a day in the life of a lily
so last night there were strong storms. not a whole lot of rain, but powerful winds, or so they sounded, for that brief period i was awake in between well-deserved slumbers. and the debris around the neighborhood bore witness as well; a mighty blow, or two.
last weekend i rode those 200 miles for multiple sclerosis, on the white bike. the ride was, in a word, excellent. most notable was the total absence of knee pain, or any true pain at all; just a little soreness here, a little numbness there. but the knee problems that practically crippled me last year, and have been a recurring issue for all rides longer then about 40 miles in recent years, did not show up. at all. for that i am highly thankful. i’m attributing this mostly to a more comfortable setup - the bullhorns, the wider avocet saddle with at least nominal attention paid to fore-and-aft positioning. to be sure, i was wondering after an hour or so if i shouldn’t tip the front of the seat up just a little, based on how it felt sitting there, but truly i have to let the results speak for themselves - if i can ride 200 miles in two days without a trace of joint trouble (and i have a history of joint trouble), then there is no way in hell my seat position can be “wrong”.
the ride itself unfolded in similar fashion as the year before. i started early, and had a decent pace going, although all the stops were open when i arrived, if not crowded. i began to get the impression that i wouldn’t beat my previous mark of “third rider to century loop rest stop”, and i didn’t; another chap actually rode past me while i had stopped, unscheduled, to pee (drinking a lot to ward off dehydration), although i did pass him a few miles later. the young volunteer making me a peanut butter and jelly half-sandwich replied, when i asked, that there had been “five or six” other riders so far. the lack of precision in her answer seemed to suit the warm, humid and relaxed atmosphere. i certainly didn’t care; my knees felt like a million bucks.
later in that century loop i had a few riders catch up with me, but they did not pass. i was not really trying to stay ahead, just sticking to the usual fixed-gear program of booting it somewhat on upgrades, but then also letting myself relax on the downgrades, fully expecting one of these guys to finally surge past; they didn’t. a west-northwest wind was picking up over the course of the day, and at this point (around noon or so) the path was south, and then east for a jog, so we had the wind at our backs to some extent. we all ended up together at the rest stop where the century loop rejoins the main route, with the usual chit-chat and exchange of propers. i was on my own for the last 16 miles, which went by in a flash, flagging a bit with the headwind, then flying once i turned south. the temperature had probably reached 90 °F by then, but it seemed fairly dry, at least for this part of the world, so it didn’t feel like a problem.
the rest of that day was blissful: i had a massage, i took a shower, i had sweated out all manner of poison and i didn’t hurt, anywhere. it doesn’t get any better. that evening, rather than avail myself of the festivities offered at the residence halls, i went out again on the bike and found an excellent “riverwalk”, actually a paved path following the looking glass river all the way to its confluence with the grand, in lansing proper, and on from there through downtown and past. i had to turn around where an outdoor concert was taking place, and admission was required; that night it was etta james, mavis staples and, on the “other stage” (so the young man in the ticket booth told me), the bangles. i asked him “is vicki gonna be there?” but he had no reply. anyway this path was a blast because it covered a lot of urban and semi-urban territory: bug-infested bottomlands, the city zoo, combined sewer overflows, an electric utility storage yard that smelled strongly of creosote, railroad tracks with intriguing abandoned structures, and so on. it hugged the water closely enough so that they could route it under all of the highway and railroad overpasses, so there were no grade crossings at all - you could just ride your bike. that was sweet.
my randomly-assigned dorm-mate was a long-haired guy from cincinnati, who rode a trek 5200. he told me that for a living he ran the u.s. office of a german company, and said he had flown to germany on tuesday, flown back on thursday, and had driven up here from cincinnati on friday. i heard this and thought excellent, this guy will be asleep before me! i had brought a little fan and was sharing it with him by setting it to oscillate; once he was sawing logs i turned it back on myself, until morning.
i was on the road at quarter to seven and the sun came ou bright and clear soon afterward; it looked like it would be hotter than the day before. i had a nice spin going and was flitting past all other riders when i came up on two guys at the base of a hill. they both stood up and dug in, but i had that momentum thing going and zipped by, without standing up. a moment later another rider was at my side, and i looked over to see he was riding a langster. i said “i wondered when i was going to see another fixed-gear bike” and he said “you just passed two of us”. i was surprised, and a little embarrased, not to have noticed. after checking out so many bikes and not seeing any, i must have given up looking.
i had this chipper pace going so i got to the rest stop at the beginning of the century loop before them. they, however, did not stop there and i never actually rode with them again. i saw them pretty much everywhere i stopped, though, and we had the predictable conversations about gearing, handlebar types and not touching our road bikes very much any more. they were not youngsters, although perhaps not as old as me - maybe late thirties. the one guy had the langster, and the other rode a jamis sputnik. they were on some insane bike-riding holiday, four centuries in five days (one on tri bikes, the other three on fixies), then a trip up to leelanau for some more serious up and down. so that was cool.
the sky had clouded up for much of the morning, actually, with signs of actual weather and possibly rain to the north, but after completing the century loop and getting back to the southern parts the sun did indeed come out and it did indeed get back into the nineties. oof. the heat was actually okay with me but there was a lot of sweating and drinking (i took out my eyewear to ride this morning and there were salt crystals around the edges) and it got somewhat tiring by the end. the last dozen or so miles of this route go up and down the moraines of oakland county, and that combined with the large number of other riders to pass and the increasing pressure from obnoxious oakland county motorists made me somewhat impatient to get back, and have it over with. but all in all it was a most excellent ride, making as good if not slightly better time the second day as the first (no pain, ride harder), spinning thoughtfully through the relentless rural reaches, marking progress by the change in newspaper boxes from the lansing journal to the argus express to the flint journal, that big blue racer sitting in the middle of the road without a care in the world, the calves chained to their fiberglass veal huts, piles of manure and hay everywhere and me unsure of where one odor left off and the other began, and everywhere the chorus of insects, katydids and crickets and grasshoppers and, yes, cicadas.
no, i did not take any pictures. i brought the camera but thought i would be too focused on time the first day, so i left it in my luggage. on sunday i considered it again but felt i would be too sweaty to stop and fool with photography. yes, there were a couple of free items that begged photographing. so it goes.
thank you dear reader; that was lengthy. i’ll be back.
last weekend i rode those 200 miles for multiple sclerosis, on the white bike. the ride was, in a word, excellent. most notable was the total absence of knee pain, or any true pain at all; just a little soreness here, a little numbness there. but the knee problems that practically crippled me last year, and have been a recurring issue for all rides longer then about 40 miles in recent years, did not show up. at all. for that i am highly thankful. i’m attributing this mostly to a more comfortable setup - the bullhorns, the wider avocet saddle with at least nominal attention paid to fore-and-aft positioning. to be sure, i was wondering after an hour or so if i shouldn’t tip the front of the seat up just a little, based on how it felt sitting there, but truly i have to let the results speak for themselves - if i can ride 200 miles in two days without a trace of joint trouble (and i have a history of joint trouble), then there is no way in hell my seat position can be “wrong”.
the ride itself unfolded in similar fashion as the year before. i started early, and had a decent pace going, although all the stops were open when i arrived, if not crowded. i began to get the impression that i wouldn’t beat my previous mark of “third rider to century loop rest stop”, and i didn’t; another chap actually rode past me while i had stopped, unscheduled, to pee (drinking a lot to ward off dehydration), although i did pass him a few miles later. the young volunteer making me a peanut butter and jelly half-sandwich replied, when i asked, that there had been “five or six” other riders so far. the lack of precision in her answer seemed to suit the warm, humid and relaxed atmosphere. i certainly didn’t care; my knees felt like a million bucks.
later in that century loop i had a few riders catch up with me, but they did not pass. i was not really trying to stay ahead, just sticking to the usual fixed-gear program of booting it somewhat on upgrades, but then also letting myself relax on the downgrades, fully expecting one of these guys to finally surge past; they didn’t. a west-northwest wind was picking up over the course of the day, and at this point (around noon or so) the path was south, and then east for a jog, so we had the wind at our backs to some extent. we all ended up together at the rest stop where the century loop rejoins the main route, with the usual chit-chat and exchange of propers. i was on my own for the last 16 miles, which went by in a flash, flagging a bit with the headwind, then flying once i turned south. the temperature had probably reached 90 °F by then, but it seemed fairly dry, at least for this part of the world, so it didn’t feel like a problem.
the rest of that day was blissful: i had a massage, i took a shower, i had sweated out all manner of poison and i didn’t hurt, anywhere. it doesn’t get any better. that evening, rather than avail myself of the festivities offered at the residence halls, i went out again on the bike and found an excellent “riverwalk”, actually a paved path following the looking glass river all the way to its confluence with the grand, in lansing proper, and on from there through downtown and past. i had to turn around where an outdoor concert was taking place, and admission was required; that night it was etta james, mavis staples and, on the “other stage” (so the young man in the ticket booth told me), the bangles. i asked him “is vicki gonna be there?” but he had no reply. anyway this path was a blast because it covered a lot of urban and semi-urban territory: bug-infested bottomlands, the city zoo, combined sewer overflows, an electric utility storage yard that smelled strongly of creosote, railroad tracks with intriguing abandoned structures, and so on. it hugged the water closely enough so that they could route it under all of the highway and railroad overpasses, so there were no grade crossings at all - you could just ride your bike. that was sweet.
my randomly-assigned dorm-mate was a long-haired guy from cincinnati, who rode a trek 5200. he told me that for a living he ran the u.s. office of a german company, and said he had flown to germany on tuesday, flown back on thursday, and had driven up here from cincinnati on friday. i heard this and thought excellent, this guy will be asleep before me! i had brought a little fan and was sharing it with him by setting it to oscillate; once he was sawing logs i turned it back on myself, until morning.
i was on the road at quarter to seven and the sun came ou bright and clear soon afterward; it looked like it would be hotter than the day before. i had a nice spin going and was flitting past all other riders when i came up on two guys at the base of a hill. they both stood up and dug in, but i had that momentum thing going and zipped by, without standing up. a moment later another rider was at my side, and i looked over to see he was riding a langster. i said “i wondered when i was going to see another fixed-gear bike” and he said “you just passed two of us”. i was surprised, and a little embarrased, not to have noticed. after checking out so many bikes and not seeing any, i must have given up looking.
i had this chipper pace going so i got to the rest stop at the beginning of the century loop before them. they, however, did not stop there and i never actually rode with them again. i saw them pretty much everywhere i stopped, though, and we had the predictable conversations about gearing, handlebar types and not touching our road bikes very much any more. they were not youngsters, although perhaps not as old as me - maybe late thirties. the one guy had the langster, and the other rode a jamis sputnik. they were on some insane bike-riding holiday, four centuries in five days (one on tri bikes, the other three on fixies), then a trip up to leelanau for some more serious up and down. so that was cool.
the sky had clouded up for much of the morning, actually, with signs of actual weather and possibly rain to the north, but after completing the century loop and getting back to the southern parts the sun did indeed come out and it did indeed get back into the nineties. oof. the heat was actually okay with me but there was a lot of sweating and drinking (i took out my eyewear to ride this morning and there were salt crystals around the edges) and it got somewhat tiring by the end. the last dozen or so miles of this route go up and down the moraines of oakland county, and that combined with the large number of other riders to pass and the increasing pressure from obnoxious oakland county motorists made me somewhat impatient to get back, and have it over with. but all in all it was a most excellent ride, making as good if not slightly better time the second day as the first (no pain, ride harder), spinning thoughtfully through the relentless rural reaches, marking progress by the change in newspaper boxes from the lansing journal to the argus express to the flint journal, that big blue racer sitting in the middle of the road without a care in the world, the calves chained to their fiberglass veal huts, piles of manure and hay everywhere and me unsure of where one odor left off and the other began, and everywhere the chorus of insects, katydids and crickets and grasshoppers and, yes, cicadas.
no, i did not take any pictures. i brought the camera but thought i would be too focused on time the first day, so i left it in my luggage. on sunday i considered it again but felt i would be too sweaty to stop and fool with photography. yes, there were a couple of free items that begged photographing. so it goes.
thank you dear reader; that was lengthy. i’ll be back.
posted by cicadashell at
1:26 PM
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