Friends

I think we're up to 6? I could have miscounted in there somewhere.

Yesterday's labs ran long, but the lab is an engaging one and students got a lot out of it, so I can't begrudge them for needing the time. When I finally went to check the weather for the bike ride home, the radar looked quite colorful in a way that posed two options: wait an hour or so, and get home for a late supper; or, set forth but be ready to get very wet. So I suited up in all my rain gear and set out, and the apocalypse struck when I was about a half mile in. It wasn't particularly cold but I was glad for the rain gear more for keeping the grime off than anything else. By the time I got back into town someone was exclaiming about the rainbow visible in the sky behind me.

The recent catio fortifications had been working well, so I've been generally coming home after work and letting the cats out for a while, which they love, of course. It helps that it's now warmer and lighter later into the evening. With the rain subsiding, I let the cats out.

Sometimes they'll go out for a while, then come back in to say hello again, then go back out, and it can be tricky to call them back in for the night, often requiring cat treat bribes. But there's another behavior pattern, where if George escapes, Martha comes and finds me and acts super affectionate. Who knows what's happening in her catty brain, but it seems like some version of, "Finally, that pesky kitten is GONE!"

So, that happened later in the evening, as I was ready to head for bed. I tried shaking the freeze-dried salmon cat treat bag to summon George, to no avail. Eventually I just went out on the back porch to groggily sit in a chair for a while, because there was no way I would actually be able to sleep well if George was stuck outside all night.

...and eventually he came trotting up the back porch steps, and flopped down at my feet, like he does.

They're going to be mad when I won't let them out on the catio this evening.

Yesterday while grocery shopping I forgot to buy a loaf of bread, even though it was on the shopping list and I checked the list right before heading to checkout (helped me remember cupcake liners, but not the bread, heh).

I also ran myself out of time yesterday for doing make-ahead breakfasts for the week, so it's going to be a week of oatmeal for breakfast.

And the grading still hasn't done itself.

The shop that hosted this 200k brevet is awesome, New Horizons Bikes in Westfield, MA. I was able to talk with the shop owner for a few minutes after the ride wrapped up, and was also able to buy most of the things on my current bike parts shopping list. It's a well-stocked shop.

I did not have any profound thoughts while riding this 200k.

I had lots of non-profound thoughts, about things like what I was looking forward to eating at the next control, and about the state of my legs, hands, feet, and butt. As one does, on brevets.

I'll post photos and maybe even the gpx track soon. The northern loop went from Westfield, MA up to a town at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain, so now I know where that is. We also biked past Mt. Tom, an area that looked pretty cool. An advantage of riding in the early spring is you can see more when the trees don't have leaves on them yet.

I was amused by biking through Southampton, then Easthampton, then Northampton. What's a "hampton," anyway??

On the southern loop we rode past the Dewey-Granby Oak, and I have to concur, it is one of the most amazing trees I've ever seen.

Also, somewhere in there, the New Old Copper Mine Prison, I think it was? Plus the Old Copper Mine. I'll have to look up more info on what that was all about.

There were sections with headwinds, and some gusting winds at points, but all told it took me 10 hours 31 minutes to complete this one. That makes it one of the fastest 200ks I've completed.

The shower beer after the ride tasted fantastic. The cats were sad that I got home so late.

Which is, after all, way more fun to celebrate than grading papers.

I celebrated by decorating my helmet, and by handing out googly eyes to my rowing teammates.



Apparently the day is now Intergalactic.

1. This past Monday I got a request from a colleague from our School of Business to serve as a third reviewer for MBA pitches from student groups for her class, because the pitches would all be related to bicycling. Since the request was made on Monday and the class was scheduled for that Wednesday evening, I had to figure it might be a somewhat desperate request, so I said Okay.

In general, listening to the pitches was interesting from the standpoint of trying to understand what each team had accomplished up to that point in terms of setting up a (fictitious) bicycle manufacturing business, and what the next aims would be (e.g. scale up production, expand to new markets, improve product quality, improve working conditions). As a mostly science-focused audience member, I was definitely the odd person out; I don't spend much time thinking about quarterly performance indices, market shares, etc. And I'm generally skeptical that the world needs more bicycle manufacturing companies; I think we actually need better repair systems. Still, it's good to foster connections with colleagues in other disciplines.


2. I will bring up this second item on multiple occasions over the upcoming months: this past week I also got asked if I'd be willing to be a speaker for campus Climate Series talks, once again largely because of being the token campus bicyclist.

I've been a bit bummed this spring, because the first 2 of 3 talks in this series happened on evenings when I had scheduling conflicts, and I really wanted to attend them; one talk was about sustainable fashion/textiles, and the other was by a colleague on identifying where and how to put one's energies to work towards climate change mitigation. I'm going to track down the colleague who gave the second talk because I want whatever I talk about to build off of her presentation.

So in the fall, I'll give a talk on climate change and transportation. This is a huge topic, eh eh? And that's why it will probably come up here on multiple occasions between now and when I give the talk. The thing is that I don't want the talk to just be about riding bikes, because of everything we know about the need for systemic changes rather than just individual actions.

But the problem is that a talk about systemic change is going to be a tough sell for a collegiate audience, so I still need to work in the personal narrative, too.

Along with that, I want it to be a well-informed talk. So I have some learning to do (e.g. what do current carbon emissions look like across different transportation sectors? Which sectors will be easier to address? What are the big problems within those sectors? Where are the barriers? And what can/should student-age people do to tackle the changes that are needed? They have the energy and the motivation, and they want guidance!!). If you happen to know of specific resources on the topic, please share.


3. This is kind of related to item #2. Someone was asking me this morning if I plan to go and ride in the Paris-Brest-Paris again. I'm still not sure. However, I do at least feel as though I'm in a different place now compared to where I was in 2022, the last time I started to gear up to go. (the prep needs to start at least a year and a half ahead of the ride) This is literally from a "gear" standpoint: for 2023, I needed to rebuild Froinlavin's wheelset, and I also wasn't confident about things like my choice of shoes and clothing. The preparations for 2023 were such that I finished stitching together certain aspects of my gear the day before the ride began. I *do* know this time that the bicycling and rowing training are adequately compatible with each other, at least.

Right now, while I have some of the major items sorted (new wheels still going strong, *some* clothing matters better sorted out), I do also still have some lingering questions and gear elements to work out: will my newest cycling jacket (MEC one) fare better than the previous one (Showers Pass Elite 2.1, purchased in 2020)? Will I like the newer trunk bag I recently acquired (roomier than the old one)? Should I continue with my platform pedal strategy? (that was the weirdest fatigue element last time around). At least I'll have a chance to test out all three quite soon; I've signed up for a 200k next Saturday.

But is it worth it to jet-set back to Europe again? Should I get more serious about carbon offsets for flying? Do I need to have all the answers? (I mean, I *know* I'll love many aspects of the trip, but I could be doing many other things instead!).

It's the much-anticipated first day of a merciful 5-day weekend! I have celebrated by tackling a handful of small projects at the boathouse, and by cleaning off and organizing my desk at work.

I want to be having more coherent and deeper thoughts, but most likely that will have to wait until I'm further into the procrastination grading.

Also, when I woke up this morning, my hip was feeling better, finally. Every year at around this time it seems like I have weird muscular things happen. I should probably start to anticipate the pattern, and try to figure out more preventative stress-management strategies so I can avoid or reduce these crises.

At least my stress isn't as terrible as the stress levels of that one federal official in charge of the contemporary Gestapo of the US of A, who has been hospitalized twice because that stress of that horrible job at that horrible, horrible organization is so bad. Let's just not even go there.