Enginerve : Bikes

10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will, 5% pleasure, 50% pain…a 100% reason to remember the name

  • Bike Change, Direction Change, Everything Coming Together.

    Posted via web from Enginerve

  • So my plans changed, apparently the Sam Hillborne was not the right bike for me.  It sounds silly to say it as I would have been happy to have had it and happy to have ridden it.  I believe it would have been with me a very long time.  But the frames weren’t going to arrive on time and so I have upgraded to a Rivendell Atlantis, which of course is my dream bike.

    I leave from Charlottesville on the 20th of June, a change in direction.  One woman writes, it isn’t the wind, as we all know that isn’t so, but I won’t have the sun in my eyes in the morning and I will be out of the hotter areas by late summer and into the mountains in a warmer and drier set of months.  And that made perfect sense to me.  I also heard from my son (@petebikes) and he mentioned motivation and the desire to be home helping guide him.  All of this got me thinking that it was the right thing.  And then it occurred to me that having travel plans when I could actually schedule them would keep my cost down and so it goes.   I know the mountains would have built my legs into a powerful Kansas beating engine but they will still be there later in the trip and I will have good legs when I reach them this time.

    So why is the bike shop so important, because it helps to have a shop mirror the values you have and frankly this place simply lived up to what I have always heard, always expected.  I love my local shops and the my favorite mechanics are great.  What these folks did is calmly assist me in Plan B, and with a tremendous amount of elegance they get it.  It is another bike for them to build and at the same time it is a very special bike for me, a bike that I have waited for and wished for over a long period of time.  I know that many adjustments will go into it, and many things will be great, and some will be different, but at the end of this day I find myself extremely happy and aware of my good fortune.

  • Inspired by the California Triple Crown I have crystallized one of my secret goals into an actual goal for the adventure which is the TransAm.  I was reading on their blog about “The Rollercoaster” which is the whole emotional up and down that comes along with riding long distances.  I didn’t know it existed as a major component, although I certainly have experienced it, and did not realize that folks have written about it.

    This has been in the back of my mind and I didn’t know how to explain it.  I would very much like to be a “Thousand Miler” on my my trip, that is to say…complete Five Doubles or Double Centuries (back to back days).  I really haven’t a clue other than I think it has to do with my idea of fitness, or learning to ride within myself, or understanding “how to be” and probably all of them at once.  I haven’t a better explanation for the entire justification, it  simply feels like an itch, something I would like to try to do.

    The trick that I see is to apply myself hard enough to the task to overcome the obstacles and put myself in a position to do it without becoming so obsessive that for one minute I fail to have as much fun and positive interaction with the people and the land I am traveling through.  To not go so fast as to miss what touring is, but fast enough to get it done.  I just think the balance will be something to contemplate: a trip inside myself

    Wish me luck.

  • Sidelined today to protect a small tweak, I decided to put my time to good use.  To begin integrating simple stretching and Yoga into my weekly routines.

    I was inspired by  Start Spring Training Today with Yoga on Bicycling.com by Tara Stiles as well as Kevin Kelly’s review of the 30th Anniversary Edition of Bob Anderson’s classic Stretching available from Amazon.  Kevin always has great stuff, but this picture is enough to sell one that a classic can still be useful.

    Tara lists these as useful for biking and frisbee:

    Double Leg Forward Stretch
    Runners Lunge
    Warrior 1 with Shoulder Stretch
    Triangle
    Reverse Triangle
    Headstand
    One Leg Extended
    Both Legs Extended
    Ankle to Knee
    Cow Face

  • Posted via email from enginerve’s posterous

  • panorama

    My iPhone shakeout continues to prepare for my cross country TransAm ride later this year.

    I was able to upload a waypoint to TrackMyTour.com.  And this morning, on Danielle’s advice, I did download MS Windows Live Photo Gallery and stitched together my first panorama. I am learning to overlap all the images as it was a glorious view of all the local mountains and I didn’t connect the entire set, so only these two of Mt. St. Helen’s and Mt. Adams from the edge of the Bridge to cross the Columbia to Sauvie Island. 

    I was unable to get my pictures to upload to Posterous, I intend to use Posterous as a WebSite as well as distribution tool to everything else.  What I hadn’t done well was learn to synchronize my contacts from Google.  I didn’t realize one does it manually from Google to iTunes each time, so my contacts were behind.  I tried texting Posterous which has worked in the past, but the message left but never arrived.

    Still learning the ins and outs of the iPhone after all this time, it lost track of my computer, so I reauthorized that again, and then 16 of my Apps were out of date, but according to iTunes, but not the iPhone itself which said “All Apps were up-to-date”.  I trust this will not give me further complications this summer.  I am not going to be tethered for 90 days.

     

  • We’d like to invite you to a very special Adventure Cycling gathering in Portland on Wednesday, April 7 from 7:00 to 8:30 pm. Adventure Cycling’s Jim Sayer and Jenn Milyko will be in town to unveil the brand new 2,400 mile Sierra Cascades Bicycle Route and to share the latest news on bicycle travel and adventures in North America (and perhaps beyond!). This will be a grand celebration with our friends at REI, which provided financial support for route research. We are especially excited because the Sierra Cascades route takes the Adventure Cycling Route Network over 40,000 miles – to our knowledge, the largest mapped bicycle-friendly route system in the world!

    Join us at REI’s Store in the Pearl District for this important event. Refreshments will be provided and the fun will begin at 7:00, with the program starting at 7:30. For directions, click on http://www.rei.com/stores/13 — or call (503) 221-1938.

    Please RSVP by April 2nd by responding to this email or calling me, Beth Petersen, at 800-755-2453 x 211. We also encourage you to invite cycling colleagues, other friends or family. The event is free and open to the public.

    We are looking for a few volunteers to help with the event and prepping the gathering location.  Please contact Beth Petersen at bpetersen@adventurecycling.org or 800-755-2453 ext. 210 if you are interested.

    Thanks and hope to see you there.

    Happy riding,

    Beth Petersen
    Adventure Cycling Association
    800-755-2453 x 211
    Inspiring people to travel by bicycle for fitness, fun and self discovery.