Back in Panama: Finding Better Roads

 

Today is the seventh day since I arrived in Panama.  After some very difficult rides back in August, I have found better roads and hope to find more.

Today I rode the Amador Causeway, a long straight smooth three-mile road that runs to an island in the Panama City harbor. The Panama City skyline is off to the east of the long roadway and bicycle path.  A beautiful ride on a sunny day.  

  I'm meeting new neighbors also.  A coati on the balcony.

An agouti who lives across the street.  

Ships in the harbor beyond the causeway.

On Sunday I rode about a third of the way across the country to the town of Chililibre.  Since I was last here, ten kilometers of the road between State Highways 4 and 9 were completely repaved.  The rolling mostly uphill stretch of road two of very smooth pavement. Still no shoulder, but the traffic is not as bad on Sunday.I had a delightful 50km ride up to Chililibre  and back down again.  

It's better, but still a place where I am always alert. 

 

The (Pot)Hole Story -- Panama is a tough place to ride

 

First Week in Panama--The Daily Downpour

I bought a bike the first full day I was in Panama.  The bike is great. I wrote about it here.    

I quickly got good at dodging the rain. The weather app in my phone that is so reliable in America, is rubbish here. It says it will rain when the sun is shining and it will be cloudy when rain is falling in sheets.   

Rain I could handle.  But the farther I ride, the more I have to contend with potholes.  On a descent a few miles from the city, I hit a hole so deep it flatted the tire and tore a hole in it.  I wrote about that here.  

And the holes deep enough to flatten a tire are everywhere.  It's not so bad riding uphill, but downhill, I have to scan for holes the whole way! I'm riding the brakes and very focused--not having fun feeling the wind.  It's surely safer to roll down hills on high alert hands on the brake hoods, but it's not fun. 

On the way up the hills, the holes are no problem, but even riding the white stripe at the edge of the tarmac, buses and trucks have to move around me.  One the main roads in and out of the city, there are no shoulders.  

When there are shoulders, another hazard appears at random--sewers without covers.  Some of these uncovered drains are big enough to swallow a whole wheel, not just flat a tire.  I told a local guy about this. He shrugged and said people steal the covers and sell them for the metal.  When there is a shoulder, I ride just off the roadway and scan for the uncovered drain.  

I've been riding every day here, but my rides are getting shorter and are on roads where I have memorized the holes and know the hazards.  On Labor Day I will return to the US until mid November.  

When I return, I will have Gatorskin tires and be looking for weekend groups to ride with.  Right now, I'm feeling like the cocodrillo in the photo below is waiting in holes on every road here.

 

First Flat Fixed: Pinched in a Panama Pothole

Today I had my first flat in Panama.  The pothole was not quite as bad as the one above, but for those who kvetch about potholes in Pennsylvania, Panama has a lot more.  

Today I was rolling back toward the canal from the Gamboa road junction. I stayed away from the edge of the state highway running along the canal to avoid the gaps in the pavement, but saw a pothole too late to swerve.  The front tire flatted immediately, the back was fine.  

I was near a bus stop at the village of Paraiso a five miles from where I live.

Buses in Panama do not allow bicycles on board.  I waved at  a couple of taxis, then ordered and Uber.  It was $5.83 to take me home.  The driver didn't have a bungee cord to put the bike in the trunk, so I took the wheels of and held it in the back seat.  

I fixed the flat at home and rode to a local bike  shop to buy another tube. When I got there I saw a small bulge in the sidewall.  The tube was coming out. I had cut through the sidewall. The shop owner wasn't busy so I bought a new tire and he put it on for me.  $50 with an extra tube. All the tires he sold were Goodyear Eagles--which is what was on the bike already.

With all the potholes here, I will bring back more tubes and cartridges and a pair of Continental Gatorskin tires.        

Buy or Rent? I Bought a Bike in Panama

 

My second day in Panama, I bought a Giant SCR 16-speed aluminum road bike.  I bought the bike for $500 at a used bike shop in a residential neighborhood near the canal called ReCyclingPTY. They had road and mountain bikes of many vintages.  They also rent bikes for $50 per day  or $200 per week so $500 to buy for 6 to 9 months is a much better deal for me.

Andre, the owner, will also sell the bike on consignment when I leave. 

Right after I bought the bike I rode to the first lock on the Panama Canal.  Soon I hope to ride the length of the canal continuing on the same road.   

Thunder Ridge Family Event: Lauren Runs, I Ride

After my rain-soaked descent of Thunder Ridge on the Blue Ridge Parkway, my daughter Lauren, who lives in Richmond, returned with me for Round Two, two days later.

She runs. We drove to base of the hill and started together for what would be a slow climb for both of us.  Lauren ran uphill until her Garmin said six miles, then turned around and ran back.  She climbed 1,400 feet then descended.  

I rode to the top of the ridge and a little past the top.  It was a slow twelve miles. I kept checking my Garmin and keeping my heart rate down so I could make the climb in 90-plus-degree heat. The elevation gain was more than 3,400 feet.  (1,047 meters)

The descent was so long that my neck started to get tired. The road is smooth and most of the turns are wide sweepers with only a few hairpins and even those are not really tight. Most of the way down I was either side of 40 mph.  The grade is averages 5 percent with a few steep places. The fastest I went was 48mph but that was on just a few of the steeper straight stretches. 

In my usual way, I was one of the slowest on the climb.  On the longest uphill segment, 19.93km,  I was an hour slower than the fastest guy in my age group.  Bernie Sanders (no kidding) climbed the hill in 1:17.  I did in 2:19.  Apparently, Bernie went down another way. He has no time on any of the descent segments. On all of the descent segments, I am the fastest by 20-30 seconds. 

What goes up must come down.  Unless it's Bernie. 

Lauren and I talked the whole 2.5-hour drive to the climb. On the way back, we were both exhausted and subdued. But after an hour we got food, felt better, and figured out how to bring peace to the Middle East as we drove back to Richmond. 

Pain Up; Rain Down: Riding the Blue Ridge Parkway

 

The climb to Thunder Ridge on Virginia's Blue Ridge Parkway is a smooth, steady, winding climb of 3,300 feet at five percent for just over twelve miles. I drove to the base of the climb on the James River and began the climb in bright sun; the temperature just over 90 degrees.

The forecast was for more of the same.  

That was true until the tenth mile. The sky to the east was bright and sunny. The sky to the west was suddenly gray.  Sprinkles began, but it was so bright to the east, I thought I could get to the top before it got bad.  

The sprinkles became light rain. The mountain to the east almost disappeared in haze.  Then with one kilometer to go, I heard thunder.  

Shit. I was too late.

I turned around and rode in increasing rain at down the hill for about a mile, then sheets of rain and crosswinds hit me.  I watched water swirl and eddy on the road in front of me.  I took off my sunglasses and tipped my helmet low so I could see.  I let myself roll for a while at 35mph then started squeezing the brakes. After riding slower for a while, I let the brakes go and went back to coasting in the torrents.  

Raindrops stung my face and arms when the wind turned and whipped toward me.  At one point after miles of descending I thought, 'At least there are no bugs!' Bugs buzzed around me all the way up.

I passed the turnoff for the ranger office and knew I was close to the bottom of the hill.  The grade lessened.  Then I was pedaling slightly uphill across the James River to the parking area.  I pulled up to the car, opened the door and emptied my pockets onto the passenger seat. Then I took the wheels off the bike, put it in the car (I have a 2001 Prius; the bike rides in the back seat; it won't fit in the trunk.) and stripped off my soaked clothes. 

I dried off with an old sheet I had in the trunk and sat on an old camouflage shirt.  It was so humid I turned on the AC and the rear window defroster. 

Tomorrow I am going back to Thunder Ridge.  The forecast is good and I want to get all the way to the top!

----

When I arrived in Richmond for a few days, I  searched on line for the toughest climbs in the area. A group called PJAMM listed their top ten climbs in Virginia.  Thunder Ridge was the longest. Here is their site.

Bike Year Begins with a Great Week!

Times Square at Rush Hour

I love to ride.  This past week I had had the chance to ride in some of my favorite places--places that are almost completely opposite in terrain and character:

--An isolated hill in rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

--Three boroughs and 30 miles in New York City: rain in the day and clear skies at night 

--Skyline Drive in northern New Jersey: 51 mph on the descent.

Last Sunday, I ended the week for the first time this year with more than 100 riding miles, 110 to be exact.  The ride that brought me to the three-digit distance was up the gentle three-mile climb of Snyder Hollow Road in southern Lancaster County.  This beautiful, narrow, winding road follows a stream most of the way up. Trees line the road from bottom to top.  In the summer it is several degrees cooler than any other road in the area.  

On Wednesday I rode from Woodside, Queens, NYC, to Manhattan then north almost 200 blocks to the Bronx. I started in mid afternoon. An hour into the ride in Harlem, the skies opened and the wind howled in my face out of the north. I went down into a subway station and rode the train 28 blocks from 135th to 163rd. When I emerged the rain let up so I rode the rest ofthe way in scattered showers. I had coffee at 239th Street, then rode back to Woodside, mostly in the dark.  

The lights are synchronized on avenues, so although I passed through more than 450 traffic lights, they were mostly green when my speed was good.  

The next day I rode from Woodside to Penn Station with a 25-pound pack. That was six slow miles.  I drove to Skyline Drive in Ringwood, New Jersey then rode up and down the steep 2.5-mile hill. I turned around at the top and rode the first mile of level or gentle hills before the steep drop the last mile and a half. Just as I went over the crest, a flat-bed truck went past carrying four gray Port-a-Potties. 

The descent is winding. He went far ahead, but at first hard-right bend he slowed and I caught up. On the straight section he sped away, but as the road bent left he braked and I was back to about 20 meters behind.  We were an accordion until the very bottom of the hill when he turned left and I continued straight.   

Strava told me I went 51mph (82.1kmh) in the middle of the hill. It was the Port-A-Potty draft for sure! 

Three hours later I turned off the PA Turnpike at Morgantown.I was going to ride up and down the 1.5-mile hill on Route 10.  But when I got halfway upthe hill there was a line of stopped vehicles. I rode up along the right shoulder to see an overturned truck halfway down. I turned around and drove home. 

Today I rode 15 miles and brought my miles for the week to 115.  

I rode as much in the last two weeks as in both January and February. So far in March I am close to 300 miles.  My bicycle year starts now. 

Life-Long Bike Obsession Began with a Trike Trip

"Suicide Cycling Around the World"

That's the title a former co-worker said I should use for a memoir.  Another friend was encouraging me to write about deploying to Iraq for a year, landing in country on my 56th birthday. 

But Daria was sure the better book would be about biking.

I love bikes of all kinds: bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, and the various three-wheeled varieties.  I love the sensation of speed, especially leaning into corners.

My first bike was a red tricycle.  I mostly rode it in the driveway and on the sidewalk on the fairly busy street we lived on I was four--when we moved to an even busier street in another part of Stoneham, Massachusetts.  

One afternoon, I was, according to a story my parents told for years after, riding in the driveway on a Saturday. I was three years old. Dad was at work. Mom went in the house with my then one-year-old sister.  While speeding up and down the driveway on Hancock Street, I decided I could ride to the bakery in Stoneham Square.  

They had jelly doughnuts!  

All of my life, I have been able to see a route in my head that I traveled only once or twice.  In this case, my mother had walked with me to the doughnut shop just a half mile away. Our house on Hancock Street was on the east side of Route 28. The doughnut shop was on the west side.

In the 1950s, Route 28 was the main road north from Boston to central New Hampshire including the state capital, Concord.  I had to ride four blocks to Route 28, cross the four-lane highway and ride past the library and up the hill past the fish store to the middle of Stoneham Square.  

Somehow I did it.

I got my doughnut.  The baker told the owner of the drugstore next door about the little boy on the tricycle. Al Pullo, the owner of the drugstore, called my mom. She came to get me and was not pleased about my trip.  

The next year we moved to Oak Street in Stoneham. At some point I got a Columbia 24-inch 2-wheel bicycle and was riding much further. At eight years old, I rode from Stoneham to Sullivan Square on Route 28 and took a subway to Boston and back. I hid the bike behind a dumpster and, surprisingly, it was there when I returned.

In the six decades since, I have ridden a bicycle in 41 countries and ridden roughly 200,000 miles. I did not ride bicycles between ages 13 and 36, but owned a dozen motorcycles.  

Daria was right. Now I have to actually write it.

A Brave Woman in Trumplandia

 

This morning I was riding east from Lancaster toward New Holland borough, one of the towns that ring the city of Lancaster.  As I rode I passed several political signs, all of them were for Doug Mastriano, the Army officer who brought busloads of Pennsylvanians to Washington DC on January 6, 2020, to overthrow the government.

Then I saw the sign above.  I first thought 'Oh, they have a 2024 sign.'  Then I wondered why it had a hyphen.  Then I saw the "years in prison." I turned around to take a picture of the sign.  When I did, the woman who put the sign in the middle of her front yard on the south side of Pennsylvania Route 23, walked up and introduced herself.

Tracy is a smiling, blue-eyed, pretty woman in her mid-thirties.  She was trimming the shrubs next to her house when I pulled up. I asked her about the sign. She said, "I can't just stay quiet."  

Tracy said she knew it would cause trouble, but she thought it was important to stand up and say what is right.  She has one child, a 13-year-old son.  She knows her family and the house could be targets for insults or egging or something worse.  

She said that a lot of people honk. Some wave and cheer, some make their disagreement well known.  Three miles west of her house is The Worship Center, a prosperity gospel church of the kind that are the most likely to believe Trump was chosen by God to make America a Christian nation. Lots of true believers pass by Tracy's home.  

I love meeting people who are truly brave and are willing to stand up for what they believe in a very public way. I have met people who are true heroes and I met another hero today. 

--------

(I would not post a picture of Tracy or her home. Whatever trouble she brings on herself, I did not want to add to it.)

Returning from Ukraine with Canadian Cyclists Going to Auschwitz

Ride for the Living, Auschwitz 

In June of 2017, I rode from Belgrade, Serbia, to Lviv, Ukraine. Along the way, I rode in Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, The Czech Republic and Poland. I rode through beautiful country, up and down long hills and through the home country of my favorite pro cyclist Peter Sagan.

Peter Sagan, World Champion

After crossing into Poland, I rode to Auschwitz and spent a day there wandering through a place of terror I cannot fathom. I wrote about the visit here. 

After leaving Auschwitz, I was glad to be riding alone to think and to process what I saw. I had no problems until the border crossing into Ukraine from Poland. Usually at the borders, I rode past the long lines of cars and trucks waiting to cross and up to a checkpoint with a guard outside the booth. Once there, I point at the bike and ask where I should go. At most border crossings the guard sends me through the next open lane. They don’t get a lot of bikes.

Ukraine-Poland border crossing The Polish guards stopped me and sent me to the pedestrian line. It took more than three hours to get through the long line of people walking from Poland back home with all kinds of consumer electronics and other goods. When I left Lviv, I decided to take a train to the other side of the border rather than struggle with customs on foot pushing a bike. 

In the station I met a group of Canadian cyclists who were in Ukraine for the same reason I was: to visit Holocaust sites. They were on the way to the annual Ride for the Living at Auschwitz. They had done the 100 km ride before, but this was the first time they had visited Ukraine. I had ridden from Auschwitz a few days before. 

We talked about how the Lviv and Auschwitz were among the worst site of the Holocaust, but very different. About half the Jews murdered by the Nazis were already dead when Auschwitz went into full operation in 1942. Most had been murdered by shooting over pits as in Lviv and Kiev. German police were sent to conquered lands to murder Jews with rifles and pistols. In Auschwitz Jews were gassed and the burnt in ovens. 

Then we talked about bicycles, riding in Europe and even about motorcycles. One of the Canadian riders had ridden sport bikes in the 1980s. We both had ridden Honda 500 Interceptors and talked for half the train ride about our former bikes. The rest of the group left us alone.

Honda 500 Interceptor 

At the border station, the Canadians stayed on the train and continued to Krakow. I left the train and started riding. The customs check on the train took an hour, but it was a comfortable hour in a train seat instead of in a pedestrian line. I was happy.

Reliable Randomness Makes Air Apparent

Every yard or meter that a bicyclist or pilot or runner or driver or anyone else travels through the air means passing through trillions and trillions of molecules that together make up what we call air. The faster the rider, runner, pilot or driver travels the more molecules per second bang into their body, bicycle, car or plane and spin off in another direction. The first philosophers called air a single substance.  Reality is quite different. 

Each molecule of oxygen, nitrogen and water, as well as fart smell, scent of lilac or Corona Virus moves with through three dimensions in any possible direction depending upon all the physical forces acting on it. Each molecule of what we call air moves freely. Heat speeds them up, collisions with other molecules and with bicyclists send it off in another direction, gravity keeps individual molecules from favoring the up direction but with a mass of a few or a few thousand atoms, gravity is not a huge influence. 

In describing the motion of these molecules and the forces affecting them, I did not include wind resistance. Together the molecules of air are wind resistance, but they are so small that the forces on them are heat, gravity, and collisions. They move in what is effectively a vacuum. The effect of trillions of molecules per second smacking into a rider from random directions at varying speeds is completely predictable in its total effect--a surprising and wonderful reality.

If a rider maintains 20 miles per hour in still air, that same rider will reach the same speed at the same effort an hour or a month or a year later. And assuming the same air density, the same effort will achieve the same speed in Belarus, Borneo, Botswana, Bosnia or Belgium. The random motion of molecules in air has the effect of totally predictable wind resistance. 

When the air moves collectively, when there is wind, the effect is exactly, predictably the same. Uncountable trillions of molecules of varying sizes and shapes moving in unpredictable directions with different speeds will cause exactly the same amount of friction on a car, bicycle, runner or airplane everywhere there is air. 

Wind resistance is both invisible and unavoidable. When I feel strong, I leave my house and ride with the wind knowing that the exhilaration of riding 25mph in a 20mph tail wind will turn into a 12mph slog on the return leg. When I don’t feel so great, I ride into the wind first and give myself the tailwind at the end of the ride. 

So much of the history of science is discovering that reality is not what anyone guessed or expected. Few of the ancient scientists could wrap their minds around the idea of atoms in a vacuum. Even some of the alchemists who provided the first experimental evidence for atoms could believe what they demonstrated. 

Before atoms, air was considered a single substance. The discovery of atoms showed air is a complex mixture of molecules. Physicists then showed that the individual molecules of air, moving randomly, together became, in effect, that single substance the ancient scientists believed in. All that randomness taken together is as predictable as the motion of the moon. And at the same time any single molecule can and does move as randomly as a toddler in a room full of shiny toys. 

I am officially in love with Strava.

I am back to riding and in the absence of racing I am going up and down hills and and comparing myself to other riders on Strava--socially distanced competition. 

Some places have way more riders than others. Strava compiles riders and ranks them by their best times on a hill, stretch or road, etc. Anything from 100 meters to several miles. 

Recently, I rode Bear Mountain NY, a place I had always wanted to ride and never did. It has lots of other riders. I did three repeats of Perkin Memorial Drive, the main climb. My best effort put me in 14,609th place of 17,836 riders. Younger, skinny riders are much faster. But going down the hill, my gravitationally enhanced self is in 1,238th place. 

There is a hill 3-mile climb 9 miles south of my home in Lancaster PA called Snyder Hollow. I have ridden that hill more than sixty times since I returned from Europe and dropped into the Corona Virus crisis. Strava has been my riding companion for the last six months.

The Physics of Descending on a Bicycle

When a solo rider or a group of riders descend any hill, particularly a steep hill, why are some of the riders so much faster than others? 

The fastest descenders, whether by experience or instinct or learning, are the ones that sense or know the laws of physics and do everything they can to use them. 

When a rider descends, the motion of the bike is governed by a series of variables: 

--The grade of the hill 

--The total frontal area of the bicycle and rider 

--The air speed of the bike 

--The total mass of the bike and rider 

--Momentum: the combination of ground speed and mass 

--Spoke count of the wheels 

--Rolling resistance 

The grade of the hill is the most important variable. I have descended eight percent grades in the Alps and in the eastern US and never hit 50 mph, even after two or three miles. But I have gone 55 to 59 mph on half-mile hills with 15-20 percent grades. 

 

The frontal area of the bike and rider determines the top speed on any given grade. Wind resistance increases by the square of the speed. Double the speed, quadruple the wind resistance. At 11mph a rider is mostly pedaling to move the mass of bike and rider. To maintain 22mph, the same rider is putting 80% effort into moving air. The riders who descend the fastest, especially above 40mph put their crotch on the top tube and their sternum on the handlebars and pull their elbows and knees in. 

Related to wind resistance is air speed. I worked seventy miles east of my home for many years. I would ride to work once a month between April and September. I would wait for a day with a 20mph west wind and ride that 70 miles in under four hours, under 3.5 hours on the best days. When the wind was exactly behind me there were times it was quiet. I was going 22mph in a 20mph tail wind. My air speed was 2 mph. I was flying. 

I am the wrong size to be a bicycle racer. At nearly six feet and 185 pounds, I am 20 pounds heavier and several inches taller than many top racers. But descending, every pound is to the good, because… 

Mass plus ground speed makes momentum. The higher the speed and the greater the mass, the more force pushes the bike down the hill. When I pull out of the draft and sail past a 160-pound rider, momentum is my friend. 

One variable every rider can control is spoke count. Every revolution of the wheel, from the perspective of the wind, whips the spoke from no speed to twice the speed of the bike and back to zero. Low-spoke-count wheels with thin or bladed spokes reduce the wind resistance and the turbulence of spokes. The faster we ride, the more wind we whip through the spokes in our wheels. 

On a road bike with fully inflated 23 or 25mm tires, rolling resistance is negligible, but not zero. 

In summary, to go really fast downhill, find a steep grade, make yourself as small and narrow as you can, ride low-spoke-count wheels with fully inflated tires and hope the wind is behind you. I love going fast. My Strava KOMs are downhill, not up.

Rural Drivers Hating Bicyclists is Nothing New

In 2004, a bicycle hater with the unlikely name John F. Kennedy threw tacks on the road when he knew bicyclists would run over them and get flats and possibly crash. 

He did it twice. The second time, I saw him do it. I got his license number and harassed the local police until they arrested and charged him. Here’s the story: 

From the mid-1990s until March of this year, I rode two or three times a week with a daily training ride group led by a former National Champion named Scott. Monday through Thursday at 4pm and Friday at 1pm, riders join the group from the west side Lancaster, Pa., and follow an unvarying route of 35 miles by the time the riders return to the city two hours later. 

The ride is so predictable, that I and other riders would join the ride at several different points knowing within two minutes when the riders would pass a given intersection or landmark. The ride goes southwest of Lancaster to Safe Harbor Park near the Susquehanna River, then turns north toward Columbia, and back to Lancaster through Millersville. 

Just before Safe Harbor Park is Conestoga Boulevard, the place where pickup trucks are most likely to pass too close, blow their horns or occasionally yell their displeasure at sharing the road—a nearly empty road. One day in 2004 passing over the crest of a half-mile hill, several riders got flats. 

There were tacks on the road. Recently a man in an old red pickup truck had yelled at us several times as he passed. The ride crests the hill at 4:40pm and that was when he was headed home to the apartment where he lived south of Safe Harbor Park. Apparently, he got ahead of us, threw tacks on the road and drove away. I thought it was him. 

Two weeks later he passed us yelling as we neared the top of the hill. I sprinted as hard as I could down the hill wanting to see where he went at the next intersection. As I neared the bottom of the hill, I saw him on the side of the road throwing tacks. He saw me, got in his truck and took off. I got his license number. It was a level road and he was speeding so he was gone in moments, but I did see that he went south. 

Two other riders had followed me and seen what happened. Now we had witnesses and actual tacks. I called the Conestoga Police Department and got little cooperation, but I insisted, and they relented. John F. Kennedy was charged two misdemeanors. I told the officers that I had witnesses and we would all be happy to testify. 

On the day of the trial, Kennedy arrived in the pickup truck I had identified. We learned later he had another vehicle. It turns out he did not have an attorney. Criminals, when you get to know them, are stupid. Those of us who were witnesses showed up at trial in suits and ties. 

Kennedy wore work clothes and had his sunglasses on top of his head. If he had a lawyer, the lawyer would have known that the judge had a son who was a Lancaster City police officer, a member of the bicycle patrol. The lawyer also would have known that one of the witnesses was a bicycle patrol officer and a veteran. But Kennedy was too arrogant to think he needed a lawyer. 

The judge presented the evidence. The witnesses said what they saw. Kennedy spoke in his own defense saying he did not throw the tacks on the road, but bicyclists should not be blocking the roads and we deserved what happened. After the testimony, the judge gave a summary of the evidence and the defense. He was so calm and impassive, I thought Kennedy would get the case dismissed. The police officer who rides with us and was a witness knew better but said nothing. 

When the summary was complete, the judge told Kennedy to stand to receive the verdict. He stood and smirked, also thinking he would get off. The judge exploded. Kennedy stood straight. All of us sat up straight. The judge lectured Kennedy for ten minutes, gave him the maximum fine of $880 dollars and said he would be in jail if every penny was not paid on time. 

Four of my kids were at the trial. They all rode bicycles and they knew all of the riders who were endangered by Kennedy. Like us riders, they sat very straight and still when the judge charged Kennedy. I was glad they could see justice served. 

Kennedy never bothered us again. I never saw him again.

Amtrak Finally Allows Bikes--And Charges More for Them Than for Passengers

 

For 25 years I have ridden the Amtrak's Keystone trains between Lancaster and Philadelphia, as well as regional trains between Washington DC and Boston.  Several times in those 25 years I have written to Amtrak to ask that bicycles be allowed on the trains. 

Amtrak refused.  Sure, they allowed bikes on a few regional trains with baggage cars, but No! was the main answer to "Can I take my bike."

Today, Amtrak began allowing bikes on the train: for a price.

In my case, the price for taking my bike with me on a train to Philadelphia from Lancaster is double the price for me!  My ticket, with the senior discount is $10.40. The bike cost is $20!  

That means I can visit Philadelphia for $20.80 round trip or I can bring my bike at a total cost of $60.80.  A bike with a normal adult fare makes the round trip $82.  

That's crazy.  Why should the bike cost $20 each way? Weight? My bikes weight 17 and 19 pounds each. A five-car passenger train with an electric locomotive weighs 2 million pounds.  Is the addition of 19 pounds a problem?

Space? Keystone trains have seats for 400 passengers and lately have had 20 or 30 passengers per train.  If one or two people per train take a bike, will it cause overcrowding? 

If I take a bike on New Jersey Transit, the Long Island Railroad, SEPTA, the Boston MTA, the Baltimore DC MARC system or any other regional train the cost for a bike is ZERO.  

Why is it $20 per trip on Amtrak?

When Walking I Don't Get Angry: Cycling is Different

Slowly healing. 

Today I saw the surgeon who put my arm back together with plates and screws  and considerable skill.  Tomorrow I begin a more sadistic physical therapy with pulleys to get more range of motion from my shattered elbow.

Three times during the visit, the doc said I should ride. I have enough range of motion in my arm to ride.

But during my three-mile walk home from the visit I had another moment of the making the contrast between bicycling and walking as exercise.  More than half the time I ride, someone in a vehicle--most often a plus-sized redneck in a pickup truck--will swerve at me or just pass too close. Occasionally he will yell faggot (women never do these things, only men).  A few times I have been hit with bottles and cans or got a "rollin' coal" cloud of smoke from a diesel pickup.

And I get angry.

Only rarely can I do anything about it. Once more than 15 years ago I got the license plate of a guy who threw tacks in the road because he hated us so much much. 

I have walked in hundreds of miles since surgery and no one has swerved at me, thrown tacks in the road, spit, called me a faggot, or any of the other things that have happened to me only in America and mostly on rural roads. 

So now I am really thinking about how much I want to ride.  I live in a rural area with lots of pickup trucks.  Do I want to return to getting pissed off at the pathetic cowards who think bicyclists don't belong on "their" roads? 

It's a question I never asked before. I love cycling so much that I thought the anger was part of riding. But knowing that I can walk and challenge myself makes the world look different. What is inner peace worth?  I will be asking myself that.

Steel Vintage Bikes: Awesome Cafe in Berlin

Steel Vintage Bikes in Berlin is a café decorated with steel racing bikes from the second half of the 20^th Century. They also roast their own beans. When I walked in on a rainy evening, they had just finished roasting Rwandan beans.  I had a double espresso and walked around the café snapping pictures.  I brought home a bag of their coffee.  

Nuts About Cycling: The Next Call After a Broken Collarbone

My collarbone after I crashed

Twenty-five years ago, in 1994, I decided to get a vasectomy, but it was spring and I knew it would mean a week or more off the bike.  I thought I would wait till cold weather in the fall.

One Saturday in April of that year, I was riding rolling hills. I went down a mile-long hill in an aero tuck until I could feel the bike losing momentum.

I stood up to crank hard on the pedals and attack the hill. 

Then I was in the ditch on the side of the road.  When I stood, my right crank snapped in the middle.  I flipped over the handlebars and landed on my shoulder. 

In the ditch I tried to get up, but when I moved my right arm, I heard crunching coming from my collarbone—like potato chips were being stepped on.

I had smashed my collarbone.  A nice person with one of those big early cell phones came by and called me an ambulance. 

At the hospital, the emergency room doctor stuck his finger in my shoulder at the site of the break. I groaned in pain. He smiled.

“You smashed the collarbone,” he said.  “It will heal up great with no surgery if you don’t move it too much.” 

They strapped my right arm to my side and sent me home.  For the next three weeks I heard a lot of crunching if I moved the wrong way. 

Then I realized this cloud had a silver lining.  Monday morning, first thing, I called the urologist and said, “Can you get me in this week?”  They had an opening on Thursday. 

When I showed up the nurse and then the doctor asked if I wanted to let the collarbone heal up before the surgery. “No,” I said. “I’m in pain anyway. Let’s go.”

The collarbone healed, the surgery was successful and if someone asks how much I love cycling, I can say, “I’m nuts about it.”

Riding in China: Sprinting Away from a Snake

In July 1999 I made my first trip to China. It was a direct trip to Beijing and back. Between April 1998 and July 2001 I went overseas every month for a job I had as communications manager for a global maker of white pigment named Millennium Chemicals, Inc.

I had a day to myself at the end of the week, so I got a cab ride to a place 30 miles from the Great Wall and rode the rest of the way through the hills north of Beijing on Trek steel road bike.  As I approached the Great Wall, I was on a shaded road that had leaves lying on it--a road not used very often.  Even though there was no traffic, I rode on the right side of the road about a foot from the undergrowth along the tree-lined pavement.

Suddenly, I heard a metallic BANG! and my front wheel jerked left--not enough to flip me, but scary.  I looked down and saw a snake struck my wheel. I saw its body was whipping in the moment I glanced down. Then I looked up and sprinted to the middle of the road. I hammered the pedals for another 100 yards before I looked back. The snake was gone. I kept riding in the middle of that empty road all the way to the Great Wall.

In my travels on five continents, I have seen dead snakes in and along the road, but China is the only place I was hit by a snake.

I got to the Great Wall without further incident. I was riding in mountain bike shoes so I could climb the Wall and see what the soldiers on duty saw as they looked from this huge stone edifice.

Lucky for me, snakes have less mass than cats.  Five years before, I took a ride in an ambulance after a cat jumped from a ditch in southern Lancaster County, hit my front wheel and kept running.  I went over my handlebars and dislocated my right shoulder among other injuries.  

Compared to the cat, the snake was a piece of cake....

Riding at Breakneck Speed, Literally, Almost Ended my Re-enlistment

As in this crash, no one was hurt but me in my big crash.

On May 9, 2007, at about 5 p.m., I started down Turkey Hill on River Road in Lancaster County with eleven other riders.  I hit 51 mph near the middle of the ¾-mile hill, then I hit another rider. It was more than a half-hour later that I reached the bottom of the hill, being carried on a stretcher heading for a MEDEVAC helicopter.

In seconds, my chances of re-enlisting in the Army at 54 years old went from good to gruesome.  Although I can remember nothing from five minutes before the accident until almost five months after, I could read a medical report when I was discharged form the hospital more than a week later.  I had broken нине bones, the worst was a smashed C7 vertebra that the neurosurgeon on call scraped out and replaced with a cadaver bone and a titanium plate. 

In addition to the smashed C7, I cracked C2, broke four ribs, my right collarbone and shoulder blade and my nose.  The worst obvious injury was my forehead peeled up at my eyebrows.  I got plastic surgery the same day. Neck surgery the next day. 

I was in a neck and chest brace until August 2, but I started walking as soon as I got out of the hospital and started running in June.  I was convinced I could still get back in the Army as long as that waiver took three months. 

Here's what I wrote on the second anniversary of my crash just a week into my deployment to Iraq.

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I flew in the chase bird on a few MEDEVAC missions in Iraq. Ten years ago, I was the on the back board and the cause of the MEDEVAC mission.