Bike Share Bike Fun - The Recap!

Alrighty everyone out there, here it is, the recap of my adventure from a few weeks ago.

It's me, walking to the bus.

I set out on foot about a mile to the bus stop for the local bus with a dedicated lane. It took a while, but it has the advantage that it has a ticket kiosk so I don't have to fumble with change I don't carry.

After sitting and waiting for a while, it arrived, I hopped on, and sat down, ready to be whisked away into town. Upon approaching the downtown area, I hopped off as soon as I was near a bike share, ready to select my stead.

A post shared by Matthew Rooks (@skinnyrook) on Apr 21, 2018 at 12:56pm PDT

Upon reaching the station, I selected a bike, fumbled around in my pocket for my phone to look up my account number, entered it, and hopped on. I say hopped on, but in reality, it was more like, wow, this bike is heavy, how do I get it either, A, not aimed straight off the sidewalk, or B, in the street where I shall be riding it?

The next few blocks were spent liberally raising the seat at every light, just to try and get it high enough. And at another light, I learned that yes, one can track stand one, though it certainly is not easy. Gaining a feel for it's weird wobbliness, I aimed it towards the top of the nearest hill, because why not? Cycling is all about climbing for the sweet descent.

A post shared by Matthew Rooks (@skinnyrook) on Apr 21, 2018 at 1:01pm PDT

And, I made it! I must say though, that's probably the toughest hill climb I've ever done on a bike, just due to the sheer weight of the thing. Upon barely catching my breath, I hopped back on, wishing to prioritize saving money over saving my body, and sailed down the hill, being much less fearful of that descent than the times I've done it on a fixed gear.

Finding the closest docking station, I shoved it in there, locked it, and began the slow walk back to the bus station, to recover whatever fraction of my lungs were left. All in all, a painful (thanks gastritis), but fun experience.

Bike Share Bike Fun!

Yesterday, a new bike share program launched here in the city of Eugene. My weekend plans involve finding one and going for a ride. I'm going to make it more interesting, however, by hopping on the bus, which I've taken probably less than a dozen times, ever. Why? Because I can't drive or ride my own bike to the bike share. Both would be weird. So I'm going multi-modal, and am going to have some fun with it.

Food Reviews - Coconut Water

Coconut water is one of those things I consume because it helps, not because I like it. It's pretty neutral pH, so it does a decent job combating bouts of acid reflux. I'm not the biggest fan of coconut in general, so the water without pulp is certainly preferable. There's an odd tang, but I'm not sure that's the correct way to describe it. It's also not exactly the cheapest drink, so I don't drink a lot of it.

Bike Fun - Errandonnee 2018 - Updated

My stomach is still holding me up somewhat, but I heard of Errandonnee 2018 while listening to last week's episode of the Sprocket Podcast at work.

Basically, the goal is to complete 12 errands and 30 miles by bike in 12 days, from March 20th to March 31st. You can read the full rules over at Chasing Mailboxes.

I'm a little late to start, and haven't followed most of the rules properly, like taking a picture of where I went, but was curious how I was doing, even being held back, and definitely not riding as much.

I'm also going to stretch the rules slightly, because several of the trips were on a longboard, since my stomach prefers not being crouched over very long.

Currently, I'm at:

1. 3/21 - A bike ride to the grocery store, 3.7 miles
2. 3/24 - A longboard ride to a coffee shop, 1.2 miles
3. 3/24 - A bike ride to the pharmacy, 1.7 miles
4. 3/25 - A walk to the grocery store, 0.8 miles
5. 3/25 - A walk to a nearby bike shop, for a talk on bicycle touring for beginners, 0.2 miles
6. 3/26 - A bike ride to drop something for medical reasons, 1.4 miles

So there, it's currently the 27th, and I'm halfway there by activities, but only about a third of the mileage done.

Unfortunately, I've got plans that can't include the bike today and tomorrow, so I'll miss out then, but we'll see about Thursday the 29th. It is good though, to see that my ability to be active certainly seems to have picked up, however slight. Maybe I'll have to create for myself a modified April Fool's version, from April 1 to April 12.

--Update--March 29th--

7. 3/29 - A bike ride to a kitchen supply store, grocery store, and drug store, 3.7 miles

Still not entirely close on either distance or trips, but I'm certainly doing something. Although I had some really bad reflux earlier in the day, and it definitely messed with my lungs and their ability to function correctly.

--Update--March 30th--

8. 3/30 - Another bike ride, this time to the bank to deposit a paycheck, 4.3 miles

I forgot this was even going to be a possibility. Surprise paychecks because you weren't paying that much attention to the date are great though. It was nice, sunny, I was still dealing with more reflux problems, and also trying out a new heart rate monitor.

--Update--March 31st--

9. 3/31 - Another grocery store trip, 3.7 miles.

This is the last trip of the group. Another grocery store run.

--Conclusion--

9 trips, 20.7 miles. So far, I didn't manage to meet either the goal of 30 miles or 12 trips. But, it feels good to know that I still made it out on the bike much more than I thought I would.

Food Review - Avocado and Turkey Sandwich

This grew out of an attempt to replace the cheese in a standard meat and cheese sandwich.

Of everything I've done so far, it's definitely my favorite. It's pretty simple too. Just make whatever sandwich you normally make, but with avocado instead of cheese.

Currently, that's avocado, turkey lunch meat, and mustard, all on sourdough bread. It looks good, tastes good, and will 100% stick around for the future.

Food Reviews - Silk Dairy-Free Blueberry Soy Yogurt - Update

Part of my dealing with gastritis is learning that dairy doesn't mesh well with some of the drugs they've given me to help me cope. As such, regular yogurt, while full of lots of good bacteria that could help my gut, became off limits. As such, I've been on the lookout for something to fill that void in my diet. This was one such attempt.

It's a soy based yogurt. I thought it tasted pretty good. In a taste test, without regular yogurt to compare it directly too, I didn't notice much of a difference. This is good, because I still don't enjoy alternative "milks."

So, would I buy it regularly? Probably not. It's not exactly cheap, compared to regular yogurt. Would I eat it again though? Yeah, I'd eat it again.

4/3 Update

I've since also tried their strawberry flavor. I'll stick to the blueberry in the future.

Gastritis

A couple months ago, if I had been asked who my biggest enemies were, I would've probably jokingly said something like cars, or bad drivers, or inattentive drivers. Something having to do with the people I have to watch out for while biking around. For the last month or so, however, I'm going to change my answer.

Why am I changing my answer? Because my current enemy doesn't seem to be a big fan of either coffee, or bikes. I started this blog to ramble about coffee I've drunk, with the side notion that maybe I'd find a way to sneak bikes into it as well. And now, I've got very little to talk about either.

For the last month, I've basically been kept from both by gastritis. Basically, something caused me to develop a hole in the mucus membrane of my stomach causing a bunch of pain and difficulty eating. One big dietary change everyone says is to cut out coffee, so that was gone almost right away. Followed by a nasty few days of more head pain, as I had to force an immediate caffeine withdrawal on myself.

Biking went along with the eating difficulty. Normally, I was eating about 2,600 Calories to maintain weight while cycling. Now, 2,000 is a pretty good day, and 1,800 is average, and 1,200 is survivable, but miserable. The exercise just isn't sustainable. Previously, I was at 20 miles a day, commuting to work, running errands on the weekend, for fun, for transport, and just because I felt like it. Now, if I just feel like it, I have to be prepared to feel tired and exhausted for the rest of the day. I can't physically eat enough to maintain my body, and add the exercise.

So, for now, I'm taking it one day at a time, adjusting everything as need be. Eating the weirdest, and at the same time, most boring diet I've ever had. I'll probably have to pivot to sharing interesting bike content and weird recipes I've found or made work.

Movie Time - CocoraVelo

Sometimes, you find footage on the internet that fits in so well with the theme of the blog that you can't help but share it.

This is a short documentary about a bikepacking trip to Colombia, with the purpose of learning about how coffee is grown and produced.

COCORAVELO | An All The Places Original from All The Places on Vimeo.

In addition to the video, check out All The Places' Instagram. They've got some photos, behinds the scenes footage, and mentions of future travel documentaries.

Thanks to The Radavist for sharing this in the first place.

Coffee Plant Roasters - Nicaragua Mama Mina

Sometimes, calling these blog entries "Now Drinking" is a bit of a mislabel. Sure, it's the bag of coffee that's currently open, but I'm not really drinking it. That's not it's fault though. That's on me. Coming down with the flu for the second time in a winter, after having the flu shot, does wonders on messing with one's body, and in an attempt to try and deal with some of the headache and anxiety, I've cut my caffeine intake off for the time being.

That said, here's what I started drinking two weeks ago. For once in a long while, I managed to make it off work soon enough to stop in at Coffee Plant Roasters. While there, I picked up this coffee from Nicaragua, the 1st Nicaraguan coffee I've mentioned here.

This coffee all comes from the Mama Mina farm, with more info about the farm here.

Roasters Notes: Clean, semi-sweet, with pleasant notes of nuts and citrus

Once again, I've not actually recorded my taste experience. Sorry. That's what coffee with the flu is like. I wouldn't be able to figure anything about the taste out anyways. I can, however, tell you that it smells good, since I've got the bag right here besides me, since I saved it to remember the tasting notes from the roaster.

Close Calls and Cameras

It's been almost 3 years since I began regularly commuting by bike. After a bad crash in early summer last year, and some close incidents, I purchased an action cam and bolted it to my handlebars. Some of the footage from it has been funny, some frustrating.

However, I'm still trying to decide whether the footage is useful. All that exists after the incident is a short clip. Where someone driving a car does something stupid, followed, usually, by too much loud swearing from me. Every close call just sits on the hard drive of my computer. Where I can watch, rewatch, and only just feed the rage back into myself. Why? I don't know. Is it mentally healthy? Definitely not.

So, with that out there, I'm just going to share a moment from my night time commute. It's probably the closest miss. Mostly because of the speed, and how much I had to actually react to avoid it.

It's those moments, where I wish autonomous cars were here long ago. And then, I'm reminded that even systems designed to keep cars from running into things have problems.