It’s dark when I awaken now. The heat is backing off with the daylight. (With the exception of a 100-degree day on August 28.) The local school district cruelly sends kids back to school on August 19. I don’t think I ever started school before Labor Day. What’s worse is my birthday falls in the middle of August. I grew to dread it because there were only a couple of weeks left to summer vacation.

Around the time I turned 10 both my grandmothers and my godmother died in August and September. Ten-year olds don’t understand death, except for what they tell you in church. I spent several weeks bewildered by it all.

Relatives were giving me gifts at my paternal grandmother’s house before the wake. It was doubly weird since they had bought gifts, in an obviously distracted, perfunctory way, for a much younger kid. As I opened each gift, I “Thank you” while my brain was saying, “What am I supposed to do with this stuff?”

It was around this age that I got fat. Back to school shopping meant new clothing. My size was Husky. Really.

As for these days, I am now 69. Lord knows how that happened. My 68th and 69th years were the ones where my body decided that I was old. Bike touring became much harder. Going forward, I’ll have to modify my daily touring routine. No more 70-mile days in the mountains. Or on level ground, for that matter. During my 2022 tour to the Oregon coast, I encountered a man riding east somewhere near the Oregon/Idaho border. He was 70. He said that when you are young bike touring is fun; when you are 70, it’s work. Truth.

Bicycling

Despite my weary flesh, I still managed to bang out a 1,014-mile month. This was helped greatly by the fact that I did not take the last week of August off to help my daughter move in Connecticut. We hired movers for the big stuff. My days of lugging furniture down three flights of stairs are over. I stayed home and chopped roots and dug dirt for several days instead. I think my days of rootchopping are over too.

I did three rides of 60 miles or more. I took three zero day. I ended the month with 7,000.5 miles under my wheels. I’m on track for another 10,000-mile year.

Watching

Olympics: My wife doesn’t care much for sports but when the Olympics are on TV she becomes obsessed. I find them boring except for the truly exceptional athletes like Biles and Ledecky.

Movie: Hit Man – Netflix movie directed by Richard Linklater. Basically a star vehicle for Glen Powell, the leading man du jour. A funny, clever movie. Alas, Powell ain’t no Brad Pitt.

Baseball: The Nationals, fresh off another sell-off of talented veterans, played to their talent level. They have three or four very good young players – Garcia, Abrams, Wood, and Young – and a ton of talented young pitchers. At the end of the month they added Dylan Crews who seems like the real deal. Now all they needs is a veteran who can show them how to win. This could take a couple of years.

Bike Touring Video: The near-real-time video account of Mat Ryder’s cross country ride fascinated me. This is partly because he covers, in reverse, much of the 1,000+ miles of the TransAmerica Trail that I rode in 2022.

Reading

The Demon of Unrest is Erik Larson’s latest. It is an intimate look at the people involved in the attack on Fort Sumter that kicked off the Civil War. If you think of the United States as a single entity, you’ll find it interesting how culturally and politically different antebellum South Carolina was. And they were fixing for a fight for years.

Going Infinite by Michael Lewis chronicles the improbable rise and bewildering fall of Sam Bankman-Fried. SBF is one odd duck with no capacity for appreciating risk aversion. That fact, combined with the complete lack of financial controls in the crypto businesses he spawned, led to a financial catastrophe when the crypto bubble (temporarily) burst a couple of years ago. If high functioning autistic genius and the exciting world of financial controls excite you, this book is for you. Zzzzz.

I stumbled across this list of touring dos and donts on YouTube. It’s short and worth the time if you are new to touring, bikepacking or conventional.

A couple of caveats. Before you start, use a sewing tape (the kind that rolls up small) and measure your saddle height, distance from your saddle to your handlebars, and saddle set back. This will allow you to quickly replicate your set up in case a “helpful” bike mechanic moves things around.

Secondly, always bring at least two pairs of shorts and make sure you wash or rinse the pair you rode in each night. I bring a pair of synthetic underwear shorts in case both my bike shorts are out of commission.

Finally, I am a member of Warmshowers. Like the video people, I am an introvert and somewhat uncomfortable about using it. Warmshowers is an interesting service but can be unreliable. The app and website are glitchy. Potential hosts don’t always respond in a timely way. Also, be prepared for hosts that have, um, interesting ways of life. I once stayed with a person whose culture obsessed about the persecution of his protestant ancestors by the Catholic church in the middle ages. (Dude, my ancestors are Irish Catholics. Cry me a river.) Another time I noticed my host’s bookshelves held several volumes on polyamory. In the morning, I rolled over in bed and discovered a sex toy under the covers. No lie. (I escaped with my monogamy intact.)

This is a short post about two very unrelated topics.

Pedaling

Have you ever wondered what riding across the United States is like? You can save yourself a whole lot of pedaling by watching the videos of Mat Ryder as he rides from west to east. As of today, he has posted four “episodes’ each describing several days of riding. He’s an excellent commentator and videographer.

In between action shots, he talks to the camera, giving a spot-on description of each day’s travels and travails. Yes, there are plenty of miseries along the way but his camera captures so much of the beauty of his route. You can almost feel his relief as he reclines in a mountain river on a 100+ degree day. So far, he’s ridden the TransAm Trail from Astoria, Oregon to Hamilton. Montana, the reverse of the route I took in 2022.

He even uses a drone for some truly beautiful views from on high. (Sorry. These views are not visible to earthbound riders.) How the heck he does this is beyond me. He must spend an hour every day setting up shots of him riding past the camera and such.

Here’s Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdYErlkO2_g

The others are easily found on his YouTube page. Thanks to the folks at Bikes at Vienna for bringing this video series to my attention.

Paranoia

Today I became convinced that this blog had been hacked and that I was being stalked, online and in real life. As you may know, a few days ago as I was riding home on my recumbent, a stranger, a man in shorts walking a dog, called out to me by name. Of course, I know people read my blog but it’s quite unsettling for someone to know my first name as I don’t use it online very often.

Well, today I was finishing a ride about a mile from home. As I turned onto a street, I noticed a man in shorts walking on the sidewalk in my direction. He called out to me and used the word “husky”. I didn’t hear anything else he said but it immediately upset me.

Was this the same man as before?

Over the weekend I visited with an old friend in DC, about 18 miles from home. She was with her Siberian husky. I didn’t mention it to anyone outside my home so it seemed extremely improbable that the walker was referring to her dog.

A few days ago I drafted a blog post that briefly mentioned that the size of clothes for overweight boys in the 1960s was “husky”. Draft posts are not supposed to be visible to the public, so you can see that I was quite concerned. Had the walker hacked my blog?

I searched all over the WordPress site for information about security, privacy, and draft posts to no avail. I googled the topic and everything I found said that draft posts are not visible to the public.

I was totally puzzled until my daughter, a recent law school graduate, walked into the room.

“What shirt were you wearing on your ride?”

“The U Conn School of Law shirt you gave me.”

She laughed. U Conn’s sports teams are called the Huskies.

Derp.

I took The Mule to Bikes at Vienna for some TLC in late July. Among other repairs, the bike came back with new tires, a new chain, and a new cassette. The tires are 700 x 35 Schwalbe Marathons. They are not as flat resistant as the touring tires I normally use, but they roll much easier. My cassette has a tweak too. The big cog is now two teeth bigger, affording me a better climbing gear. It works well with the derailleur.

I took the bike out for a test ride on the W&OD Trail, starting in Vienna and ending in Purcellville some 33 miles away. I deliberately came to a stop at the bottom of a short, steep climb to test the new low gear. Thumbs up!

When I picked up The Mule, I dropped off The Tank, my Surly CrossCheck. The Tank and my back and neck were getting along fine until the saddle bolt snapped last week. I try to position the saddle the same on both bikes in terms of three dimensions: height, for/aft position, and tilt. I think I messed something up during the saddle repair. My last few rides made my back and neck grumpy. Once I get it back from the shop, I’ll get out the tape measure and replicate the saddle dimensions on The Mule.

The 66-mile jaunt came the day after a two-fer. I rode 30 miles on The Tank then mowed the lawn. The weather cooperated nicely but my back was not particularly happy about the mowing. Idiot that I am I did a second two-fer last Friday. I rode 30 miles round trip to Friday Coffee Club in DC on Little Nellie, my wee wheeled Bike Friday. Then I dealt with the remains of a stump that we had a tree service grind up.

The tree died from heat stress and carpenter ants. The stump grinders did a good job, but the pile of mulch mixed with dirt was quite big. In order to use that area of the yard, I had to remove the mess. It took me over three hours to dig it all up and move it to an inconspicuous place in the back yard. By the time I was done, I was bent over at a 45 degree angle. Over the next couple of days my hamstrings tightened. Owie.

Next week I go to Connecticut to help my daughter move. I think I’ll abstain from riding a bike that day, just sayin’.

Speaking of Friday Coffee Club, we were greeted by a very welcome surprise. Felkerino, co-founder of our weekly confab, arrived by bike. It was his first time riding since he was clobbered by a hit-and-run pick up driver more than eight months ago. We gave him a well-deserved round of applause.

During the last heat wave I discovered to my utter frustration that a couple of water fountains on the Mount Vernon Trail were turned off. Last week I rode by the fountain nearest my house and found a brand new water fountain with a built in bottle filler and doggy dish.

Of course, there is never good news without bad news on the trail. During a big storm last week a tree toppled straight across the brand new bridge over Dyke Marsh. Fortunately the decking survived but the side rails were pretty much vaporized.

Oh, and this happened.

Today the heat returned because it’s August, it’s DC, and the planet is melting. So I went for a 63-mile ride.

I drank enough to make my tummy slosh. I stopped for a real lunch. I did all the right things but with 10 miles to go I was gassed.

I stopped at a trailside water fountain, filled a water bottle, and dumped its contents on my head. Twice.

The ride was an out and back affair, mostly on trails. Home to Potomac Yard to Georgetown to Bethesda to Rock Creek Park to Garrett Park Road. Then I turned around and rode through the shade in Rock Creek Park to the Lincoln Memorial, crossed the Potomac, and took the Mount Vernon Trail home.

On the C&O I spotted a great blue heron and a downy egret. I took a picture of the latter. I think he was smiling for me.

On the way back near Kensington, Maryland I spotted a very cool carving of a tall tree stump.

Other than melting the ride home was uneventful until my saddle went bung.

I had been noticing some side to side play in my saddle over the past week. I tightened the seat post but that didn’t fix things. Then I tightened the leather on the saddle no change.

About eight miles from home I heard a POP and my saddle and its fixing hardware went off the back. As it turns out there is a single bolt that holds the saddle to the bike and allows for/aft adjustments and tilting adjustments. The bolt broke from metal fatigue. (You carry my butt for 30,000 miles and you’ll break too.)

I gathered all the parts and put my saddle in my pannier. I managed to ride the bike while sitting on the trunk bag on top of my rear rack. I was all stretched out and moving rather slowly but I managed to ride it to Big Wheel Bikes in Old Town.

Diego and his father (the shop owner, I think) helped me out. Dad is redesigning the shop. In the process he had just donated a bunch of random spare parts to a local bike co-op. Among the parts was mostly likely the bolt I needed. He managed to find an old saddle with a bolt that worked and we had my bike back on the road in no time.

This is the kind of bizarro mechanical failure that typically occurs in try the middle of nowhere on a solo bike tour. I’m lucky my bolt broke when it did.

Time to return to drinking all the liquids in the house. Is Guinness an electrolyte replacement drink?