Girls with Slingshots is a comic that's finished, but it's now on its third daily repeat. I love it, and check it every weekday. In the comic, Jim is a hapless, decent, but ultimately uninteresting guy.
I know somebody like that.
I ride the bike because I love riding the bike, of course, but I also ride for the social experience of riding with the club. When Laura OLPH
posted a club ride for yesterday, I noted the distance, and that it was
a large amount of climb for the distance, and didn't think much more
about it than that.
Laura limits her rides to ten, and this one was almost full, after a more-or-less regular cancelled. We were chatting in the lot and rolling around when Laura rolled up. She gave the usual safety speech, and dropped mentioned we'd be going up Mine Road in Hopewell, a demanding climb.
I started to worry. The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I are in the process of buying a home in Monroe. I'm excited and a bit anxious about it, and I haven't been sleeping well (I'm writing this on about the fourth or fifth night in a row on which I've awakened after about four hours, unable to get back to sleep). Mine Road, and the other hills on the ride, were likely to be a problem for me. I decided to do the ride anyway.
Shortly before the first hill, a rider got a flat. We didn't check the tire adequately for whatever caused the puncture, and soon after (just at the bottom of Mine Road), he got another. I'm good with changing tires, and pulled out my Tire Monkey for the removal and replacement (many riders have favorite tire tools; this one's mine), and then used my Topeak Race Rocket to get a little air in for the tube-and-tire mount, and the Genuine Innovations Air Chuck Elite for the CO2 (fellow riders were impressed enough with the tools that they asked for links. Those may be the only reason I'm actually writing this post).
Then up Mine Hill, which went OK... but I immediately felt that I wasn't rebounding from the exertion of the climb the way I expected to, and that continued through the rest of the ride. I fell behind in several places, but some members of the group waited. I also found I was cranky about unexpected rider behavior (and these were mostly people with whom I ride regularly). We stopped at the cafe in Sergeantsville that replaced the bagel shop there (I like the place; I wish them well and recommend a stop there when you go). I loaded up with some carbs, and got some benefit from that, but I continued to fall off the back of the group. Two of the riders, at various points, fell back from the rest to converse; both were chatty and pleasant, but I'm sure they were checking to make sure I'd be OK to get back.
I got back, but I was far more tired, and hurt worse from the exertion, than I like to get on a ride; if there had been more traffic, or if an unexpected situation had arisen, the ride outcome might have been different. This ride was clearly more than I should have done for my current level of fitness and my tired condition. I need to pay more attention to the demands of the planned ride, and not go long just because, "well, heck, I always ride with these guys."
Or maybe I need to stop complaining, and do hard and unpleasant things. Or maybe that ride really was risky.
I don't know.
It's been called "the best cover letter ever written". Then-copywriter, soon-to-be-screenwriter Robert Pirosh wrote it in 1934:
Dear Sir:
I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave “V” words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land’s-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.
I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.
I have just returned and I still like words.
May I have a few with you?
Robert Pirosh
385 Madison Avenue
Room 610
New York
Eldorado 5-6024
I got it from Rob at RobWords in his weekly email; he included a link to Benedict Cumberbatch having more fun with it than anybody ever should.
It worked. It got Pirosh a job at MGM.
A few weeks ago I was on a ride that took us that part of Province Line Road that's closed to vehicular traffic (bicycles aren't vehicles in NJ, go look it up). Someone asked how steep the climb on the south side of the bridge over Stony Brook was. I said it had to be less than 26%, because I know by experiment that I can't keep the front wheel down at that grade (I never stand on the pedals, as many cyclists do when climbing a steep grade; I'll get off and walk if the grade is too steep to pedal).
Another cyclist (with more experience than I have) said that the grade at that point was about 8% or 9%... but after having just ridden it, I knew it had to be steeper than that; I was working far too hard at one point for that to have been the grade. So I resolved to go out and measure.
Now, according to the US Geological Survey,
Percent of slope is determined by dividing the amount of elevation change by the amount of horizontal distance covered (sometimes referred to as "the rise divided by the run"), and then multiplying the result by 100.
So I decided to take my four-foot level and a metal tape measure, and go find out the numbers.
Why a four-foot level? Well, I know from measuring the distance between the hubs that the wheelbase of the Yellow Maserati*, my titanium bike, is just under 39". So a four-foot level is about the length of the bike. I figured I could rest the uphill corner of the level on the road, hold it so that the bubble showed level, and drop the ruler from the other end to the road surface to get the difference in rise. And four feet would be big enough that I could measure to the nearest quarter-inch, and still have useful accuracy. I'd be creating a right triangle, with one of the non-hypotenuse sides of four feet, and Pythagoras implies that the hypotenuse (in this case, the road surface) has to be longer than either of the other sides.
So on a morning that didn't get above freezing, the determined detective might have found me sitting on the cold pavement above the bridge over Stony Brook on Province Line Road, taking measurements.
I first took the measurement just at the point the road begins to climb on the south side of the bridge. with one end of the level on the road surface, the rise at the other end was 4 ¼" - just about 9%.
It still didn't feel right. I noticed a steeper spot further up the hill. I took two measurement there; one was 6 ¾", and the other was a shade over 7". Aha! Just about 15%. Nowhere close to the 26% I'd thought, but much more than the 8-9% reported by the fellow cyclist.
I suspect this is a "measuring the coastline" problem. Mapmakers (aren't you glad I didn't say "cartographers"?), geographers, those who study fractals... all point out that the measurement of a coastline depends on the unit of measure you choose, and the smaller the unit, the longer the coastline becomes (even though the area of the land it encloses is unchanged). If your unit of measure is a mile, you'll get a certain distance, but you'll miss much of the detail of the coastline. If your unit of measure is as small as a grin of sand, you'll get much more detail (and a much longer coastline!).
In the case of Province Line Road, I suspect the grade out of the bridge is 9%, at some longer unit of measure than I used. But when you're pedaling a bicycle out of there, a unit of measure about as long as the bike is probably more useful.
In other news, I've just confirmed the fact that I'm the kind of old geezer who will ruminate for weeks on a useless problem, and then go out on a frigid day with tools in hand to go solve it. And will then write a needlessly-detailed blog post about it, with references. That's got a certain "Get off my lawn!" energy to it, doesn't it?
*It's the Yellow Maserati because it was one in a series of midlife crisis purchases (as a yellow Maserati might be), and because it is, in actuality, neither yellow nor a Maserati. I was going through a "meta" stage when I was naming it. (I think I'm still going through that "meta" stage.)
