cycling.finial.com

When did posh hotels become a la carte!?

The Hilton charges $12/day for their gym and $17/day for Internet access!!! WTF?!?!?!

OTOH, I’m in New Orleans!!

Sig seen on a blog yesterday:

That’s the thing with r’n'r. It promises ‘live fast, die young’, but what it delivers is ‘live fast, reach 60 in half the time’

At long last, Netflix for iPhone/iPod is now available!

Woooooo!

And just in time for New Orleans.  Now there’s no reason at all to take the laptop.

I was poking around the notes I took from the last trip to New Orleans in March, and discovered that Labor Day weekend is

I had no idea this was going on when I made plans. Which begs the question: why on earth does the deal I got for the trip exist? Southern Decadence draws over 100,000 people. Surely the airlines and hotels aren’t having trouble being filled?

Anyway, this adds a whole new dimension to the week. It also means there are a lot more things to do.

It might mean a change in wardrobe!

As a sort of reward for reaching an intermediate goal and because Expedia had a very, very good deal and just because I wanted to, I’m going back to New Orleans over Labor Day.

But, wow, $600 for airfare and seven nights at the Hilton. How can you beat that? That includes everything but the insane baggage check fees.

No real plans other than I won’t be here and that’s good. It’s the first time away that I can think of in a long time that I didn’t have to see someone, or go somewhere, or do something. I mean, there’s the P-town bike ride, but, you know, it’s a bike ride. This time there are no plans What. So. Evar.

I did buy tickets to the New Orleans Zephyrs last game of the season. They’re the AAA affiliate of Florida Marlins, so it’s not a team I care anything about but, hey, it’s baseball! The park is in Metarie, not New Orleans, and The Google tells me it’s about 9 miles away. Not sure how I’m going to get there. My last experience with cycling outside of the French Quarter and Marigny was less than compelling and that Airline Drive looks like a pretty major road. So it might be cab time. Or bus, if they have them. And whoever heard of a baseball park with a pool and two hot tubs!?!?!

I’d also like to visit the Absinthe Museum and the Museum of Art. Maybe some of the Audibon stuff,  maybe a couple other museums or something. There are also some architectural tours, but I’m less thrilled with those. But mostly I’ll just be eating, drinking, sitting by the pool, and sleeping late. Maybe even playing a bit of the tramp. I mean, it is New Orleans.

Saturday I did the Massbike Century (or actually, the Metric Century).

The ride was in the area I usually ride in, but it was on roads that, for the most part, are unfamiliar to me. I’m definitely going to have to explore this route more. It started and ended at Lexington High School and there were five variations (100 mi, 100 k, 47 mi, 22 mi, and 12 mi).  The shortest two barely left Lexington, but the longer three were beautiful rides. Very scenic and, for the most part, low traffic.

I guess I didn’t study the map well when I left. There was one point where the arrows said “-> Out” and “-> Ret” and I had no idea what that meant. But right at that point, Bela rode by and he said that there is a little loop at the top of the bigger loop that takes you another 8 miles (so it comes out to 100k) and the water stop is at the far end of it. So you can cut it out, but you miss the water.  A bit confusing.

The second water stop was at Great Brook Farm in Carlisle. I’m not sure why they put it so close to the end, except it’s a convenient place. I refilled water there because it was cold, but didn’t stay long. I also stopped at Bedford Farms on the return loop.

I rode from home to the start, then from the end back home which added about 28 miles.  I also missed one turn along the way somewhere near the Westford-Chelmsford line which added a couple of miles making the total for the day 100.63 miles.  The timing for just the ride itself was 70.75 miles in 4:20:34 which comes to 16.33 mph. Overall, it was lower because it always is when dealing with the traffic on the Minuteman and Esplanade. Overall, it was 15.62 mph average.

It was a very pretty day with only brief gusts of wind. Tried my new flapjack things and they’re quite easy to eat on the bike, so I declare that a success.

Fun day. I ran into Bela C, Mark B, Michael F, Jim B, and probably one or two others I’ve forgotten. It’s hard to tell what the overall turnout was as it was a show and go ride. The parking lot looked pretty full, though.

That may be the last organized ride of the season except for possibly the CRW fall ride. It’s the only other one I can get to without a car.

England has a thing called “Flapjacks”. They’re not like an American flapjack, which is just another word for “pancake”. They’re more like granola bars and make good pocket food. They’re calorie dense, and made with whatever you put in it. As I’m doing a century tomorrow, I thought I’d make some. And since this seems to be one of those things that has as many recipes as there are people, I didn’t think much could go wrong.

I followed the AllRecipes.com recipe with a few exceptions.

I used butter rather than margarine (it’s what I had) and I used honey rather than golden syrup (which is not readily available) or corn syrup. (Golden syrup seems to be just a highly concentrated simple syrup.) I’ve heard you can use maple syrup, molasses, or agave as well, each giving a different flavor. I have plenty of agave but decided to use honey because it has more flavor. You’d probably also want to use different fruits with different syrups.

They came out really well. A few of the comments on AllRecipes.com mentioned they can get crumbly and as I’ll be carrying these in my pocket (in a sandwich bag) I don’t want them to fall apart too much. So I held back about ½ cup of the oats hoping it will hold together better. We’ll see if it worked. They’re a bit sticky but not overly so.

It’s funny. I used golden raisins, but after baking, they are black.

It seems to me these would be good with just about any dried fruit, nuts, seeds, or even some kind of candy like M&Ms. Someone also said something about replacing half the syrup/honey with a low sugar apricot jam. Not sure about that, it seems to me it would burn too easily. But dates, figs, cranberries, blueberries, or even ginger might work well as would nuts like walnuts, pecans, almonds, or filberts or seeds like sunflower or pumpkin. Or just a store bought trail mix.

The recipe calculator tells me that this recipe, cut into 8 squares, is 300 calories per square with 13.25 g fat (20% RDA) and 44.25 g carbs (14% RDA with 3.15 g fiber and 23.5 g sugar). So this isn’t something you’d want to eat as a matter of course, but as cycling nosh, it looks pretty good.

But then again Redbones is catering so I probably don’t need them at all.

Tim W. called Friday and asked if I was up for a ride this weekend. I’d planned to go anyway, so I said yes. We decided on Cape Ann. I haven’t been there yet this year. We decided on Saturday.

Took the 9:30 train up to Beverly Depot and met him there about 10:00 and we set off for Rockport. It was a beautiful day. Really. It could not have been more perfect. Low 80s, windless for the most part, not a cloud in the sky. Perfect. Picture postcard perfect. It’s the first time I’ve been on one of the bike trains. They take out the ride side of seats and put in slots for bikes. Very nice! Much, much better than stacking them all up at one end of the car.

(Sorry about the crappy cell phone pic.)

Didn’t get a lobster in Rockport (boo), but did stop for Richardson ice cream at the Rockport train depot.  Rode back to Beverly, doing a full circuit of the cape.  Got caught by the Gloucester drawbridge going both directions.

Got back to Beverly Depot and the train was already at the station. It pulled out before I could get across the tracks. The next train wasn’t for three hours, so I decided to ride home. It was a bit of a twisty turny ride, and I missed at least one turn, but it was a remarkably good ride. One or two spots in Lynn weren’t so good, but on the whole, a lot better than I expected. Found my way to Lynn Parkway (eventually) and rode that. Nice, good shoulder, newly paved. Missed the turn only Main St which would have taken me to Oak Grove, so went down Middlesex Fells instead and ended up at Wellington Station. Took that across the river to North Station, and rode home from there.

(A slightly better crappy cell phone pic)

Perfect day. About 82 miles total.

Got a burst of energy this morning and cleaned the bike after it’s been sitting here for a week.

It’s all sparkly!

Nonprofit health insurers hoard billions in surpluses.

This should surprise no one. They jacked my premiums up over 100% over the last few years.

Guess what happened?

Yes, they cut my line. Again. This time it was “Sean”. He said he’d “label the line”. Of course, the last three or four guys that were here said the same thing.

But I was able to catch him while he was still here and had Speakeasy/Covad run a line check. I think I’m back to where I was.

Gah.

I suppose I should post that I’m home.

I’m home.

But I’m too tired to write much beyond that. It was epic. It was hard. It was fun. Met some interesting new people. Had a good roommate. No mechanicals or flats, the bike worked well. Got into Woburn at about 12:45 yesterday. Was home by about 3:30.

Need to get my thank you letter written, but works seems to have blown up while I was gone, so I have to find out what’s going on there first. Plus, this e-mail was waiting for me when I got home. Joy.

Total miles: 557.58

Total time: I’ll have to calculate this, I reset the number by mistake. It looks like about 37 hours.

You can check out the daily totals on the ride log page.

More after another night’s sleep.

Thanks to all my sponsors. You raised $4500. Thank you so, so much.

It’s 5:00 am and I’m trying to get out of bed. I don’t do 5:00 am very well. But today is nearly 100 miles with 7600 feet of climbing with the hardest at the end of the day.

Time for breakfast.

Arrived in Biddeford around 2:30. Rained all afternoon. Yesterday was brutally hot. It rained all afternoon yesterday as well.

Tomorrow on to attitash and up into the mountains.

The only thing left is to change my tires, and I’m ready to go.

Tour de Cure New England Classic 2010

Was out riding the other day and got a flat, which is the clearest indication that the tires I’m using are too old. Plus, it looks as if it may rain tomorrow morning which always increases flat risk.

I’ve raised about $4300 out my goal of $3500. Thanks everybody! And there’s still time to donate if you’re so inclined. I and 23 million of my closest friends will appreciate it.

You can track our progress on the NEC site during the week (I hope, provided I can get WiFi or borrow somebody’s 3G). And check out the maps of the route.

See you all in a week.

Went to Fenway for the game with the Orioles last night. Good game and fantastic seats. Box 72 just back of 3d base, row F, 6 rows back from the field.

The Orioles coach got up in the ump’s grill about something, but never did find out what that was about. Youk got a homer, Ortiz hit like a madman.

Pedey didn’t play.

Great game.

Holy crap! Another one!

Varitek to miss six weeks

Okay, so that’s

• Varitek
• Beckett
• Pedroia
• Lowrey
• Delcarmen
• Buchholz
• Martinez
• Hermida
• Lowell
• Ellsbury
• Tazawa

I’m going to the game Saturday night. Is there anyone there I will recognize?

Interesting.

Google to Add Pay to Cover a Tax for Same-Sex Benefits – NYTimes.com.