biking to Cuba

Wow, for some reason, my brain is on fire with new bicycling ideas, including biking in Cuba.  I just did a little online research about the possibility of taking a ferry from southern Florida to Cuba, and can't be done because of embargos if you're just a common American citizen.  I need to check with Michael Moore to see how he managed it for his film SICKO. 

Then I got to thinking, what about taking a ferry from Miami to the Bahamas and cycling there?  Okay, suddenly my mind is on fire... so why not island hop on ferries and go all over, to Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, etc., and even island hop from Cuba to Cancun, Mexico?  In fact, you can travel up the Gulf Coast of Mexico right back into lower TX... and I got to thinking, why not cycle the Gulf of Mexico?  What a fantastic biking trip that would be. 

Rode to church today for a Good Friday service.  Now my brain is on cycling fire.

West Hollywood cycling adventures

It seems to me that if there are multiple lanes in each direction, the far right lane should at very minimum be marked with sharrows if there is no bike lane. And if there is only one lane in each direction, automatic sharrows. Period. That being said, bikes have the right to the full lane. We don't have to ride so far to the right that we are in the gutter or in peril of being doored by some fool who doesn't look. And that right side usually has some of the worst potholes and road debris anyhow - which is no problem for a car but for a cyclist can be deadly. I take the full lane when I go down the length of Orlando/Gale in WeHo to Gregory Way. The street is narrow with parking on both sides but cars can have a lane in each direction. So if the cars have to wait behind me, too bad. There's a stop sign at every block anyhow so that can't get up much speed to begin with.

Shifting cycling plans

I saw this on my ride yesterday.

I am a part-time caretaker for a disabled woman and have been for the last 3-1/2 years.  She has been in and out of hospital five times since I've been working for her, mostly due to intestinal issues (mostly due to diet issues, but I won't go down that story at the moment).  She is also a Life Master at the game of Bridge, and when she's feeling up to it, I take her to play at the local Bridge clubs 2-4 times per week.  Recently she had scheduled herself to play in a Bridge Regional down in San Diego at the end of March.  Now, this meant that I would be out of work for a couple days (unpaid days), so I thought that with a 4-day weekend that I would make the most of it by trying to push myself with four 50-mile days in a row - because if I wasn't going to be working, I would try to make good use of the time and try to push myself.  It would be a small taste of what it would be like to be on the road for a long trip averaging 50 miles a day, and it totaled 200 miles, which is approximately the mileage needed to get from the Santa Monica beaches to the border of California.  However, due to her latest hospitalization, the San Diego plans were scrapped.  The means I'm working, which is good, but my 4-day plans are also scrapped.

I'm currently far behind on my cycling goals for the year, but I know things will catch up in the upcoming months.

I. Martin Cycles and bike maintenance

I visited my favorite bicycle shop, I. Martin Cycles, on Friday to pick up a new spare tube.  On Thursday I did a routine air pump on the tires and discovered that that back tire was really low.  Like, unusually low.  So I pumped it up, went to work, and I noticed after work that the pressure was already going down significantly again.  In fact, I was concerned I might not make it home without a flat.  However, I did make it home and decided that I would change out the tube and check the tire for debris.

One of the first things they teach you about changing a tube is that you don't need to remove the tire from the wheel, but in this case I removed everything so that I could feel around the inside of the tire and inspect it for anything sharp.  It turned out to be perfectly fine.  I couldn't find the problem with the tube either.  I was thinking maybe the valve stem was tearing, but I couldn't find that problem, although I am now suspecting maybe the valve had a slow leak.  Regardless of the true problem, I had no choice but to change it out, which I did, and then I went to get a new spare.  The new tube was $5.99.

While I was in there, one of the bosses came up to me and thanked me for the nice tweet I'd made about their store, and I took a moment to talk about my desire to go cross-country, the need for a new bike because my handlebars had one position only.  he show me some new grips that had an extension on them that allowed for a 2nd hand position.  That's definitely a possibility I'll consider for this bike.

I also asked about mirrors, and he said there were two options: helmet mirror or left grip mirror.  I didn't purchase either, since I'm on a tight budget at the moment, but the helmet mirror sounds great although I'd wait on that until I get a new helmet this year.  I still might get a grip mirror.

The tube is now staying inflated, but I still have no idea what was wrong with the other one.  The point is, if there is anything wrong, just replace it.  They're cheap enough, and it's not worth the misery of having to fix it on the road.

Techinically it's uphill all the way...

I live in West Hollywood but work just south of Beverly Hills near Pico/Robertson.  My work is about 3 miles each way.  On the way, it's downhill, but it's pretty flat regardless, and on the way home it is entirely uphill, but also pretty flat.  It is not a challenging ride whatsoever.

Today I did not go directly home because I had to make a detour east to the Laurel Pet Hospital and pick up some Lactated Ringers fluid for my cat.  It's an electrolite solution that get's injected sub-q daily and helps flush out his very elderly kidneys (he's nearing 21).  So I took Willoughby to Edinburgh and then went north the two blocks to the vet hospital.  From Willoughby to Santa Monica Blvd, the incline got a little steeper, and by the time I got to the vet, my heart was pounding.  I could literally feel my chest pounding.

I don't stand and pedal.  I can't seem to do it on my bike without feeling totally out of balance, so I sit all the time - up hills, on the flats, down hills.... I sit.  The glutes work while being sat on no matter how hard the work.  I wish I could stand, but I've tried it and it's just not natural.  I lose all torque, and part of me is nervous a pedal will snap off and send me into a terrible crash.  Ugh.  Stupid, I know.  Perhaps if I had a trainer at home I could practice that in safety.  One of these days i'll get a trainer.  I really want one anyhow for those days when I just don't want to go out, and now that I've shipped out all the movie costumes that had been in boxes on my living room floor, I can actually see the floor and have room for a trainer!  When the old cat passes on, I'll also be getting rid of the sofa he calls home, and them wowsa... tons of floor space!

So... backtracking a bit, I got to work where I take care of a disabled woman M-F in the afternoons.  Sometimes her husband is there, sometimes not as he is a professional Bridge teacher, probably the best in Los Angeles.  Anyhow, I noticed his car in the garage and I thought to myself  sort of ... ugh.  He'll be underfoot all day.  Well, turns out he either had food poisoning or that stomach virus because he had been vomiting all night, and the proof was in the towels on the bathroom floor, in the sink and splattered around the sink.  So, I cleaned all that up.  The wife was still asleep.  I cleaned up what there was to clean and was twiddling my thumbs within an hour because the wife still wasn't up, so I took an hour and rode my bike down a few blocks to Jack in the Box for something to eat, then came back.  The wife was just starting to get up, and I made her breakfast about 3:30-4:00 pm.  I had to change the bedsheets because she didn't want his stomach flu or whatever anywhere near her, even though he didn't vomit in bed, so I had to rip all that up.

I left about 4:30 and that's when I went to the vet.  Got home at 5:30ish.

Bontrager panniers pushed to the limits

Well, I don't exactly know what the limits of the panniers are, but I put a 21-lb jug of cat litter in one, and it held but I think that's the max weight I would put in it.  In the other pannier I had a bottle of laundry detergent and assorted other things.  Certainly I had 35-40 lbs of stuff in the panniers.   One thing for sure, it is hard to balance the bike while packing it, especially when something heavy goes in, because then it just wants to fall to that side.  Sometimes I take the panniers into the store with me if I've ridden my bike to the store, but today I rode the bike to work and took the boss's car to the store.  In this particular case, I kept my panniers attached to the bike because wrangling a pannier onto the rack when it is packed with 21-lbs is a bear.  So far I don't see any wear or stress on the panniers, but I don't carry heavy loads for long distances.  3 miles is max.

Still nice to know that I can cycle just fine with all that weight back there.  

In Laguna Beach without bike

Today I drove my boss down to Laguna Beach to visit her relatives who are staying at The Montage.  She's down by the pool and I'm up in the hotel room connecting to the internet and catching up on things.  She told me to bring my bike, that I could ride it down here but my bike rack would have scratched her car for certain as that's what it did with mine.   I don't care about my car so much getting scratched because it's 20 years old hand has dents and scratches already, but she has a 2003 Acura that rarely sees the light of day.

Anyhow, I would love to ride my bike up and down Laguna Canyon sometime as there are bike lanes the whole way.  I don't quite know how I would handle the PCH at the bottom, however, since it is so packed with cars.  Yes, I know that I have the full right to a full lane, but I'm a slow cyclist (okay, that wouldn't have mattered so much today because the traffic was slow and bumper to bumper, but still, I would definitely hold things up).  Maybe the clue is to do it very early in the morning, at least the PCH part.