This Year's Magic Carpet Ride

Norm said:
Ok so @pearl I'm going to share what I do because you say it's boring but you know you like to read.

Monday

I did some light work at CR in the morning, then went to the BSA to start the new course marking on the far side of the lake. This GPS loop looks kinda sexy, doesn't it?
https://www.strava.com/activities/661381938

Much better than an out & back.

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Tuesday

So this is what I want my riding to evolve into:
https://www.strava.com/activities/662606776/overview

Tuesday night ride, 74 miles and 4 hours. Managed 244 Garmin watts for the ride, which turns into whatever it is on Strava. In the old days we only had Garmin watts so this is what I know. It's been a long time since I did a ride like this at a power this high. This is a good ride for me. I mean, it's a Tuesday.

Before the ride I slammed my cleats back and inside the shoe, and I lowered my saddle maybe a half inch. Not sure if I have been slowly moving it up or I am shrinking, but it was way better for sure. Towards the end my left leg started to hurt again but not as bad and it was well into the ride.

Saw this guy out there.

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Today

I may or may not go out for an easy ride after my 2:30 call.

There is a rec committee meeting in town tonight. I had actually applied to be on the committee 2 months ago and they still have not made a decision. I heard back from the woman at the town and she said maybe I can show up and intro myself because they take forever to make decisions.
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You make the trip down to Halters, have a known fit issue before that and didn't have J make an adjustment? What am I missing considering you are the head cheese?
 
Nice ride. Does Dead River Rd still look like someone took a jackhammer to it? Haven't been down that way in a bit.
 
Wednesday (continued)

@Dominique thought I should go to the town rec meeting so I decided to go after dinner. The meeting was small and in the end there were not enough members there to even have a meeting. But I introduced myself and now they know who I am. The committee president (who works for the township and thus is not a voting member) is pushing for me to be added. But she says it's a politics game and they won't just vote me in unless they know who I am, no matter how qualified I am. Anyway, this was my intro so we'll see.

Thursday

@capedoc came down and we rode for 2 hours. Headed down to D's work, rode an hour with her, then rode home. I thought my road fit issues were over but they came back in monumental fashion on this ride. @stb222 - I am not sure if this is a fit issue or it is an overuse issue right now. Having pain in my left hamstring is not totally new. But in the past it only happens when I hammer for a long time or go on really long rides. An hour or 2 should not trigger this. But @Delish suggests it may be due to the July riding.

I just decided to take off the road bike for a while. Having said that it never ever hurts like this on any other bike. So...I don't know.

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Sorry for the toaster quality pic but this is what you get on the bike. I keep my phone in a waterproof case but it adds a blue tint sometimes.

Friday

Felt like taking a day and doing something good so I went out to RV with the monster bike and the monster pack and rode up and over and took on the far end of the park, starting at the eagle trail closed sign. I was hoping I could get all the way to the phone booth in 3 hours but I was sorely mistaken. I decided to take on the crappy troll bridge that was forming and make it better. I know I am repeating myself here but I can't imagine that most people read the RV conditions thread.

I did this thing, and cut 20,000 plants down.

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Saturday

Woke up and drove to White Clay. We decided to try to hit as many trails as we could. I also tested out my new Garmin 820 (the other one has been turning itself off lately) and I was stoked to see the trails already on the map. That was a pretty cool feature. So it made riding a bit easier but we still had to consult Maprika a bunch of times.

Our loop here, @1speed may be interested:
https://www.strava.com/activities/667010077

Towards the end we were on this side hill and I was just tooling along, and I was on the left side of the trail (hill fell off to the right) and there was a little tree on the right and at the last second I decided maybe I was going to hit it so I hopped a little right, hit a few slick rocks, shot out to the right side of the trail which was soft, and went down pretty hard. White Clay does not have a tons of rocks but I managed to land on 1 of them. I didn't want to post this on the weekend picture thread since I generally don't like these kinds of pics but I figure if you're here you'll want to see. This is after I cleaned it up.

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In the end the doctor at the clinic did not want to sew it up because it was a bit too dirty in there and she did not want to sew it up so dirty. We had just gone to the clinic so it wasn't exactly Chicago ER. But they seemed competent and really I didn't want to get stitches anyway. So continues my stitch-less streak.

When they asked what level of pain I was in, I said: Um, I guess zero?

That night we got this Moroccan food which was fantastic. If you ever go to White Clay ask me and I'll let you know where it was. Damn tasty.

Sunday

Woke up after 9 hours of sleeping like a brick. Got some free breakfast then went to CVS to get some tape & gauze and crap like that. Then we went to Fair Hill.

I have not been to Fair Hill in 5 years at least. The last time I was there was for the Fair Hill Classic with @Kirt and @UtahJoe. We had downloaded a map of the 2012 Classic but as we started following it, it became clear that these trails are being neglected and in some cases forgotten. The second half of the loop was much better, but it was pretty sad to see so many trails in disrepair. I will call on @1speed and/or @KenS to maybe shed some light on that? Seems like maybe the bikers are losing some of the battle to the horse people?

Our loop here:
https://www.strava.com/activities/668183426

I did not crash, which was a bonus.

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After the ride we went to Iron Hill Brewery. And I got a cheeseburger. And it was goddamn good.

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Sorry

I know some of this is a repeat of other threads but such is life.
 
Norm said:
I have not been to Fair Hill in 5 years at least. The last time I was there was for the Fair Hill Classic with @Kirt and @UtahJoe. We had downloaded a map of the 2012 Classic but as we started following it, it became clear that these trails are being neglected and in some cases forgotten. The second half of the loop was much better, but it was pretty sad to see so many trails in disrepair. I will call on @1speed and/or @KenS to maybe shed some light on that? Seems like maybe the bikers are losing some of the battle to the horse people?
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Just my opinion and an educated guess. Probably hasn't been much in the way of TM because of no races in Fair Hill this year. Bikeline XC was postponed, then cancelled because of weather. Trailspinners Fair Hill Classic isn't happening. Don't think it has anything to do with losing a battle to horse people either.

Looks like it was an awesome riding weekend, except for the boo boo.
 
Ouch, that is a nasty looking one.
Overuse may be the issue since you went from low/normal volume to monster volume in a month. I guess if you are going to do that, summer time is it when muscles are more flexy/stretchy. Hopefully it resolves itself before the cold weather, but riding during the day/evening, you have quite awhile until cold is a worry.
 
Monday - I did not ride my bike. After the weekend and the meat paw incident (MPI), I figured a day off would be good. Around 2:00 I was going batshit crazy though so I went into the dungeon to start cleaning up. Inspired by @pearl, I finally got around to hanging my bikes. I am sure this will cause all the hydro brakes to fail in spectacular fashion.

This project is in mid-stream. I had to buy more 2x6s today.

Tuesday - Took the big bike out to CR to see how the MP felt. It was awful. I probably averaged like 4 mph. Every root was a shock to my forearm. So I went really really slowly. Managed to run into @Kirt, and we talked about things to do at various TM sessions. My idea of making a flyover entirely out of rocks was rejected. I wanted to call it King Arthurs Flyover. Ye Olde Flyover. E.

Wednesday - Big ride of the week. To say it was hot & humid is an understatement but unless you are deaf/dumb/blind and spending your life in front of a pinball machine, you already know this. I rode to CR, then out the Middle Brook trail, hopped out to Valley and shot to the Lamington Horse Flats and took a bunch of dirt roads to 206. Dropped to Gladstone, took Roxiticus to old 24 and picked up Patriots Path to Lewis Morris. Met @Dominique out there as well as OG @Jason and we did the Meetup ride.

Total was 4 hours and a few seconds. I was thinking I wanted to do 5 hours yesterday but holy crap 4 was a stretch.

I was so soaking wet that sweat was pouring out the bottom of my shoes, through the hole where the cleats attach to the shoe. As I was standing on the pavement pools of sweat were forming under me. Just an absurd amount.

One thing I noticed was that I really missed the salty food. I did not take any PB crackers nor salami sandwiches. I found the lack of salt really left me craving it badly. The heat/humidity of yesterday was so oppressive I needed the salt. When D got there she had a cheese stick which tasted so amazing, I'm not even sure I took the wrapper off.

I am lacking in pics, sorry JPLT. Maybe JPDNLT.

Thursday - the plan was to go easy but for f*ck sake it was too hot to go slow so I kept it moving to create my own breeze. The Garmin 820 had updated its own software last night (this is good) but then the bluetooth refused to connect (not good). The 820 is pretty awesome in that you link it up with the phone, then just turn on the Garmin Connect app. With the Connect<->Strava integration it is literally 2 seconds and the Strava app pops up a message saying "your activity is ready". Click the notification, rename, done.

Of course this means I will let the Garmin battery die without a doubt. But the battery life of this is like 14 hours or something.

Oh I rode the road bike today with the old shoes. Zero issue with any pain. These new shoes may be the problem. I am going to put the new clips on the old shoes and see how that goes. I should probably go on a 2-3 hour road ride with these first before I start moving things around.

WIN Detergent

@Dominos - in the end, nothing really helps the stink that I generate. I have 3 things I do to help:

1. leave the clothes in the sun for a few days. I have read this kills bacteria
2. soak the clothes in water first, then #1
3. use a lot of deodorant

But in the end the clothes still stink. I have not been successful in this. I pretty much wash things every day or 2, so the most we ever have is 3 kits at once. I have more or less given up.

Dead River Road

@rlb - yeah, Dead River still can SaD.

Work - You Probably Don't Care But I Nee To Vent

Last week, on Monday, marked the first time I was "only" on 40 hours a week this year. On Tuesday one of the projects was asking me for more hours but I said no. Through the week I got a little more pressure about doing side projects, but I kept saying no, not until September.

Finally today they hoodwinked me into agreeing to take on another side project. In reality I never really agreed but she took it that way so I said screw it. So I got a whole 2 weeks of a normal workload. In the last 2 weeks I've had 2 internal people ask me to do work for them (they said they would get the budget for it) plus this one which is external. I asked when this one is supposed to start and she said "yesterday". Meh.

I literally just asked who this is through and she said ServiceNow Professional Services. Kill me now. They suck. This one will be with Met Life. This in addition to New York Life which is my FT gig now.

Also, the EM on NYL asked me today if I would work with her on every project she gets. This is kind of surprising as I did not think she liked me all that much. I guess she appreciates the no-bullshit approach I take. Plus I say funny things on the calls. I am who I am, work or non-work.

True story:

On a call a few months ago, I dialed into the call at the same time as some other woman. So normally you know how you announce who you are? It went like this:

Philip: Hi this is Philip, who just joined?
Vicky: THIS IS VICKY REPRESENTING THE DATABASE TEAM!
Me: THIS IS JOE, REPRESENTING THE OPPRESSED PEOPLE OF NEW JERSEY!

People giggled.

Pictures

Sorry. I'm sorry. I'M NOT SORRY!

 
Does howdy doody have wooden balls?

BTW, you are illustrating why when you cut yourself open...you get stitches. Granted you went to a place where had you have gotten them...they might have stitched your arm to your leg...So I understand. But when you get a gash like that stitched, basically in 24hrs its back to normal life, NO BANDAGES required, no scabs, no bleeding all over the place for the next week.

I give you credit for doing that ride on Wednesday, fuck it was miserable. You could have been drinking cans of condensed soup and still craving salt.
 
Today is me making up for the lack of pictures.

Every day this week I've started the day on the phone from 7 to 9-11, depending on the day. It's for release support. Here is my setup:

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Watered the plants this morning. Outside you can see my bike pack hanging off my bike stand and a dude mowing the lawn. And wheels.

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DIY espresso:

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Took a break to hang more bikes. This project is undergoing scope creep. Can I paint these walls blue?

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I took this off a few days ago but it's a festering mess so I put it back on. With tape. I should decorate it every day. Schilling wristband, every day. It really made me sad to post that video yesterday because he was one of the few people to really resonate with my "former lifestyle" posts.

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@Delish asked me if I was going to up the intensity when I said I was dialing back the hours in January. I said no. I'm not sure why but I can only do intensity when I do a lot of volume.

Managed to hold 20 mph until the 19.5 mile mark. Then I pulled the plug.

Hot.

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Days like today I rather be sipping a drink on a floaty in a pool somewhere exotic.
We have not taken a vaction yet this summer or year because end of August wedding which quite frankly I am not all in. Though it should be a while before the next batch decides on the pearls of marriage. Ask me about being the father of the bride someday. Do you think @Mitch comes off like some power rich guy is why he gets to as many weddings. Or is it the lampshade effect late on the dance floor.
 
mattybfat said:
Days like today I rather be sipping a drink on a floaty in a pool somewhere . Do you think @Mitch comes off like some power rich guy is why he gets to as many weddings. Or is it the lampshade effect late on the dance floor.
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Who u kidding, u'd rather drink a sippy drink erryday.
My older son is 21 and he is not dating anyone but when the day comes that he gets married I'm inviting Mitch to the wedding.
 
mattybfat said:
Days like today I rather be sipping a drink on a floaty in a pool somewhere exotic.
We have not taken a vaction yet this summer or year because end of August wedding which quite frankly I am not all in. Though it should be a while before the next batch decides on the pearls of marriage. Ask me about being the father of the bride someday. Do you think @Mitch comes off like some power rich guy is why he gets to as many weddings. Or is it the lampshade effect late on the dance floor.
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Lampshade effect , no doubt.
 
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