Foraging while biking?

I went out for what's looking somewhat like the final bike ride of the season on Monday night. Nice scenery down in Hemlock and south. As I rode through the hills and back woods, I couldn't keep my eyes off the wild bounty of berries and fruit growing along the back roads. I saw one rare and especially tasty one: the Nannyberry. I noted the location and went back in my truck after the ride. The light was failing, but I found the bush, picked it clean, along with a few handfuls of Highbush Cranberries next to it.

After supper, I made a nice nannyberry pudding, slightly sweetened with honey and garnished with grated orange rind. It was devoured by the family rapidly. After that, I made a sample jar of highbush cranberry jelly. While I've known for years that this plant is edible, I've never been able to get beyond the strong, musty smell when it's cooking down. I've heard that the jelly is very tasty and has none of that smell/flavor left, so I wanted to try it. I almost threw it all out as it stunk so much, but persisted and made a sample jar of jelly which I'll try on toast in the morning.

Fall is pretty much done here and the snow is coming. Sad, but ... I did enjoy the nice heat from the woodstove this morning.

Training and falling

Did you ever get stung by a bee while bike riding?  I have had this happen three times now.  Recently, I got to experience it once again.  The stupid little insect decided to give up its life in return for a pain in my leg; his decision was my downfall!

I was out training for my next bike race that day, pushing it hard up a 16% gradient.  I do this for several reasons: first and foremost, to train my max heart rate up to a higher level, secondly because I know that being clipped in to the pedals on such a hill is a sure guarantee that I cannot stop in the middle and wimp out as there is no way to unclip fast enough to avoid rolling backwards and eventually crashing.  The older I get, the harder it is to love pain!  When I train, I am looking to put my heart rate just below the anaerobic threshold (AT) and train there.  In case you didn't know, this hurts!

My violent reaction while trying to kill the bee, caused me to jerk the handlebars with my other hand and I lost momentum, swerved hard left and went crashing down into the oncoming lane.  Final resting position was on my back, feet up in the air and still clipped into the pedals.  I managed to get free and fortunately, there were no cars on the hill that night.  I suffered an expansive set of road rash from fingers to knee, and a sore hip on my left side, but otherwise nothing serious.  It probably was highly entertaining for anyone in the nearby farmhouse that happened to see the incident.

Clipping back in at 16% grade was tough, but I managed, finished up that hill and another 1700' more of climbing that night.  I took the next day off, but was back in the saddle the day after that.

Mt Equinox Race 2013

I had a great day on Sat at the 2013 race up Equinox Mtn in Vermont.  It’s an average 12% grade hillclimb with max gradient of 26%.  Said less technically, “how fast can you ride a bike up 3200 feet with just 5.4 miles to do it” … even less technically, “very steep hill!”

I awoke to the sounds of rain and low 50-degree temps.  The “warmup” was very tough on me as I tend to just freeze to death when I get wet in those temps.  I had leg and arm warmers, along with a polypropylene long-sleeved shirt under my jersey, but still, it was more like a cooldown for me.  I came to the line in my current category, the 50-to-ancients, without much presumption of a great placement.  This race falls two weeks before the big, sold-out 600-person race up Mt. Washington and most of these folks are in final training for that race as it’s a very similar grade, just not as long and without all the weather hoopla offered up by Mt. Wash.

The sun came out briefly as we waited to start, but the top was still fogged in like pea soup.  The race organizer (bless and/or darn his soul), set up a nice, $500 cash prime at the one mile mark (in other words: the best time for the first mile in all heats will take the cash).  What a mean thing to do to us at the start of a 5-mile hillclimb!  I was fouth in our heat over the 1-mile mark, not concerned at all with the prime, and very quickly dropped the two that had gone out hard.  I picked off the last person in our heat just beyond a slight downhill (200 yards), in which I briefly hit a 26MPH pace.  I cranked hard up the next hill and had the heat to myself for a while there.  Around mile 3.5 or so, I was hitting 90% of my max heart rate and began to get light-headed from lack of oxygen intake and seated myself (at 16% grade) to recover my heart rate and allow a bit less aggression to calm me.  I was passed by three folks then.  The first one had a climbing bike that had no brakes, only a fixed gear up front, and a 9-speed freehub in the rear.  He had a mountain bike handlebar on a carbon fiber road bike and was pretty much just going to cook anyone in his way, so I didn’t chase.  The second was looking very strong, seated and spinning a high cadence when he flew by.  The third was breathing like the sounds of a sump pump sucking air when its cutoff switch is broken: sucking up every breath of air with a gasp.  I figured I’d try to keep him in sight.  When I recovered down to an HR of 149, I was back at it again, pushing hard.

Beyond mile 4, we finished some steep gradients and briefly came across “the saddle” between the false summit and the real one.  I dropped the gearing into fifth gear, was standing and hammering to try to bring in the sump pump guy, but just closed the gap by about half.  After mile 5, we only had 4/10ths left to race, but we hit the 20+ percent grades.  I went a tiny bit wide to avoid the worst part of a 26% grade switchback (see below), but not nearly as wide as the sump pump had steered.

I knew I could take him and neatly passed him by on the next 24% switchback.  I had broken contact with him, and dropped into second gear just after that, beginning my finish sprint.  I came over the line about 25 seconds ahead of him.

Third in my heat of “ancients” did not take into account the elite riders who had pre-qualified for the top-notch heat, so I had another 5 folks in my age bracket in that heat.  Overall, I placed 8^th in my age range and 31^st overall.  This put me into the top third.  I did a 51:12 for 5.4 miles, which is pretty slow, unless you know about the 3200’ of ascent :-)

Winter has crested, spring is coming

This past week we came upon one of my favorite days: February 7th.  What's the big deal with February seventh, you ask?  "It depends", I will reply.  It depends on whether you happen to live in Rochester, NY, or somewhere else in the country.  For us, Feb 7th signifies the first day of the year on which our average daily high crosses above freezing.  On Feb 7th, we get to an average of 33 degrees for our daily high.  There is hope!  Winter's grip will lessen and gradually, we will achieve that noble time of year - Springtime.

I grew up in an extremely cold region of the country, so I really don't mind the cold here.  The clouds are what often bother me the most.  My wife and I had many the heated discussion for the first ten years of our marriage, about whether we would ever get her back to living in the Rochester area.  I was against it, on the principle that it was too cloudy, and too flat.  Both things are usually true, however we have had a pretty nice winter this year, with quite a bit of clear weather and much less cloudiness than is normal.

The recent blizzard that affected much of the northeast largely left us alone.  We had about 8-10" of snow here.  I had the plow truck all charged up and ready, but for the leaky brake line, and my broken four-wheel drive; fortunately I was able to get the truck started, made it stop with what brakes I have, and didn't slip at all while plowing.

Last night was cold, reaching about 2 degrees Fahrenheit here.  The morning came, with calm winds, clear skies and an absolutely beautiful look to the snow-covered trees.  Kelly was up early, documenting the moment:

By this afternoon, the sun had warmed up up enough to start the snow melting.  The kids and I went out and had a good time playing in the snow.