Myth and the Familiar

(at right, Blue Ridge Parkway serves as pivot point for VA road loops, even in the winter.)

News to me. I have inflated road tires to 120-130 psi for years. I thought the risk of snake bites was too high otherwise, and I thought less surface area in contact with pavement added to speed. Myth apparently. Lawson (who reads everything) confirmed that this would only be true if riding on a wooden track. The only thing close to that around here is the walkway in front of Nauticus. 100 is plenty, wow.

Sweat corroding handlebars is not news to me. But how a person can ignore the corrosion for this long confuses me a bit. Glad this resulted in only a low-speed crash.

Speaking of Lawson, I watched him eat during a team ride weekend at Wintergreen. He is doing a brilliant job calculating calories according to wattage outputs and other factors. He eats all the time, which looked like fun, but I do not have much interest in some of his staples (Grapenuts) or in cutting out ice cream. The usual mediocrity with me.

Maybe I should pay better attention. I climbed our familiar Blue Ridge Parkway and Wintergreen loops in some pretty pathetic form. I was going up the Parkway so slowly that I had extra time to contemplate “Why do the Blue Ridge Mountains look blue” and “Would the Parkway ever have been built if not for the Great Depression” and “Is Reed’s Gap (both sides) among the top 10 steepest roads in America” and “Why am I here climbing on a bike and not descending on skies?” Time goes by—so slowly—one foot—other foot—time goes by—so slowly--

I was not even able to keep up with Susan (a pure climber who hates rollers and did more cold weather clothing changes than Madonna) on the Rt. 151 rollers in the valley below Wintergreen. By the time we headed back to climb up Wintergreen, she offered to climb up, then drive a car down to fetch me since there was little evidence I would make it to the top. I muscled it out though and reached the summit, perhaps because there was such a captive audience of skiers driving down the mountain who heckled and cast encouragement out frosty windows.