Blowout!

Last Sunday, my son and I went out for a bike ride. The results were not pretty. Perhaps inspired by the Tour de France, I'd decided that we should ride a "tough alpine stage." Near my home there is a large park which covers much of a local ridge. It was that ridge which we were going to tackle.
We started our ride, and i gave him some instruction on shifting gears while we were down on level ground near home. We then rode up to this park. there is about 250 feet of elevation rise which is delivered in about a half mile of riding, so by quick math, that's about 250 feet of rise spread over about a 2500 feet run, or about a 10% grade. The early part of this is steeper, and it was here that the real adventure began.
We were climbing up, and i found myself breathing quite hard. The weather was warm, and I felt that stopping was appropriate. I should know better than to stop activity abruptly, and shortly after stopping, I was feeling a bit light-headed. I sat and had M give me my water bottle. I sprayed myself and took a drink, trying to cool off. My breathing was coming under control, but I was still feeling off. Deciding that judgement was the better part of valor, I swallowed my pride and called my wife to come pick us up. She was unsure if she could fit both bikes in the car.
A few moments later, a guy in a pickup stopped and asked if we were OK. I responded, not really, but help was on the way, and sent him away. A few moments later, another cyclist passed, barreling down the hill. He stopped, turned, checked in on us, and departed when we told him we were OK. My wife arrived a couple of minutes later, and I loaded M's bicycle into the back. I was, by then, feeling well enough to ride home.
I began the downhill ride by shifting to a higher gear. It was then that I suffered the blowout. Unlike the more common versions where a tire fails, I had a catastophic failure of a shift cable. I had never learned to reliably install indexed shift cables, so I had to take my "antique" mountain bike into the shop.

Good-Bye, Teacher Man

I heard on the news this morning that Frank McCourt has passed away. Mr. McCourt spent most of his career as a teacher in the New York City school system. He achieved fame through his three books; Angela's Ashes, 'Tis, and Teacher Man. While I cared little for his middle book, 'Tis, his other two were gems, and I'd urge you to seek them out. Mr. McCourt died of cancer at age 78.

An Image

Tour de France

Today marks the first really serious climbing stage in the Tour de France. It was announced at the start that Levi Leipheimer had broken his wrist in a crash near the end of yesterday's stage. He'll need surgery and has left the race. This means that a key lieutenant of Lance Armstrong's is gone. His Astana team still is likely the strongest in the race, but by a less wide margin. The interesting thing will be watching the intra-team battle between 2007 champion Alberto Contador and Armstrong. Conditions today are lousy - heavy rain, so serious crashes during descents are a real possibility. As I'm writing this, the racers are descending from the first big climb. Both Armstrong and Contador climbed well, and it's not clear if one is stronger than the other. Time will tell.

I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes

Actually, I really have nothing against them, but I had a pair of experiences recently that were a bit unsettling. The first was a pain in my butt shortly after I got dressed one morning. As I got undressed that night, I noticed an odd looking spot on my underwear. On examination, I realized that it was a spider nest. I dry my clothes on a line in the attic, and apparently this is one possible drawback.
The snake part of this comes from a run with my son. We'd gone to a local park where there are many hills and a lake. We ran down the hill to the lake and were running around the lake. My son went ahead to look for the path back, and suddenly he yelled, "Snake." It appeared to be a fairly large water snake - dark green, about 2 feet long and 2 inches across. It was kind of nice to see, but snakes have that "chill down your spine" effect when you first notice them.