Tag Archives: Karen Goes Cycling

T-Shirts!

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The Big Picture for Our Side Step into T-shirts

The bigger trail video project we’re working on has always been a good idea that could be a real benefit to us and others as well as a long shot (with respect to getting the word out and getting it funded). We’re so ready to do that. There’s the matter of paying for everything though. We’re not ready for the successful funding campaign that has to come first.

We’re intentionally making the video project low impact, so when considering supporter rewards for the video project, we considered a t-shirt, but decided to make all the rewards digital. First, because “no reward” support levels are often close to the same price point as “t-shirt reward level” support options. That can cause a supporter to think “Well, it’s basically free, I might as well go ahead and get the shirt.” When a person chooses a shirt that way, they aren’t necessarily that interested in wearing it. It may go straight to a thrift store, or worse, it might even get round filed before it ever gets worn. Fast Fashion has big environmental and human costs so we didn’t want to offer clothing that might not be used.

The shirt is never actually free either. There’s a real cost of production. For every t-shirt reward the project has a real monetary cost and needs more supporters to meet the project budget, which produces even more t-shirts that may never be worn. But when things changed, we came to the idea of doing a t-shirt as it’s own project, one that people would buy because they wanted to wear it.

The Hiccup

When Russ lost his job, he broke the news with the joke that he’d have plenty of time to work on the project. In truth, the newfound freedom could be potential stroke of serendipity that would make everything work out for the best, and things may still work out that way, just not yet.

The job loss blindsided Russ, and we needed to reassess personal threats and potentials to see how much actual freedom we had for the project in stress mode. We went in a few directions all at once without knowing what to prioritize. It doesn’t help that I’m so overdue to be earning something. Ongoing family obligations, the pandemic and the project have tacked years on to what would have otherwise been a short stint of time away from paid work for me. I don’t have any regrets about choosing to help family, or pursuing the project, but the financial downside to those choices has been life changing. I’m not excited about all of the changes those choices brought. The price is high.

As much as I need focus, direction, progress and movement right now, Russ has needed time. It’s just a really good thing that we love each other because we’re not in the same place and it feels like love is all we have right now. We keep recommitting to the project, but the challenge is how to get there from here without having epic failure rock our world.

Part of our reassessment has been to answer the question “Would the sale of a T-shirt ease the financial pain, or just delay the project?” With all the competing time obligations and the pressure to move forward with the project itself, we’re already swamped. But the answer seems to be that we should give it a shot… if we do it right.

As a frequent thrift store shopper, I see Kickstarter rewards in Atlanta area thrift stores from time to time. Don’t get me wrong. Just because a reward made it there doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t a worthy item. But, if a lot of any given item makes it into the mega dumpster out back, that, of course, would be a different story.

We’re willing to offer T-shirts as a stand alone project because people wear them. People wear them a lot, and T-shirts are only fast fashion if they have a short life cycle. Even if they make it to the thrift store fairly soon they’re only a waste of resources if nobody ever wears them. So we’ll do our best to create and offer a t-shirt that people will want to wear and use, responsibly sourced shirts that last well and can be recycled or up cycled.

I can’t wait till we have them ready to show you! They’re going to be great!

Tuesday Trippin’ February 7

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Training

We’ve had some good rides, getting better too. Today I was actually warm enough to want to take off a layer. I think we’ll be riding at the same level soon, but it won’t last long. Russ will pass me by. That’s fine, he’s the stronger rider when we’re both riding regularly. We’ll soon both be out of winter level riding mode and shortly after that will be riding out target 200 miles a week. We won’t be so concerned about getting those miles consolidated into just two rides until the project funds. Health wise, more shorter rides are good. Two hundred-mile rides is for making the project/rest of our lives work. Fantasy Island, we’d live in the middle and spread the rides across more days.

Planning and Prep

We’re doing our best to rebound from the getting laid off curve ball. Russ and I had opposite reactions and coping mechanisms. We were both oversaturated with one thing after another, but I wanted to move into hyperdrive on the project and have it submitted before his last check. He did a lot, but he also needed some time to regroup. We’ve been moving through the transition together and trying to balance short term, long term, project and non-project goals. It’s been real, but I think we’re moving into a good spot. It will make more sense to talk about some of the things we’ve been working on when they are ready.

The Sale

For some time I’ve been planning the sale of stock that was originally intended to be listed in our Etsy Store, handmade, vintage and antiques. This week I worked in the basement a lot separating things that I still want to list from things that increases in shipping cost have made undesirable to sell online. I’m rechecking market prices on the items I’m packing for the trip to the driveway. Handling the boxes dries my hands even more than doing dishes!

Originally, I was hoping to make enough to advertise the Kickstarter Funding Campaign. Then a lot of other things happened. A modest goal of $5K would require selling 1000 items at $5 each. My target sale price would be half of recent Ebay sold prices without shipping. I have plenty of stock and that represents about a 75% discount over what ordering on line would cost, but that’s still pretty ambitious in the greater Atlanta market. If I have too much left over afterward, I’ll head off to some flea market on the first feasible weekend.

We’ll see. We also have some big ticket items in storage, like a vintage St Charles kitchen that we paid to salvage ourselves from a tear down. It is really special. A guy drove from Kentucky to get just one piece of it. Selling that alone could meet some significant goals and we’d like to get out of the storage unit. Whether you adopt Marie Kondo’s pre or post children philosophy, it seems crazy to keep things you have to pay to store. But, adding to that, the storage facility was sold to a company that likes to raise rent often and now it’s nearly double what we paid when we signed the contract.

So, there are a few different ways the sale could fund one or more of the unexpected expenses that have hit recently and we might even eliminate a storage rental fee. Worst case, it forces me into better organization.

So there’s our week. See you on the trail, and have a glorious day!

Tuesday Trippin’ January 17

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The hits keep coming. The car died. I’ll get to find out sometime tomorrow if it is worse than a dead battery, and Ill get a second opinion on that 5K of work that the dealer recommended too.

If you ask me now how things were going to work out, I wouldn’t know how to answer, or even what to base my guess on.

We got more riding together this week than we have had in some time. That felt good, and helps to deal with stress but that wasn’t as much for me as I was getting a month ago.

We went out to the area between Coots Lake Trailhead and Paulding Forest to test signal strength. Ting was better than AT&T, but both were limited. I’ll probably put the images of the readings up next week.

I have no idea if our submission task list will be complete in a useful time frame. This week has been mostly more of the same as last week, but with continued intense frustration over wanting to be upbeat and positive, but not having bigger progress to report here.

Until next week, have a glorious day, and we’ll see you on the trail.

Tuesday Trippin’ October 4

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The Riding

When I wrote the draft for this post, I started it talking about how It feels really good to be back riding on a regular schedule and I’m really grateful for the time I’ve been able to spend on the trail. Well, it turned out to be a resistant strain and now I have the big deal antibiotics that come with warning about increased risks of things like an aortic aneurism. I might not survive that if happened while riding miles away from my car, and can’t afford to have treated with my lack of health care coverage if I did.

That risk is increased with exercise. That big long multipart warning sheet didn’t say how much exercise increased the risk or by how much. Regardless, I plan to reduce the risk as much as I can by as much as I can in those things I have a choice about. My exercise until the drugs are out of my system will consist of walking to the bus stop to collect a grandchild.

Having significant illness, enough to disrupt my training schedule for some time, is a little unnerving right now, but the break is needed. i’ve been sleeping 9+ hours lately, very unusual for me.

The Video Remake

We need to rerecord the audio for the intro vide. Not everything in the old one is up to date. I’ve written and rewritten what I have to say. I’ve spent hours reading and re-reading, looking for rephrasing that cuts out words, but still communicates. Then doing it again and asking myself if it will hold attention as long as it should. Letting time pass and taking a fresh look at things again. I think it’s ready now, but I’m waiting on my voice to return to normal. The audio needs to be the base, and the pictures and video all needs to come in at the right time in the audio. I hope by the end of this week I’ll be hiding in my closet for the sound absorption and talking into the mic.

That’s about it for today, happy trails.

We’re Doing a Safety Video

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Normally, when I get up for the Sunday “twenty miles and home before anyone else gets up” ride, the crowd hazards are pretty light (now that the Pandemic overflow appears to be waning). Then, some rides I think if I only had cameras running already, I would have the entire safety video shot in one ride. Today was that day, the one with boat loads of opportunity for the video. If Russ had been with me, he’d have called out “DA alert” several times.

I said “Hello” or “Heads Up” intently to at least 3 adult riders coming at me in my lane without looking. The little kids who didn’t stay in their lane don’t count because It’s our job to look out for them. But, on that subject, there was the Mom who’s kids moved over right when she said, just like she said, but Mom didn’t have the dog on the leash under control, so I still had to stop and then Mom still fussed at her kids for “not getting over”.

Then, there was the guy who was playing music loud and weaving at first, but he got straighter as I approached. I called out “Passing on your Left” twice, really loud to be heard over his music. He straightened up in time for me to pass him and then turned left off the path right in front of me just and I pushed hard on my peddle for the pass then quickly followed with the brakes. I’d be surprised if he ever knew I was there.

And, there was the woman who was weaving and texting. She was all over the place and riding so slowly she was having trouble keeping the bike upright. I caught her on the fly and she was still on the phone, but had at least gotten off the bike. She gets kudos for that, but she was standing on a paved strip at a sharp “s” curve on a hill. It was right where people who get surprised by the curve turn out to avoid crashing into others. Some days…

So, the safety video will be our little thank you to everyone. Hopefully it will be fun and funny. All the people who support us will get a link with a short update when it’s done. Unless they opt out for some reason I can’t imagine, even the people who choose to support us with no reward will get this.

Tuesday Trippin’ May 10

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Training wise, last week was significantly better than expected. Weather lined up for me to ride immediately before and after, and the break was only 3 days. In April the break was 4 days and we had 3 days of rain immediately before. We walked about 3 miles on a trail during the April trip, but I didn’t take hiking shoes. I ached from unusually low exercise when I got home.

I mentioned the need to shift over to walks for recovery exercise just before this trip. We ended up dong that. The Pensacola Bay Bridge is under re-construction, but the pedestrian-bicycle path on one side is complete. The bridge is 3 miles long. The first night we walked about a mile and a half. The second, we walked 5 miles.

Russ on the Pensacola Bay Bridge

5 or more miles is the length of walk I originally planned for recovery walks. That may be a touch on the long side, but I used to be able to do 5 miles pretty easy at any time without prep. Lately though, I’ve done more yard work, which technically qualifies as recovery activity I suppose. But, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve even walked around the neighborhood with my granddaughter on her scooter. I’ve been spending all my cardio time on the bike. The bike is awesome, but I need to make myself walk for the change in activity too.

I really wanted to walk the whole bridge in both directions, just because it seems complete, but when I looked back from the 2.5 mark at how far away the starting side shore seemed, I decided to turn back. I could have made the extra distance, but in the end, I was glad that I turned when I did and Russ was too. I expected soreness the next day, but there was none and my feet felt really good, like a bit of cross training was the thing I should be doing.

I’m not sure what I will settle on as the right distance for a recovery walk, but on the bridge with all the wind, it seemed more like a primary exercise day, which was fine for that week when I had less opportunity to ride. Some sources say 20-30 minutes is enough for recovery. But, more could be needed after a century ride than shorter forms of exercise. The key will be in how the rides are going. As long as my body feels better and my stamina is not reduced, it’s likely the right amount of recovery exercise.

If the recovery walk is shorter, it will fit better into a still photography day than I first anticipated. That may not reduce my project hours any, but it should improve the photography rewards. It is easier to carry a camera on a walk that only needs 20-30 minute intervals of elevated heart rate than one that needs 1.5 – 2 hours.

The Silver Comet and Chief Ladiga Trails are not alone. There are beautiful hiking trails on both ends of our project, including portions of trail that may be added to the Appalachian Trail. I’m excited about the potential.

I’m going to leave it here for this post. I’ll put some of my other thought in separate posts. Have a glorious day and we’ll see yo on the trail.

Tuesday Trippin’ March 22

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Well, the website is down and my sysadmin is in the hospital with his wife and new baby. There are no reported problems at WordPress. I don’t know when he’ll get to finding out what’s wrong, so I’m writing my post in a word document and hoping that my site is backed up, or that there is some small problem that won’t require much time or long to get to. And, when all is said and done, I’ll get over the embarrassment of not knowing if the site is being backed up and know for sure, and hopefully that won’t be knowledge painfully got. Since I don’t know, it’s a total fail on my part if I’ve lost all that I’ve written there for…. How many years? Some of those years I totally skipped though…I’ve only ever been consistent since I decided to pursue this video project.

I’ve been looking back at last year’s posts to guess when this year’s blooms will happen, so I don’t miss the flower shots I want to take, and we’ve still been taking extra shots of all kinds to make the introduction video better. Our base video was taken in winter. It’s a good time to ride (sometimes), but I want year round shots in the video about my year round project.

That baby my sysadmin and his wife just had is my granddaughter and while I can’t wait to personally greet the newest addition to our family, I am not at all ready for the 8th person in the house to come home today.

As busy as everything is, I also made some personal time. My son remembered that we made Ukrainian Pysanky eggs when he was young and asked if we could do that this year. He thought of them as Easter eggs when he was young, but this year he wants to be sure to make some that are yellow and blue, like the Ukrainian flag. I got my first supplies at The Ukrainian National Home in Hartford CT back when we lived there. I couldn’t find a similar brick and mortar place to walk in locally. I have a Ukrainian friend who might have been able to help me, but it was one of those 2AM things where, if I was going to be up that late, I was going to check another thing off of my list. I bought from shops that were actually run by people with Ukrainian heritage as much as I could. Some of the things were out of stock though, and part of my supplies will come from Amazon.

Originally, we did the whole egg method where the egg just dries out gradually, and you and your nose hope that you never ever break one. This time I’m going to try to find Goose eggs to blow out. It will be an adventure, both because I’ve never decorated bigger eggs or empty eggs, and because I’ve never eaten duck eggs. Have you ever seen an Emu egg? Those things are gorgeous!

The Cycling Part

The season is here in North Georgia, for cycling, photography, anything you’d like to do out doors. Our predicted last frost this year is March 30, but there haven’t been any overnight lows below 32 in the 10 day forecast for a week. I’m slowly putting some of my potted plants outdoors and the pollen is about to blow up. The humans trying to be smarter than nature is to blame for that being worse in urban areas than it is in the countryside. It’s counter intuitive for people who realize that most pollen comes from trees and crops. Here’s the article I usually link on that.

We were relaxing a bit over the winter with few rides when the temperatures weren’t comfortable. Building back up can cause stiffness in older riders and pain like plantar fasciitis. Absent an app that I like, I’ve been setting phone alarms with titles like “plantar stretches, sit ups, dishes” When it goes off, I’ll leave the computer to do those things. It’s been working pretty well to keep me on target and my plantar pain is not as bad as it has been at other similar times.

That’s about all I have for this week. See you on the trail!

The Two Trails Together are 94.5 Miles Long. Why Do You Talk About Riding Centuries?

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Short answer? We’re going to ride from east of the east end to west of the west end, or the other way around.

On the east end we will start at storage units, hopefully the ones 2 miles from the 0.0 marker will have availability when we begin the project. If not we’ll go for the next closest place with availability.

On the west end we’ll have a cool down period (or slow down depending on the weather). We’ll stop at a storage unit on that end too, unless we end up with accommodations that provide storage. In which case, we’ll stop there.

We can know that we will be riding at least a hundred miles, but not exactly how many until the details are set.

What Will you Upload?

I expect the upload to include at least 95 miles. We’re going to upload trail miles, primarily pretty miles at regular speed before cool down. On the east end the trail goes on and looks trail like for a bit east of the 0.0 marker. We will include that in the upload.

Both trails will be extended. I don’t expect that to effect us, or even be finished during the term of the project. But if it happens while we are riding, we’ll consider adding on the extra if they add to the project. There are some roadside miles in the middle of the trail that run beside a heavy traffic highway but on either end we’re not likely to upload road traffic areas even if we end up needing to ride in them ourselves.

Why allow $992 for Water?

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I mean, we would drink water whether we were riding or not, right?

It’s the little things that kill your success, but not in the “Forego avocado toast and you can have a McMansion” way, in a more real way.

Yes, we drink water straight from the filter on the fridge when we’re home. Water on the trail has to be planned though. Hydration is critical.

The fountains on the Silver Comet are always turned off in the winter, from well before danger of first frost until well after danger of last frost. I don’t get this. It takes more than a frost to freeze a pipe, but that’s how it is. Since the pandemic, the water has been turned off year ’round.

When the fountains are on, I would likely fill at Tara Drummond, Cedartown and the Chief Ladiga visitors center on the state line. Water availability becomes more sketchy as you move west and, if you started on the east end, that’s when you’re tiredest.

What can you get for $992 on the trail? That’s a $4 allowance per rider per ride day*. That may be generous on average if the fountains come back on for part of the year, but the rest will come from some other bucket in the budget if they don’t.

Casual riders can decide on a ride to ride basis if the nominal cost of going out on any given day fits easily inside the resources they want to use. But, when making a commitment to ride twice a week every time it’s rideable for 62 weeks, accounting for all of the places where you will drop a grand is as critical to a successful project budget as hydration is to a healthy ride.

*There’s no allowance for training days because we can carry enough for most of those days.

About the Intro Video

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The intro video is completely home grown and shot cell phones. I shot some footage, but Russ shot most of what we used, then edited it on Kdenlive. He is self taught with the help of instructional videos and learned it for this project. He learned Audacity for this project as well.

The intro video is all shot with one of three Galaxy S somethings. The trail ride base (or background ride) was shot using Russ’s Galaxy S10+ with a DJI OM5 gimbal stabilizer. I haven’t checked to see if any of what we used for other parts was made with my old Galaxy S8 Active. Anything I shot after July when I bought the S21 Plus that I wrote about here was taken with that phone.

Using the gimbal was interesting. It was useful to reduce the shakes and bumps and it looked cool and weird mounted to the handlebars with the phone attached. I was riding behind Russ watching it operate. The phone looked (and was) vulnerable sticking up from the handlebars. The gimbal looked slightly organic in its undulating battery operated movements. It was attached to a GoPro mount that was completely stable, but didn’t look like it. Later I shot some of my own and the movements look so much bigger on your own bike.

Riding through the puddles in Brushy Mountain tunnel was a bit scary. Not only do the device documents tell you not to drop the gimbal, they say four separate times not to get it wet, unless it catches fire. If it catches fire, you are supposed to put the fire out with water.

Riding through the tunnel, or any other puddles, I can slow down and reduce the chances of getting the thing wet, but other riders may or may not. After riding with it for a few miles, the handle had rotated and I was afraid it had loosened and might drop, so I took it off. I wasn’t able to get it to turn off though. I removed it from the handle bars and then took the phone off of it.

It wiggled at me as if to say “Where’s my phone?” The two clamps on the disc made it look like the face on a puppy or Grogu shaking its ears to get them dry. I shoved the handle in a pocket in my bike tights. I hoped the device would get separation anxiety there and shut down. The moving part was free, so I didn’t expect it cause any problems if it didn’t and It had shut off by the time I got back to the car.

We chose to shoot with the phones and gimbal instead of the equipment that we plan to use for the project because, even after buying the gimbal, it was the least expensive way to achieve a usable introductory product. We’ve made similar choices with other things along the way.

We will switch to GoPro Hero 10s for the project to get the rugged durability, better image stabilization, the ability to stream one camera and the weatherproof qualities. The GoPros and other equipment we plan to use for the project is not harder to use. Switching will not be difficult once more appropriate equipment is funded.

Most audio was recorded with an external microphone. I set the the Mic on a tall stool in my small walk in closet for the dampening, and set the laptop on a big box of fireworks (we’ll have to use them to celebrate when we get funded). The box was about as tall as the mic, so I was able to read the script I wrote without having it draw me away from the mic. I sat down in the doorway and leaned in and up. We wanted it all a little bit high so it helped my diaphragm and projection. As a set up, it worked reasonably well. Beside needing something written to keep me as brief as possible and on track, my untrained voice was our biggest challenge. Winging would have been nice, but the video would have been long and winding. Russ also took audio off some cell footage I took of Sandhill Cranes wheeling above.