Extra Mile Pointless Prize

[CBGanimal]

@epilsk 203255 wrote:

Every year there is at least one day where events threaten to conspire to keep you from getting your daily BAFS miles logged. Maybe it is travel, maybe weather, maybe a flat tire or other mechanical, or maybe just life’s persistent demands. Whatever the reason, us Freezing Saddlers are not easily deterred and we find a way to get the rides in, or freeze trying. But most of all we post about it!

The Extra Mile Pointless Prize will be awarded to the Freezing Saddler(s) with the most compelling story of going the extra mile to get your mile. Your prize will be a donation in your name (or your designee) to your preferred cycling-related charity. There are no limits to your story of bravery, and success is not necessary. This prize was inspired by my carefully choreographed bike-share ride in Denver after a long day of flights, only to miss it because I starting the ride at 10 PM MST, which is 12 AM EST, and so I missed the official BAFS day. Last years winner involved riding in single digits in the snow in a driveway in Vermont on a borrowed child’s bike.

Your story does not have to involve travel (and likely won’t this year), but anything counts: riding on flat tires or no gears, riding before, during, or after the blizzard, or riding badly hungover to gt the miles in. All I ask is that you not risk injury, sickness, or jail time to accomplish your feat.

Post your stories in this thread and I’ll announce the winner(s) at the after-BAFS party.

Be brave, be saf-ish, and please, please, please, be entertaining.

COVID-19 travel restrictions will

Yesterday tested my patience and my quads! I went to visit “El Escorial” a monastery on the north end of Madrid. My daughter and I rode up on the train, bike in tow, and walked around. After dropping her off at the train station I started my bike ride home. After 15min of riding I went to change gears and felt a SNAP, and that is where the gears stayed all the way home (50 miles and +2K of elevation and 5 hours later I collapsed on my floor). I did have to unclip and jump off the bike 4 times as I could not get up some hills much to the chagrin of onlookers…and even more of a beating to my ego since they didn’t know why I was jumping off the bike!!

[Steve O]

Pro-tip for broken derailleur cable:

If you carry a multi-tool (shame on you if you do not) you can adjust the outside limit screw on your derailleur and get the chain onto the second or even 3rd smallest ring on the cassette, making your new single speed slightly easier to ride.

If you don’t know which screw is which, try them both until you note your derailleur moving the chain in. Turn that one all the way and it should put your chain over 1-2 cogs.
Don’t sweat that you will mess up your derailleur. You or the shop can put it all back to normal once the new cable is installed.

Sent from my H3123 using Tapatalk

[jrenaut]

@Steve O 203748 wrote:

If you don’t know which screw is which, try them both until you note your derailleur moving the chain in.

It is a well-known fact that limit screws follow the USB Superposition Law whereby any action taken (tightening or loosening either screw) will move the derailleur in the wrong direction until you have tried every combination.

[cvcalhoun]

Today’s ride wasn’t so challenging. But today’s entry into the Daily Photo Scavenger Hunt definitely was!

1. The challenge is a “small business serving beans.” I don’t actually know any small businesses in Bethesda serving beans. Before the pandemic, I spent my days in downtown DC, so I knew businesses down there (although they weren’t necessarily small ones). But now I’m 12 miles from my old office, and don’t want to go there in the middle of a riot/after the resulting curfew. So I do some Googling, and find a coffee shop (Clove & Cedar) that sells whole coffee beans, and that advertises itself as “Brewed in Bethesda” so it’s clearly local.
2. I set my phone’s GPS for the location. However, Google maps is apparently unaware that some of the streets have been blocked off for outdoor dining at restaurants. So I’m having to follow a somewhat circuitous route to get around those areas.
3. I arrive at the location. The combination of cold and use of the GPS has apparently exhausted the phone’s battery, and the phone shuts off exactly as I arrive.
4. I decide that maybe I can get enough battery just to take a few photos if I warm the phone up. So the routine is to stick the phone between my boobs until it warms up. Press the power button and put the phone back between my boobs while it turns on. Pull the phone out and hastily take a photo. Check to make sure the photo came out all right, which it did. Phone shuts down. Lather, rinse, repeat until I have three photos. All this time, I am wondering whether tomorrow’s headline is going to be, “Local attorney arrested for clearly doing something perverted in downtown Bethesda.”
5. Bike back home. Plug the phone in and turn it on. All three photos have totally disappeared.
6. Check the clock. The photos have to be posted by midnight, and it is now coming up on 11. I hastily start charging my phone, plus a spare phone I keep for emergencies, plus a portable charger, desperately hoping I can get something to work in time to bike back there and get more photos. However, it’s going to be cutting it close.
7. Suddenly remember that my Fly12 was on, and that I may have accidentally gotten a usable picture from that. So I start playing the videos, and find one that has at least a legible (though far from artistic) shot of the place.
8. Take a screenshot. Try desperately to remember how to crop a screenshot so that it will show only the restaurant, not my entire desktop.
9. Make my post with the photo at 11:08 pm.

[epilsk]

OMG! And is “the routine”?!? I hereby award you an interim prize. PM me your mailing address and phone model so I can mail you a portable battery charger you can carry with you. Fits in your pocket, not your bra, and will actually charge your phone without any risk of indecent exposure.

[epilsk]

P.S. Well done finding the photo!

[chuxtr]

@cvcalhoun 204267 wrote:

Today’s ride wasn’t so challenging. But today’s entry into the Daily Photo Scavenger Hunt definitely was!

If only your Fly12 had video’d the whole escapade. It’s epilsk’s prize, but IMHO you win.

[cvcalhoun]

@epilsk 204277 wrote:

OMG! And is “the routine”?!? I hereby award you an interim prize. PM me your mailing address and phone model so I can mail you a portable battery charger you can carry with you. Fits in your pocket, not your bra, and will actually charge your phone without any risk of indecent exposure.

Honestly, I’m fine with just the honor here, as opposed to the prize. I have a portable charger. I just didn’t think of taking it, since a) I stopped routinely carrying it when I stopped taking Metro, and b) the phone was 52% charged when I left the house, so it never occurred to me that it would shut down before I could get the photo. I will, however, be taking it on future trips.

[epilsk]

You have set a high mark for the final prize!

[CBGanimal]

Not much competition for cvcalhoun but today just kept getting worse.
1. Had a puncture on my tubeless tire that I couldn’t fix no matter how much bacon or stans I used!
2. Gave up and grabbed my daughter/mother’s K-mart special 20 year old bike and started riding
3. 10 miles into laps on flat ground I noticed Strava stopped recording at .5
4. On my way home chain falls off 5 times
5. I still got about 40 miles done and got a STEM, Parkfinder, Photoscavenger Hunt, and a Small Business picture!
I’m tired!

[epilsk]

This is what I am talking about! Well done.

[Laurie E.]

Overcoming obstacles to ride extra mile. 2/12/21

This road construction is behind my house. I have to ride about 4 or 5 or more extra miles to go around it. Each time I successfully go though it, they reposition the barriers to block me from getting though. So I found an opening today, and went though, on my return, this is what I found. They put the barriers all the way across to a slope on one side and mud on the other.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]23986[/ATTACH]

[epilsk]

Your determination not to be deterred is inspiring! But, you should embrace those bonus miles

[Steve O]

@Laurie E. 207759 wrote:

Overcoming obstacles to ride extra mile. 2/12/21

This road construction is behind my house. I have to ride about 4 or 5 or more extra miles to go around it. Each time I successfully go though it, they reposition the barriers to block me from getting though. So I found an opening today, and went though, on my return, this is what I found. They put the barriers all the way across to a slope on one side and mud on the other.

So do they notice you going through and specifically try to thwart you? Or something else?
Also, that doesn’t look that hard to go around, although your bike is a bit more troublesome than some, being heavier in particular. I could easily just lift my bike over and then hop over. That’s harder for you. But the right side looks rideable to me – or flinstoneable at least.
That said, I concur with epilsk on your determination. Kudos.

[jrenaut]

Wife and I just did loops on the quiet little road where we’re staying. This stretch was mostly flat and not too slushy. A bunch of roads nearby are cleared but they don’t seem that bike friendly.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]24094[/ATTACH]

IMG_20210215_144558040 by Jon, on Flickr

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