Three Troublesome Socks

Well, OK, six. Eventually.  Theoretically.  I hear they’re generally most useful in pairs.

#1 is my travelling project, the one that’s seldom more than a dozen yards away.  It’s perfect for this purpose –simple enough for interruptions and small windows of time, no pattern needed, but just enough variation to not be boring when I can grab a larger span of time.  It’s progressing steadily along at the rate of three rounds per morning on the MAX portion of my commute.

So what’s the trouble?  Well, since I “always” have at least 30 grams of yarn leftover on a pair of me-sized socks, and since this particular skein was generous to start with, I used an extra stretchy cast-on and made the leg just as long as I could possibly manage without needing calf shaping.

When the first sock was finished, it weighed 67 grams.  The remaining yarn weighed 62 grams.

So far I have managed to ignore the problem.  Every morning brings us three rounds closer to having to Do Something About It.  ”Something” probably involves a fair bit of cursing, a small glass of very good whiskey, and yellow toes.  But I’m not thinking that far ahead yet.  Maybe it will be OK. Math might change between now and then…

#2 is the Wooladone socks, which are being knit toe-up from a predivided ball and will not be causing any sort of supply and demand problems.  So far I have acheived the foot of the first sock.  The problem now is that I really haven’t met a toe-up heel that I like all that well, and so it’s time to either learn a new heel or knit a heel that I know will annoy me — neither of which is in line with the mindless, soothing purpose of the Wooladone.  Toe-up folks, what’s your favorite heel?

 

#3 is the farthest from being an actual pair of socks.  It is, at this point, two skeins of yarn and a vague but growing sense of urgency.  It has been two skeins of yarn and a vague but growing sense of urgency for nearly three months, and no matter how much I try to catch its attention and gesture meaningfully toward the calendar, it has not gotten off its ball bands and knit itself.  It hasn’t even wound itself yet.  Clearly, I’m going to have to be a bit less subtle.

Perhaps a note?

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Kathryn

You can still see the story in the lines and smudges on the pavement.  Orange paint marking where the tires stopped.  Blurred chalk and dark stains where her body came to rest.

This morning it’s raining for the first time since it happened.  By tomorrow the chalk will all have washed away.

On Friday, the community gathered at the intersection.  It was a quiet crowd.  Some crying, a lot of milling.  No speeches.  Most just standing around hollowly, not knowing what to do or say but just that we had to be there.

Tragedy disrupts our social conventions, the shallow lies we tell without thinking.

“It’s nice to see you again,” I hear myself say.  I hadn’t seen him since high school, wouldn’t have run into him if not for this.  So no, it wasn’t nice.

“Great!” in response to the ubiquitous “How are you?”  It’s an easy and accustomed exaggeration, repeated to the point of empty habit.  I don’t even realize I’m saying it until I hear it.  So inappropriate here, the awkward falseness echoing through the quiet crowd.

Repeated everywhere: eye contact with strangers, the polite smile springing forth automatically, then fading as conscious thought catches up.  We are not happy to be here, to meet like this.

We have no cultural structure to fall back on here.

There were signs, quiet calls to action.  Cyclists and pedestrians passing by, pausing to ask what had happened.  Most drivers glancing over with sad expressions as they realized what the story must be.  I heard a few passersby, in cars and on foot, shouting horrible, evil things.

One lighter moment: green light, a driver slowing to turn right, cyclist in the bike lane a bit behind but closing quickly.  A line of people with signs, watching silently.  This is just how it might have happened.  The person driving paused, allowed those three extra seconds for the person on the bike to pass safely.  And Kathryn’s crowd erupted into cheers, waving and flashing thumbs up as the driver made his turn.

I didn’t know her.  Now there are only stories and photographs, but they all paint the same picture.  A kind heart and eager spirit, a joyful life filled with love.  Her beautiful smile, an invitation to adventure.  She liked baby elephants.

In that silent line of signs, one man was holding a picture of her.  Her hair was longer, her smile full of warmth and peace and a good-natured mischief.  It could have been a folk singer’s album cover.  I almost lost it there, had to move away somewhere I couldn’t see him.  I didn’t know her, but I could have loved her, and now no one else will ever get that chance.

And that’s what’s hitting hardest right now.  Not that she was so young, or the hole in the lives of those who knew her.  Not that she was killed in a spot my husband rides through regularly.  Just her sweet smile, and the thought of all the love in the world that could have been, and will never happen without her.

 

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Hmmm…

I HATE being late.  I was born 10 days late, and the whole experience was so traumatic  that I’ve tried very hard to avoid being late for anything else since.  OK, there are those parties where you have to show up two hours late to avoid being awkwardly early, but that doesn’t count.  If I’m really supposed to be at a certain place at a certain time, I’m either there or I’m freaking out — and doubly so if it’s work.

My normal leave-for-work time, therefore, assumes that I will get a flat and/or miss my train.  Usually these things don’t happen and I show up quite early, but when they do, I smile and feel smug and still get to work on time.

Except today.  This morning, my garden needed babying.  Tender young seedlings with roots not yet reaching down to last night’s water needed a drink to get them through the day.  Cold frames needed opening to avoid becoming ovens.  Artichokes needed yet another violent aphid eviction (c’mon, ladybugs, get on it already!).  The plan was to get up early to allow time to tend the garden, but that didn’t happen, so I used up all my spare in-case-of-flat minutes making sure I wouldn’t come home to a vegetable massacre.

And of course, when I pulled Kaufi down from the wall, there was a serious lack of air in his rear tire.

“Can’t you call in flat?” asked the Fantastically Nerdy Husband, whose approach to timeliness is near the opposite end of the spectrum from mine.  I glared at him, hung Kaufi back up, and prepared to (whimper) drive.

To the Greater Glory of N+1, though, I’m taking this as evidence that I “need” another bike.  I adore Quick, but he’s not a commuter.  He’s too dainty for such mundane work.  When Kaufi’s out of commission, whether it’s just a flat I didn’t leave time for or something more serious that puts him in the shop, my practical transportation options start looking terribly car-shaped, terribly quickly.  Several of the bikes kicking around in the vague-and-unbudgeted-lust section of my brain would have been fine backups this morning.  Swap the lights and panniers over and hit the road on two wheels with scarcely a minute’s delay.

It’s not entirely unreasonable.  And with the price of gas lately, it would really only take a few hundred more of these poorly-timed flats before the bike would pay for itself…

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Best of Both Worlds

Having a mom who rides a bike means… never having to choose between Mother’s Day and Sunday Parkways.

 

 

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Better Than Nothing

Because I am an idiot prone to bouts of irrational enthusiasm, I decided it would be a good idea to buy new pedals unlike any I’d ever ridden before, and then “test them out” on a 70 mile group ride.

Thanks to a serendipitous combination of online research and dumb luck, it worked out as well as I could possibly have hoped.  Quick is now wearing Speedplay Frogs, and they are awesome.

A while back, I talked with someone who said he’d tried everything to get his knees to stop aching, and in the end the only thing that worked for him was to give up any and all retention systems.  I was hoping that wouldn’t be me, but the symptoms and tendencies he described did sound awfully familiar.

But this.  This is better than nothing.  Even quill pedals with no retention devices don’t quite let feet and knees move freely.  Sure, you can move, but there’s friction to overcome.  It’s an awkward juggle.  The Frogs absolutely let feet rotate smoothly and easily however they naturally want to  – and with spring tension not being a part of the design, there’s no wrench and jolt to get out.  I didn’t realize just how much unclipping from the SPDs was hurting until I found myself hanging out at regroup points this weekend with my left foot still clipped in, avoiding the pain out of habit, only to remember that it wasn’t actually going to hurt and I could go ahead and get off the bike while we waited.

It was glorious.  Not entirely pain-free, but by far the best miles-to-pain ratio I’ve had since the knee flared up.  I’ll take it.

And the route was gorgeous.  Almost the whole way was along rail trails, surrounded by greenery and entirely separated from motorized traffic.

Being accustomed to the zoo that the Springwater Corridor becomes on dry(ish) weekends, it was pretty amazing to have the path to ourselves most of the time.

So the ride was a success.  Everyone finished happy and with legs to spare, and my knee would have let me ride again the next day, which was my biggest concern in terms of STP preparation.  I didn’t ride on Sunday –the garden had more pressing claims on my time — but “could have” is good enough for now.

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Spring is for Becoming

Becoming cherries–

 

Becoming strawberries

 

Becoming blueberries

 

Becoming apples –

 

Becoming salad

 

Becoming a sweater

 

What new things are emerging for you this spring?

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In Which Almost All of my Joints are Functioning Perfectly

Comrades, I have returned!  But where have I been, you ask?  Well.

I have been to a dark and terrible land, a fearsome place that I pray to all the oldest and darkest gods you will never have to see.  I have been… Off The Bike.  Words cannot describe the horror.

OK, so it’s not as bad as all that.  But it wasn’t fun.

The thing is, a few months ago an old knee injury woke up and started making a fuss about how I never pay attention to it anymore.   I treat it just like any other knee, it doesn’t feel special, blah blah blah.  It just kept whining.  Every pedal stroke hurt.  Not a lot, but it was cumulative, and pedals strokes do tend to travel in large groups.  After long rides, walking became… let’s call it an interesting challenge.

My initial reaction was to ignore it and wait for it to go away, but that didn’t work.  I tried readjusting my left cleat in every way I could think of, but that didn’t work.  I tried sticking to street shoes on Kaufi and lightened the tension to the minimum on Quick’s pedals, and it might have stopped getting worse at that point, but it didn’t start getting better.  Eventually I conceded it was maybe time to try staying Off The Bike for a week.

And let me just say, while I spent years not owning a bicycle, or having any desire to ever own or ride one again, this past week has convinced me beyond any doubt that Off The Bike is definitely no longer a place I want to be.

Things seem to have improved a bit during the rest.  Another week might be prudent, but that’s not going to happen.  My STP gang is doing our first official training ride this weekend, and there’s no way I’m missing that.

New coping strategies include:

  1. Ibuprofen.  Everyone knows there’s a big safety margin built into the maximum dose printed on the label, right?  (Don’t take medical advice from me.  I’m not a doctor.  I don’t even talk to doctors.  You know how some people freak out if they see a snake or a spider or a clown, even from a safe distance and with no risk of actually interacting with it?  I’m like that with doctors.)
  2. Attitude adjustment.  I like it when my muscles are sore.  It makes me giggle when DOMS has gripped my legs so tightly that I’m hobbling like a little old man with his shoelaces tied together.  Opening heavy doors with sore obliques is such fascinating fun that I sometimes go in and out of office buildings several times, just to really get to pay attention to the feeling.  So — if acute muscle pain is so much fun, why can’t chronic joint pain be fun too?  Right?  Anyone?  Maybe?  Oh well.
  3. Floatier pedals.  Pretty definitely going to give this one a try.  I’ve been thinking about it for a while, reading up on options, drooling in bike shops.  It’s time to do it.
  4. Heat.  Whatever is wrong with that knee is almost certainly a tendon or a ligament, and they’re both less forgiving in the cold.  Probably not a coincidence that I rode pain-free all summer and the problems started up in cold and rainy weather.  I hear rumors it will be getting warm again soon.  There also seems to be quite a lot of wool around here, and perhaps I could take some pointy sticks and pull loops of the wool through itself until it assumes a stretchy, joint-insulating tube shape.

If all else fails, another round of “ignore it and it will go away” might do the trick. Sometimes it’s just a very slow cure.  Really, I’ll try just about anything… except going to a doctor or going back to the untold horrors of Off The Bike.

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Rule #2

There was discussion a while back on the Zombie Apocalypse Ride blog about the best bike to have when the zombies come.  Opinions varied and all have valid points, but one thing is for certain: Quick is absolutely, positively, not that bike.

Except for one thing…

Image

That’s my boy!

He’s pretty good at #1 and #7 too.

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Conquering Clapshaw

Saturday was Quick’s first club ride ever, and my first of the year.  The route looked like this:

So, yeah.    There was a hill.

We started off from Shute Park in Hillsboro.  It was something of a season-opener for most of us  –some building up distance, some coming back from injuries, some working on climbing, a couple being introduced to club riding, one person shaking down a new bike.  I wanted to take on that hill and also decide once and for all whether to keep Quick’s stock saddle or replace it.

The new bike, a sleek Felt that its owner had lusted over and talked about for months before taking the plunge, started things off with a bang, so to speak, by interrupting the ride leader’s pre-ride safety speech with a blowout.  A bit of a surprise, but it was the best possible time for it.  No one on the bike at the time and we were still in the parking lot, within easy reach of at least two floor pumps.

Once we got moving, the first 13 miles were beautiful, smooth, uneventful. The ride had been posted at 14mph average on flats, but we were holding 17 pretty consistently, with everyone feeling good.

We rolled into Forest Grove for a stop at Maggie’s Buns, where I took full advantage of the long and/or challenging ride exception to my diet and did violent things to a lemon bar.

Before we took off, the ride leader reminded us all that while most of our route was on low-traffic county roads, Gales Creek was more of a concern.  Faster and heavier traffic, no shoulder, ride single file at all times and stay alert, etc.

Eric, the Felt’s owner and one of the more experienced riders in the group, spoke up.   “Can I say something?” he asked.  Our leader nodded.

“Gales Creek,” he said solemnly, as dramatic music (should have) swelled up around him, “has rednecks.  Rednecks are dangerous.”

But there were no dangerous redneck encounters that day, just beautiful country and gently rolling hills.

And then we turned a corner, and then another corner, and the riders who knew the route started grinning at each other.  Then another corner, and there was The Hill.

I was out of gears in the first thirty yards and out of lungs shortly after.   The world narrowed until there was nothing in my mind but my legs and the simple dog.  Go circle.   Yes go.  Still go.  Go circle.  Go.

My legs were obedient but my lungs ran off wildly in every direction, like a crowd of boys with bottle rockets at the moment the voice of authority bellows at them to Stop Right There.  My lungs, as they say, rack disciprine.

But I made it, lungs and circles and all, to the regroup point that was ordinarily the top of the hill.   Except today, our Fearless Leader proposed, we could turn left instead of continuing straight and thereby go More Up.  If everyone was OK with that.

No one was going to be the person who was not OK with that.

So more Up, more rowdy undisciplined lungs causing trouble for honest, hardworking legs just trying to move in decent circles.  It was on this second stretch of Up that the Brand New Shiny Troublemaking Felt decided that derailleurs were for suckers.

This is why I never leave home without a sock.  You never know when you might be 2/3 of the way up a vicious hill deep in redneck country and suddenly break a derailleur.

The strongest rider in the group, who didn’t seem to have noticed we were heading uphill, said he would jam back to Hillsboro and come fetch Eric and the Felt in his truck.  If I’d thought of it, I would have offered to lend Eric my sock so he would have something to do while he waited.  However, my lungs were already failing to supply the oxygen demands of my legs and there certainly wasn’t any left over for my brain, so it didn’t occur to me until too late.

The view from the top was magnificent and I’ve entirely failed to capture it, but the family who lived here was out working in their yard.  I really didn’t feel OK about scouting around for the right angle or taking too many pictures of their home while they bustled around, trying to ignore the panting, brightly-clad group assembling at the foot of their driveway.

Coming back down, we encountered one stretch of “Surprise, unpaved!” and one person had an issue with a fender, and a handful of miles later one person cramped up and had to stop for a few minutes, as we collectively poured water, salt, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and a banana into him.  But it was a beautiful spring day, we had all conquered the hill, and no one else lost any critical components, so spirits remained high.

The posted ride length was 42 miles, but I wound up with 53 including the commutes to and from the MAX stations.  My first 50-mile day of the year.  Quick performed perfectly and the more I ride him, the more I adore him.  But he absolutely, positively, beyond any doubt, is not keeping that stock saddle.  My saddle-parts were sore until Wednesday.

I’m also going to need stronger lungs or lower gears.  Maybe both.

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Wooladone

The winter before last, I stopped eating sugar and starch.  The first two weeks were a nightmare, but once the withdrawals went away, it’s the best I’ve ever felt.  Everything about my health improved — energy levels, body composition, mood, healing rate of minor injuries (fortunately, I had no occasion to test major ones).  Even stuff it never occurred to me to think about, like skin tone and rate of fingernail growth (that last one was actually kind of annoying.  I mean, how often is a person supposed to have to cut their fingernails?)

But then the cycling bug bit, and I couldn’t manage the athletic transition without some nutritional adjustments, and since I generally consider “moderation” to be the world’s longest four-letter word, I threw in the towel and went back to eating jelly beans for breakfast and ice cream for dinner.

This past Monday, with National Jelly Bean Day Easter safely behind us, I clambered back up onto that sugar-free wagon.  The difference is that this time, the wagon makes regularly scheduled stops at any ride of more than moderate challenge or duration, and so when such a ride calls for it, I am free to pour into my gullet whatever the miles demand.  The theory being that the fuel will go down my throat and straight into my legs, bypassing my digestive system entirely, and therefore will not be able to do any damage.  There’s a lot of solid science behind this theory, although the people associated with that science might wince a bit at the way I just described it, and would put forehead-dents in their desks if they could see the grossly inaccurate cartoons that play in my head when I think about it.  Rest assured, Science People:  I understand what’s really going on.  Sort of.  My way just makes me giggle more.

Anyway.  The point of all this is to say, Thursday sucked.  I’ve been through this before, so I knew what to expect.  Every difficult transition has a low point.  Everything has a hardest part.  This time, this thing, it was Thursday.  All of the various withdrawal symptoms – the cravings, the tiredness, the headaches, the grumpiness, the mental fog — ganged up and charged at me full force, like a whole Red Rover team of bullies with no respect for the rules of the game.

I needed something.  If I was going to make it through the day, I needed something to quiet the monster inside.  And as I muddled through the fog of the afternoon hours, it became apparent that what I needed was wool.

But not just any wool.  It had to be wool I didn’t yet possess.  No matter how large a knitter’s stash may be, nothing in it is as exciting as the allure of what might be waiting out there somewhere.  I needed new wool.  Sock yarn.  In ALL the colors.  All the colors of all the food dyes in all my beloved and abandoned high fructose corn syrup delights.

And so I kept telling myself, just hold on.  Keep it together until 5:00, and then we’ll go get that yarn.  Just hang on.  And mercifully, I made it.

It was all I could do not to pull everything off the wall and make a burrow to hide in while I waited for the hard part to pass.

Just hold on.  Keep it together long enough to get your skein and get home.

And I found it.  Not something that would normally be my taste at all, but desperation does strange things to a person, and if I was going to survive this day, I needed All.  The.  Colors.

Holding and petting the yarn soothed me somewhat, enough to make it home safely.  But then it hit me that the ordeal wasn’t over yet.  I couldn’t yet escape into the endless, mindless rounds of brightly colored stockinette that would make this horrible day retreat into the shadows and fill my world with rhythm and color and texture.  I still had to wind it.  And I had to make it through a toe or a cuff.

Just hold on.  Keep it together a little while longer, and soon everything will be OK.

I decided to rally every last remaining neuron, wind the wooladone into two equal balls, and go toe up.  Finish all my thinking immediately and then be done with it, release my cares and float away on a lazy river of colorful little VVV.

Almost there.  Just hold on.  Keep it together through the toe increases and it will all be smooth sailing from there.  Just a little longer…

Ahhh.

(Friday was fine, by the way, and I’ve been feeling fantastic ever since.  So I’m not really sure when or if this sock will ever get finished.  I might put it away until I decide to give up caffeine.)

(Oh yes, the yarn.  It’s Abstract Fiber SuperSock, in Chocolate Rainbow.)

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