Bike Path Meeting

If you remember in an earlier POST ,there was discussion on the PORTLAND bike path that had hit a snag with two landowners. I still have to be careful what I post here, so this will be a pretty vanilla scenario of what's going on.

Things really haven't progressed much since the last meeting except that all offers have been refused by the one party by our hired negotiator. The other party has not picked up their phone once in several attempts to contact and didn't answer his door at repeated attempts to stop by their house.

I think that many are feeling frustrated and the discussion has now centered around asking the PORTLAND City Council to approve a Quick Take on the land. Unfamiliar with the term? Me too. I just looked it up and found the following:

Quick take: In many states, there is a specific procedure that allows the government to deposit with the court the amount it thinks the property is worth and then take possession of it very quickly. Sometimes there is no opportunity for a hearing before the government takes possession. For residences, there is usually a somewhat longer period before the person must leave, but businesses in some states can be evicted very quickly. Once the government takes possession of a property through quick take, it can (and often does) demolish the buildings in question.

While we are not looking to demolish any buildings or kick anybody out of their homes, we need to get rolling on this stretch of bike path. We have federal funds to be considered and the clock is ticking. For those of you in the PORTLAND area, be prepared for more details. When the time comes, we need to show our support at the PORTLAND city council meeting and send an email barrage of support to the council before the meeting.

That's probably more details that I should divulge at this point, but things are about to happen pretty fast anyway, and most of the council are ready for it to happen anyway. Maybe I'll live to see this through!

The Day (Off) From Hell

Ah Friday. My day off to work on the honey-do list, go for a bike ride, enjoy the day. No problems here. I was confident that this was going to be a relaxing day to do a little work, do a little riding, and kick back. Then I got out of bed. Which was my first mistake.



First order of business: Wake up at 6:30 and go 20-30 miles on the tandem with Laura. Out of bed and start preparations. While Laura was eating I got the tandem out of the garage. Flat rear. Darn. No cap on the tube. Mayyybe the kids (okay, Carson) was playing with it and let the air out. Pumped it back up and it seemed to hold. Went in got dressed to ride. Came back out and the tire was way down. Change of tube necessary. Changed. Now too late to go over twenty miles as Laura had to go to work, so we did a short run to the bridge of about 15 miles.

Second order of business: Get last two loads of laundry finished and on the clothes line. Check. This actually went fine. Until the quick moving rain moved through before they were dry. Oh well, I'll get them later. That did work (barely) as another storm was RAPIDLY moving in and I was racing against the clock to pull it all off the line.


Third order of business: Clean out and arrange the garage. Part of the issue here is that we are having a garage sale tomorrow and the garage has been lost to loads and loads of stuff for the sale. So, I moved it all out in hopes of arranging the garage. Once all the stuff was moved out, the aforementioned rain came through. Hurry up and get all the stuff BACK in the garage. Then I had to go into work for a bit (coming up in next section). When I got home from work took all of it BACK out of the garage and started to arrange a little. Then I had to take a break to work on a computer (also coming up). When I came upstairs from fixing that some more dark clouds were rolling in and the wind was picking up. I yelled at the kids to start getting the stuff in the garage fast and I was going to get the clothes off the line. I BARELY won that battle. I could literally SEE the rain less than a block away as I got back in the house.

Fourth order of business: Going to work on my day off because of a slight emergency that needed to be handled. No biggy, but who really wants to go to work on their day off.

Fifth order of business: Fixing a computer that was dropped off to me. Nothing big, just putting in and setting up a third hard drive into a computer. Just time consuming is all.

Sixth order of business: Laura and her Mom went to a viewing for a friend that passed away. While they were gone a lady that Laura works with stopped by to pick up a few bags of girls clothes for her granddaughters. Problem now exists: They are mixed in with the rummage sale stuff due to the frantic storm dodging. I did my best to find the bags and I thought I did. Turns out that I sent along at least a couple bags I shouldn't have and now Laura is busy hunting them down now that she's home. I can't win.

Then, to top everything off, the poor lady backed out of our driveway and straight into our van, causing mild damage that will have to be repaired. It was pretty much expected by this time. I wouldn't have expected anything else!

That pretty much finished me off. I was spent. What I was so confident was going to be a good day ended up being a day from hell. What I really need is a beer. Crap. I'm out. I don't have the energy to go get any. I'm going to bed. Tomorrow pretty much HAS to be better.

MPP (Miles per Pound)

Damn you Barry!

Carrying on our recent theme of cycling calculations about Calories per Mile (CPM), Barry brought up the idea of how many miles would it take to burn one pound. The geek glasses are on with the nerdy bow tie. Let's solve this, shall we?

Using the information from the last post: 1000(CPH)/18(Miles) = 55.56 (CPM)
Where CPH = Calories per Hour
Miles = Miles ridden in one Hour
CPM = Calories per Mile
We can then start to determine MPP -- Miles per Pound

Assuming that you burn 1000 calories per hour at 18 miles per hour and also assuming that it takes 3500 calories to equal one pound of weight (a common assumption) then the following formula will give you hours to burn 3500 calories:

3500 Calories / 1000 CPH = 3.5 hours

Still assuming 18 miles per hour the following can be derived:

3.5 hours * 18 mph = 63 MPP (miles per pound)

Again, this is based on a "guesstimate" and would better be served by heart rate information.

Next time you are riding your metric century, eating anything you want, and wondering why you aren't losing weight, refer back to my little calculation. More royalty checks better be in the mail. Maybe I should set up a PayPal account for donations....hmmm....

CPH/Miles = CPM

Oh the conversations cyclists will get into, both with each other and with "outsiders". CDV was telling me that somebody asked him in the coffee shop last Saturday how many Calories per Mile (CPM) that it took to ride a bike.

This of course got the analytical Algebraic side of my brain going (and if my kids read this, yes...you WILL use Algebra in your life whether you think you will or not!). Calories per Mile(CPM) huh? Let me think. Simple algebra. If you take Calories per Hour (CPH) and divide by Miles Driven (Miles) you should arrive with Calories per Mile (CPM). Easy enough.

CPH is the hard to determine factor. Some heart rate monitors will tell you based on your heart rate/weight how many calories you are burning per hour. I found a few charts online and I believe the following is "fairly" accurate so I'll use THIS for purpose of my calculations.

According to what my heart rate monitor (when I used to wear one) and what the chart says, somebody my size should burn a little over 1000 calories per hour when averaging 16-19 mph on a training ride, so we will keep it simple for calculation purposes and say 1000. So, burning 1000 calories for say 18 miles in one hour, we can now solve for Calories per Mile.

1000(CPH)/18(Miles) = 55.56 (CPM)

Figure yours out too so you to can amaze your friends should the question ever come up! Although it's an easy thing to figure out, somewhere out there I have a couple of happy math/algebra teachers. I expect this word problem to be in future text books. All royalty checks will be appreciated and expected.

Tandem-Com - A Must Have!

While on Tour de Kota, specifically on Ride With thE kErnEl Day, I noticed a couple on a tandem with a communications system not unlike that what you would see on a motorcycle. As we rode past I asked them where they bought it and they said "Precisiontandems.com". They were nice and warned not to buy the cheapest model.

Upon my return home I checked into it and decided to take the leap and purchase the Tandem-Com model. All I have to say is that if you ride a tandem, especially as the captain, you NEED this. I can't imagine going without it now that it has been thoroughly tested. Without further ado, my personal review.

Fit/Comfort: It fits well behind the ear and around the head. I might need to adjust it ever so slightly as by the time we finished our short 18 mile ride, it was digging into the bottom of my ear a bit.

Clarity: Awesome! There is a volume control, but basically you can carry on a conversation back and forth at a speaking volume level of sitting next to each other at the kitchen table. When we dropped down the Dakota street hill, at about 30 mph or so, it cut out intermittently, but not bad. Into a 15ish mph wind it did pretty decent also. Again, simply talking without shouting and not having to crane my neck around every time we need to communicate is a WONDERFUL thing.

Music Port: We didn't test it on this trip, but it actually has an 1/8" jack that you can connect any mp3 player into it and have music streaming through the headsets as well. For the most part I don't know that we will use this much as we actually enjoy talking to each other!

Buyer's Remorse: NONE! I can't imagine leaving home without this little beauty on the tandem ever again. This unit was on sale for $120 and the wireless version is $299. I couldn't see spending the extra money at this time and I'm quite happy with my purchase.

Nice people at Precision Tandems: The usual 10% cut of all sales will be sufficient.

OFFICIALLY Signed up for the MS Bike Tour

Yeah, I know, you are wondering about the title of the post. Afterall, it's not a shock that I am once again signed up for the MS Bike Tour. However, gentle readers of my blog:

(done in my best Arena announcer voice) Making her MS debut, and quite possibly her first ride of 75 miles, the beautiful redhead that I'm proud to call my wife.....Laaaaauraaaaaa Brrrrrrrraddddddy!

We are trying our best to dedicate Tuesday, Thursday, Friday morning, and one day on the weekend to getting on the tandem to ride. We haven't been very consistent, but she's pretty confident that even if the ride was tomorrow she'd survive 75 miles. She's not so sure about the return trip on Sunday yet though.

Warren/Cheryl, you will have tandem company on Team Road Kill this year!

Saturday Ride

While fellow Lane Hogs were out having a great time together (good writeup HERE), I was on my way to another great time with family at Grandma and Grandpa Hertel's 60th Wedding Anniversary.

The ride is decidedly up hill with lot of rollers, but a very enjoyable route. I didn't wake up early enough to make Brunswick (12 miles short) and to be honest, I wasn't feeling the best anyway. It was a struggle to maintain 17mph today. Not stellar, but it was nice to be on the road. Garmin weather showed a high of 78.8 but the temperature sign in Randolph showed 82 when I went through. It was definitely getting warmer by the time I hit Plainview.

I had never biked the road between Randolph and Plainview, but it has nice wide shoulders and it's an enjoyable route. Most of the people who were in cages waved at me (a couple hysterically, like they thought they knew me type of a wave) so overall it was a good day with respect to cagers. On a funny note, one minivan that kind of hugged the white line for no apparent reason (plenty of space/clear vision to move over) I ended up passing a couple miles up the road because the PoPo had them pulled over. I passed them, waved with a big-o-grin on my face and they didn't pass me again for another three miles up the road.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6050535