crack fox

Urban foxes abound in London. This one was just hanging out in the rain in the Nunhead Cemetery, which is spectacularly overgrown and weird. I'd recommend a tour through for anyone in South London for a while.

 

3rd fastest weirdo

Here I am being adorned by Andrew Richey himself; inventor of the lovely steeds upon which we all rode.  

Two national champs, both 3rd place.

Kind of serendipitous that Julie Secor, the fastest finisher at the US Championships, and I were both 3rd place in the race. Go USA.

 

Headed down to Plymouth

We took the train out of Oxford along with what seemed like hundreds of our new favorite people: drunken football fans. Oxford United had won its match, and gave local youth a good reason to get drunk and insult our train conductor. I can only imagine what would have happened if Oxford had lost. That would have given the local youth a good reason to get drunk and insult our train conductor.

 

Who likes pygmy ponies?

Dartmoor has herds of pygmy ponies running rampant along with all of the sheep and cows. Apparently national parks are also generally free grazing land in the UK. Hence, poop everywhere.

 

Obligatory Chimney Shot

We lunched at a mediocre little cafe in the town of Princetown, a quaint scrabbly little place in the center of Dartmoor national park. The ride up to the town was really splendid, though both of us were wishing for MUCH lower gearing. At the 15 and 20% grades we'd chug and puff up the hill until the call of "WALKIES!!" went out and then we hoof it up the rest. I would have loved to have an altimeter on this day.

 

Sheep amongst the rocks

 

On the march for the Tors of Dartmoor

 
Jennifer heading to one of the tors, outcroppings of granite on top of the hills of Dartmoor.

Plymouth at sunset

 

I'll call that a good view

After spending 2 days in the Devon and Cornwall area, we took the train up to the land of many consonants: WALES! We spent our time on the north coast of wales, which is dominated by massive hills and bluffs that lead to the sea, and some splendid little coastal towns, right near some not at all splendid coastal towns. The first day we spent tootling around on our Brommies, and the second day we took the train, then the bus and then our feet up into the heart of the Snowdownia National Park, home to the highest peaks in Britain outside of North Scotland.



Wales is scenic as heck. The highway around the north side of the Great Orme.

Conwy Castle

 
We turned around at Conwy and went across the peninsula back to Colwyn Bay.

Walking in

 
The walk in to the mountains was nice as well.

Scrambling to the top of Tyrfan

 
Mt. Tyrfan is in the next ridgeline north from Snowdon. It's a heck of a scramble with broken boulders of limestone all over the place. Jennifer sailed through the rough part of the hike here.

Lush and green

 
Wales is, like the rest of Britain, extremely lush and green. They take advantage of this by grazing sheep everywhere!

Mount Snowdon

 
This was the view that greeted us as we crested the saddle on the ridge just to the north of Snowdon.

Our buddies, the mountain goats

 
These guys watched us eat lunch on the moutntain.

The Picture House

 
This was the inside of The Picture House, in Colwyn Bay, Wales. The town was cute and the pub was great. They had an excellent selection of beers and the food was cheap and satisfying. Not really gourmet, but they did have a killer curry night on Thursdays that really brought the folks out.

Better luck THIS TIME!!

So, the folding dragon has been slain. Despite feeling crappy, coughy, jet-laggy and otherwise non-fit at the starting line, Jennifer was right. I had a pretty good run. The worst part is that I let 2nd place slip through my fingers by being too much of a gentleman and being too lackadaisical on the finishing straight. At any rate, I think that I have done my Brompton thing quite well this year.

My real regret is not packing a smaller chain ring for the tootling around after the race. I'm now a consummate master of the 50 rpm grind up hills and my arms are actually tired from riding around these past 3 days. Overall, my claim from last year still stands: Britain in the sunshine is hard to beat. More pictures soon.

Crossing the Pond, Redux

I've packed sealant this time.

Fabulously informative

Got this email from the IT staff here at the City.

City issued Blackberry devices are currently experiencing latency due to the legacy perimeter security controls. We are currently working on resolving this matter. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Fortunately, my latency was set to stun, and the Klingons were incapacitated before boarding the good ship Municipal Services Building.

A singular treat

 
I had the unique joy of riding in to work on a bike lane that I helped plan on Monday. We've repainted a buffered bike lane along 13th street from South to Market streets. Next week they'll be painting the street north to Spring Garden. I have been using 13th street for the past 6 months since it is simply calmer and nicer to ride on than any of the other alternatives. With the addition of a couple thousand bucks worth of paint, it has become AWESOME. Drivers on the left, bikers on the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you.

Tig Burn

So, despite Jennifer's worries that I'd set the basement on fire with the welder, the only thing that I've burned so far is my skin. TIG welding kicks off some SERIOUS UV rays and I've got the sunburn to show for it.

Crazier than I am

 

Some times it's truly great to have friends who are crazier than you are. My teammate Brett happened to have a TIG welder that he got on a great deal and had never used. Now that same welder is sitting in my happily re-ordered basement waiting for a project!

Delayed Brompton US Championships Video

Peter from NYCewheels in New York filmed the Brompton US Championship and posted the video recently. He was a really nice guy and I'm sure that had it not been his first race EVER he'd have been right with me at the finish line.

Probably the least comfortable bike seat I've seen

 


Saw this parked out side of work the other day. Quite the piece of machinery, that's for sure. The seat required a tetnus shot before riding.

Led Zeppelin

I've been trying to focus more efficiently at work this past week by listening to music to drown out the background ruckus of my office and I re-discovered what people have known for close to 40 years: Led Zeppelin RULES. IV is a truly spectacular album and while I can't truly vouch for the fact that it makes me concentrate better, it certainly makes me feel good.

Productive Saturday

My project

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20110330_2_north-south_bike_lanes_eyed_for_Center_City.html

We've been working on some north/south bike lanes for the past 5 months, and are finally going to be moving on them. Go go go! Moving at the speed of government.

Friends' Asylum For The Relief of Persons Deprived Of Reason

I came across this most excellent name while doing some research on historical clearance for the bike rack project that has been taking me FOR EVER.
The place is currently called the Friends Hospital, and is on the National Register of Historic Places and is currently operating as a mental health facility.

Mission Statement of 1813

"To provide for the suitable accommodation of persons who are or may be deprived of the use of their reason, and the maintenance of an asylum for their reception, which is intended to furnish, besides requisite medical aid, such tender, sympathetic attention as may soothe their agitated minds, and under the Divine Blessing, facilitate their recovery."

As a person who is not infrequently deprived of reason, I took notice.

Hit and run

My teammate Meurig James was hit by a white SUV and sustained some serious injuries last Friday while riding near the Please Touch museum. He'll be ok, but what kind of piece of shit would hit someone and drive off. Insane.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Fairmount-Hit-and-Run-Cyclist-118407509.html

Distracting world

I've been really distracted this past week by news and pictures of the earthquake off the coast of Sendai in norther Japan last week. I think that it happens with more or less every season change, but I always get pangs of nostalgia when I see the first cherry blossoms of spring. It's a trite response, but it truly was a fabulous time of year in Japan. Spring rolls around and people emerge from their cold, kerosene-ridden houses and head for the cherry groves.

I have no idea what it must be like to be back in Japan right now, but the whole event has left me with a strange feeling of disorientation and longing to be back there. We never got a chance to really explore the north of Japan, and Nagano was about as far inland as one can get in Japan. There was an earthquake centered off of Niigata Prefecture, about 80 miles northwest of where we were, and I recall thinking that it was mostly just a thrill. Not so thrilling for the 18,000 confirmed dead this time.

I think that some of the most compelling images I found were in the before and after pictures on this Australian website. What a loss, though I have faith that the Japanese values of co-dependence and stalwart determination will serve them well in the coming months and years of rebuilding.

Christmas, come late

I should probably have done this sooner, but I wanted to post some of the cool goodies that came about from a handsome state of affairs at Christmas. Leah got me/us a mushroom kit: grow your own shitake mushrooms. Holy SHITake they are large, well precisely the one that we've got so far is enormous. I'm hoping that warm weather will bring in another couple of flushes of mushrooms.

My parents also got Jennifer and me a gift card, and a hefty one at that. I got myself a spanky new Skaagen watch to keep me on time (good luck, it'll take more than danish engineerding to make that go right)

Jennifer also got a super cool Mission Workshop bag, complete with organge aluminum buckle. Totally sweet, and totally necessary since her previous bag decided to blow out just before the holiday.

Step Two

Actually post a picture, like you intended in the first place. This is my favorite new kitchen friend. Mr. Teapot is pretty awesome. The spout allows him to rapport so excellently with his buddy the Chemex. The best part is that it takes only about 90 seconds to boil enough water for an Aaron sized dose of coffee.