[JimF22003]

Just to be a teeny bit contrarian… first I agree that starting out on mountain bike pedals is the way to go, even if you eventually move on to full-blown unwalkable roadie pedals like speedplay or looks.

I tried to like the dual-purpose SPD/platform pedals but I found them a bit annoying. I never ride in tennis shoes or non-bike shoes though, so maybe that’s why. I hardly ever used the platform side, and I found it more trouble than it was worth to keep flipping to the clip-in side.

I started on the cheapest possible Wellgo SPD-compatible pedals and they worked perfectly well.

[JimF22003]

Patrick Henry, parallel mostly to Sleepy Hollow, is also a nice road to practice your “sit-and-spin” technique up a not-too-steep hill.

[JimF22003]

I got my first bike for Christmas. In Northern Minnesota. D’oh!

I actually rode circles in the basement with training wheels on. It wasn’t until months later that the snow had cleared off enough to take the bike outside.

[JimF22003]

I bought a huge THULE case from REI that I’ve only used once. Unwieldy in an airport to say the least. The bike survived, except for me cross-threading the derailleur when trying to reattach it to the hanger. Had to get somebody at the local bike shop to fix that for me. I left the derailleur attached on the way home, and again the bike survived, but I noticed the plastic spacer I used on the rear drop-outs was bent, so there had been some severe pressure on the box at some point. I worry about how a soft-sided case would have survived that one…

[JimF22003]

I’ve done MoM three times, but had to miss last spring because I was sick. This is about the best organized event I’ve ever done, and the only one with actual timings recorded (despite being “NOT a race” — sure…)

I made it to the top the first time, and the last time. I should have quit while I was ahead, but as of right now I’ll probably do it one more time before I get too old and feeble…

[JimF22003]

@PeteD 38678 wrote:

I’ve got no idea about the ride, but The Storming of Thunder Ridge (which is a week earlier than Mountains of Misery) might be a good fit.

This is a beautiful ride, but I had some issues with the organization. Maybe they’ve improved it since about 5 years ago. It was supposed to be my prep ride for my first Mountains of Misery.

It was a nasty cold wet spring day, and most of the people who were planning to do the century bailed and took the shortcut for the 100K ride. I guess I was last on the course at some point and everybody at the final rest stop and the support vehicle guy wanted to go home and get warm, so they more or less insisted I SAG in.

I remember the organizer saying to me, “sorry you weren’t able to complete the ride.” I told her I was ABLE to complete the ride, but wasn’t allowed to…

[JimF22003]

what always strikes me about 19th century photographs taken in the northeast is how few trees there are. Almost all of what we think of as “forest” around here (Shen. NP, GW national forest etc.) is 2nd and 3rd-growth. Most of the hillsides were stripped bare of their trees for fuel, or the fields were cleared for pastures and farmland.

[JimF22003]

A couple of years ago I took a turn a bit too fast on a PAINTED oily surface in a parking garage. I landed hard on my left hip. Within an hour I had developed a hematoma the size of a honeydew melon that didn’t go down all the way for six months… I went to the ER and they took all kinds of pictures etc., but they couldn’t just drain it because the swelling was more than just blood. Now I take that turn REAL slow…

[JimF22003]

I had to have my R3 repaired because of dropped chains. I rode a Trek bike before that where I got into a bad habit of trying to ride the chain back onto the ring if it dropped. It worked on the Trek. On the R3 it just gouged right into the frame.

I actually did Mountains of Misery on the bike with that gouge in it so I guess I wasn’t in imminent danger of death. But I did get it repaired by Calfee.

I put a chain catcher on it subsequently but had lots of trouble getting the front derailleur adjusted correctly. Kind of hated it actually.

That’s one of the reasons (self-justification really) that I went electronic shifting on my bikes. (Not that I haven’t dropped a chain with that setup either once in awhile, but it’s much less frequent than before.)

I think the reason I drop chains a lot is that I use a compact setup (50/34 with 11/28 cassette). Whenever I shift the front I almost always need to adjust the back. Many times I shift both simultaneously, and it usually works fine…

[JimF22003]

The year before last I did a group ride in Idaho that went through the Sawtooths. Two of the passes were right about 8000 feet. I was really gassing it to get up over those… Every time I go home I do a climb that goes from 3000 feet to 6000 feet, and that one doesn’t bother me so much.

[JimF22003]

I don’t get why texting is any worse than anything else you do on a phone (including just TALKING on it.) Scrolling a playlist, looking up a contact etc. all take your eyes (and your concentration) off the road.

[JimF22003]

Going towards the Potomac, it was right near where it first starts going under the highway.

[JimF22003]

@bobco85 35231 wrote:

My ride to the polls at 6:30 this morning is best described as: brisk. My clothing kept me at the right temperature, a balance between freezing and sweating. Also, using the paper ballot saved me about 15+ minutes in line. I don’t get why so many people prefer the electronic route since the paper ballots get scanned immediately.

I almost went with the paper ballot because there were no lines. Good thing I didn’t. The machine to scan the paper ballots kept jamming up, and the poor older gent who was trying to fix it wasn’t making much progress by the time I left…

[JimF22003]

Say no to audible “bike speakers” at least when you’re in earshot of me

I was on the first long uphill out of Thurmont on the CWC a couple of years ago when I heard an annoying racket up ahead of me. As I came up behind the person it was playing some kind of really bad ersatz jazz music. Awful.

It did give me a little extra incentive to pick up the pace to get around him though

[JimF22003]

The battery must go faster if you’re mostly watching the map vs. one of the other screens as well. I was “only” 8 hours into a century ride a couple of weeks ago when i got the low battery warning. I was following a route from a GPX for most of the day. I was surprised the battery went down that quickly.

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