Today's ride was an attempt to work up to an average ride this summer. Doing this 8-10 days in a row seems daunting.

Still waiting for summer.  A little more snow is expected on Monday.
It'll be difficult to log 3000 miles by June.

Today is a clue that summer's coming. I hear my transcontinental trip calling my name.

Between snow and sickness, it's been almost a month since the last time that I rode my bike. Making 3000 miles by June seems a little harder now but I might still do it. Today's ride was my usual loop with a little wandering thrown in. It was fairly easy. I still find my new bike to be a pleasure to ride and cannot imagine a better one for cruising a good road.  There were a few spots where the road wasn't so good.  Although my arms and legs were bare as if summer had arrived, I still had to carry the bike over some short stretches of solid ice. 

Test of embedded Garmin and Picasa data

Some prose before the data.

Some prose after the data.

Now --- how to add a collection of pictures?

I seem to be part of a trend with a label.  So says an article published by the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/11/mamil-middle-aged-men-in-lycra.  It refers to this source published by the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10965608.  The Guardian article is followed by hundreds of mostly harsh, contemptuous comments about the ugliness of cycling clothing and the extravagance of the bikes.  They seem unaware that cycling clothing is used because it works.

The season here in Colorado is winter again.  The temperature at the moment (5pm) is 38ºF, which is tolerable for a while but I'm getting impatient.  Still, I've racked up 800 miles so far this year, which will be 2700 at the current rate by June 16.  It's still winter so I'm pretty sure to beat 3000 by June.


Colnago EPQ
Campagnolo Record 11

When I bought my Colnago on Feb. 1, I was thinking of a nice, light, go-fast bike for my credit-card tour with +America by Bicycle this summer and for the rest of my life.  That's what I got: it's a beautiful, smooth bike that makes any deficiencies its rider's fault.  But even before I had taken the bike out of the store, I was thinking of another one.  That's because I discovered +Tour d'Afrique .  Wander over there and see for yourself that it seizes the imagination.  My fancy, thoroughbred bike probably wouldn't survive one of the tours of Tour d'Afrique so I'd have to get another bike, a strong, steel, touring bike with 36-spoke, 3x wheels and Schwalbe Marathon tires.  The +Surly long haul trucker is a possibility.

Even now, as I write this, the tour from Cairo to Capetown is in Ethiopia.  I follow blogs kept by a few of its riders and imagine myself in their place.  It's much harder than my cruise across the US this summer so I'll have to be lighter and stronger.  I'll also have to get a job to pay for it and a new bike and plane fare and various overhead costs.  I'll also have to do it before committment papers can be drawn up.  Now that I'm 60 years old, I think about doing one big thing each year while I still can.

My wife gave me the best bike computer in the world for my birthday last month.  It's a Garmin Edge 810 bundle.  I had some trouble with the heart rate monitor and finally figured out that I have too much hair on my chest for a good connection.  Electrode gel is impossible to find around here so I tried some ultrasound gel on the assurance by the sales person that the two gels were the same thing.  They're not --- as I pointed out before I bought it.  Ultrasound gel is meant to match acoustic impedances and electrode gel is meant to conduct electricity.  Even so, it helps enough for a Bluetooth connection with the computer but I will still buy some electrode gel.  A reliable connection means shaving two patches of skin for the electrodes as well as using gel.  Today I got around to installing the cadence and speed sensors; both work fine with no problems.

I'd like to continue this blog on my trip and that means a computer.  Ultrabooks are nice and I've been doing a little window shopping.  If I were posting the Garmin data of my last ride, it would look like this: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/274700796 .  I wonder how to post a summary with a dynamic map.

 I've seen slideshows of pictures and I wonder how to do that, too.  There are only 16 weeks until I head east from the Oregon coast.