Humboldt Crud 2.0

Cough.


Cough.


Cough. Cough. Cough. Cough.

ACHEW! Sniffle. Sniffle. Snort.

Cough. Cough. Cough.

Cough. Cough.

Cough.

Cough.

Sniffle.

ACHEW! ACHEW! ACHEW!

Sniffle.

Cough.

Cough.

Cough.

Cough.

Cough.

Sniffle. Snort. ACHEW!

Cough.

Cough.

Cough.

Some bike stuff

If you're a nerd like me and you spend time thinking about how your bicycle shifts gears, you might enjoy this blog item about the Virtues of Friction Shifting. I say amen to that. Nice and simple is the way to go.

If you're feeling a little chubby and need inspiration. check out the Large Fella on a Bike blog. The guy weighed over 500 pounds in November 2005. Now he's just under 220 pounds and still losing weight!

New blog!

I've generally limited my newspaper and the material it contains to the dead tree format. But now, just for the hell of it, I'm going to play around with posting news and opinion and the internet. Not all the news, just some of it.

I'm also going to play around with video and podcasting, once I figure our some the technical issues. Heck, right now I'm having trouble just posting photos, being that I'm unfamiliar with WordPress.

So here's the new McKinkleyville Press Blog.

I hereby stumble forward into the digital era.

Baker Beach.3.6.08

Stagecoach Road ride

Today I bicycled north as fast as I could, fueled in part by inspiration from last Saturday’s time trial. I tucked my head down and pedalled against the wind. I made good time from McKinleyville to Trinidad. When I got to Trinidad, I decided to explore Stagecoach Road. Part way up the road I saw a sign for the Elk Head trail. In all the years I lived here, I don’t think I’d ever gone out there. So off I went.

My Cannondale has 1 1/4-inch tires which perform pretty well on gravel trails. So I weaved my way through the forest and splashed through some muddy puddles.



At one point you round a corner and – bam – this view hits you. This photo doesn’t really do it justice, but it’s really amazing out there.



Seals, which are really just dogs that live in the water and eat fish, were lounging on the rocks.



Here’s a staircase that goes down to the beach.



Further up the road it looks like a war zone. Those hurricane-force winds a couple years ago massacred a lot of trees. Above are the roots of one tree. I made my way to Patrick’s Point Drive, which I traveled back south on.



I stopped and took this blurry photo of my bike in front of a “spiritual center” for a local cult. Adi Da Samraj, aka Bubba Free John, is God incarnate. The only way to achieve bliss is to devote yourself to Bubba. Of course, you’ll also need to devote a portion of your income to the “Man God.” Bubba is a pretty smart guy to be able to pull off such a scam. Rock on, Man God!




Everyone was enjoying the weather today, especially dogs.

MicroThought

Barack Obama is an adult in a room filled with silly children.

Time Trial.3.1.08

When I learned earlier this week that the Tompkins Hill Time Trial was scheduled for today, March 1, a depressing thought occurred to me – there was a good chance I would be slower than I was during my first time trial last October.

It’s not a matter of being out of shape. I’ve been doing a lot of riding, just not the right kind of riding to build speed.

Being that my weakness in cycling is speed, last September I started a special training regimen involving short, fast rides. They were my own personal time trials. I’d ride 10, 15 or 20 miles as fast as I could. The technical term I came up with for this kind of riding is “balls out.”

The training paid off when I competed in my first time trial at the end of October. I completed the 11.5 mile course with a time of 33:26. My computer showed an average speed of about 20.5 mph.

That’s not fast enough to be remotely competitive in cycling around here and if I were racing in a criterium at that speed I’d probably get lapped by the pack. But it was my fastest ride to date, so I was tickled pink.

Then the holidays came. Then the rains. And my riding habits changed. I’ve climbed a few mountains and zipped up to Trinidad at a decent pace, but no “balls out” riding.

On Thursday afternoon I decided to do a pre-time trial test. I pedalled to Trinidad and back as fast as I could. My average speed was 1 mph less than what I recorded for the same ride last October. Yep, I was slower.

That slower pace continued at today’s time trial. I had a time of 34:45, with an average speed of 19.3. (Note: I haven’t done the math to determine whether the average speed indicated by my bike computer jives with the official times. It really doesn’t matter. It’s all relative.)

I attribute my slower pace to a lack of training and, to some degree, pure laziness. When I finished the race, my legs felt fine and I was hardly huffing and puffing. Had I given it my all, I would have felt some pain.

I’ll just have to use today’s experience as an excuse to ride more, and ride smarter.