Down but not Out

I fell down while bike commuting home about a week ago. I'm sure many of the skeptics at work and elsewhere had a moment of satisfaction-"You do something crazy (by local standards) and that's what you get". Here's how it happened:
I'm heading north on Campbell Road, it's dark, and I'm beyond the streetlights of Valparaiso. I always breathe a sigh of relief when I get to this point in the ride. I've got one more tricky section-a left turn from Campbell Road on to 550 North. I say tricky because I pull off to the right and slow down to check behind me rather than get out into the northbound traffic. I'm not too confident that oncoming cars will stop for me if I'm out in the northbound lane. There's lots of traffic in both directions this night. When I look at the oncoming car it takes a moment to refocus on the dark pavement below me when I look down to see where I am. My headlight is pretty useless in these conditions-it's meant to illuminate the road in front of me not below me. Well as I'm easing to the right I guess I eased a little too far and went completely off the road. In some spots this would not be too big a deal but there's maybe a 4-6 inch drop where I am. Oh, and when I feel myself going off the road, I jam on the front brakes! You guessed it, over the handlebars I go. I wind up mostly off the road, twisted around and my feet still in my toeclips! I get up quickly and move completely off the road. My left calf muscle has knotted up and is now a throbbing ball about four inches below my knee. Apparently the fall has aggravated an Achilles injury I have been struggling with for a couple of months. At the moment I only want to remount my bike and get across the road to the county road on the other side. I can't swing my leg over the bike (I'm a left footed swinger) so I'm compelled to lay the bike almost sideways to get my foot over the bar. Once I do this I am still obliged to wait for traffic to clear. It seems like I've never seen this much traffic at this location. I eventually make it across the road. The first pedal strokes do nothing but confirm that I've done some damage to myself, but the bike seems okay. A week later, I can cycle comfortably but my running is still a problem. I'm working on another route home so I can cut out this turn (I'll go west at the light a mile south of this turn) and I've been looking at new lighting.

Merry Christmas

It's a gray snow less Christmas Day. We've really not had any snow worth talking about yet, however, we continue to get regular periods of fairly heavy (for around here anyway) rain. I decided to post a photo I took a couple of days ago at the dunes. You can see Dunes Creek in the center of the picture. The water was gushing out into the lake from our latest rains. The road from my house (Waverly Road and State Park Road) to the state park was flooded in a couple of spots. Dunes Creek drains all of the marshy areas south of the beach including the areas along these roads.

Odds and Ends

Here's my commuter bike up on the rack for routine maintenance. I found the plans for the homemade bike stand at Blue Collar Mountain Biking. I've added seven more round trips since I last posted. That's another 175 miles. The total so far is 1325 miles. The cold weather is going to limit the number of commutes I make. There are a group of crazies who populate the ICEBIKE web site who commute year round in some really severe conditions. That's not me, yet!

The second deer cull is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday (12/4 & 12/5). Hunters killed around 60 deer during the first round. Heavy rains over the past couple of weeks have flooded some of the trails at the Dunes State Park. John, a running acquaintance of mine, says that according to the park rangers the flooding is due to the beavers. I hope they don't decide to cull the beavers next.

Speaking of the dunes, the new visitor center for the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore opened last week.

The major snows west of here missed us completely. I bought a pair of Redfeather snowshoes from eBay after a freak lake effect snowfall of about 17" a couple of years ago. I have gotten several days of snowshoeing in each winter since then. It's a great way to see the dunes when the snow is deep and really is a workout. For years the spokesperson for Redfeather was a guy named Tom Sobel, who grew up around here and later moved to Colorado. Tom once measured the ZOY! Run course by bike. If you know anything about that race, you can appreciate this feat.

Deer cull at the state park

After a one year pause, hunters will return to the Dunes State Park to thin the deer herd this fall. I can tell that the herd has already been thinned. I rarely see more than two or three deer while running in the park. Several years ago I routinely saw 12 or more on the same trails. Of course as the areas around the parks become more developed, more deer are likely to migrate to the park as a source of food and cover. For the hunters it's kind of like shooting fish in a bucket!


NWI Times article

Bike Commuting #4

The price of gas is down to $2.03 at the local cheap station-just in time for the elections! Twelve more round trips to report-another 300 miles and another $20.30 saved. Totals so far:

$116.30 Saved
1150 miles

Last Friday when I rode to work, the temperatures were in the 30's. I'm going to have to seriously rethink my bike clothes for the colder months.

Invasion of the Insects

The Emerald Ash Borer has been found in Westchester Township.

Bike Commuting #3

Eleven more round trips! Another 275 miles of biking.

Totals so far:

$96.00 Saved
850 miles

Gas has dropped to about $2.43 a gallon. It may take a bit longer to "pay off" the bike. I attached my Planet Bike Freddy Fenders in anticipation of wetter commuting. I also purshased a set of panniers so I won't have to keep bungie-cording a gym bag to the rear rack. Onward!

By the way, according to the calculator I found on the Bicycle Garage Indy site, 566 pounds of CO2 have not been released into the atmosphere by my car because of those 850 bike miles.

Cross Country, Chess and ADHD.....

Fall is fast approaching and that means cross country. Every fall for the past eight years I have acted as the assistant coach for the local high school boys cross country team. We go to camp in August to run, play all variety of competitive games, and generally get to know one another. This year I played a couple of games of chess while at camp. As I do often, I got enthused and have been spending many hours playing chess against the Shredder Classic Demo I got off the internet. Many times I latch on to a new activity only to have my interest wane as something new comes along to take it's place. For example, I have a controller for my flight simulator gathering dust in my closet. I chalk this up to undiagnosed ADHD. We'll see how it goes.

Bike Commuting #2

Eleven more round trips to work. That's another 275 miles and another $33.00 saved. By the way the cost of gas is up to about $3.10 a gallon. So my totals so far:

$63.00 saved
575 miles

I bought a rigid front fork to replace the suspension fork the bike had on it. When I swapped forks I also overhauled the threadless headset-my first time! I've ridden in the pouring rain, got my first flat tire, and ridden home from work in complete darkness. It's been an interesting experience so far.

L'Alpe d'Huez

Tomorrow (Tuesday, July 18, 2006) the Tour de France stage climbs the most famous route in cycling, L'Alpe d'Huez. The last time the race included the mountain, in 2004, Lance Armstrong won an individual time trial there. There were an estimated 900,000 spectators watching him from the sides of the road. That's a bit misleading because the spectators are actually IN the road. In some places there's barely enough room for one rider to get through. One year an eager camera-toting fan actually knocked the eventual winner of the stage off his bike because he didn't get out of the way in time. Several riders from the 2004 tour are in the current race. If your a fan of cycling, or even if you're not, this stage is worth watching.

Delicate Balance

As we were beginning our Saturday run, my friend Steve asked me, "Did you see the coke on the beach?" I had not. No, this is not a sugary caffeinated drink nor is it a drug of abuse. It's a black substance that looks a lot like coal. Coke is a main ingrediant in the steel-making process. Steve has worked at "the mills" for much of his adult life. As we ran on the beach and I observed the coke littering the shoreline, Steve provided me with a basic lesson on coke. At one point we passed where someone had spelled "COAL" out of the pieces of coke. "Wrong," he shouted, "It's coke!" Even running along the lakeshore, we're never far from reminders of how endangered this area really is. The Dunes State Park and Dunes National Lakeshore are surrounded by symbols of industry-the steel mills, interstates, and power plants. Information at the National Lakeshore Visitor Center details the compromise that was struck in 1966 in order to create the park in the first place. Industry got the Port of Indiana and money for the park was appropriated. As the coke on the shoreline and the recent push to build a hotel on state park property illustrates, this wonderful natural area is still not secure.

Tour de France

I don't follow pro cycling closely until the Tour de France. So, I was extremely disappointed to see that many of the favorites won't be riding this year due to allegations of doping. This includes Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso, two of Lance Armstrong's main rivals last year. Outdoor Living Network will broadcast the tour again this year. I'll be interested to hear what Lance has to say given all the heat he's experienced due to allegations of doping in the past.

Bike commuting #1

I've totaled up my round trips to work so far and figure I've made at least 12 roundtrips. At about 25 mile per round trip that's 300 miles! Given the price of gasoline (it was 2.99/gallon at the local cheap station tonight), and the gas economy of my '94 Nissan (about 30 miles/gallon highway) that's $30.00 saved so far. I need 100 round trips to break even on the cost of the bike.

I got rained on for the first time on the way home last night. It was also the first test of my new Blackburn Mars 3.0 Taillight. This thing is really painfully bright!

Dune Biking

I returned to cycling last summer when a injury kept me from running. I even rode to work a few times on the Trek 1400 my friend Jerry gave me. It got me excited about cycling again. Over the winter I bought a circa 1999 Specailized Hardrock from Craigslist Chicago . I changed out the knobby tires for some street tires and added a rear rack and poof...a commuter bike! I often work until 8:00 PM so I recently bought a Bike Light so I could ride at night. I've been commuting twice a week for about the past month. I should mention here that I've moved since last summer so my commute is more like 13 miles, not the 2 miles I rode last summer. I've also done a couple of longer Sunday rides. My friend Steve and I rode from Chesterton to Highland and back (about 60 miles) almost entirely on bike trails! Amazing! During this ride we chatted with a guy who commutes to his work in Burnham. It looks possible to get to Chicago. This Sunday (6/25/06) I plan to do Lorie's Ride which is put on by the Calumet Crank Club ( quite a name for a bicycle club btw). I hope adding the cycling to my running routine will improve my running, save my knees and provide another way to get a good workout. We'll see!

First Steps

Well, the first day of Summer is right around the corner. The cross country team ran the ridge at the Dunes State Park on Saturday. Oh, man did this trail kick my sorry butt. Trail #9 (aka "the ridge") is arguably the best stretch of trail in the park-not too easy but not insanely steep (that's Trail #8!). I was dogging it the entire way. It sure felt good!