Unexpected Interludes

Back in the city now from our stay on the shore, I am looking back in bemusement at what had been intended as a bicycling-heavy trip, but turned out to be anything but.



It did rain a great deal. But even when the weather was good, we hardly did any substantial cycling. In fact, we probably cycled less during this trip than at any other point since winter ended. Like everyone else who rides a bicycle, I go through periods when my enthusiasm for it waxes and wanes. But this was probably the strongest and most unexpected case of the latter I have experienced since I started this blog. Why?..



On a superficial level it was really very simple: I lost interest in cycling when I discovered that the water was warm enough to swim. You see, I love swimming in the ocean but can't tolerate hot climates, so my options are severely limited and I've been swim-starved for years. In Northern New England the water is too icy, but in Southern New England(let alone popular vacation spots such as Florida) the weatheris already too hot and humid for me. It is as if there is an imaginary line somewhere along the MA/RI border where the climate and the water temperature undergo a dramatic change and what I really need is a place that is north of that imaginary line as far as climate goes, but south of it in terms of water temperature. And unexpectedly, I found such a place in Rockport, MA. Despite it being August, it was never above the low 80s, and dipped as low as the 60s on cooler days. Yet, the water remained swimmable the entire time and I found myself perfectly content to spend my waking hours at the beach: swim, read, eat, repeat. I cannot remember the last time I've been able to do anything like this!



I also must admit that we did not enjoy cycling here as much as we hoped during the few times we did it. Going north to Ipswich and beyond, water views were limited, car traffic was pretty heavy and there was not a whole lot of shade.Weknow from experience that once you get up the coast to New Hampshire and Maine it gets better, but we never made it that far.Truthfully, cycling "at home" - along the tree-lined, quiet country roads Northwest of Boston - is, on the whole, considerably more enjoyable.



So at some point we decided to just let it go and accept that there wasn't going to be a whole lot of cycling during this trip.



We used the bikes for transportation when necessary, but gave up even trying to go on "real" rides after the first week.



By the time we loaded up the bikes again to head back, I felt as if I'd gotten completely unaccustomed to it and the weight of our luggage was challenging. There are many short, but steep hills en route from the place where we stayed to the train station, and the bike fishtailed wildly every time I attempted to feather the brakes on a downhill. Given the huge amount of Saturday tourist traffic and the narrowness of the road, this made me so nervous that I was shaking and covered in sweat by the time we got on the train. Ironically, the final leg of the trip home - from the train station in the center of Boston to our house on the outskirts - was less stressful, but by the time we got home I was completely drained and did not want to look at another 100 lb luggage-laden bike again for a long, long time.



24 hours later, I still can't shake that feeling - a feeling that somehow morphed from that of being tired of just the trip home, to being tired of cycling in general. Maybe the hot, dusty, overloaded final ride was just a particularly cruel contrast to the cool, light feeling of being on the beach - swimming so far out from shore as to be surrounded by complete silence, submerged in the blissfully perfect temperature of Rockport's water. Also, maybe having taken a step back from cycling has made me realise that I've been neglecting other activities that I used to love - still love, in fact, but just don't get a chance to do. Maybe I ought to try harder to find time for them. Take swimming for instance: After all, Rockport is just a commuter rail's ride away and I can take one of my upright transportation bikes on the train, and... Ah, there. I guess I am still thinking of everything in terms of bikes, and there is really no danger of Lovely Bicycleabruptly ending as I run off to spend all of my time on the beach. Everyone needs an interlude, but cycling is such an inherent part of me now that I can hardly imagine life without it, at least in some form.

Wander round East Village

I met Morton, who took me on an impromptu guided tour of the East Village, after lunch at the Café Rakka in St Marks Place.

St Marks Place

Inside Two Boots Pizza - which began on Avenue A 25 years ago. It was named because its founders had roots in Italy and Louisiana, both boot-shaped, and the restaurant serves unusual pizza toppings. It has also always been notable for its child-friendliness, which was rare in the eighties. The area was pretty run-down when they started, but is now a safer, vibrant part of the city. Two Boots has branches in lots of other places and other cities now.



The counter is a collage of posters, photos and other ephemera.







The New York City Marble Cemetery was founded in 1831, after an epidemic of yellow fever caused concern about normal burials in the earth. One block west is the New York Marble Cemeteryfounded in 1830, which is entered via an alleyway with iron gates at each end. The funeral home nearby is a four-storey or so high building, on the roof of which is a strange stone or iron (?) owl with apparently cloth or similar wings.







List of interesting places - Tomkins Square Park, Avenue B and A, Two Boots Pizza, Marble Cemetery, funeral home building with spooky owl on top, Colonnades on Lafayette(?) , Cooper Union building, TD Bank with old photo of 2nd Avenue 'el' and corner of St Marks, La Mama theatre and others . . . Stuyvesant St, Hamilton Fish House, First Houses public housing . . .

Weekend Outlook for SWPA ice climbing

Laura and I went out yesterday to climb a little and check local ice. Here's a photo recap and suggestions for those seeking to climb the best conditions that SWPA has seen so far this season.






South Connellsville Rod and Gun Club

On most years this small privately owned crag forms up some of the best mixed climbing in SWPA. Its always high on my "hit list" when formed up. Current conditions have rarities "in" and ready for takers. It's been a number of years since I've seen these mixed lines look like this. The classic ice lines of NRA, Cave Shot, and Double Barrel need a couple more days of cold to bring them "in". The mixed lines Internet Connection, Alpine Ascent Gully, Cocked and Loadedas well as others are all in good shape. They look at least as good as when the lines were first climbed. New water routes and the recent cold snap has formed up some new unclimbed M lines that will help ease the pain of our dismal season.

This 50M line really caught our eye

Another new formation for

Internet Connection climbs up the center of the photo

Laura below Skymonkey and Internet Connection

Mixed options galore with Skymonkey and Internet Connection on R end.

L to R Cave Shot, NRA, Double Barrel

New untouched lines on the Pistol Whipped Wall

Meadow Run and Ohiopyle State Park

Here's some photos of Lower Meadow Run. Its really not "in", but top rope options do exist. Please take care not to destroy barely touched down pillars. As usual the mixed lines are looking good for ascents at any time. Hemlock will go as will the Main Flow. An easy to get to crag with easy rigging. A good option this weekend.




We didn't check Upper Meadow, but I'd bet it has top rope lines to be done.




Victoria Flats would most likely have ice in the Gullies.




The always fun bolted "ice" climb Winter Dutchman at Schoolhouse wall would be a good shot to try as well.

Laura below Anger Management at Lower Meadow Run

Irishtown

There are some climbs in at Irishtown as well. The Prow is in pretty good shape, Mouth of Madness is out. We climbed Dynamite yesterday and found the topout to be thin despite its appearance. Dirty T is in really good shape, with bolts possibly hiding under the new ice.

Dynamite at Irishtown

SWPA has some ice to be climbed. Better than these areas have seen thus far this season! Hope this helps those of you looking for climbs in SWPA this weekend...

Plains Coreopsis

Plains Coreopsis in July.

En-Lightened Cycling

We enjoy cycling at night, and we want to be safe and confident doing it. The Pashley Sovereigns come with an excellent lighting system: a hub driven dynamo headlight and an LED rear light. This is sufficient for some night-time riding, but not optimal for the kind of riding we were doing. So we have made some enhancements to suit our needs.

HEADLIGHTS

Headlights serve two main purposes:
1. They make your bicycle visible to others
2. They enable you to see where you are going

What we immediately noticed, is that one headlight cannot do a good job at serving both of these purposes simultaneously. If the light is angled for optimal visibility (straight ahead), it does not provide optimal road illumination. If the light in angled for optimal road illumination (downward), it does not make you maximally visible to others.

If you live in an area that is reasonably illuminated at night, you do not really have a need for #2 and one headlight is perfectly sufficient. However, if you live in the country, in the suburbs, or in any other area with stretches of unlit road, you will need to see where you are going. This is especially important for avoiding pot-holes, objects on the road, patches of black ice in the winter, pedestrians dressed in dark clothing, and those cyclists who travel with no lights on (in the Boston area this is alarmingly common!).

Pictured here is a set of Cateye Opticube LED bike lights, attached to the brackets on the front tire of my Pashley Princess, pointed downward. In the first photo on this post you can see how far the beams illuminate the road in the dark.

REAR LIGHTS

With rear lights things are simpler, because visibility to others is the only requirement. Still, because we like to travel through poorly lit areas, we added something extra to what Pashley already provided.

We attached these Cateye Bike LD610 tail lights to the stays of our rear racks. These can be set to be solidly lit, or blinking, or lighting up top to bottom and back, like Christmas tree lights. The effects can be quite fun.

And here the same Cateye tail light (just one) is used as a rear light on Marianne (photo on the right). It attaches to the rear rack with a special mounting bracket. In a pinch, you can also use electrical tape. The photo on the left shows the enormous SunLite Low Rider Bullet headlight that I've permanently mounted on Marianne. Since we use the Motobecanes for recreation rather than transportation, the lighting set-up is not as extensive as on the Pashleys.

Having a good lighting system on your bicycles makes cycling in the dark considerably safer and more enjoyable. Rather than rush to get home as fast as we can once it gets dark, we can take nocturnal joy rides on bike trails and country roads. Let there be light!

Four in One

left: Charles Romaine Brubaker, born August 19, 1871 (my great grandfather)
right: Hazlette Aileen Brubaker, daughter of Maud Wise and Charles Brubaker, born January 16, 1902 (my grandmother).


left: Virginia Phend, daughter of Hazlette Brubaker and Vic Phend, born May 9, 1928 (my mother).
right: There are no formal "baby" portraits of me, or my younger brother. There are several of my older brother, the first born. And of my sister, the last born. There are a few casual snapshots of me as a toddler, but the picture on the right is the only one taken of me in a formal studio setting. It's a hand-painted black and white photo, dated 1951, so I would have been 3 years old.

Contributed to the 7th Edition of Smile For The Camera :: Oh, Baby!

Mind the Moderating Rules

I have a fairly hands-off moderating policy on this blog. At the same time, it is important to me that readers are comfortable participating in discussions without feeling intimidated by others. The policy so far has been to "approve all comments other than spam, unsubstantiated slander, inflammatory remarks, or blatant rudeness," and this will not change. However, I would like to elaborate on some of these terms.



Spam has become harder to deal with, as increasingly I find businesses using the comments inappropriately. Industry members are always welcome to participate in discussions. What is not welcome, is for a business to comment incognito in order to endorse themselves or criticise a competitor. I will remove those comments and will not deal with any company that uses such tactics.Comments promoting your business in response toa thematically unrelatedpost are likewise inappropriate.



Slander refers to posting malicious allegations against industry members and other individuals. (Example: "I heard Company X uses child labor to make their products." Another example:"Hey, I saw that guy beating his wifeafter the Podunk Brevet.") I cannothost random slander aimed at companies or persons; please take it elsewhere.



Rudeness seems like an obvious enough concept, but it can be a slippery slope. Criticism in itself is not rude. There are also comments meant to be humourous or tongue-in-cheek that can get misread by those who don't get the joke. I consider comments rude when they outright insult others or address them in a bullying tone.



Inflammatory comments are those designed to taunt a specific individual or to provoke a so-called "flame war." I do not always read comments thoroughly, and may not notice these until a full-blown hostile exchange is in progress. In cases like these, I may go back and remove the entire thread, no matter whose started it.



The way I see it, the less moderating I do the better. I hate being in a position of "allowing" versus "not allowing" stuff. Plus I simply have no time to carefully consider the wording of every comment. Long time readers get the benefit of the doubt more so than unknown ones.I use my judgment. Please use yours and mind the moderating rules.