Ride #55: I’m All Matchy, Matchy

Before I get started – a brief rant:

“Hey you.

Yeah, you.

You in the Ford F-150.

All things considered, a great day for a ride.

I see that you have some compensation-related issues, and I’m cool with that. Sure, you drive a spotless four-wheel drive truck with a covered bed, indicating that you’ve never hauled anything more than groceries home from Cub Foods. You’ve also chosen to decorate your truck “all pretty” – with your assortment of extra lights, chrome trim, and Calvin pissing on Chevy Symbol stickers. I’m proud of your accomplishments. I really am.

But, please realize that I’m working my ass off on this bike. I’m cranking away to maintain around 18 mph on this hill. I’ve been doing it for over an hour. Trust me, it’s takes a lot of effort to turn those pedals.

You, on the other hand, simply need to wiggle your big toe to make your way up the same hill. We’re talking apples and oranges here. Understand?

Thus, when you decide to race past me, only to hit your breaks and veer to the right for a turn, it’s not an equal impact situation between us. You are simply inconvenienced for a fraction of a second. Me? I see my life flash before my eyes, slam on my brakes, and hope I don’t clip the back of your shiny tailgate.

I know you think I’m some Lycra-wearing pansy, but your actions could have resulted in a week-long hospital stay for me and a minor dent in your truck for you.

Compensate away – ’cause I don’t think you’ll ever get it.”

- end of rant.

It might appear that I have my act together

The Mother Earth continues to offer some fantastic weather, just beckoning anyone with a bike to hit the road. After an assortment of chores completed in the morning, I decided to get on the bike while the wind was light, the temperature cool, and the sky blue.

Today’s goal was just to enjoy the ride. As I got going, my legs felt good so I chose to stretch out the distance a little more than usual and targeted a near 30 mile ride. My route extended north of Loretto by a few miles, which was new territory for me. It was a nice route with decent roads and good variety.

I’m not trying to set any records on these fall rides, so my numbers reflect similar recent rides:

• Saturday, September 26, 2009
• departure: 12:00pm
• duration: 1:31
• distance: 28.6 miles
• speed: 18.8 mph
• odometer: 1174

You can see that I took off at noon. In hindsight, this was a mistake as I had eaten breakfast at the usual time earlier that morning, but was now several hours from any fuel in my body. This was great for the early stages of the ride, but I truly ran out of gas at about mile 20 and struggled over the last stages to get home. That’s what I get for not planning ahead for a big ride.

Never say never. I'm listening to tunes on the ride.

My Event Of Note™ (EON™) came in my decision to ride with music. In the past, I have stated that I never ride with music/headphones. This has always been due to safety. Blocking the primary sense that I use to know when cars are approaching me has never been a smart choice for a bike. I need all the help I can get to ensure that I make it home in one, intact piece.

But – my brother gave me a new jersey that has a cool feature for headphone cord management. It has a small, rubber tab on the rear neck collar that allows you to put the cord through while routing it down to a music player in the back pockets. This solves a big issue with headphones – where cables are constantly pushing/pulling and generally irritating beyond the enjoyment they offer. So, I gave it a try for today’s ride.

A simple but critical feature for headphone cord management

In order to keep it a little safe, I decided to take an old set of iPod headphones and cut off the left side. This gave me only a single, right earbud and kept my left ear open (its the closest to traffic) during the ride. It worked pretty well and I liked the diversion of having some music that wasn’t mind-generated. I found a couple mixes online that included songs for popular movies from the late-80s (Back to the Future, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science etc.) that had me singing out loud and smiling for much of the ride.

The only downside with that jersey is that I now totally match between my bike and the kit. I look too much like a poser who spends more time worrying about the outfit than the actual ride time into the legs. In the past, I’ve taken pride in pairing my red gloves/helmet with an orange and black jersey. That look truly expresses that I don’t care if I match – I’m only on the bike for the ride. But this new jersey makes it look as if I laid out my outfit the night before and tried to make sure that all the components properly complimented each other.

I may need to buy a new helmet that clashes with everything again – maybe it should be green.