Sunday, February 4, 2024

Here Comes the Sun


I haven't been out for a bike ride since Christmas week, but today was sunny and warm. Finally, this morning I got motivated to go for an easy 15-mile round-trip to Bellewood Acres. Hot Dutch apple pie and an americano was my incentive.

I've been walking a lot, especially while there was snow on the ground, so I'm not in the worst shape I'd feared. It felt so good to ride fast enough to get out of breath and clear out my lungs and sinuses. And I had a tailwind on the way home, which helped me finish on a high note.

The home fires are still burning by the outdoor seating, and the Sunday brunch crowd was just beginning to arrive at 11am.

The online weather forecasts I see always seem to be wrong, even on the same day. This winter has actually been fairly mild so far, just a few days of snow and a lot of drenching rain. The usual. But I'm seeing predictions for a return of the atmospheric river, so winter's not over yet. The sun sets after 5:20pm now, though.


The Distillery is putting out some suggestions for Valentine's Day treats.

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

Off-Message

https://www.cnn.com/videos/sports/2023/11/06/billie-jean-king-cup-career-highlights-spt-intl.cnn

Before I took up bicycling, my first sports love was tennis. My dad taught me to play when I was a kid, back in the days of wood racquets. He admired the Aussie players Rod Laver, Stan Smith and John Newcombe, and also the stoic, cool Swede, Bjorn Borg. I was trained on Col. Nick Powel's original Code of Conduct of Tennis, and fantasized about playing like Billie Jean King, Chrissie Evert, Steffi Graf and Mary Jo Fernandez.

I played on my high school team, but I was awful. I was horribly shy and self-conscious, to the point that I couldn't focus on the ball and react to my opponent's shots, or concentrate on placing my returns. And I was always shocked by opponents who violated The Code with questionable line calls, temper tantrums and arguments about scores or calls. I played off and on after graduation, until finally in my mid-30s I developed enough confidence and mental focus to begin winning some matches, and truly enjoy playing. For several years, tennis was the center of my social life and the consuming interest that kept me happy even while working low-paying drudge jobs to pay the bills and support my tennis habit.

After moving to Bellingham I struggled to find a new tennis crowd. The tennis social scene was dominated by a local private tennis club; I was very, very broke in my first few years here and never fit in very well in clubby situations. One year I attended a conference put on by the US Tennis Association, where they announced a new marketing strategy promoting the pitch that "tennis is not just a sport for rich white snobs." I'm not sure the Bellingham club really got behind that message.

Still, I kept trying to make new tennis friends and compete in USTA or local public park tournaments, until I began to have pretty bad chronic back pain, and then blew out my knee. But I stubbornly kept limping around the court, hoping it would be fun again. In the summer of 2005 my car broke down, and I resorted to a Goodwill bicycle for transportation. I rode my bike to play matches at public courts, and found the bike rides were much more enjoyable than the tennis matches. Besides, the bike began to cure my knee and straighten out and strengthen my back. At the end of the summer I junked my car and gave up tennis forever.

This morning I saw a news item that just might revive my interest in tennis, although I'm not sure I want to play again myself. The Billie Jean King Cup is the newest incarnation of World Team Tennis and the Federation Cup. It is kind of the women's version of Davis Cup, which started as a competition between Ivy League American university teams and British Oxbridge teams, back in the days when women weren't admitted to universities, never mind competing in international sports tournaments. Now the Billie Jean King Cup gives women from all over the world the chance to train and compete at top levels in a beautiful game.

Saturday, September 30, 2023

Reality Check

Mount Baker on a clear day
 A few days after my Squalicum Harbor ride I woke one morning with severe back pain. I'm not sure if it was from straining too hard on that steep uphill bit, or just a vertebra slipped out of place while I slept.

I couldn't even sit up in bed, I had to turn to my side and push myself up with my arms. Sitting down was the worst, it was all right standing up, walking around or lying flat on the floor, until I started to get stiff from immobility. Driving my car hurt when I lifted my foot between the gas and brake, and I didn't even try to get on my bike, though I did get out for a five-mile walk. I tried a cold pack at first, then found that a heating pad and ibuprofen worked better.

After three or four days of hobbling around, I Googled "low back pain" and read the ever-respectable and trustworthy Mayo Clinic website. They pretty much said "Yeah, that happens. You should probably see your doctor if pain persists for three weeks."

Ghost bike & me

Three weeks! I'd been taking 3-4 hour naps in the day time in addition to at least eight hours sleep at night, just because doing anything else hurt, and seemed to risk causing a sudden, worse injury. Normally I'm pretty stoical and patient about pain, but I couldn't have taken it for three weeks.

Fortunately the heat, rest and ibuprofen seemed to help. I started doing some very gentle, easy core exercises, similar to Kegel exercises, that involve sitting or lying down and tensing internal abdominal muscles, low back, hip and butt muscles. Plus just paying attention to my posture, straightening up my spine.

Luckily we had a spell of stormy weather so I had an additional excuse not to ride in the rain. After ten days or so the weather cleared up and yesterday I was able to get out for a ride. My hip sockets clunked when I threw my leg over the saddle, but after that I was fine. I rode an easy twelve miles on the flat lands out around the Lummi casino.

A few years ago an older woman - actually probably about my age - was killed crossing Slater Road on a bike. There is a memorial to her at the intersection with Ferndale Road.

And I'm back on wheels. But I guess October is the season to slow down and take it a bit easy.

Monday, September 18, 2023

My Favorite Season

That perfect time of year again. On Saturday I took a ride to the post office, then a side-trip to Squalicum Harbor for a snack break. I don't actually know anything about boats except that they are pretty to look at and I enjoy idling around the harbor and waterfront.

Saturday fish market

Americano & croissant

The streets around the Bellingham waterfront have been torn up and detoured all summer, while intersections and railroad crossings are improved. The pavement has been in terrible condition for many years, and there have been some pedestrian deaths at rail crossings, so the work is much needed.

When I headed home on Saturday I decided to try a detour on a little connector street called Seaview Way,  a small, steep, curving road that goes under the train tracks from the waterfront up to Eldridge Ave. When I turned off I could see it went up sharply and I down-shifted, but as I rode under the tracks and around the curve it suddenly got much steeper, going from a 45-degree slope to pretty near 60-degrees. It was too late to down-shift any further, if I'd let up pressure on the pedals, gravity would have taken over and I would have fallen over in the roadway, right in front of the large 4x4 truck that was following me up the slope. All I could do was stand on the pedals and try to keep my feet circling, pulling back against the handlebars, bearing down as hard as I could.

I made it all the way up and stopped by the stop sign at the top, gasping for breath, and turned to apologize to the guys in the truck. They pulled up beside me, cheering and yelling "wooohooo".

I think I strained something in my back. On Sunday I took an easy ride that loosened things up, but as of Monday I'm still a bit sore and achy from the base of my skull all the way down to my knees.

This is why I don't ride clipped in anymore.

Monday, August 28, 2023

Cherry Point in Fire Season

For the past few weeks wild fires have been burning in Lower BC, and near Hwy. 20 in the North Cascades, close to Diablo Dam, the hydroelectric project that supplies electricity for this region, including even northern California. The dam isn't threatened now, but the air has been hazy and smokey down here at sea level all week. Today the weather is turning, and I'm waiting for rain to start this afternoon. Rain is good.
I've mostly been staying indoors - it almost seems like the pandemic shutdown days sometimes - unless I get up early enough to go for a bike ride before the air gets too hot, muggy and smelly. Last week I tried the Mountain View hillclimb out of town, and rode out to the beach at Cherry Point, but I forgot to "resume" MapMyRide after I stopped to take pictures and didn't get good data or a route map, so I rode again on the weekend. City crews had been out repainting the lane markings on my first ride. They kindly swept up all the loose gravel and debris, as well, so I got brave enough to get aero on the downhill, and got my speed up as high as 28mph. The climb felt easier than before, and the hill even looks smaller than I remembered. Maybe an optical effect of the smoke? The grey looks like typical Pacific Northwest clouds and fog, but it's hot and makes the eyes burn.

Bike at the beach
Cherry Point, by the way, is a disused oil tanker unloading port for the former BP Refinery, where the road washes out every year in winter storms. Now it's a public beach and an undeveloped park. The beach is rocky, but it looks like a good place to put out kayaks or other small boats. If I was into that.

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Coming Around Again

A year ago yesterday I tried out Map My Ride for the first time, with a 25-ish mile ride around the Lummi peninsula. Today I repeated the ride for my anniversary. On the flat roads between Ferndale and the casino the headwinds were so strong I almost decided to turn aside and cut the day short, but I pushed on over the boardwalk to the roundabout at Kwina Road, and as soon as I hit the hill climb the wind came around behind me and I started flying along at 12-13 mph. For me that's faster than average even on flat land.

I wasn't feeling well last week, I think from mild dehydration and chronic over-heating during the warmish weather. Our temperatures have only been in the mid-70s, with a couple of days over 80, but I'd been doing a lot of walking and errand-running without paying much attention to eating and drinking right. By the end of the week I was feeling fatigued, headachy, with a stiff neck and back, and tired, sore muscles even though I didn't do anything much more strenuous than walking while carrying groceries. Friday I spent the day resting and drinking several liters of water with Fizz hydration tablets. By Saturday I was feeling better, and with cool, breezy weather on Sunday I decided to repeat last year's ride.

I was a bit worried at first, struggling so much against the wind, but it ended up being a very pretty and fun ride. All the way around I was thinking the hills were much easier than I remembered, and I even bent down into the drops for one fast downhill. Very happy to ride again.

Monday, July 10, 2023

Danger - Danger - Danger

Google continues to send notices about transitioning to Google Analytics, with no clues as to how this site doesn't conform to Google policies. This morning, out of curiosity, I clicked on an ad that just said something like "Continue . . . " and didn't show a clear product or company name (all the ads on my site were the same).

Instantly I was thrown on to an alarming Windows ransomware screen, with an automated voice warning that my computer was locked, don't shut down, contact Microsoft Help immediately, etc. etc. etc. Just like the old Windows 10 forced upgrade thing.

I shut down immediately, restarted, cleared my cookies, ran some security checks and an update.

And removed all advertising from this blog.

Don't click on ads!!!!!!!! Or hyperlinks!!!!!!!