The Longest 35 Miles

I set out for an adventure on my bike today, and I guess I wasn't disappointed. Only about 35 miles, but it sure took me a lot longer than any 35 miles I've ever done.



Originally, the plan was ride from home, but I wanted to get over the Heart of America bridge now that it has a bike lane.



And I wasn't sure I wanted to do a Century, which is what that would have approached. I thought, maybe just ride 50 to 60 miles, nothing crazy.



I parked at the Merriam Farmer's Market and headed downtown.

Once there, I couldn't remember which road becomes the HOA. So I asked a cyclist, which is how I met Corinna, and by result of that, a bunch of other fun urban cyclists.



I asked if she knew how to get to the bridge and she offered to show me. She had an awesome helmet mohawk and had decorated her very Touring bike with lots of cool stuff. She offered me an apple from a bag bulging one of her panniers—she offered apples to everyone we came across. Cookies, too.

Corinna, I came to realize, is incapable of missing an opportunity to help a person. She greeted one guy I took to be homeless (and with some serious mental health issues) by name. Turns out, he's autistic, guess I should have known when she had to say his name nine times to get an acknowledgment. Turns out she's a mental health advocate, among other things. Which is to say she's one of those mostly invisible people who do much of the good that gets done in the world.



As we entered the River Market, I approached a grate in the road, and right when I started over it, I realized it only had slats parallel with the road, as if it was designed to eat the front wheel of a bicycle.



The next thing I remember, I was washing my wounds in the bathroom of a coffee shop I don't remember going to or entering, And for the life of me, I couldn't recall where I'd left my car.



When I emerged, Corinna had ibuprofen handy, and I gratefully accepted three of them. My fingers hurt when I did much with them, my knee was raw and my face felt like George Foreman had hit me with one of those grills he hawks.



But I'd only ridden nine miles, and I generally felt pretty functional. HOA was scrapped as my Sherpa was on her way to a group ride that started at 3:00, and it was 2:30. And I wasn't sure how I'd feel as I rode, so getting closer to my car seemed sensible. The bike shop she was headed to was in the direction of my car, and that's how I ended up exploring downtown and the Northeast with some really fun people. I even knew where I was parked, so I was set, right?



I can't remember the name of this cool little bike shop in the Crossroads, but this was the rendezvous for the Three O'Clock ride. Most group rides, I'm the oddball in a Hawaiian shirt instead of a jersey, the one without SPD pedals, the one with the fattest tires, etc.



Here I was in my only cycling jersey riding with t-shirt clad folks, one of them not even wearing a helmet, mountain bikes with impossibly fat tires (even for mountain bikes) in the clear majority.



Of course, mountain bikes come in handy when the city is your playground. These guys never missed a chance to ride off down some stairs or jump a ramp.



We ended up at the new Acme Bicycles, Christi's house. She's the half of Acme that didn't move back to Portland. She has cool folk art made of bicycle parts in her back yard, and neato sheet metal decorating her home's face, functioning as a security gate. The sheet metal was the scrap from someone cutting out shapes for sculptures, so they're the reverse image.



I was sad to learn that the bike sculpture that used to be across from Grinder's was not preserved, but hauled off as junk. I loved that sculpture.



Christi later diagnosed my bike as rideable (good thing since I rode it there), my fork was not bent as I thought, though I put a wrinkle in my bottom tube. She said she thought the bike might handle better with the wrinkle.





We went on a beer run, sort of. I bought water for my Camelbak and ice for my cheek. Then, on Cliff Drive, where I last rode with my brother probably 15 years ago, we stopped to imbibe. Well, except me. I was feeling headachey and as out of character as it is for me to wave off a free beer (Boulevard Pale Ale, a fave, too), I feared alcohol would make the headache worse and I still had to ride back to Merriam.



As we were stopped there on Cliff Drive a motorcycling couple stopped and asked if we were climbing in addition to riding, and I said, 'No, we're falling and riding.' The look on his face as he took a second look at me should have told me.




A couple of times, I was asked what happened, and once Corinna volunteered, 'He ate a grate in the River Market.' But actually, I think, the grate ate me.




See also at least three people asking if I had insurance, including Corinna when she gave me those Advil, when I wasn't even swollen much.





Hell, I'd probably still be running around with the whole sick crew except I left my headlight in the car, not keen on riding alone in the dark anyway, and they were talking about going back and doing the haunted houses.



Parting ways, Corinna commented that I prolly wouldn't have ridden with them if I knew how messed up I was. When I mentioned my little memory gap, she asked if I remembered two motorists who asked if I was okay.



Nope.



Actually, by the time I got back to my car, I kind of did. Hazy, like a forgotten dream, I remember being asked if I was okay and saying, "I'm not sure, still taking inventory."



I was still in the 'just go home' camp. Actually called a friend near where I'd park thinking I'd make a social call.



I reasoned that there wasn't much to be done but ice my contusions and clean the wounds. After all, I was healthy enough to ride twenty more miles after the biff.



Then, calling to tuck my kids in, my ex told me to to fool around with my concussion symptoms, the memory loss. And I'd gotten chain grease in my wounds and couldn't remember my last tetanus booster.



Reluctantly, I peeled off and went to Olathe Med, where three hours, a CAT scan and a series of X-rays revealed that my eggs are not scrambled, but two of my fingers are indeed broken.



My ring finger on the left and my middle on the right. Talk about a big bowl of suck, I basically type for a living.



This post has taken forever with my awkward new typing technique.



I still haven't figured out how to get my riding gloves on over the splints or how hard it'll be to brake with splints.

Stuffed Punkin

I've made a few Stuffed Pumpkins before, but this is my first All-Wal-Mart Team punkin.



Last year, there was a shortage. You had to go to the Whole Paycheck Market to get the pumpkin. And while you're there, get some Gruyere, the best cheese to shred into one of these dudes.



This year, I saw pie pumpkins by the gaylord at Wal-Mart, and money's tight, but I figured I could stuff one. One package croutons (garlic-cheese), raisins (I prefer figs, but any port in a storm), bleu cheese and shredded mozarella (Gruyere is great, and Wal-Mart stocks it, but at $26 a pound, forget it). Thyme, rubbed sage, cayenne, garlic, caramelized onion, etc. All Wal-Mart.



I toasted the seeds and introduced them to the mix, not as brown as they'd have been if I'd picked up some proper butter. Toasted in olive oil, what I had on hand (and, no doubt, healthier).





Oh, while I was at it, I made a tuna casserole the girls wouldn't eat. I needed some leftovertures to take to lunch, so it's all good.



The pumpkin does take a long time in the oven. An hour on first roast, then some extra cheese and another thirty minutes. Might be more, since in this case the pumpkin wasn't cooked through at that point and needed an extra twenty minutes.



On the plus side, I have lunch for two weeks between the casserole and the pumpkin.

Winky Blinks

Always keen to add more visibility to my bike, especially now that it's getting dark so early there's no way around night riding except to call it a season.

So I'm in Wal-Mart and I find green four leaf clover flashing earrings, 75¢ a pair. I looked all over U.S. Toy last year hoping to find such things and came up with nothing, so at this price I bought them out.



The effect is a little bit Christmas Tree-ish. Maybe I can find some other colors at some point and diversify. Christen my bike the H.M.S. Mardi Gras or something.

Gao Bros.

The Gao Brothers have a bunch of stuff on display in the big exhibit hall at my favorite little museum, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

I had to go. I think these two (I treat them here as a unit because as far as I know they always collaborate) as the single most important voice in contemporary art. Survivors of the Cultural Revolution, their work seems to be a form of therapy (after all, their father wasn't so lucky, sent off for re-education and promptly murdered, for which the People's Republic was eventually badgered into compensating the family less than $300).

And there are so many dimensions to their work. They are, of course, all about the ideas, but their Miss Mao sculptures provide levity, mocking the tyrant, which balances out things like The Execution of Christ, a sculpture staged to ape Manet's The Execution of Maximillian.



This last sculpture is one of the most viscerally shocking things I've ever seen. And it rings of truth, though failing to find the real Christ, Mao settled for shooting a few million stand-ins.








Another more somber piece, Mao's Guilt, was leavened not by Mao with tits, but by Mo's mocking his pose.





It was a little bit interesting seeing the reaction on Em's friend who was along. The friend is actually from China, been in the states three or four years I think. Her family owns the Chinese takeout here in town. She thought the Gao Brother stuff was cool until we got to the naked man standing on a TV and the Mao with chrome boobies, then she and Em decided this was all Awkward Turtle and went to see what else the gallery had on offer.







Mo was un-phased by the nudity, she just wanted to pose for pictures in front of everything.

Through the Roof Hayride

The movers and shakers, the coffee generation of Heartland's special needs ministry, Through the Roof, hosted their second annual hayride on Saturday. If it grows as much next year, they'll have to do two rides or get a bigger wagon.



There was going to be a moonwalk but the wind blew it away.



Hedge apples were going to be painted, and sort of were, but the kids figured out it was more fun trying to smash them on the driveway.



It was a lot cooler than I'd anticipated. Em had pronounced it 'hoodie weather' and I thought she was daft. Mo and me were in short sleeves and might have been in shorts, it was a close call. We gratefully accepted sweaters and blankets as the hayride got under way.



Mass quantities of chili and junk food were consumed. Mo ate her plate of hot dog and whatnot and then looked like she thought she was getting away with something as she got her desert plate. She did have more sweets than I'd normally allow, but I reasoned it wasn't going to kill her or anything.



The big surprise was Em, who didn't want to go, said there'd be no fun, nobody to talk to, and after all the other guests had left, I had to drag her kicking and screaming to the car.

What's the Truck For?

Saw this Surly int he bed of a truck outside Price Chopper. I had to wonder, with a setup like this, the panniers, the Brooks saddle, etc., why even own a truck?

She Swore It'd Be Different This Time...

I've confessed to being a profligate lover of group rides. Even when I obviously don't belong, can't keep up, and find myself alienating the few riders who would talk to me in the first place, I keep coming back.

But there's one ride I did once and never called. Think of it as a one night stand, but I rode the Brookside no-drop ride last year right before Bike MS and I didn't entirely dig it.



The leader of my new favorite ride of the week told me I should give it another chance, it's different now. I was down a headlight, only having a wimpy helmet light as far as white front lights go, so my original plan was to go to the downtown airport and ride laps. If the road was dark, at least I wouldn't get hit by a car or something.

My desk at work was buried in an avalanche of work that has me thinking maybe the recession really is over, and I could have easily stayed late into the evening without running out of urgent things to do. On the other hand, the weather was obscenely beautiful, my bike was on the rack and my riding clothes and Camelbak were with me.

I decided to do the Brookside route because it's closer than downtown, so I could come back to work after without losing as much time driving. Plus, I'd heard such encouraging things from someone who knows how to put on a good group ride.

Last year, there was no preamble, the group just started riding at 6:30. This year, I was asked to sign a waiver, not sure why (no other ride seems to require it, I doubt if it does much good against a good personal injury lawyer), and the PV officer who spoke to the Blue Moose ride a couple of weeks ago was there to address us. Out of his jurisdiction though he might have been. Good guy, a motorcycle rider, meaning he has an inkling of what it's like to be out on a bicycle with cars and laws that are designed for cars.

The long and short of it, us cyclists have bitched about enough close calls and been in enough accidents (an MFer was hit last week, there were at least two other accidents in PV) to make the cops take a closer look at whether the cars are sharing the road or trying to kill us all. And if the cops are going to take a closer look to bust the cars who are running us over, obviously that means they are going to be there to see when a few dozen of us roll through stop sign without even a token tap of the brakes, four abreast and hammering hell bent for leather.

Not that any of us would ever do such a thing.

One of the things that has changed since last year is the group has schismed into two groups, one of which is unapologetically fast, the other of which is open to anyone with a bicycle who will sign the waiver.

This is good, because part of the problem last time I rode this ride was it was too big. Deciding which sub-genre I belonged in was tricky: I'm too old to rock & roll and too young to die. I can't keep up with the fast group, they might as well be on the Blue Moose; I'm probably not patient enough for the slow group, many of whom are exactly where I was fifteen months ago. This is nothing against Freds and Wilmas, they're doing more than most Americans — they're out exercising instead of watching TV on a Thursday evening.

The ideal group for me is one like the Mission Farms MFer ride, where I can just barely keep up. As opposed to a group like the Blue Moose where, once they're warmed up, they drop the hammer and they're just gone like a train.

There are about fifty stop signs and/or stop lights at the beginning of this route, and with everyone trying to race to catch the ones they just lost sight of, before I crossed the state line, I was with four riders, none of whom knew the route. I only knew it in a vague way, having ridden it over a year ago once.



One of the four defected and decided to call it a night, the other three followed me, reluctantly, after racing down a dead end when I thought it was obvious we stayed to the right. Well, maybe the next left was the answer, and I led us on a leg up to Lawn Chair Larry's shortcut of the Blue Moose, 90% sure it was the route I remembered us taking when I last tried the Brookside ride.



I do remember regrouping at a church, and I think it might even have been Village Pres, but when our little detour got there we were on the wrong side of the intersection and there were no cyclists at all in the parking lot across the street.

I guess the other experienced rider in our little mini-group had his faith shattered by this because when I said we could still head over to Lamar and probably catch part of the group he said, 'That ain't happening, we're heading back.'

Which is fine if he's done, but I came to ride. Granted, if I wanted to ride in the dark by myself, I could have gone to the Blue Moose, but I wasn't ready to throw it in. We end up on 63rd Street, which has way too much traffic for a road so skinny. Wilma went yabba-dabba-racing on ahead and I shouted, 'Turn right!' as she approached a corner.



She didn't, and neither did the other two. I did. I actually thought we'd agreed to at least cut south to 73rd, which is an easier crossing of State Line and Wornall, but finding myself flying solo, I went over to Lamar and then down and around to Somerset. In for a penny...

I ended up at 19.8 miles, bringing my September total to 459.4. That'll be a tough record to break, but I'm sure I'll try.

I got mad for a minute: this is a no drop ride? Me riding side streets to avoid traffic, alone in the dark with less than my usual lights? I guess if I'd had more lemming in my blood, I could have continued on with the riders who wanted to risk their necks on 63rd, but what kind of option is that?

With all those stop signs at the beginning, there isn't any getting around the group spreading out.

I got mad again a couple times when I had close calls coming back. A guy pulling out of a parking lot, assuming the way was clear. He was so apparently going ahead I'd already veered to steer clear of him, and he shouted, 'Sorry!' as he hit the brakes. Then two other cars who saw me just in time, I'm pretty sure. I can't blame anyone but myself I was still out alone, past eight in the dark with only three lights on my bike and person.

Instead of getting mad, I think I should get helpful. What this ride needs is someone who will print maps or turn lists and hand them out to new arrivals, give a stack to the leader. Which would me me since I'm not just a group ride slut, I'm a group ride slut who works in a print shop.

Interesting Rides

Check out this cool old Trek steel frame. It seems like those lever shifters would be quite a reach. I'm guessing after thirty or forty years, you get used to it, though.



Teal is a coming back, as far as I can tell (in terms of design, I'm not seeing any new teal bikes yet), but I think this bicycle has seen teal come and go a couple of times as far as trendy colors go.

Then, Monday evening, I saw this antique brought in to Trek. I think I heard it was a Schwinn, apparently someone made enough selling it on eBay to hire the bike shop guys to pack it with tender loving care for shipment.



While Tyler (with the beard) was checking it out, I noticed his bike on the rack behind him. Well, one of his bikes, this is a build he's been working on, a single speed, no brakes. In his words, 'Sort of built as a track bike but then I ride it on the street anyway.'



Very minimalist. I'm digging the day-glo rims, too, make the whole wheel a reflector.