Author Topic: RIDES 2018 — add yours here  (Read 65290 times)

Andre Jute

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RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« on: January 01, 2018, 10:43:26 pm »


Summer will come again. It will! It will!

If you take a ride, report it here. Photographs most welcome. What may be pretty commonplace to you -- like my green scenery that I just cannot escape -- to members of the forum from elsewhere may be rare and wonderful, so don't ever think you're boring us.


Andre Jute is a novelist and painter — and a cyclist — who lives in West Cork.

Photos by my pedalpal Helen Lane.

John Saxby

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #1 on: January 01, 2018, 11:56:36 pm »
Great photos of & from The Holy Ground, Andre!

My photo (i) has no green :( and (ii) WRT cycling, shows why there isn't much right now.

As compensation, you'll see why the house across the street has won the NASOTTT medal this year: the Neighbourhood Award for Seasonal Over-The-Top Tackiness.

Cheers, eh.

John
« Last Edit: January 02, 2018, 12:39:28 am by John Saxby »

Andre Jute

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2018, 12:35:13 am »
Ugh! And that's not for the neighbor's seasonal decorations but for the ice clinging to the leaves and the ground. I can understand why you don't cycle with ice underfoot: it's treacherous stuff even with four spiked wheels under you, never mind on a bicycle, a broken hip waiting to happen.

Danneaux

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2018, 02:11:18 am »
I got out for a quick -- real quick! -- 100km ride today here. Nothing exotic, just a leg-stretcher. Here in Oregon, we had freezing fog that settled as frost and black ice. As if that weren't slick enough, the moss has sprouted on the pavement (photo below) and it is really slippery. The Nomad and I picked our way along carefully, but any slight grade resulted in rear wheel spin, making me feel temporarily powerful as I entered the New Year.  ;)
=====
After my return, I took an 8km walk to try out the $19 duck-down jacket I got from a seller in China. Success! Worn only over a long-sleeve t-shirt, I wasn't cold even standing in freezing weather and the hood made a real difference on my bald noggin. It packs into a tiny 8.9cm x 15.2cm/3.5in x 6in stuff sack and weighs only 310g/10.8oz, so the cost/warmth/weight ratio is favorable and it will be going with me on future tours for 'round camp use. It should feel good to wear when packing up at 5am and can be stowed in a rear jersey pocket.

These temperatures have been unusually warm for winter here and we're way down on snow; unless Something changes, we're in fro drought this spring and summer will likely see more forest fires. I wish we could get nighttime temps around -5.5°C/22°F so I could definitively find the practical "lower comfort" rating for my new "all-'rounder" sleeping bag. This is a custom model with overfill so it is supposed to be warmer at a colder temperatures than a standard model, but by how much? I really need to know before putting it to the test in remote places. The hood snorkles down nicely and it was so warm it nearly drove me out at 0°C on the back patio, so I'm encouraged.

Happy riding in the New Year, everyone!

Best,

Dan.

JimK

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2018, 02:53:45 am »
I tried out a new route today: https://www.strava.com/activities/1336696612 ... the challenge is that to go north there are very few options. One is pretty much stuck on US-89 which is a high speed road that in places has no paved shoulder. Some drivers are polite but not all drivers. So I keep looking for options.

Today I tried the canal road. Had to ride by a No Trespassing sign but at least the gate through the fence was open. There were a couple locked gates along the road but easy enough to get around. Still, the road is plenty soft dirt in plenty of places and lots of short sharp ups and downs. I'm glad I checked it out but I think I will pass on using it. There's a better gravel road over along the Willard Reservoir. That has rough gravel so it is somewhat slow going but it's better than the canal road!

Andre Jute

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #5 on: January 02, 2018, 04:28:04 am »
I'm not so sure that in a strange place, out in the open, I'd be able to sleep zipped into that sleeping bag, Dan. Even though I spent my youth in some rough places, I'm alive because I'm paranoid.

I have a duck down jacket, about two hundred quid a quarter-century ago from an emporium where my late mate Cormac Langford, a millionaire several times over, used to browse the racks in the sales "because I like seeing suits so expensive they can be reduced by a thousand pounds. I've never paid more than three hundred for a smart suit to wear to weddings and funerals." My duck down jacket was also made in China, with a light waxed canvas outer. It's almost new, though, because it rarely gets cold (subzero) enough here to wear it even when just sitting at my keyboard, never mind being active outside. I find a leather jacket, lightly padded, of more use on the coldest days here (2-3ēC, which some of you might find positively warm) because it keeps the wind off. For cycling it is very rarely cold enough to require more than an undershirt, polo shirt (both cotton) and a good quality cycling jacket, though long johns and sturdy cords are good on your bike in the depth of the winter.

Also, the first essential in real cold is to cover your head, through which up to a sixth of your body heat is lost.

Loved your pano photo, Jim. Is that culvert wishful thinking by the landowner or does it rain there sometimes?

JimK

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #6 on: January 02, 2018, 04:39:51 am »
That culvert goes for miles! It's the Ogden-Brigham canal - https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/ogden-river-project-ogden-ut/ All around here is an amazing system of irrigation canals. They are definitely still functioning. Exactly who uses how much for what, that I don't know. Our property has two pipelines coming in, one to the house for drinking water, the other out at the curb for irrigation. They turn off the irrigation water in October. We just moved here in July - I don't know yet when they turn it back on! The Ogden-Brigham Canal runs very close to our house - I think that's where our irrigation water comes from.

It would be grand if I could just ride the canal road from here up to Willard, but there is a big quarry in the way. How they manage to keep the canal working despite all the dynamite... somehow they do!
« Last Edit: January 02, 2018, 04:44:07 am by JimK »

Danneaux

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #7 on: January 02, 2018, 04:43:24 am »
Quote
I'm not so sure that in a strange place, out in the open, I'd be able to sleep zipped into that sleeping bag, Dan.
Well, if the night is clear I'll sometimes "cowboy camp" tentless in the open desert so I can see the vast bowl of the sky overhead, Milky Way on full display. Gets cold, but the view is worth it. :) Coyotes aren't too bad....

Planning another major Great Basin tour this Spring.

All the best,

Dan.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2018, 04:51:08 am by Danneaux »

JimK

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #8 on: January 02, 2018, 05:03:27 am »
here's a satellite photo of that canal going through a gravel pit. The canal goes vertically = north through the middle of the picture. They've got some big machines in there! The canal road seems to go along the canal pretty much the whole way, but I won't try riding my bike through there!

Andre Jute

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #9 on: January 02, 2018, 06:58:42 am »
Fascinating places.

John Saxby

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #10 on: January 02, 2018, 02:21:41 pm »
Quote
temperatures have been unusually warm for winter here and we're way down on snow;

Dan, you could come to Ottawa to test your new winter gear--you don't want your skills to get rusty from lack of use, eh?--& maybe hire a fatbike to check out the trails in the Gatineau hills. No green moss to distract you--it's under a couple of feet of snow.

John Saxby

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #11 on: January 02, 2018, 02:28:00 pm »
Quote
That culvert goes for miles! It's the Ogden-Brigham canal

Super stuff, Jim -- I'd forgotten about Utah's canals. Great to follow you as you learn about your new neighbourhood. Would be interesting to hear about the water regime--its rules, who uses how much for what, etc.

Fifteen years ago, I spent some time in Andre's old stomping grounds, SA's Cape province. We visited a couple of friends whose smallholdings were part of rural and small-town water-sharing schemes. Hugely interesting insight into the imperative of co-operation and conservation. Then again, one could always watch Polanski's film "Chinatown".

jags

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #12 on: January 02, 2018, 03:10:46 pm »
First spin  for 2018 only 12 miles pretty flat  lashed rain for most of it legs felt like 2 planks  :o
but great to get out,did i mention i feckin hate winter.
tried out the new camera not very impressed to be honest  i left it on for the entire spin and it did record everything but dull as ditch water ,took forever to upload it then after watching i deleted the thing movie maker i ain't
ah well roll on the summer ;D ;D

anto.

Andre Jute

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #13 on: January 02, 2018, 06:43:29 pm »
I grew up in a desert that had already been substantially remade by irrigation, though the process still created large changes when I was a boy. So "Chinatown", and Jim's photo above, rang bells with me. When I visited an Israeli kibbutz, the resident intellectual, a retired French professor of economics, told me that they were envious of the scale and speed with which the South Africans tamed that part of the desert. Of course, it was a matter of people -- it always is -- and it was fortunate that a critical number of Italian and German engineers who had been prisoners of war in South Africa elected to stay after the war; their most obvious legacy being the superb road network and an extremely professional army for decades rated the second best in the world, after the Israeli, by the CIA.

It's long been my belief that future wars will not be about territory or trade or raw materials, but about water. Agricultural economists have always been more influential in policy circles than most people realize, but I foresee a day when hydro-economists will be the most important of all. There's already a hint in the nicknames of the two current schools of economists, "saltwater" for the Keynesians, "freshwater" for the Friedmanites.

Water is an important matter for touring cyclists, who cannot carry more than a few days' supply with them, and are largely accustomed to water being free, and free available, in most places. In another generation, 30 years, that is most unlikely to be true, and in the interim there will be a painful transition. Already, in the present, we hear complaints from cyclists about water no longer being free.

rualexander

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Re: RIDES 2018 — add yours here
« Reply #14 on: January 02, 2018, 11:48:16 pm »
New Year's day ride in the Scottish Borders.