i'm just consistently inconsistent

so saturday i had an interesting day au vélodrome, as it were. a coworker had been keen on going out there because time trials were scheduled, and he was interested in seeing how well he could do, having previously only timed himself, clumsily at best, on a visit to the major taylor ‘drome in indianapolis. this person is a more fiendish cyclist than your correspondent, being the type to race crits locally (cat 5, i believe), head to france to follow the tour and then knock off a six-gap century. there is a new baby in his household (their first) that has had an impact on his training schedule. but still, he wanted to go out to the track, and i was more than willing to come along, being not a little curious as to where my own benchmarks may lie.

it was hot, and well-attended, and generally good fun. i will now take this opportunity to prove, once and for all, that i do not boast in this space, by cheerfully posting my times:

flying 200: 14.76
500: 43.34
3K: 4:52.65

not really what i expected. but actually what did i expect? for some reason i had been really hoping i could somehow break 14 seconds on that flying 200; the others were just things my friend wanted to get times for. so naturally i was a bit disappointed, but i could see right away where i failed, strategically, in the 200: i did not work up to something nearly top speed coming into turn four (which is what the big dogs were doing, later), and i did not have a good line in turn two, coming up over the red line briefly, but easily enough to lose a tenth of a second or even more. also, i could have been turning a bigger gear than 48:16 (which is something short of 80 inches with those 22 mm sewups). so that gives me something to think about, and to work on, and i hope to be able to get timed again later this summer and get closer to 14 seconds, and maybe even below.

the 500 and 3000 meter trials were standing starts, which was a new experience for me, being held in place, wheels chocked and then unchocked, and the countdown and the length of pipe struck and the clang resounding and being let go and mashing away frantically, trying to get enough speed entering the first turn to not fucking fall over on those 44° banks. the 3000 was run as a pursuit, and i was thankfully paired with my companion who did catch me with a lap and a half to go (15 laps total, on the 200 meter track), which helped me turn it on just a bit, although there is some risk in catching up because the rider in front gets to hold his line, down there on the black, and if you want to pass you have to come up and if you’re in the turn you lose radius and are going uphill. but i guess that’s what racing is really like.

anyway it was exhilarating, highly so in fact, and worth the effort. the scene at walden is pretty cool for the most part. as the morning “new rider” class was wrapping up (my friend hadn’t been there for a few years and wanted the opportunity to regain the feel for the close corners, which i welcomed also) and the serious racers began to arrive, and whip out their gear and their rollers and their general attitude, i started to get somewhat of a jock vibe, an unpleasant memory of the teen years and that whole conflict, completely fake in retrospect but as real as anything when you are living through it as an adolescent, and i felt just slightly like a fish out of water, or perhaps simply a fish in an ill-fitting pond, but really it was okay because everybody there is friendly enough and very welcoming for the most part; there is just a different personality type that tends to predominate where athletics are the focus. there is the kid with braces who chortles about the 92-inch gear he’s going to use for the flying 200, and i can’t help rolling my eyes, but then he clocks 12.38 and i’m thinking well okay, i can’t do that; the kid is fast (his 1K was just under 1:15). i read elsewhere of conflicts at northbrook outside chicago (not physical conflicts but just weird energy) between various groups, for example the more self-styled serious trackies holding in disregard the alt-culture “bikeforums” types (to whom, it must be said, i am closer to in spirit although i am undoubtedly as much a stranger to them as anybody else); like being in high school all over again. but the mike walden velodrome is just too small for that: we were all crammed into that infield together, hiding from the blistering sun under the tents and swapping wrenches and chain whips among each other. so i was pretty comfortable being there, considering that, on paper at least, i didn’t really belong.

in memoriam

number one with a bullet

well the night before last we saw a highly condensed version of "the music man", staged by the fifth grade class of the nearby school where cicadashell junior (the younger) attends. brief, and charming, especially the opening scene which came off the best, we thought. there is a smattering of talent in that class, along with the usual mixture of strangled incomprehension and fear you get with 10-11 year olds. the younger son was comfortable in his small speaking parts.

what was striking, however, was afterward when the afterglow-go-out-for-iced-cream plans were unfolding (at that time, both ms. cicadashell and the older son retreated to our house to watch "24"). the younger son convinced his good friend (a budding thespian who played the role of professor hill) to come along, and there was another kid who got in on it as well. but then a fourth boy, who could be described as "unpopular", invited himself along as well, which prompted the younger son to make furtive gestures to me to the effect of "no don't let him", which i of course ignored. so then the younger son decides to ride with his friend, and there i am taking two boys whom i do not know especially well down to washtenaw dairy, ostensibly to have iced cream with my son, who is coming along a little later, with another family. of course these boys have no problem with this, so why should i? really the problem i had was the 11-year-old boys' concept of a social pecking order, and who is cool, and who is not. the one boy, who does have a well-earned reputation as a discipline problem, was actually quite interesting to listen to in the car, and to shepherd through the iced-cream-cone-buying process. it seemed clear enough that he has a million things racing through his mind constantly, and that sorting them all out in a way that affords smooth interaction with his peers, or adults for that matter, is something of a challenge. there were no issues or incidents, at washtenaw dairy or on the way home with this boy and the younger son, whom i was able to convince to ride with me because, after all, it waasn't out of my way to take him home; we live together. but there was something touching about dropping this other boy off at his house and watching him just run like the dickens through the carport and around to some back door, just a bundle of energy and not having any apparent problem with the world, despite the world's excess of attitude. the only real downside was that the younger son popped his fall out buy cd into the player, and now i've "sugar we're goin' down" stuck in my head. sub-optimal...


everything has looked up today, however, since i finally got that pesky FEQ model of the lower river des peres to behave. i had made numerous adjustments to the number of nodes, to slopes (to do away with transitions), to cross section approximations, and was still left with the model crashing right at the beginning of the big january 12 rain event. i was ready to attribute it all to the extreme nature of the rainfall, and the whopping volumes of water just pouring from the forest park tubes (see picture) into the almost empty channel, this wall of water that simply makes the shallow-water approximation hopelessly invalid, when i discovered an error in the definition of one of the cross sections. as it turns out, that was the cross section where i was having inexplicable problems, where from upstream there was this dam-break wave coming from the tubes but from downstream the goddammit model was insisting on going supercritical in the upstream direction (which makes no sense), the depth dropping to nearly zero and the velocity skyrocketing and the froude number acheiving unknown magnitudes. but it was all the goofy cross section, which was acting as an unrealistic constriction. fixed that, the model runs, it's all good. now on to WASP/EUTRO5...

i shivered like a child

so enough complaining already. it has been almost disturbingly beautiful lately, at least in appearances, there being something of a chill in this dry, clear air that has blown in on the heels of all that moisture. huron river stage is quite high, i notice as i ride by along huron river drive, stealing glances through the trees that are are now all fully leafed out, and standing in water that has spilled out over the river's banks and laps at the tree trunks, and the high water piling up behind the rapids at delhi mills and the water pouring through and roiling, air entrained and furious standing waves and the silver maples that overhang the river downstream of the now-closed-to-traffic delhi road bridge dipping their leaves allthe way in now, the river threatening to pull them completely in which of course is an empty threat but it is working away on the banks and they'll all fall in, eventually. but i will ride by a steal glances when i can, when i'm not looking out for gouges and openings in the pavement, or overhanging poison ivy or grape vines, or any of the other hazards, natural or not.

yes it is nice to ride these days, even if there is a chill in the dry air; at last it is dry.

yesterday i went to a dinner/birthday party, hosted by a member of ms. cicadashell's book group, which consists completely of fellow schoolteachers and of which ms. cicadashell is very much the youngest, the rest of them being almost to a woman retired, so along with their husbands a considerably older group than we might otherwise hang out with, but witty and urbane and charming and good, low-key fun all the same.

but notable is that one of the husbands is, in addition to being a retired teacher and urbane world traveler, a noted jazz trumpeter who is, by turns, getting some of the respect he has been due (and has long since earned) in this area, having captured the hearts and minds of european jazz fans decades ago. but he recently suffered a significant stroke, which has left him, well, suffering. i had not seen him since. by all accounts he is making great progress, but, really, to be more candid then perhaps appropriate in general company, he has a long way to go yet; it was a massive stroke. the hardest thing, or at least the most frustrating thing, is language, at this point. he can't really talk, and he doesn't really know that he can't talk, so he doesn't really always understand why people can't understand him. it is difficult, and scary, and sad, to imagine that his tremendous fluency in the bebop language may no longer be brought to bear. there is no reason not to hope, of course, but there is reason to doubt it is possible. life is a gift, and like any gift it is all too easy to misplace, or undervalue, or give away in a fit of pique or envy or jealousy. in this man's case it was none of these, however; it was just some chunk of something in an artery, some combination of risk factors leading to their grim outcome. i surely hope he continues to work his way back, if only to have a chat with him.

and if there is anything i can do to decrease my own suite of risk factors, well i'll be doing that too.

i'm always free to walk

may is bicycle commuter month. or, from my perspective, may is ride on and off the sidewalk, at random, through red lights and stop signs with no helmet and your ponytail flapping and saddlebags bouncing and not really looking where you're going, much, except every so often a glance to the left or right, depending on your mood, month. i mean, i'm all for more cyclists, but why do they have to be so goddamit careless? someone is going to get hurt, and there will be much hand-wringing, and then nobody will learn anything and i'll still be riding to work. *sighs*


i'm feeling good riding the white bike: getting used to the monster bars, liking that old avocet saddle i put on, thinking long and strong about getting a pair of 700×25 gatorskins for added comfort and security (the 20 mm contintental grand prix 3000s are getting a little smooth, and always were rather bone-jarring). but relentless chuckhole pounding, and the dirt and grit and slop asssociated with real, honest-to-goodness weather, are taking their toll and requiring more maintenance than i have tme for. so i need to get back on the follis, and enjoy the abuse. the boy looks good riding it (see pic) but when the rain hits, i want to be on the clunker; let him ride his new singlespeed mountain bike (which he has yet to purchase).

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yesterday i got so scared

boy we gotta get that boy a bicycle. the older son keeps riding the commuter bike, the venerable follis, which leaves me with the white bike in its road configuration. a wonderful bike, to be sure, but suboptimal for commuting. i rode it in the rain on monday and the accumulation of grit was horrifying; i spent much of monday evening cleaning the chain, removing and cleaning the chainring, and then just letting it dry for 24 hours before putting it all back together last night (i made him take the bus yesterday). all that tender loving bicycle care is nice, but boy-ee. there are other things i could be doing. to day i let him ride because he's going to work after school, so i was back driving the bus this morning (those bars are 42 centimeters; i measured them this morning). it was dry, although thunderstorms are in the forecast.


our basement has bikes the way some basements have mold. front and center is the breeze, getting closer and closer to being finished. i had forgotten what a pain cheesy side-pull brakes can be to get adjusted properly; the front one just keeps pulling to the side. but we'll figure it out. i rode it around a little yesterday, in its highest gear (shifter not attached yet) and it had a pleasant, boat-like feel. those schwinns weigh a ton.

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stinky

well. it’s certainly been a while since i’ve written here. this means, of course, that i’ve been busy with interesting things...or at least busy.

but no, it has been interesting. the weather has been relentlessly dreary of late, cold and wet, since last wednesday evening as i understand it although i was away at the time, in d.c., where it was fabulously sunny. so that was one of the things i was doing, spending a quick two days in washington, flying out at the last minute to get started helping the d.c. office with issues relating to the collection system model, some final calibration issues to iron out before proceeding with the modeling to support the long term control plan, which will include some ginormous tunnel or another, to accomplish the twin objectives (which, is should be mentioned, are not entirely compatible with each other) of alleviating the northeast flooding problems and keeping raw sewage out of the anacostia. this will require a very, very big tunnel some 200 feet below the ground. a tricky business, to be sure, so we ought to have confidence in the wet weather volumes we’re modeling. at this point it seems like the work they’ve done over there is pretty good, at least in comparison with the metering data which are not all that good, so how close do you want to be, anyway? well, we could be closer, and there will be a new and improved metering study this year so we’ll have better data to revisit the calibration at some point anyway. i tell you, modeling sewer systems is one of those things that just keeps on giving.

so the endless rain is wearing at me slightly. there is an odd smell about, some sort of mold or something, that i don’t recognize but i’m getting a little tired of. more on that in a moment. the weekend before, when i went to pictured rocks, turned out to be very pleasant, weather-wise, so much so that i regretted (a little) my decision not to go to lake superior provincial park in favor of a more familiar place. although it is as beautiful as ever, pictured rocks feels distinctly less remote to me now, probably mostly because i was never more than a two- or three-hour hike from my car, if i really wanted to go back there. and of course i was not alone, although i had the chapel campground to myself on thursday night. still, the cliffs, and the beech-maple woods just beginning to leaf out, the carpet of spring beauty and the bluffs over beaver lake, the loons and their freaky chatter, spray falls and chapel rock and grand portal and the sun dropping into the lake, walking on the beach and watching the waves work their way backwards from the lake up the edges of beaver creek, all those things were inspirational to say the least. there was really a lot of quiet during the day, which i’m trying to hold onto now. this fall will probably be algonquin.

saturday night i was struggling to find a way to assemble the brake levers from the schwinn breeze, a bicycle belonging to one of the older son’s friends, for whom the older boy volunteered his services for repair and refurbishment, and he has certainly been learning a thing or two, not only with what he is picking up on his job at the bike shop, but also what i have been suggesting when i’ve had a chance. the bike, which was really quite clean to begin with, is looking good, although it needs some more work. anyway i was cursing the fact that he removed those levers completely, given the rather crummy old-school way they were attached, and the number of pieces that you have to simultaneously sort of levitate to get it together, and i gave it up for the evening (i have since figured out a workable way of doing it, and they are back on the bike), and i turned out the light and went upstairs, and about a minute or two later i heard this distinctive, resonating “bonk” of something hitting the glass of the front door, and i went downstairs to see egg running down the glass and shadowy figures disappearing as i got to the door, and i ran out, into the rain, and took off in the direction they ran, not seeing them as they went around the curve of the neighbor’s front yard, and hearing then the wet grinding of tires spinning on wet, gritty pavement and the car gaining traction and heading off on a tear, too dark to make out a model and too far to get a license number, and my stocking feet completely soaked and sloshing my way back to the house, the carton of eggs dropped on the front lawn and five or six of them just sitting in the wet grass, unthrown.

we have been egged before, although it was six or maybe seven years ago. ms. cicadashell, the high school english teacher, readily believes it could be students (almost too readily, i tend to think), but beyond that we have no clues. what really got to me this time was realizing that i came very close to figuring out what was going on before actually getting downstairs to where i could be seen, and could have slipped around the back and gotten the drop on those clowns. and then what? well, what comes to mind first are the host of violent fantasies, the cumulative result of every chump or punkass who has gotten the best of me in one insignificant event or another, over the years. to be sure, there is a genuine feeling of violation here, and my discomfiture is justified to some extent. but then there is also the way the older boy looked at the event: completely lame. egging someone’s house? come on. there are better ways. but dig this: when i was sloshing around in the rain afterward, getting out the hose to blast off what i could see in the dark, i saw in the shadows that there was a two-drawer filing cabinet in the driveway, behind the honda, apparently dumped there so that if i hopped into my car to chase them, i’d back right into it with a bang and wouldn’t that be funny? that strikes me as almost clever, certainly too clever for someone whose idea of a good saturday night activity is to egg someone’s house.

anyway, that brought some emotion to bear. but you see there was this smell around the front door, not a rotten egg smell but some weird funky musty smell that i just figured had something to do with the eggs. until i smelled it this morning outside the younger son’s school, where there were no eggs (really: i checked). i’m thinking it’s just a funky musty smell that is hanging around with all this moisture, these days and days of rain, which are not letting up so far.

periods of snow

so i drove the bus again this morning. the rain had stopped, but the streets were still quite wet and the bud casings and norway maple flowers were relentlessly spattering onto the down tube of the white bike, as the somewhat grisly photo shows. *sighs* at least it cleans up well.

and the fog lifted and the smells are truly remarkable, the occasional blasts of lilacs and apple blossoms and even korean spice verbena (i swear i smelled that some evening last week) breaking through the ordinary background earth and worms and the miscellaneous hydrocarbons spread all around by the cars, or in the neighborhoods that random snootful of fabric softener, or cigarette smoke from an open window.




i have revised my backpacking plans somewhat, due to the grim forecast for the weekend: at wawa, they were saying "periods of snow" for saturday (that has sinced changed to "chance of rain showers or flurries"). i'm thinking pictured rocks instead, which i had been thinking of off and on anyway; our national weather service is less optimistic about the possibility of rain along the southern shore of lake superior than environment canada is about the eastern shore. this is to be expected, following all that incredible warmth and sunshine over the past few weeks, and of course i can handle weather in any event. but somehow i feel a little more comfortable going someplace familiar, should things get nasty; i hope to discover lake superior provincial park under better circumstances this autumn. we shall see.

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my streetcar by the bay

spring continues, a little moisture here and there, the breeze in and out. somehow i manage to get where i'm going, even if it is a bit of a job sometimes.

yesterday i had the rather unlikely experience of commuting to work on my track bike. no way, you say, it cannot be true, but yes. and get this: i wore a shoulder bag, and the track bike had bullhorns on it, i kid you not. no rolled-up jeans, however, and there was a hand brake on the front wheel. partly i was testing out the setup i think i will use on the ms-150 this year, something a little more comfortable for those six-hour days. and i think it will be more comfortable, although it was somewhat hard to tell while dealing with the realities of the morning ride, in particular the goddammit shoulder bag sliding around, and also the nuisance of clipping in and out from those one-sided dura ace pedals.

so i have never really gotten the message, so to speak, on so-called “messenger bags”. i was instructed, long ago, that it was best to let the bike carry any extra weight by using panniers instead of a backpack, although this is primarily for touring; certainly my school days involved no panniers. but the philosophical principle of letting the machine do the work (i’m not one to pass up a lever when it is available) appeals to me, and i find it far more comfortable to ride without anything on my back anyway. at the same time i don’t wish to second-guess the entire community of bicycle couriers, who despite a certain devil-may-care approach to life seem unlikely to, en masse, adopt the less practical solution to carrying things on a bicycle. there may be other forces at work in their daily activities, to be sure: keeping the bike light and nimble, getting in and out of destinations without rummaging through panniers, et cetera.

anyway i don’t expect to do much wearing of shoulder bags while riding, unless i get a new notebook computer and am compelled to carry it back and forth from work to home. a bouncing, vibrating bicycle is no place to attach a notebook computer; it will have to go in a bag. so at that point i am going to have to get some type of “messenger bag”, and risk being perceived as a caricature. note: there can be no such thing as a “posenger” in ann arbor because there are no real bicycle couriers here to begin with. second note: i don’t truly care if strangers think poorly of me because of what i wear, or what kind of bike i ride – it’s just that the bad energy is unnecessary, and i would prefer not to sustain it. anyway, let ‘em go.



the photos show the older son demonstrating his trackstanding prowess. those bullhorns are comfortable, as i said, but they make it feel a little like driving a bus, owing to their considerable width (i think 44 cm, although i have not measured them). yesterday i felt as though i was presenting a little too much surface area to that headwind, my arms as far apart as they were. so it was kind of nice to get back on the commuter this morning, with those narrow old french bars, barely 38 cm although i have not measured them either.


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anyway get busy.