back to basics; some weekend rides

 I feel like it's been a long time since I posted a ride article, but it's only two weeks. I did put up a post about one of the best German words ever, and another for the eulogy I gave for my mother (I was at her funeral last week; that's why I wasn't around to ride or lead). But I didn't link to those posts on Facebook, and, as a result, they were pretty universally ignored.

We got back from the funeral in Buffalo mid-week (family note: it included a reconciliation on my also-problematic relationship with my sister; there may be another post about that [there may not]), and I've gotten a couple of rides in. Laura OLPH invited a few friends on a ride, using a route that Tom H made up, and it was a good ride and good to see those people again, but nothing about it seemed blog-worthy (and the pictures weren't much). Yesterday, Laura led us on a ride of the loop of the Lawrence-Hopewell trail. You can use that link as a route map, if you like. I had high hopes for one picture showing the steepness of the climb from the bridge on the closed-to-cars section of Province Line Road, but neither of the two I got came out. (In other news, though, the Krakow Monster works well as a gravel bike, even in friction-shifting mode. On the gravel sections of the trail, I was shifting about every twenty feet of travel.)

Today, I listed a club ride. My usual route to the Sweet Gourmet in Montgomery starts out over the Blackwells Mills Causeway, but part of that access is closed between my start location and the bridge. I slammed together an adjusted route, and then saw this morning that I'd inadvertently routed on highways, so I quick made the changes... but the route everybody had downloaded was the wrong one. I announced the change at the start, but I suspect my regulars would have used the corrected route anyway.

I limited to twenty, and, except for two last-minute cancellations, it was full. The Excellent Wife (TEW) thinks they're all crazy for coming out in this cold.

Ghina, above, asked about the bandanna I keep tied around my left forearm on cold-weather rides; I said it was to wipe my nose, as I'm unskilled at that snot-rocket thing that some cyclists do. She replied with a story about a fellow rider, whom she referred to as a "brother-in-spoke". The story is of no importance, but "brother-in-spoke" needs to be enshrined in cycling lore.

We had a range of abilities, as I often have on my rides, and some rolled off the front; I made sure the folks in the back kept up. The day was cold and raw. Despite the range of abilities, and a newcomer whom I did not know, we kept up and stayed together through the stop at Sweet Gourmet:

After the stop, I slowed down; I got caught behind some traffic before a turn onto River Road, and then got caught behind more traffic at the Griggstown Causeway crossing. I was tired, and it was clear that the rest of the group was not in trouble, so I went back to the start alone, at a parade pace... until I saw Ricky and Steve S waiting for me, so I picked up the pace to keep pace with them, and to say my thanks and goodbyes to the riders still in the lot.

You can see the route, and my pace, here.

So the ride's done, and the laundry is in, and the funeral's over, and the Christmas decorations are up. Back to some sensibility, for now.

eulogy

 My mother's funeral was today. I gave this eulogy:

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She was a woman of her time, and also a woman out of her time.

Like thousands of other girls in the first half of the last century, she was the daughter of immigrants, and went to Catholic schools in Rochester. Unlike them, unlike most women of her time, she went to college.

Like women of her time, she was a stay-at-home mom, until things changed, and she took a job as a substitute teacher, where she could work a few days a week, but still be home to be a homemaker and at-home parent. She was beloved as a substitute, by her students, by the teachers she stood in for, and by, god help us, her administrators.

While at the teacher’s college, she met her husband, like so many women in college did. They were together for decades, until the end of my father’s life. Although they claimed they never liked Long Island, where my sister and I grew up, she was involved in many projects there: she volunteered at the school, at church, in women’s clubs.

As soon as they could move away, as soon as my father retired, they did; they moved to Asheville, North Carolina. The plan was to visit several cities to see if they could find the best to which to retire, but after going to Asheville, they looked no further. She loved Asheville, and probably considered her time there the best time of her life. She got involved in the community there. She was a docent at a historical site, and at the art museum. She was an officer in the newly-formed College for Seniors (I seem to remember she was its first president). She was a member of several book clubs (and started at least one).

She loved to travel; she loved everything about it. In the pre-computer, pre-internet age, she would do hours and hours of research on places she wanted to go or upcoming trips, using dead-tree resources like books and magazines. While on the trip, she would collect all kinds of memorabilia and ephemera; once home, she would display what could be displayed. The pictures would all be printed out (before computers, this was a cost-inducing process), and, along with the printed matter she collected, would be put in a binder. She had a shelf full of binders, one for every trip. In Asheville, I remember perhaps a dozen binders on her shelf.

My mother had a gift for making friends, and for social engagement. When she lived in Freeport, she made friends that she kept through her years in Asheville. And in Asheville, she had a busy, active life. When we visited, she knew people everywhere we went. She participated in the wedding of at least one couple who met and married when they each moved to Asheville. She loved her life there. I remember hearing how sad one of her friends was that she was leaving.

And now we are here to remember her in her death.

As my old friend Bill Shakespeare might have written, were he writing about her rather than Brutus and Antony, “Her life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in her, that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, this was a woman.”

Thank you for coming, and for hearing me.

---

I gave the eulogy I could. I spoke about what I could, and left out what I needed to leave out.

dis-improvement, maybe?

 OK, this goes a ways for the origin. I spend way too much time on Youtube when I'm idle (which hasn't happened enough lately, what with the upcoming obsequies and returning to work). One of the channels I follow is RobWords. He does videos about language, including obscure words, etymologies, puns, homonyms, and the like. One of his recents was about words we should steal from German.

He's also got a newsletter, into which he sometimes includes stuff that didn't make the video, and one of the words left out of the "steal from German" video was Verschlimmbesserung. He defines it as "An attempt to make something better that only serves to make it worse. Literally a 'worsening improvement'."

I think that's about the best thing to come out of Germany since Martin Luther, and intend to try to remember it. Battery-dependent bike shifting? Self-checkout lanes? Telephone-support menu hells? All Verschlimmbesserungen. (I gotta remember that double-M in the middle. And is -en the right way to make it plural?)

There's no English equivalent, and those who know me, know I'd have to spend three paragraphs trying to describe one. The German penchant for compounding words to capture meanings has come up with a winner. I am struck with awe and gratitude.

(Since I'm on about words today, I can't remember if I've told youse about Anu Garg's Word A Day email [you can subscribe here]). He doesn't sell your contact info, he's more left-wing than I, and he comes up daily with neat words and usages.There's also a weekly digest of comments he's received. I like it way a lot.)

cold weather ride; first of the season

 The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I went out to celebrate her birthday yesterday, so I didn't get a weekend ride in then, thus today's was my first cold-weather ride of the season.

Weekend ride? I'm retired; why am I so concerned with weekend rides? Shouldn't I have all this during-the-week free time?

Well, maybe... but:

• A few days each week, I attend some daytime self-help commitments (we'll not go into more specifics right now: ahem);
• I'm teaching a basic bike maintenance class at the Princeton Adult School one night a week, which gets in the way of a number of things, but most notably...
• the class conflicts with my position as co-manager and mechanic at the New Brunswick Bike Exchange, where I used to volunteer six hours a week, but I've had to cut it back to two;
• I've started back to work seven hours per week, for an old boss who was a member of the Plain Jim Fan Club, and provided support (and a promotion, near the time I retired). She ran into a jam, and asked me to come back, and I feel I owe her. I say seven hours per week, but in December, there will be at least two weeks where I'm working six hours per day, four days per week;
• TEW counts on me to take care of chores and commitments for her while she's at work;
  
• My mother's funeral is upcoming, and puts a wrench into the machinery of many plans I had, and
• The usual unpredictable chaos comes up from time to time.

And my friends who are still working ride on weekends. So I like to ride with them, too.

Where was I?

Oh, yes. Cold-weather ride. 

The club only had five rides listed for today, and two were fast-paced; another was a towpath ride, not the first choice of a number of members of our primarily-road-riding-club. And yesterday's weather apparently kept a number of riders out of the saddle. I limit my rides to twenty (which is a large limit; some limit to as few as seven or eight), and my ride was full.

We picked up a couple along the way, too. I'd heard that Canal Road on the way to Blackwells Mills was closed, so I chose a route that went down to Princeton, and came back across the Griggstown Causeway. Then I heard that the Princeton Half-Marathon was today... but it appeared they would be cleared by the time we'd be going through town. (The runners were gone, but there were some enthusiastic fans, cheering us on, just as if we were part of the event. That was gratifying.)

This route goes on Pretty Brook Road, which I remember as having hills that are not so much tall, as steep and demanding. But we all got over Pretty Brook in good order, including very truly yours, Plain Jim. And the subsequent climb on Carter to Mount Rose, then Crusher, and to the high point in Hopewell also didn't feel so demanding.

Now, I've posted a few times recently about my spotty performance: sometimes I'm more than able to keep up (like today), and other times I feel like I can barely finish. I've asked for feedback on why that might be, and gotten suggestions like the amount and quality of sleep the night before (which checks out) and my use of flat pedals rather than cleats (which doesn't). But I think I've got another piece of the puzzle. 

I've been trying to keep my weight to a level I was able to hit a couple-three years ago, and maintain for a while, but about a year ago, I found I was up from that. At the first of the year, I was up a lot, and managed to get down some, but I haven't been able to get to the level I referred to, and I'm not at that level now; I'm six or seven pounds above that. But this is a weight I can maintain without feeling deprived, or obsessing about what I eat. And I think I ride better at this weight than I did when I was lighter. In fact, I think the excellent lunch I had with TEW (remember that at the top of the post?) might have been a factor in my good performance today.

More research is obviously needed.

In any case, we stopped at the Boro Bean.

And back. I had GPS weirdness today; the device wasn't giving me the turn-by-turn directions, and I was unnecessarily cranky due to that; while we did make it back, we didn't track the route I intended (and that doesn't make any difference at all, except that I'm sometimes hopelessly lost, and need the device). I've since found the setting, and I THINK I could fix the problem if it recurs.

Maybe.

weekend rides

 I don't really know how to write about the two rides I did this weekend.

My mother died a week or two ago. I'm having a hard time with it. She wasn't as bad of a mother as Medea, but we did not have a happy relationship. My reaction to her death has been unpredictable. Everyone grieves in their own way; I'm angry and anxious and depressed and anhedonic and who even knows what else.

In hopes of some relief, I went on Laura OLPH's ride for the club on Saturday. We went to Seargentsville over mostly-familiar roads, largely to visit the new Covered Bridge Cafe that's taken over the bagel shop there.

I like the place. They've spent a lot on the building, and they seemed to welcome us cyclists. I wish them the best, and I hope we return.

But the ride was mostly interesting in that it proved that I can cover forty miles, and still have my head up my ass at the end of it.

Laura enjoyed my post-ride hat enough to get a picture of it:

 I hope you enjoy it as much as she.

---

On Sunday, I'd listed a ride to that bakery in Raritan that some of my riders like (that picture at the top of this post is the gang outside the establishment, as we were planning to depart to return to the start). Many of The Usual Suspects had already signed up for a different ride (as usual, I was late in posting), but I still had fifteen.

As we do, Joe E took the faster folks off the front. I was chatting with fellow retrogrouch Matt F about our disdain for such modern conveniences as electronic shifting; I pointed out that the need to recharge every few months was most inconvenient: if it were once a year, you could just do it the first ride of every season (or, say, on New Year's Day); if much more often, you could do it every week, but the need to recharge every few months, I felt, could not help but lead to mid-ride battery failures.

Sure enough, a few miles later, a rider had a dead battery; in his case, not a charging problem, but a dead CR-2032 coin-sized battery. He took one from his heart monitor and put it in the shifter, and finished the ride. (When he was telling me about it, I thought he meant a medical heart monitor, and feared for his safety. I've clearly spent too much time dealing with death and health problems recently.)

I've had complaints about part of the route, that there's too much distracted and dangerous traffic, so I'd rerouted. We avoided that traffic, but it was still busy as we went through the Duke Estate property.

You can see Saturday's route, and Sunday's.

I'm better than I was before the rides. I'm glad I did them, and I'm glad, and grateful, for the people who came along.