But I could only go about 8-10 miles an hour. And the sun kept going down. Was I climbing, or just really, really weak from going 40 miles with no water?

It was climbing. I got down the other side into Arendtsville right as it was getting dark and cold. I had a Gatorade, and put a couple layers and set up the lights and reflective bits. Forty miles to go!

After Arendtsville, the route goes into the Gettysburg battlefield. I missed the unmarked turn onto a nearly invisible side road, and went down a hill, over bad railroad tracks, and almost into town before I realized something was up, and I had to go back up the hill.

At the Gettysburg control, I started riding with Bill Beck, who followed me the rest of the way in. This was very helpful, because twice the light made it much easier to deal with the occasional unstriped roads.

We got in just before 1:00 am, and I was sound asleep in the back of the Element by 1:30.

All in all, this was a very scenic and excellent ride. I recorded something like 16000 feet of climb on the ever-generous Garmin GPS.

Here the track of the route as recorded by the GPS. Click to enlarge.


Here's a link to the ride on MotionBased.

I just tried downloading the MotionBased record and viewing it in Google Earth, which you have to download and install. THIS IS INCREDIBLY COOL!

Bike Ride Report - Mother of All 300k Brevets

Saturday was the DC Randonneurs "Mother of All 300K Brevets." Here I am at the finish, 17 hours and 22 minutes from the start.



This was a tough one. My always generous Garmin eTrex measured 15551 feet of climb over 192 miles.

I have declared May to be "Bike to Work Month". So my goal is to ride my bike to work every day in May, at least in one direction. I haven't missed a day yet.

But my ambition to have a 90 speed bike (see the Bicycle Insanity entry) made me pretty tired for this brevet. First, I was up late a couple nights putting the DualDrive hub on. Then I had to test it by riding up Gun Road on the way home to make sure it was OK. I was pretty stiff and sore Friday.

I left work early on Friday so I would get a good night's sleep in the Big OE (Debra's Element). Since I parked on the side of the road in a residential neighborhood a couple blocks from the start, I put up the privacy curtains.



I left them up when I was doing the ride, and then slept in there last night as well.

Here's the scene from the first control, in Lost River, West Virginia. I had some French toast for breakfast there. The pies looked awful good, but I was full after French toast.



This was at mile 55, after about 5500 feet of climbing over Wolf Gap and another mountain to get into the Lost River valley. I have trouble eating a lot while riding.

Here is the store in Kirby, WV. I gather there are no more than 16 households in Kirby.



The terrain here is ridge and valley. The route goes along several valleys. You are always following a stream uphill until it starts, then you have to climb over a little pass, then you start following the next stream downstream. The route has three of these between Lost River and US 50 near Romney.

At US 50, there is a big climb out of the valley, and then you ride a ridge to Points. I think picture is on top of the ridge a couple miles after you leave 50, but I could be mistaken.

I didn't take many pictures for awhile after this, because I was very afraid of going down from Wolf Gap in the dark. But I made it with about an hour of daylight remaining.



Other highlights of the ride were the store and pizza shop in Slanesville. Outside the store are picnic tables, where the local guys gather to shoot the breeze and tell jokes. They were very inspired by my bike.

Inside the pizza place appeared to be run completely by three teenage girls. I had a pizza for dinner, and I got to eavesdrop on their conversation. Actual dialog:

"Britney, your grandma called."
"What'd she want?"
"A pizza."

There was one memorable part after the return over Wolf Gap: Minebank Road. It was completely dark by when I got to Minebank Road. Minebank Road is twisty, narrow, hilly, deserted, and utterly without road stripes. It was about five miles of crawling along wondering where the edge of the road was. Matt Settle, who made the route, said there's lots of roads like that in France. What a horror show.

Here's the route in all its spectacular scenic mountainous glory.

Bicycle Insanity

I have elevated my goofy bike to a new level of insanity. The bike is a Cobrabikes Royale front wheel drive carbon fiber recumbent with 20" wheels.

Look, there's a barcon shifter mounted to a Paul's Thumbie on the left for the "rear" derailleur.
And a barcon shifter mounted to a Thumbie on the right for the front derailleur.
And a twist grip on the right???



Yep, here's the explanation. A SRAM DualDrive hub with three internal gears.



And a 10 speed Dura-ace cassette on the DualDrive.



With my nice new SRAM X.0 derailleur.



Which gives me a 90 Speed Bike!!!

The DualDrive wheel adds 2 llbs over the weight of the previous wheel, according to Debra's baking scale. That's only a half ounce per new gear!

Seriously, what I get from this is a wider gear range, and much easier shifting on the front derailleur. I used to have 26/44/63 chainrings up front, which barely shifted. That gave me 17 to 105 gear inches.

According to Sheldon, here is what I have now:




13 to 122 gear inches! I rode it home from work today, and went up Gun Road as a test. It was so cushy. I spun up the 20% grade, in the next to lowest gear. It was slow, but not in the least painful.

And I bet I have the only 90 speed bike in town.

Oh yeah, here's today's jerk cab driver illegally parked in the trolley lane.

Scenic Route Home plus Today's Jerk Cab Driver

I had a good ride home today. I am very scared by the "Mother of All 300k Brevets" coming up next weekend. I did this ride last year and it was so hilly that half the riders finished with less than half an hour to go, and the Gordon the Regional Brevet Administrator set out in his car with boxes of bananas to see where everyone went. It's the same route this year, but with 1000 more feet of climbing.

Anyway, I decided to alter my route home to go up Gun Road. Most people are unaware of Gun Road. What you do is you take River Road out of the old part of Elkridge, go under the Thomas Viaduct, past Lawyers' Hill Road, and into Patapsco Valley State Park. After a half mile or so, there is a bridge across the river to the road that goes out to the main entrance on Route 1. Instead of turning down that road, you go straight to where the gate permananently closes the road at the railroad tracks. You carry your bike over the gate and across the tracks and over the gate on the other side. Now you are on Gun Road. Now you ride up 300 feet on a 20% grade.

This changes my 21 mile commute with 900 feet of climb to a 23 mile commute with 1250 feet of climb. But I can do my normal route in the big chainring because it's all rollers. You get to visit with Grandma on Gun Road.

The Trolley Lane was all clear this evening except for one jerk cab driver in front of the ESPNZone.

Bike Ride Report - Maryland 300k Brevet

Saturday was the DC Randonneurs Maryland 300K Brevet



As you can see, I got in just before dark. It took me 15:30 to go 187 miles.

This means you have to get going well before sunup.



As usual, I slept in Debra's Element the night before. I don't generally sleep in the Element in the motel parking lot where the Brevet starts. This time I slept in the movie theater parking lot next door. I got there about 10 PM on Friday night, and the theater was dark and the lot was empty. I went way to the back and went to sleep.

About 11 PM the bright light was shining in the window and the diligent young police officer was rapping on the glass. After he determined I was just sleeping he let me stay. He suggested I should ask permission from the movie theater first. "But they were closed," I babbled incoherently.

For the next half hour I was kept awake by the police officer hanging out with a bunch of girls at the other end of the parking lot. They appeared to be his friends. I seem to have inadvertently parked in the deserted lot where the police like to hide when they don't feel like working.

Anyway, here is the whole mob of randonneurs ready to set out at 5:00 AM sharp.



Somebody hollered "You're going the wrong way."
I hollered back "It probably won't be the first time."

The sun soon came up on a beautiful day. The forecast said chance of rain, but it turned out to be 60s and 70s all day with puffy white clouds. It cleared up in the afternoon, and a strong wind from the northwest came up. By that time, the road was mostly soutwest, so no biggie.

Here is the scene from outside the eagerly anticipated ORF on the climb up Maryland 77 in Catoctin Mountain Park. (ORF is "Outdoor Restroom Facility" on the cue sheet. Personally, I would call it a Porta-Potty, and abbreviate it "PP".) This is halfway up the first big climb.



Here is the scene from the top of the mountain at the secret control on Foxville-Deerfield Road. This is the start of the payback.



It's nice that you could still keep climbing some more if you wanted too. This is Foxville Church Road. Presumably that's Foxville Church in the picture.



Just after crossing the state line into Pennsylvania, there is a covered bridge at the bottom of a big hill. There is a traffic light since the bridge is one-way. I always wind up taking a picture of this bridge, because I always get the red light.



The highlight of this ride was definitely "Big Flat". Big Flat is indeed big and flat. It's the big, flat top of the very tall mountain with very steep sides.

This is looking down from the easy part of the climb up Big Flat. This is where I had to shed all unnecessary layers of clothes.



The road continues upwards through apple and peach orchards to a false peak. Then it goes up a whole bunch more that is even steeper. Over 20% for a quarter mile or so, according to my GPS.



There is a five mile coast down the other side into Shippenburg, PA, where my reward awaited in the form of Sheetz mac and cheese and a hot ham pretzel sandwich.

Shippensburg is in a wide, flat valley. The route takes you west of I-81 and north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76) for awhile. I've never been up there before. It's very scenic. There are a lot of Amish farms.

The limit of the route to the norther was Blosserville, PA. It seems the only store in town closed, so they had to make a "Question Control". You had to get the phone number and hours of operation from the sign on this garage. I took a picture in case my handwriting was illegible on the control card.



There was a little boy playing with toy cars in the garage parking lot. Next to him was a refrigerator-sized cardboard box with a door and windows cut into it and "Taylor's Clubhouse" written on the side in magic marker.

There was one more big climb. I got to sit and look at the mountain for a good while waiting for the train to go by.




I got to the last control, Rocco's pizza in East Berlin, PA, at about 2:20. I took a break and had a couple pizza slices. I was out of there by 3:00, and I decided to see if I could get to the end in Frederick before dark. That was 60 miles. I just made it. I got in at 8:20. There wasn't a lot of climbing for the last part.

Here's the map with the track as recorded by my GPS.

Bike Lane or Fed Ex Parking?

Today was an absolutely gorgeous day to ride my bike to work. As I was riding along the Trolley Lane, a police in a golf-cart like buggy pulled out behind me.

I was pretty happy about this, I figured there would be some enforcement of the NO STOPPING signs.

Right in front of the Pratt Street Pavillion, there was a car parked in the Trolley Lane. I stopped right behind him, and started fishing my camera out of the pannier. The police stopped right behind me, and tooted his horn. The car pulled away before I could get a picture.

Next was this Fed Ex truck.



There was nobody in the cab. The police went around it without doing anything.

Up the road aways was a cab illegally stopped in front of the ESPN Zone. The police pulled behind him and tooted his horn. The cab pulled away.

I wanted to stop the police and ask why he didn't write some tickets. Tooting the horn is not exactly a deterrent for next time. And as you can see, the Fed Ex truck is parked right next to a NO STOPPING sign. But the police golf cart buggy was nowhere to be found by the time I got to the ESPN Zone.

The real problem here is the police do not do any work.