Author: Rootchopper

Two Weeks to Go

My preparation for the Natchez Trace bike tour continues. On Friday I intended to ride to Friday Coffee Club. I stepped outside and was greeted by a temperature of 40 degrees and gale-force headwinds with brutal gusts. The couch grabbed me with its tractor beam and I was back to sleep in seconds.

After my slumber, I pulled out my daughter’s freestanding tent to make sure I knew how to set it up. Most tents work more or less the same way so hers went up in only a few minutes. I discovered two interesting things about it. First, it is HUGE. It’s at least two and half times the size of my lightweight backpacking tent. Second, it is a side-entry tent. This means I don’t have to do the camping equivalent of a kick turn every time I leave the tent. Yay! I might even have room to do my back exercises.

It’s not a tent; it’s a condo!

I pulled out my sleeping pad and used the air sack to inflate it. I also have a little electrical inflator that I can use if I want to wait a few minutes. The batteries were still good but I dug out some spares just in case. I tossed the pad in to the tent and put my sleeping bag and new, bigger pillow in, too. Then I tested it out. Tres luxe, cherie!

Later I managed to go for a 35-mile ride on The Mule. It was considerably warmer but the winds persisted. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it went. I could have gone much further.

Before the ride, I addressed a couple of problems with the CrossCheck. When I put the bike away after Thursday’s 50-miler I noticed that the back wheel had locked up. Hmm. On close inspection I found that a tensioning spring that holds the brake pad away from the rim had come loose. (I think this happened when I put the bike down from the car rack when I got home Thursday evening.) I compared the spring on the bad side to the one on the opposite side and reseated it. Problem solved. Or so I thought. I also repositioned my bell which had been moved during repairs. (NBD.)

Yesterday I went for a relaxing ride on the CrossCheck. Once again I dealt with howling winds. (It isn’t my imagination; this spring has been much windier than normal.) I made it about 15 miles before using a bathroom. I took the bike inside and, upon leaving, turned it around and dropped it. Once again the brake spring came unseated. Hmm.

I tried to get the spring to re-seat but it kept coming loose. The spring is mounted on a post welded to the frame. There is a screw that goes through end of the post to keep the spring in place. I noticed that the screw had come loose. Ah hah! I reseated the spring then used my multitool, I tightened the screw, locking the spring in place. Success! (Multitools are designed to save space and weight, not for ease of use. This simple repair took 10 or 15 minutes as I turned the screw one quarter turn at a time. With a proper Allen key, it would have take two minutes, tops. The time is not a big deal unless you are trying to do a repair in the rain on the side of a road. Note to self: bring some proper Allen keys for the tour.)

Repair completed.

The rest of the ride involved going into DC, around the Tidal Basin (where thousands of tourists were wandering around looking at the not-yet-in-bloom cherry trees) and up the Metropolitan Branch Trail. I found a bench in the sun and took a load off, eating some Belvitas while checking my phone.

An informational display on the National Mall

After my snack I headed back home. The wind and the gusts were quite intense especially the crosswind on the 14th Street Bridge across the Potomac. (I think I can. I think I can. Made it!) Once on the Virginia side, I had a nice tailwind for the last 13 miles home. I had taken my time but covered 44 miles with ease. Once again I had all kinds of gas left in my tank.

Last night I checked the guide that Adventure Cycling sends to its bike tourists. The guide says that in the month before you start the tour you should work your way up to rides of 50 to 70 miles, seeking out the kind of terrain you will encounter on the tour. That’s exactly what I have done.

When riding around home, I see things I see every day. Six or seven hours of this is really tedious. On a tour, six or seven hours riding in places I’ve never seen before is invigorating. At 12 miles per hour, riding across North Dakota is actually pretty interesting. (Not that I’d want to do again.)

The weather looks pretty good for the next ten days so I’ll probably get one more long ride in.

On Thursday baseball starts and reading season comes to an end. The Nationals will be lucky to finish in third place so I’m keeping a lid on my expectations.

Pollen, Booster, and the Medical Merri-Go-Round

Well, spring is here. We’re actually getting a few warm days. They happen to feature strong winds but that’s not the best part; tree pollen is through the roof. If you live in the DC area, you do not suffer alone. If they put a tariff on antihistamines, there will be a revolution. (Admittedly, it is hard to stage a credible revolt when the rebels have puffy eyes and are coughing and sneezing incessantly, but you get my point.) I started taking 24-hour antihistamines a few days ago and added Flonase today. My eyes are still itchy but I can function okay.

The winter medical merri-go-round continues. I’ve seen both my eye doctor (routine visit) and my hand surgeon (all’s good with the carpal tunnel recovery). On Sunday I received a covid booster shot. Coming up, my spring dental visit. Then I’m off the carousel.

Between the pollen and the booster, I woke up on Monday feeling pretty dreadful. I managed a 30-mile ride. Barely. On Tuesday, with warm weather, I planned a 70+ mile ride. I knew within 10 miles that my body was having nothing to do with such foolishness. Riding a big counterclockwise loop around DC, mostly on bike trails, I managed to eek out 63 miles. The last 10 I was on fumes despite actually bringing a decent amount of food and water.

Yesterday, I picked up the Tank at Bikes at Vienna and headed out the Washington and Old Dominion Trail. My intent was to ride all the way to the western terminus of the W&OD in Purcellville, Virginia. The round trip would have been 69 miles. Along the way I would stop at a barbecue place for an energy boost. Well, I got a late start leaving the house then chatted with Tim and Beth (Hey, this ICE trike would be just perfect for you!) for close to an hour. After consulting with Beth, who told me the barbecue place was about 25 miles away, I changed my plan and headed out for a late lunch.

Beth was only off my ten miles. I came upon the Carolina Brothers Barbecue place at 16 miles. Still wanting to cover 50 miles, I rode another nine miles before stopping for some Belvitas and a view of the countryside. I knew that my fantastically energetic ride was not caused by Beth’s tune up or my fabulous fitness. I had been coasting on a strong tailwind which, of course, became a headwind beatdown for the second half of the ride. At 34 miles I stopped at the barbecue place and ate entirely too much. The rest of the way I felt like my stomach was a bowling ball. Panting and wheezing, I struggled against the wind all the way back to Vienna.

Nice view at the turnaround point

I expected today’s recovery ride to be a 30-mile slog but it turned out to be a piece of cake. I suspect the booster’s side effects are behind me. Adding Flonase helped too. I ended up riding 35 miles and had all kinds of energy left when I arrived back home.

After the ride, I received a couple of e-mails from the tour leaders. In one I was advised that I’d need a headlight and a red blinkie taillight. I have a handlebar bag so I normally put my headlight on my helmet. That’s not going to work for my neck for six or more hours a day so I tried mounting it on my front rack. I’ll test it on the way to Friday Coffee Club. I have two blinkies. One is a big red disk that hangs from my saddle bag. I got it for free years ago. It stopped working so today I opened it up and replaced the batteries. Alas, the patient is kaput and I am out $16 for the odd-sized batteries.

In the second email we were advised not to ride “heavy touring bikes” and to use lightweight road bikes instead because the last two days will be long and hilly. Why on earth would you not use a touring bike for a bike tour? You would think they’d tell us this before we signed up for the tour. Which begs the issue, is this a tour or a roadie event? Grumble, grumble.

As for the “heavy” remark, The Mule is offended. My faithful steed has crossed dozens of nasty hills (Hoosier Pass, Monarch Pass, and Hardscrabble Mountain in Colorado, Cedar Breaks in Utah, Carson Pass in California, Rogers Pass in Montana, Middlebury Gap in Vermont, and the Kancamagus Pass in New Hamsphire, to name but a few). There may be some walking now and then but as Steven Wright says, “Anything is walking distance if you have the time.” So to the tour leader I say, “Leave the light on for me.”

Natchez Trace Tour Prep – Going Long

With warming temperatures it was time to put on some shorts and go long. I’m still not completely over my cold but I have to take advantage of this weather while I can.

On Monday I rode The Mule into a stiff headwind for about 27 miles. My route was flat for the first 15 miles, using the Mount Vernon and Rock Creek Trails. Most of the rest of the ride was the gradual uphill to Bethesda on the Capital Crescent Trail.

I stopped at a trailside rest area just before Bethesda Row and had a packet of Belvita breakfast biscuits. 230 calories. Then I continued northwest past the National Institutes of Health and through North Chevy Chase.

I took a right on Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park and followed it all the way back to Georgetown where I retraced my route back home. All told I rode 54 1/2 miles. It was nice having a tailwind for the second half. I realized that 230 calories is nowhere near enough so I made a mental note to up my food game.

Monday was a rest day. I tootled around the Fort Hunt area where I lived for 20 miles. I felt sluggish before I rode but as soon as I started pedaling my body was, you might say, in gear.

My original training plan was to do 50 miles, rest, 60, rest, 70 rest. Today the weather was pretty darn good. Sunny skies with temps up into the 70s. So off I rode, once again following yesterday’s route to DC. This time, however, the wind was at my back. After a cheese sandwich snack, I left the Capital Crescent Trail after a couple of miles and climbed the steepish hill away from the river to MacArthur Boulevard. I took MacArthur six miles west, including the grind over the reservoir complex. At Persimmon Tree Road I left MacArthur and climbed. After about a mile the road transitioned to rollers, just the kind that can wear you down. At River Road in Potomac I took a left and headed west. River Road has a series of challenging hills that are definitely granny worthy. Just when I thought I had run out of gas I came to Seneca Creek where I took a left and rode to Rileys Lock on the C&O.

To get to the towpath I crossed over the dry canal. I hadn’t counted on the sides of the canal being so steep so I didn’t have enough momentum to crest the far side of the ditch. I came to a stop and planted my right foot. I knew I was in trouble. It was just too steep. As I swung my left leg over the bike to dismount, the bike and I slid and we toppled over to the right. I heard a “SNAP” on impact. After feeling utterly foolish for falling, I got it together and pushed the now-upright bike onto the towpath.

After a few hundred yards I was happy to see that my fall hadn’t damaged the rear derailer. All my gears worked just fine. The snap faded from my thoughts. I pedaled aggressively down the towpath, now into a headwind, several miles back to Great Falls Park where I stopped to eat my PB&J sammie and reload my water bottles.

Rather than continue down the flat towpath, I climbed about a mile out of the park back to MacArthur Boulevard. The climb is very much like those out west, anywhere between one and four percent grade, requiring more persistence than strength. One thing I noticed is that my climbing form had reverted to the mechanics I used so successfully in my cross country ride in 2018.

Over the top I rode with the big metal things down the windy wooded slope. This is one of my favorite stretches of road in the DC area. Once at the Old Anglers Inn, the road levels out. Now I had to grind away for about 27 miles to get back home.

As I rode I munched on my last packet of Belvitas, stashed in my vest pocket. I could tell that I was starting to flag when I had to re-cross the hill at the reservoir. I was pooped.

Just keep going.

When I arrived at Gravelly Point Park I stopped to finish off my Belvitas and watch a few planes land into the headwind. While watching I felt something odd about my right break lever. As it turns out the snap that I heard during my pathetic flop was a piece of plastic trim on the brake lever. Other than protecting the inner workings of the lever from rain, I don’t think it has much of a purpose. I guess I try to find a replacement somewhere or, failing that, attempt a superglue repair.

The broken plastic bit. Annoying!

The last 11+ miles were a slog but I made it home in one piece just before the sun set. The middle of my back was pretty achy (it felt fine while riding) so I took an Advil. I’m going to slide my saddle back a smidge to see if that helps.

My total mileage today was 77 1/2. That’s the longest I’ve ridden since late July and easily the hilliest ride I’ve done since the 50 States.

Tomorrow is a rest day. I go to the eye doctor and maybe get a Covid booster. (I need to check with my insurance to see if they’ll pay for it.) And maybe I’ll bring my bike to some shops near home to see if they have that plastic brake part.

As for this evening, I will eat like a Conehead. Mass quantities.

I Really Need to Get It in Gear

I’m about a month away from the start of the Natchez Trace tour. By now I had hoped to have done a 50 mile ride in preparation. Then I caught my wife’s cold. Let’s just say it has not been a productive week on the wheel. Despite feeling lousy, I managed to do six 30-mile rides. One day when my cold was at it’s peak, I managed an hour and a half on Big Nellie in the basement.

To assuage my feelings of anxiety, I have been dealing with a number of annoying odd jobs, which someone on the interwebs called problitos. These are the things that you know you ought to do but the day never comes to actually do them. In the last month or so I’ve placed magnets on the doors of some kitchen cabinets to hold them closed (with only modest success), re-attached a piece of wood trim that fell off the top on one of the cabinets, tracked down and installed some florescent bulbs for a couple of under cabinet lights, turned on the water to the outside of the house, did 10 days of laundry (the result of waiting for a plumber to deal with a clogged drain), did our taxes, and found a yard service for the summer. I also downloaded the maps for the tour.

All that’s left is to go shopping for stuff for the tour. I need just a few items: a mess kit for eating in camp, a power pack for charging my phone and lights, a bigger camp pillow, and a handlebar mount for my cell phone. I was going to buy most of this today but REI is having a sale in a week so I decided to wait. I could order this stuff online but REI and Dick’s Sporting Goods (where I’ll get the mess kit) are about 15 miles away. Perfect for a rest day ride.

The last several days were cool and windy. Today, I rode 13 miles into a gale. I suppose that’s good prep for the tour but it wasn’t much fun. Until I turned around. On the way home I stopped and bought a book to tide me over until April.

I hope to ride 60-ish miles tomorrow, 70 on Tuesday, and maybe another 70 later in the week. The distances sound like a lot but as I alluded to above I ride about 30 miles a day with relative ease. The plan is to ride 30 miles. Eat lunch. Ride home.

Still, I continue to have pre-tour anxiety. My brain bounces between feeling confident in my level of experience (this will be my 14th tour) and my ridiculous mileage base (10,000 miles per year for seven straight years has to count for something) and feeling old (I’m 69 1/2) and fat (so many cookies, so little time). The daily mileages on the tour may seem daunting but I won’t be carrying half the crap that I do on my unsupported tours. That has to count for something.

I know that last two days of this year’s ride will be hilly. To get myself mentally prepared I took a look at the elevation profiles from my tours of the last two years. They look somewhat similar to this year’s tour but with one big difference: the scale. In 2023 I rode across the White and Green Mountains of New England. Admittedly the daily mileages were lower but dang were those climbs nasty! The Kancamagus Pass in New Hampshire alone was orders of magnitude harder than anything the Trace will throw at me. And I did that one in the rain.

Middlebury Gap in Vermont was nearly as bad. I did walk the last 200 yards of Middlebury Gap when I was unable to hold a straight line of travel. I think the gradient near the top was 12 percent. Oof.

I just need to keep in mind that when I’m bike touring I’ve got all day. No hurries. No worries. To paraphrase Steven Wright, everything is biking distance is you have the time.

With enough snacks, all things are possible.

Old Man on a Bicycle

Tour Prep Marches On

My preparation for the Natchez Trace tour is going okay. I can ride 30 to 35 miles without breaking a sweat. I could easily have done much more than 30 yesterday but high winds made riding unsafe. As it was, a large tree fell across the Capital Crescent Trail northwest of DC. I have had three close calls with tree falls so I’m not about to take any chances.

All but one day on the tour is longer than 30 miles so I need to up my mileage game. Fortunately, mother nature appears to be willing to cooperate. Daytime temperatures will be rising into the 70s next week. We’re saved! That, combined with the change to daylight savings time, should give me ample opportunities to go long.

Mow money, Mo’ bikes?

I’ve given myself plenty of time to ride this year; I hired a lawn service. I’ve never done this before but I had reached a decision point. My 20-year-old gas mower is all but kaput. It has a frozen blade, a broken handle height adjuster, a broken deck height adjuster, and a carburetor that clogs. Enough. A new electric mower would set me back north of $600. (Some self propelled mowers cost a stupefying $1,100.)

I honestly don’t mind mowing the lawn (except in the dog days of summer) but it turns out that the ideal weather for lawn mowing is also the ideal time for bike riding. Hmmm. Another consideration is the fact that when I’m away on my tours, my wife gets to do this chore which I am sure she doesn’t like. DIY lawn care also adds to the stress of family travel. If the lawn doesn’t get mowed before we leave, we come back to grass out the wazoo. Then there is the Rootchopper lawn quality pledge: do only the bare minimum. We haven’t aerated the lawn in 20 years and the ground is hard as a rock. Not surprisingly we have a pretty impressive weed farm.

Since I ride around the Mount Vernon/Fort Hunt area several times a week, I know which lawn services do a good job. I ruled out the services that work on high end properties figuring they’d be too expensive. I obtained three estimates, eliminated one right away based on a contract that was unclear, and did a cost comparison. I also checked Washington Consumer Checkbook, a sort of local Consumer Reports publication that gives user-provided reviews. Both companies had comparable feedback, all positive. So I went with the low bidder.

My wife suggested that once I get rid of the lawn mower I’ll have ample parking space for another bike. Who knew there’d be collateral benefits?

I’m beginning to like this lawn service idea more and more.

February 2025

Watching

Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part 1. After a week of nonstop awful news, we needed some good old fashioned escapism. This mess of an nonsensical movie provided non-stop action anchored by a way-too-old Tom Cruise. Reminded me of Roger Moore in his last Bond flick. One implausible scene after another. At one point, a character gave a speech about how he would obtain a technology which, backed by the mighty power of the US, would rule the world. Hey, I thought this was escapism. Ugh. It is appalling that there will be a Part 2.

American Fiction – A film adaptation of Percival Everett’s book Erasure about an academic who writes a trashy blaxploitation novel and struggles with his conscience. Jeffery Wright was excellent in the lead. It’s sarcastic and funny and ironic as, forgive the expression, fuck.

Riding

A pretty decent month considering I had carpal tunnel surgery on February 3. The surgery and icy roads relegated me to riding Big Nellie in the basement for 262 miles. I did 181 miles on the Tank before taking it in for its annual physical. The Mule came home from the bike shop and carried me 233 miles, the longest ride being 40 miles. The best part was that many of the rides in the second half of the month were in shorts. I ended the month by riding to Friday Coffee Club for the first time since January. My mileage for the year is 1,451.

The Natchez Trail tour I signed up for through me some surprises. It starts in Jackson, Mississippi instead of Nashville. That adds a day of driving to and from the ride. To get back to Jackson from the end in Nashville requires a 7 hour ride in a shuttle van. Ugh. Lastly, the itinerary change, adding, most significantly, a 92-mile day near the end of the tour. Knowing these things I probably would not have signed up but it is what it is. I need to get some serious training in. Let’s hold March weather behaves itself.

Reading

Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George Pelicanos. The third Nick Stefanos, private eye, book set in DC in the 1990s. A story nearly as implausible as MIDR- Part !. Interesting only in the descriptions of DC neighborhoods like the area around Nationals Park back when it was nothing but warehouses and run-down seedy looking buildings. The story begins with our “hero” goes on a drinking binge and passes out in his own puke near the bank of the Anacostia River. When he comes to he witnesses a murder which he must solve because that’s what alcoholic PIs do.

The Mediocre Follow-Up Tour (a. k. a. The No-Name Tour) by Me. Re-reading the journal (made from blog posts on my phone) of my 2019 tour brought back a host of memories, many of them bad. It turns out that riding 3,000 often mountainous miles on one good leg isn’t such a good idea. Oddly, my memory had changed the location of many events during the tour. One of the advantages of riding with Mark and Corey during the first half of this ride was that we collectively made decisions, nearly all of them good. Once I was on my own, I pushed myself way too hard.

The Big Blowdown – George Pelicanos’s fifth novel tells the story of the generation of Greek and Italian immigrants who set the stage for the Nick Stefanos books. This is by far the best of the Pelicanos books I’ve read so far. It follows the fates of neighborhood kids who go to war overseas and end up mired in the grim underbelly of DC.

Truman by David McCullough. Although I didn’t finish it yet, I’ve been plowing through this 1000-page, Pulitzer Prize winning biography for a couple of weeks. It’s worth the time to read about his service as an artillery officer in World War I, the Truman Commission that rooted out waste in government military spending, his repeated long-shot wins in elections, the death of Franklin Roosevelt, the decision to drop the atomic bomb, the deft avoidance of a post-war economic calamity, the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine which led us into the Korean and, later the Vietnam wars, McCarthyism, and more.

Update on the hand and the tour

Carpal Tunnel Update

I have been testing my surgically repaired hand and all seems to be going well. A couple of days ago I managed to do my bird dog stretches with my hand flat on the floor. The incision on my wrist is healed and there is very little in the way of numbness in my fingers. I don’t know if it is related but the persistent nerve pain in my cervical spine seems to be gone as well.

The Mule Is Back

After weeks of below-average temperatures and riding in the basement, I’ve managed to get outside for some riding. The Mule has returned from its winter physical and all is well with the bike. Switching bikes always involves a couple of days of aches and pains but I am adjusting. After my first ride two days ago, my upper back was unhappy but that seems to have resolved. Somehow my left butt cheek is very sore probably because I am not used to the big Catalyst pedals on the bike. I have been having all kinds of leg cramps which are responding to an extra post-ride banana. Life is good.

I was so eager to get back on the bike that I overdid it a bit. My first ride was a 40-miler including a decent hill across the river in Maryland. Yesterday I did a 35-mile loop that included a roller coaster trail along I-66 in Arlington. I was feeling quite fat and sucking wind, especially on the last one steep hill. Oof. So despite temperatures (finally!) cresting 60 degrees, I took it easy today, riding a flat 30 miles. I felt fresh at the end. It didn’t hurt that I was wearing shorts. (Something about long pants just seems to make riding harder.) In any case, I need to up my longest ride distance quite a bit, because the Natchez Trace tour just through me a couple of curveballs.

Tour Changes

As I posted recently, the tour itinerary began in Nashville where participants would meet up and be shuttled to Natchez, nine-hours by van to the south. My plan was to drive to Nashville on April 5 and drive home on April 15 after the tour.

Today, I received the official tour package from Adventure Cycling. It included several surprises. First, the tour participants are gathering in Jackson, Mississippi. Instead of a ten-hour drive to the start in Nashville, I face a 15-hour trek to Jackson. So I’ll be leaving on the 4th and stopping halfway. After the tour, a shuttle back to Jackson is offered for an additional $75. Under the old itinerary, the shuttle was included in the tour fee. (I’m not happy. ) The new itinerary includes a whopper of a day, 91 miles. Mercifully, there is only 2,800 feet of climbing on that day. The first day is a shuttle from Jackson to Natchez and 12 miles of riding to a hotel (included in the tour price). On Day 3 there’s a hotel in Jackson, the same one where we will meet on Day 0. Somehow the overall mileage increased by 30 miles. No rest for the weary.

Whenever I start worrying about my ability to handle these miles, my wife reminds me that I’m going to be carrying about 25 or 30 fewer pounds of gear on this trip compared to my usual self-contained tours. (I will need to carry rain gear and basic tools and repair stuff but no camping gear, off-bike clothing, and such.)

DateStartFinishMiles
Day 0Jackson0
Day 1April 7JacksonNatchez12
Day 2April 8NatchezHermanville60
Day 3April 9HermanvilleJackson49
Day 4April 10JacksonFrench Camp83
Day 5April 11French CampShannon72
Day 6April 12ShannonTishomongo55
Day 7April 13TishomongoHohenwald91
Day 8April 14HohenwaldNashville67
Day 9April 15NashvilleJackson0
Total489

I looked into alternatives to driving but I hate boxing the bike and schlepping it to and from airports. And then there’s the fun possibility of losing or breaking the bike in transit. Flights from DC to Jackson are all one-stops out of BWI which is an hour from my house. So with boxing the bike, driving to BWI, waiting an hour or so to board and five plus hours on the plane, I’d be eating up a day of my time anyway. I checked Amtrak; it doesn’t go from DC to Jackson. So car it is.

I am actually looking forward to the riding part of this tour. The before and after not so much.

Prepping for Spring and Beyond

Carpal Tunnel Recovery Update

The recovery from carpal tunnel surgery is going splendidly. Immediately after the surgery my hand was so weak that I was restricted to lifting anything heavier than a paperback book. Yesterday, 23 days from the surgery, I easily lifted The Tank and, later, The Mule onto my bike rack. The next milestone will be when I can comfortably do a bird dog pose during my daily stretching routine. My guess is that will happen next week.

I no longer have any stitches or steri strips on my incision site. I keep it covered with an oversized band-aid to be on the safe side.

Bike Physicals

As I alluded to above, I took The Tank to Beth at Bikes at Vienna for its annual physical and picked up The Mule. Beth spec’ed Wolf Tooth cushy handlebar tape for The Mule. It seems a bit like overkill but I suspect that I won’t feel that way once I get the bike out on the road. Once I try this tape out, I’ll decide what kind of tape to put on The Tank.

I had Beth install a Paul Mini-moto v-brake on the front wheel of the Mule. I had installed one on the back a couple of years ago and love it. Mini-motos brake better (I can even skid) and are much easier to adjust. Moreover, they disengage much more easily when changing tires. No more knocking the brake pads out of alignment for me.

Natchez Trace

Having signed up for a one-week, van-supported tour of the Natchez Trace Parkway I did a little research on what I am up against.

Adventure Cycling rates this as Level 4 out of 5 for difficulty. I think the rating reflects the fact that there are three days between 72 and 82 miles. They will certainly be a challenge but most of the route isn’t very hilly. Judging from some Strava metrics I have seen, the rides around my neighborhood have about 30 feet of elevation gain per mile. That’s less than all but two days on the tour.

I also checked how this compares to my ride up the Maine coast in 2022. Google Maps says that from Wells to Bar Harbor is 220 miles and 8,200 feet of elevation gain, 37 feet per mile. I handled this without much trouble. And it’s much less than the 45 feet per mile between Lexington and Damascus Virginia that I did last summer. I did both those rides unsupported. It’ll be nice not to have 35 pounds of stuff on my bike for this tour.

StartFinishMilesElevation Gain in FeetFeet Per Day
Day 1NatchezRock Springs611,33222
Day 2Rock SpringsRidgeland4891219
Day 3RidgelandFrench Camp821,45018
Day 4French CampShannon701,60023
Day 5ShannonTishomingo541,20022
Day 6TishomingoHohenwald792,90037
Day 7HohenwaldNashville622,18535
Total45611,57925

I have several friends who have ridden or driven the Trace and they all say it’s pretty and pretty easy.

I also will be taking one or two days off before the tour to drive to Nashville so I’ll have fresh legs. The tour starts April 7 which gives me a little over six weeks of time to prepare my aging carcass for the effort.

Hurry Spring!

Temporary Southpaw No More

Tuesday morning was my first post-op appointment with my hand surgeon. As expected my (3) stitches were removed. They were replaced with three steri-strips, which will hold the incision together for the next week when they should fall off.

I disclosed all my symptoms to the surgeon and he said “That’s normal” over and over again. I have various pains in my hand and even my elbow but the doctor said that unless they persist they are not a big deal.

I go back to the doctor in mid-March for another status check. In the meantime, I can use my hand “as tolerated”. It was time to put the hand through its paces.

Later in the day we had our second significant snowfall of the season. Mrs. Rootchopper and I went outside after three hours of snowfall and had at it. There was about two inches of snow on the ground and more was coming down fast.

I started by using a tool to clear the snow off our cars. My right hand didn’t much like this but once I warmed up, adapted my grip, and gave most of the work to my left hand, I had no problem. Next I picked up a snow shovel and cleared the sidewalk, driveway, and other areas. No problem. My hand was a bit sore but functioned well. More snow fell overnight so I went back out before breakfast and had at it again. If anything, my hand tolerated round two of shoveling better than round one.

Second snowfall of the winter

Yesterday, I took The Tank out for a ride. This was my first time on a conventional bicycle since the surgery. I made it ten miles without discomfort. I soldiered on, moving my hand position and unweighting my right hand, for another 20 miles. At the end of the ride, my neck hurt much more than my hand. My body is a wonderland of pain. Before riding today, I rotated the handlebars a smidge toward me. That did the trick. My neck tolerated the ride just fine. My hand held up without discomfort for 18 miles. I continued on as before, for another 12.

My bigger concern during today’s ride was the scary drivers I encountered. One driver turned sharply across my line of travel. I made eye contact and yelled at him. I could see that his car showed signs of multiple fender benders.

Earlier I passed Porto Vecchio, a condominium on the Mount Vernon Trail. Today, a car blew through the red light across the trail to make a left turn across traffic heading in both directions. How the seemingly oblivious driver avoided a crash is beyond me. Not to be outdone, left-turn driver was immediately followed by a right-turn driver who blew through the red light, just as a driver who hit me at this very spot in 2019. I third car pulled up aggressively as if to blow the light. I yelled at the driver to stop as I about to cross in front of the car. WTF.

After the snow shoveling and bike riding, I iced my hand for a half hour. So far, my hand seems to be bouncing back from these efforts without problems.

Sooo,

Today, I signed up for the Adventure Cycling Association’s van-supported Natchez Trace bike tour. It’s 456 miles in seven days. I have been putting off this decision for days, thinking that I might not be in shape for some seriously long days in the saddle (the longest day is 82 miles). Thanks to the van, however, I’ll be touring, for the first time, without carrying 40 pounds of gear; I only have to carry rain gear, some basic bike tools that I carry all the time, and snacks.

My next objective is to lose some weight in the next seven weeks.

No gut. No glory.

Temporary Southpaw – Ice, ice baby (Day 7)

On Friday and Saturday I woke up with a sour stomach and light head. I suspected that my rotating diet of pain killers was the cause so I quit taking them. I took an anti-nausea pill that the surgeon prescribed and it worked okay. Since then I’ve done nothing for my hand and wrist other than wrap it up with an ice bag.

The hand seems to be working fine except when I try to lift things or twist them. Both these movements are painful. Hopefully this is temporary. There is no sign of bruising now and the incision seems to be all but healed. Tomorrow morning I go to the doctor to have the stitches removed and to get my instructions for further recovery.

As luck, good and bad, would have it, we’re getting a snow storm tomorrow afternoon. That means I won’t be tempted to ride an upright bike until Saturday at the earliest. This will allow more time for recovery. The bad part is that riding my recumbent in the basement is sooo boooring. It also means that I probably won’t be of much use for storm clean up unless the doctor says otherwise. So far my recovery has been exactly as he said it would be so he’s the boss.

No longer having pain killers in my system I could drink beer at yesterday’s Super Bowl party. (Baseball season can’t get here soon enough!) I didn’t intend to do dry January but that’s the way things worked out. I should be dry again or nearly so for another month or two.

Off to the basement for two hours of reading and riding….