Bike Fuel: I’m A Cheater* And I’m Not Sorry

*…Not a doper, though I have been known to call upon the awesome power of Caffeine in reasonably-limited quantities.

So on Monday evening I was tooling around the internet trying to become a less-awful homemaker and simultaneously trying to figure out what to make for dinner (totally unrelated processes, I might add) when I found this.

Say it with me:

Waffle. Iron. Pizza pockets.

…

^O.O^

…

Waffle iron pizza pockets, people!

Who knew?

Well, apparently, this lady did. And, evidently, she’s one smart lady.

Of course, I ran right out to the grocery store (which was the next stop anyway) and bought the ingredients (and three pair of pants, all of which were on sale, two at sub-thrift-store prices, basically solving my pants problem for the next two years or so). Then I came home and made them.

I made half of them in the waffle iron and half on the George Foreman grill. Turns out that the Foreman batch had a more pizza-like texture, while the waffle batch was really delightfully fun and a great vehicle for tons of sauce (I like my pizza like I like my road bikes, saucy). In the future, I’ll probably make them on the Foreman more often — and someday, when we either move to a house with a better (not necessarily bigger, just better-designed) kitchen and/or rip out the kitchen in this house and start over, I will get a bigger Foreman grill and then I will be able to make twelve of these puppies at once. Booyah!

Anyway, they’re super-easy. Just take two biscuits-in-a-tube and flatten them out a bit. Then line one with about a quarter of a standard slice-o-mozzarella (about 1 to 1.5″ square, sliced fairly thin, if you don’t have sliced mozzarella at your grocery store), and whatever else you like (I used mushrooms), press the other one down on top, and voila! You’re ready to … well, make three more or so, if you’re doing them in a waffle iron and you want to create a nice pizza waffle.

A Pizza Waffle!

If you’re doing them in a Foreman grill, make however many you want. I have the small Foreman grill, and it fits four, so it seems like a good practice to make four at a go and toss them in.

Foreman Pizzas

When I make these again (which will probably be on Wednesday, since they’re the perfect portable-food solution for school), I’ll pre-portion my cheese slices and so forth to save time. This go ’round, I just … um … “wung” it (“winged” just makes it sound like I’m a bad shot, which may or may not be true).

I think these will be a great solution for summer randonnerding, since they’re self-contained and don’t require heating up the oven. I think it would be safe to put a little sauce on the inside for the randonnerding version, since I don’t really want to carry a little tub of sauce with me.

Needless to say, I’m pretty darned excited about this discovery. Hats off to Nony the Slob at “A Slob Comes Clean” for a fantastic source of portable bike fuel!

Jan Heine Says It All

In the world of utility cycling and touring, many of us know (or know of) and admire Jan Heine. Probably some others know or know of him and can’t stand the guy, because that’s life, but I would place myself in the former camp.

Anyway, he recently wrote a really good entry in his blog about why the United States may want to reconsider its love-affair with separated bike infrastructure.

I try to discuss many of the same ideas from time to time, but Mr. Heine has given them a clear, concise, and thoughtful analysis here — so much so that, while I rarely link directly to the blog of anyone I don’t personally know (since I figure that if someone is well known enough that I’ve heard of their blog, all the people who might notice the link on my blog have probably already been there), I thought I’d go ahead and give it a whirl.

Thank you, Mr. Heine, for saying all the stuff I would like to say, if only I were anywhere near as good at writing blog entries as I am at writing research papers.

Now, the rest of you — go read his blog, and, of course, keep the rubber side down!

Bonus! (And Thoughts About Sunblock)

I’m taking two classes this summer, and I figured I’d be paying for them out of my general school funds for 2012-2013, some of which will also got towards my final undergraduate year starting in the fall.

Last night, I checked in with my bank account, and discovered that there was more money in it than I expected — I figured maybe I’d just forgotten how much should be in there and would check it out next time I was in front of the desktop PC (where our financial records live). This morning, I noticed an email from our bursar’s office that had been languishing there since Friday morning.

It turns out I got some kind of grant for Summer Term, and didn’t even know!

That’s pretty awesome, if you ask me. Also eases my mind where paying for my senior year is concerned, since we don’t want to take out loans and I may or may not qualify for any grants. We’re trying to pay off all our household debts as quickly as possible, so it’s nice to have a little extra cash in the school fund so we can go on making larger payments towards existing debts.

I’m also hoping for a scholarship or two, but we’ll see.

…

In other news, the warm weather has returned, and with it, the sun (not that the sun went anywhere during the winter months). It so happens that I wear sunblock year ’round when I’m out on long rides, but as the days grow longer, so do the periods of maximal sun exposure. This, in turn, means the need arises for more sunblock.

Cycling is a demanding mistress. Casual beach-goers can toss on a big, floppy hat and so forth, but the big-floppy-hat routine tends to fail when you add a bike helmet. Moreover, if you’re going to be out on the roads for six hours or more at a stretch in ninety-degree heat, you really don’t want to be wearing long pants and long sleeves (though I’ve heard good things about “arm coolers,” and might even try some this year). In certain conditions, the profile of your helmet will provide a little shade, but when you’re heading west with the sun? Not so much.

Moreover, your helmet won’t do a darned thing for your arms. Or your knees.

Enter the sunblock.

I use tons of sunblock. Not that I slather on half a bottle every time I leave the house — in fact, I only bother applying sunblock to my legs (and even then, just from my shorts line to a hair below my knees) on the most ferociously-sunny days, since I don’t think they’ve ever burned in my entire life. But I’m out there just about every day on the bike, and that means that just about every day I apply sunblock to my face, my ears (they stick out, so they’re pretty vulnerable), my neck (especially the back of my neck!), and my arms.

Inevitably, on any given year’s first long, sunny ride, I manage to miss a swath at the top of one arm or another. The result is always a crisp, angry red line right where my jersey’s sleeve ends — a clear (and sometimes stinging) testament to the importance of sunblock for those crazy idiots who serve the Great Wheel.

Anyway, I’ve tried any number of different brands and styles of sunblock, and last year I decided to give the all-natural varieties a try. I only got around to trying Badger (which didn’t work well, but in retrospect I probably used far too little because I was borrowing some from Timothy; he swears by it and doesn’t come out looking like a roast turkey) and Alba Botanica’s SPF-30 “Mineral Protection Kids” product (because it was on sale at Kroger for only $5 a tube).

It turns out that, for me at least, the mineral-based sunblocks are a great answer to the problem of sun protection while cycling. I sweat like a horse out there, and I seem to have less trouble with the mineral-based blocks simply pouring off my skin than I do with the chemical-based ones (even though I do try to wait a solid 20 – 30 minutes after applying before I head out; it’s part of my getting-out-the-door routine to apply sunblock, then take my inhaler). Good to know.

This summer, I plan to give “Mexitan” a whirl (it’s a tad more expensive, price-wise, but seems to get a lot of good reviews) as well as trying the ol’ Badger again.

The brand I’ve been using with great success thus far, however, is Alba Botanica’s SPF 30 “Very Emollient Mineral Protection Kids,” which I found at our local grocery store on sale for about five dollars a tube. Needless to say, that’s a little pricier than some of the chemical varieties, but a lot less than many of the mineral blocks.

I really like its rich, almost buttery feel, though that can make it challenging to apply if you’re indoors in the air conditioning (if you warm it in your hands for a few seconds before applying, it becomes “flowier”). This stuff also seems to leave your skin in better shape than it finds it, which is a nice bonus (some sunblocks — whether chemical or mineral — seem to leave my skin pretty unpleasantly dry).

Anyway, that’s it with my sunblock review for now. I’ll try to get some thoughts posted on the other ones as I try them.

A Curious Desire

It would seem that, just about every spring, I find myself yearning for a stately upright-riding kind of bike to take on what the inimitable Tim Smith calls a “bike walk.”

Evidently, commingled with my zippy Roadie blood is a solid dose of the pragmatic Utility Cyclist strain (though not, I now realize, so much as a drop of the Retrogrouch — as much as I can appreciate the beauty of a good Retrogrouchy setup, I am too much a fan of the stiffness of aluminum and the convenience of modern shifting to really swing that way). On days like today, some part of me really relishes the idea of being able to sit up straight on a bike designed for doing exactly that and perhaps even putter along at a gentlemanly amble.

This isn’t to say that the Tricross, for example, is necessarily opposed to ambling. I suspect that, for the right rider, the Tricross would be very happy to be an ambly-rambly beast (as opposed, for example, to the Fearsome Fuji, which opposes all efforts to ride in a fashion that could be described as “sensible” and “utilitarian”), and I do think that if I was forced to own only one bike, the Tricross would be a fantastic choice.

Rather, the whole point is that there’s a different feel to an upright, flat-bar bike; the kind of bike on which one is never tempted to get into the drops and hammer, because there are no drops in the first place. The kind on which one might clamp a slightly swept-back bar and occasionally (Heaven forfend!) hang a basket. I might even (GASP!) countenance a triple on such a bike, to provide some extra-low gearing for towing stuff around in the trailer.

In a perfect world, it would also sport a pair of Avid BB7s, since I’ve found that I quite like disc brakes for commuting. Unobstructed wheel clearance stopping power in wet conditions are good things, and having the BB7s on there would mean I wouldn’t have to keep a bunch of different varieties of brake pads and rotors on hand. There’s also much to be said, though, for good, old-fashioned V-brakes: in short, they work pretty well, you can find parts for them everywhere, and they’re really, really easy to maintain.

I realize that I might be able to buy a used wheelset, pop it on my neglected green GT, and haul it to a bike shop to get its bottom bracket replaced … or at least lure someone who has done that at least once to my garage with promises of pizza and/or beer in hopes of receiving some guidance in exchange. BB replacement is still one job I’ve never done. To complicate matters, though, I’m not entirely sure that getting that bike in working order will be any less expensive than replacing it, which largely depends on how inexpensively I can secure replacement parts. Of course, it’s also possible that the frame in question is rusty on the inside, or whatever. I really need to pop it on the stand, take it apart, and see what’s what.

Regardless, I do need to a “backup bike” capable of handling my commute. It doesn’t need to be as fast as my beloved Tricross, but it absolutely must be capable of carrying a rack. The Fearsome Fuji is built for carrying a rider and, at most, a little seatpost and/or bar bag. The Folding Fuji is too heavy to be really pragmatic as a commuting machine — I am not sure I could lift it onto and off of the racks on the bus, loaded with schoolbooks, without destroying my slowly-improving shoulder.

For the moment, I’ll just have to keep percolating this particular fantasy. It’s ultimately a flavor of the ubiquitous n+1 rule. I have two excellent bikes, access to a heavy-but-fun mountain bike, and one nonfunctional bike already. It would be nice to have one more in the stable, but I would be lying if I claimed that I couldn’t live without it.

For now, I’ll just keep dreaming about tooling around on some genteel-looking flat-bar machine.

That’s it for today.

Keep the rubber side down.

Mornings Make You Faster

I would describe myself as a morning person with a slight problem.

This is to say that I am at my best when I first wake up … but it so happens that my body thinks “morning” means 10AM. I have probably discussed this before — I seem to be wired to sleep from 2 to 10 AM.

Over the past couple of weeks, though, I’ve managed to (mostly) be up by about 5:45, because if I get up early I can get good a ride in on the way to my 9 AM class (and I still have to get up early regardless, since the latest I can leave is about 7:15 AM).

Initially, I figured this might make for more pleasant commutes — which is to say, leaving at 6:30, I’m beating a lot of the traffic, but also getting out during a time of day when the streets aren’t lined with parked cars in places that are deeply inconvenient to me. That has, in fact, largely proved to be the case: it actually is quite nice getting out there before traffic gets too crazy (though getting out there after Crazy Traffic Time is over works, too), and it’s pleasantly coolish in the early hours.

However, I have discovered another interesting effect of hitting the road early: apparently, it makes you faster.

I don’t know whether it’s a function of getting to ride longer stretches between stoplights or what, but my moving average is definitely on the rise (admittedly, some of this is probably a question of simply accumulating time in the saddle again).

I haven’t yet managed to pull off a 16 MPH average on my commute, and honestly I don’t know if ever I will thanks to the sheer numbers of stoplights and stop signs I encounter on my route. Seriously, depending on how I go, I will have hit either three stop signs and two lights — both on sensors that favor the other road or two stop signs and two lights, one of them very long, again on sensors that favor the other road, before I have traveled a single mile, and will then hit a few more stop signs and one light before I make it to the main road. (For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t mind that so much if the ridiculous number of traffic signals in my ‘hood would, for example, prevent drivers from “doing 50 in a 25″ that should be, ideally, a 20 MPH zone at maximum.)

In short, all that stop-n-go travel really kills the ol’ average. One barely gets up to speed before one must slow down again for the next stop. On the other hand, there are long stretches I can hammer out at 20 MPH if I hit them during the right part of the stoplight sequence. Unfortunately, those sames stretches are on timers, so if I hit them at the wrong part of the sequence, I find myself drawing to a halt at empty intersections and inveighing the winds that blow through them.

Nonetheless, I do seem to be getting faster. My moving average, on commutes anyway, is creeping up. Tonight’s ride home felt slow, but still averaged 13.0 MPH. That’s really not bad, under the circumstances (rush hour traffic, every stoplight possible, tooling along in the bike lane, not even making an effort until the last third of the ride). This is heartening, because for a while I was convinced I was just going to lose ground forever and that I should maybe give up in despair and learn to be a grand-championship pizza eater instead.

So, in short, I now have semi-empirical evidence that there might actually be a good reason to wake up while “the sun don’t shine.”

In other news, I’ve racked up 250 km in the May Massive training challenge. Timothy is off to represent for River City in the Almanzo 100 this Saturday. I will, as aforementioned, not be racing, but I guess I’m okay with that. Next year in Spring Valley, eh?

I guess that’s it for tonight. I am so tired I’m starting to feel drunk, so I think I’m going to toddle off for some much-needed and well-earned rest.

G’night, y’all.

Rubber side down.

A Farewell to Almanzo*; Your Humble Blogger Turns 100**

*For this year, anyway.
**No, not in years. Or even in dog years, because that’s like 14.7 if you go by one dog year = seven human years, and I turned fourteen ages ago.

So it would appear that I won’t be racing (or otherwise participating in) the Almanzo 100 this year, after all. Don’t worry, though — I haven’t done anything silly, like wrapping my bike around a tree or being stomped on by elephants. We are just keeping our belts extra-tight because changes to the way Medicare/Medicaid pays its clients back in December meant changes to the way Denis’ agencies get paid for their clients’ physical therapy so they, in turn, can pay him — resulting in rather a backlog on the getting-paid front. In short, Denis doesn’t want to take the two days off the race would require with our next quarterly tax payment coming on fast.

He did, very sweetly, offer to let me go with my friend and teammate, Timothy. However, Almanzo is the day before our first wedding anniversary, and while bikes are super-important to me and racing is marginally important (okay, so it’s more important than I’m willing to admit; making the right choice on this decision wasn’t hard, but living with it hasn’t been terribly easy), my husband is way, way more important than either of them: so, though I admit it was difficult to do so, I declined that offer.

I’ve known for some time that this might be the case, but sort-of hoped against hope that a miracle would occur and we’d be able to go after all. Maybe being able to be home on our anniversary is the miracle, though. As soon as I finally bit the bullet and decided against trying to race, catch-up paychecks started arriving. I’m still not assuming we’re going to make the race, though, because at this point the logistics would be, um, challenging.

For what it’s worth, this might all be for the best. This summer’s classes are going to be intense. I have an annotated bibliography due on Tuesday and an CogPsych exam on Thursday (I am loving Cognitive Psych, by the way), and then it’s right into the teeth of a review-of-the-literature and Exam 2. I find that I rather enjoy working under this kind of pressure, though I wouldn’t want to do it all the time.

Meanwhile, in other news, I turned 100 today: that is, 100 hours in the saddle for 2013.

Mostly what this means is that the Tricross is due for a full tuneup, but it will probably have to wait ’til next Friday. I can’t afford to take it off the road before then, because I don’t have a backup bike that will carry my school stuff. I’m not feeling 17 miles in road cleats on the road bike with a backpack just now, and as much as I love the Folding Fuji for its relaxed, cushy ride, I would not like to take 2 hours getting to school. 1 hour 15ish, including stoplights, is plenty.

After discovering that my Mavic wheel may not be (indeed, very likely isn’t) the culprit in my repeated-flat problem (I suspect the tire, since I swapped wheels, flatted with a hole in precisely the same location, and discovered a corresponding bad spot in the tire bead), I swapped the rear 23mm Gatorskin to the front and popped my 25mm Gatorskin on the rear. That way I don’t have to buy a tire right away. I’m hoping to get it out on the road tomorrow and give it a test ride in Iroquois Park.

Today I racked up about 25 miles, laid down one third-best on a sprint segment, and generally felt decently strong and fit. I’m finally getting back on form after a rough Spring. Not quite there, yet, but good enough to lay down 23 MPH on a flat sprint (not the sprint segment in question — that one’s actually uphill much of the way, and I caught a nasty headwind at the wrong moment, so I finished out at 17. MPH).

It’s tough walking away from a race when you’re feeling like I’m feeling right now, but it’s okay. There will be another Almanzo next year. Denis and I will never have another first anniversary, so I plan on making it count.

And now I’m off to Make Something Happen around the house. Probably laundry, because I am feeling too spunky for anything that involves just sitting around.

Cult of the Clymb

I rarely shill for anyone. In short, if I’m going to recommend that people give you their hard-earned money, you really have to impress me.

There are a few companies whose wares I recommend over and over to pretty much anyone I can buttonhole in the street: Mavic for wheels, SRAM for drivetrains, Specialized and Fuji for whole bikes, the immortal gNashbar for their fantastic cycling sandals … and now I’m recommending one more business.

A while back, some of my G+ peeps turned me on to “The Clymb.” I was hesitant to join up, and in fact put it off for a long time, because you have to become a “member,” which more or less comprises giving them your email address so they can tell you what’s on sale from time-to-time. Eventually, I bit the bullet and did, and amazingly, I’m pretty glad that I did.

First off, I’ve found that I have the self-control to delete most of the Clymb emails I get without even looking at them. Second, they sell a bunch of the kind of stuff that I actually like and use and need to replace from time to time. Third, I bought like three things from them, all of which were brand new and selling at prices comparable to what I’d pay if I bought them second-hand … and so The Clymb gave me a ten-dollar credit.

I could’ve used it to pretty much snag something for free, but instead I applied it towards the replacement for the cheap briefcase that I destroyed in less than one semester. The replacement has some promising reviews out there and is water-proof: like, made by a company that makes stuff for fishing waterproof. It’s not exactly a submersible briefcase, but it’s perfect for my purposes (and, sadly, cost me about the same as the one I killed, which was not waterproof).

In short, I love the Clymb. It doesn’t stop me from spending my money on bike stuff at the LBS or sometimes on Amazon (I tend to split about 50/50 — anything I can get locally, I do, but if our local shops don’t carry it, special-ordering is slow and a pain, so I use Amazon Prime). It also doesn’t cause me to buy tons of crap I don’t need. Instead, I’m using it to thoughtfully buy things I do need or replace worn-out stuff that I can no longer repair, and so forth.

Anyway, if you think you can resist the siren song of the marketing emails (which, unlike some other places, are fired off at a rate a little less than one a day, as far as I can tell, rather than three or four per day) and you can think of some cycling (including commuting!) or camping stuff you could really use, here’s a link to get you started in the Cult of the Clymb:

http://www.theclymb.com/invite-from/ashertaylor

Anyway, that’s it for now. I will probably be semi-incognito for the next seven weeks, since summer term is going to be a wild ride.

Edit: For full disclosure, the Clymb might toss me a credit if you join (I’m not really clear on how that sort of thing works), but that’s not actually why I’m recommending it. Rather, I’ve just snagged some really great deals from them, and it seems worth passing on.