Seriously, Meat Tenderizer

It was Mom wisdom (my mother’s) that lead me to meat tenderizer, not for cooking though. I don’t care for it in cooking. I use it for insect bites. Some doctors will laugh at you for suggesting it, but it is in the recommended treatment listed by Johns Hopkins here, and there’s a simple explanation. Meat tenderizer breaks down protein. If the venom is protein based the meat tenderizer can help. If you get stung or bit by something with venom that isn’t, it won’t.

Riding on the Silver Comet, and other places I occasionally get stung. I have a pretty significant reaction to wasp bites. Last time, I looked like I’d gone in for over the top lip fillers, and the bright redness on my pale skin was impressive. I was bright red and swollen and smarting for a week. You know how it is when you know it’s going to be okay in the end, but in the mean time you want to scream and crawl outside of your skin? Bigger than “normal” reactions mean that at any time, the next sting could be worse, possibly anaphylactic shock level worse, and epi pens might not be a good solution for me because I have Raynaud’s Syndrome.

It hadn’t been happening terribly often, so when it did, I found myself looking for Benadryl and meat tenderizer after the fact. Finding unseasoned meat tenderizer last minute has been nigh impossible. So, I ordered straight papain (an enzyme from raw papaya that is the active ingredient in some meat tenderizers). It’s expensive, but not as expensive as a Dr., or hospital visit when you don’t have health care coverage. I put together a kit with papain, a Band-Aid, Benadryl and sanitizing wipes for my bike bag and put the remaining papain in my freezer.

I got stung yesterday. I was mad when that paper wasp lit on my leg and stayed till he stung me, not scared, mad, just like the time I flipped over my handle bars. The flash of anger wasn’t over the potential pain. It was the anticipation of possibly being debilitated. Did I have my kit? Of course not! It’s mid-March! I had taken it out when I cleaned the bike bag. I thought about getting it back in, but it’s March! I wasn’t rushing.

So, I cut the ride short, called Russ to tell him to pay attention to whether he got my “I’m off the trail” message and headed to the car. It was swelling and red enough that I thought any trail user who looked at my leg would notice from a distance. Before I got to the car, it was really stinging and my toes were tingling. I was concerned. My kit was in the car. I had gotten it that far. I mixed my “good stuff” pure papain with water from my water bottle, applied it, covered it with a cute Welly bandage (because they stick so well) and took a Benadryl. About 15 minutes later the pain was seriously decreased, and another 15 minutes later I called Russ and told him things had become a non-event, that he didn’t need to pay any special attention to a call he might receive from me. I took Benadryl last time and was miserable for a week. The difference this time was the meat tenderizer, the good stuff, not the grocery store weak sauce.

It used to be years between stings, but now I’ve had 3 in less than a year’s span. The kit will stay in the bag now, or I won’t ride. I stopped for an errand on the way home. Another wasp brushed my arm. I backed away, pulling my arm back, thinking WTH? Where are these guys coming from?!?! I think I’ll put together a kit for my purse too.

Tuesday Trippin’ January 2024

For a little extra cheer, my MIL Tongue or Snake plant in bloom*

January had a lot of “more of the same” as December, but also some differences. We’ve had temperatures colder than my tolerance, some with rain in 3, 5 & 10 day runs causing the dread interruptions that really mess with my equilibrium. I’ve been better at staving off the exercise endorphin highs and lows with the stationary bike. Some time back, my grandson built me a computer deck that attaches to the stationary bike, so I can write while moving. I’ve really gotten good use out of that. I spend a lot of time multitasking.

These monthly updates for the project are going to change a little. They were originally designed to give a progress report in prep for our Kickstarter goal, as keeping supporters up to date on progress is a requirement. The best way to establish that you’re willing to do that is to start, and be consistent, especially when you’re unknown to the market, like us. I’m still going to be consistent and it may well still lead into a video.

But, in recognition of a few things, this segment will become more about what I do to stay healthy as I age. One reason is that the video project is feeling more distant to me now than it ever has, at least in its current form. I’m not so sure I need to put my body through two century (100 mile) rides a week anymore. It might even be more interesting to more people if the video project became more accessible. If people can see themselves doing a thing, it might be easier for them to get behind it. In addition to that, we all have bodies, and we are all aging, no matter the current number is, it’s getting bigger. Some of my posts may be specific to women, but half of us are female, so that’s fine.

I’ve been following Gurdeep Pandher. Sometimes he shows up in my feed just when I need the very stress reduction that he wishes to share. When he does, I take the time to click and watch him dance, and I receive that gift. Sometimes it’s just simple dance. I think I get the easiest attitude adjustment from those bits, and that is really nice. But then, sometimes there is a lot going on, like in this cultural fusion video, and that’s it’s own little trip. I’m going to count following Gurdeep as the first way I share to stay healthier as I age.

Following Gurdeep has helped me in another way too. He recently released a video about positivity. It’s a hoot! I recommend you watch it. It’s less than 4 minutes long, but he says it took him a year and a half to put it together. After scrambling to put our video together, starting from scratch and jumping around hurdles along the way, I believe that. What’s more it helps me cope with some of my feelings of failure and helps me to keep going.

So, there’s our change up, and we’ll see where our new slant on the old direction takes us.

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

* I bought this plant from an estate sale. The pot was huge, not garden variety huge. I mean really HUGE. The man who sold it to me was afraid to let me carry it down the stairs from the back deck. I wasn’t completely sure I’d make it myself, but it had belonged to his wife and he wanted it to live. When I got home I wasn’t able to get it out of the car alone. I’ve since divided it into so many smaller pots and given them away to a lot of people. The plants divided from this pot are the only ones I’ve ever had that bloomed. I’ve figured out that at full bloom, they last less than 24 hours, so I snapped this picture last night when I saw it.

Acknowledging the Great Big Giant Elephant

Did you know that motivation follows action? It stinks. It should be the other way around, right? High action individuals never need to notice because there’s always action producing endorphins and feeding inspiration. Like the desire to ride a bike. It springs naturally from the endorphins you got last time you rode (unless you didn’t). Endorphins from any action make you want to repeat and receive the love again, a circular pattern that feeds itself until something breaks.

You have to start the cycle though. I think of it like the pull cord on gas powered lawn mower. For strong people, starting is thoughtlessly easy. But, I can’t reliably pull fast and hard enough to make the motor turn over and get things going. Russ mows and now we’ve gone electric. But, before we got the electric mower, I was never going to be a reliable second, unless someone was home to help me start the mower. There are so many ways we are each other’s safety net.

Why it Matters

Difficult starts and interruptions kill momentum, break the inspiration/action feedback loop and lead to rough stretches. Missing targets leads one to avoid the pain of failure. And there are so many things that also need doing. Unlike my example, sometimes someone to help you start isn’t enough.

I’ve literally been trying not to write this post for years now, (Russ read and approved more than one version). It seems important to address the elephant in the room, though.

We’ve been planning the video cycling project since before the pandemic, writing about it here, postponing our deadlines, moving slowly toward promoting it and kicking ourselves over delays for stated and unstated reasons. Still, we haven’t submitted to the funding process. There are a few reasons that go beyond insecurity and fear of the test. There’s stress we’ve been up front about. Then there’s that stress we talk less about, absent some details for privacy (not just our own). Often it feels like the real problem is too many responsibilities.

A meme in my feed recently said “I hope you win the battle that you never tell anyone about.” I liked it for the kind wishes, but I liked it so much more for the acknowledgement that most people have more to deal with than what they let others see.

Russ, the Giant Teddy Bear

Russ is the glue that holds our family together. The problem is that Russ hasn’t been ok. He wants to be. He’s called it a “funk”, but if it was just a funk, we’d be funded and done with the project, and on to something else.

Russ has been down hard and fighting for air. It’s difficult for people who have never suffered depression to understand. I’m down pretty hard right now myself, and I don’t even understand, not as deeply as he feels it. It’s a very lonely place to be.

In the absence of healthcare coverage, we tend to research the most legitimate information available. After Russ discovered that “freeze” had been added to the “fight or flight” scenario he recognized it as his stress response. “Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn” is the current full list of threat responses.

It makes so much sense for these more recent threat responses to be recognized. “Freeze” isn’t always such a bad coping device. It’s is the opposite of rash. It prevents every mistake except inaction. Inaction creates its own problems though, and “freeze” may be the hardest stress response for outsiders to recognize as any kind of a response at all.

And then…

Depression and anxiety are more challenging with added stress and the world reached new levels of being turned upside. In middle school, I remember wondering what it was like to have brothers and cousins on opposite sides of a war (like the US Civil War, or when families were divided by the Berlin Wall). People everywhere are reflecting on that again. No one really knows how deep the current rifts and chasms, both near and far will get. Many people are too distracted, busy or stressed to let themselves think about it.

Thinking about these things makes a positive outlook harder, but ignoring them has different risks, and depression happens regardless of how one handles stresses. The kind of widespread pain experienced during the pandemic overloaded the collective psyche while Covid crushed hospitals worldwide.

Our private and inner worlds were challenged and stressed before the world became so “stranger than fiction”. It’s no wonder that we’d come up with a project to help others increase health and deal with stress when there’s little or no money to throw at the broken healthcare system in the US.

Our personal challenges haven’t been at bay during the 20+ years we’ve been together. For a while our outlook was promising. But, the recession hurt, other things happened, and we made some choices that were what we needed to be doing for family, but they involved one of us being under-employed for the last 10 years. That wasn’t helpful for our financial recovery, or financial security moving forward. No regrets. None. But, it did add to the stress load.

Deeply Personal and Different for Everyone

Some people didn’t think the pandemic was even real, and others were confused about what to think. Repeating a history so reminiscent of a pandemic 100 years ago made it even harder to grasp in a modern world. Russ was convinced he was likely to die. Between preexisting conditions, his lack of health care coverage, his essential worker status, his now longer hours, and his exposure through work and living conditions, his known risks were high.

There were so many unknowns, a lot of bad information, a lot of bad acts. Denial and irrational fears were amplified by ugly politics. Extraordinary stress is hell on the immune system. Boom, another risk factor! Russ didn’t die, but his fear was not irrational. It was a recognition that this thing few people knew how to deal with was a bigger risk to him, and that many people who were unconcerned had an uncomfortable level of impact on his risk factors.

It didn’t grip me like it did Russ, but I wouldn’t have said with confidence that I expected to live through it. Our household included exposed “essential employees” and school children, as well as people who were reluctant to follow recommended procedures. I was in a higher risk age group and also without health care coverage.

Some of it was Surreal

Most people had surreal experiences. The most important bit of security anyone gave us during that dark time was when my Aunt met me in Birmingham with a refurbished oxygen accumulator. Meeting her was an eerie trip. The streets were empty. I went to the interstate on an 8 mile, divided 4 lane. It’s normally slow and go, with heavy commuter traffic. But, I wondered for a while if I would see a single car along the stretch. I went through every traffic light,16, I think, and none of them turned red. Under different circumstanced you’d wish for something like that.

There were still very few people on the interstate. I wondered if gas would be available and how strange things might get, especially when I saw a military convoy headed who knows where. We met. My aunt gave me the machine, a package of disinfectant wipes, some laundry sanitizer, and a snack. She was taking care of me while she was taking care of me. Times like these are when people show you who they are.

There was gas. I got home. We were able to order hoses for the oxygen accumulator. Thankfully, no one needed it. But, the peace of mind it provided, knowing that if Russ, or any of the 8 family members who lived in our house before it was all over, went into respiratory distress, they could at least get oxygen as long as there was electricity. That was more priceless than any Visa commercial. Caring stands out when tragedy has become so ordinary for so many. Others not caring left it’s mark at times too.

Russ eventually caught Covid and later caught it again. Thankfully, it was after vaccines were obtained and treatments were developed. He made it through with care that cost hundreds of dollars that we had, instead of hundreds of thousands of dollars we didn’t have.

Mom had her dark experience just this summer while in rehab after a fall. There was an outbreak. Mom had been vaccinated and had good meds. Getting Covid after things were better made all of the difference for her. The quarantine was scary and some people didn’t make it, but Mom did. We recently celebrated her 90th birthday.

Four weeks back, I had my round with Covid. I was the last person in our house to catch it. I wondered if all the cycling gave me micro exposures that boosted my immunity, but never made me really sick. Or, if how often I wash my hands with housework was the reason. But really, who knows?

The pandemic was like life in that everyone is going through it, yet every person’s struggle was/is unique. So, I don’t know what to do, or write, or how to explain it when things aren’t on schedule with the project. Some people adapted, put things out quickly and leveraged all the change (for better or worse).

Some people have bounced back with double energy. Me? I still don’t know if continuing to pursue the project is what I should be doing. Can my dream really make a difference, or should I do something else. I know the project could help us, and others. I know he/we can do the job, but can he/we get the job? (flip on Joe Versus the Volcano intended).

One Step Forward

The risks were real, and some remain. The depression was and is real. We do a lot of DIY. It’s great that we can. Russ fixed a frozen pipe in the house before it became an insurance claim, but we’re not working on the project while he fixes our pop up problems, or someone else’s. It has all been big, real and debilitating, and I’ve had my own stuff to deal with too. Russ has been there for me in so many ways, but in others, I felt alone. He wasn’t present in the moment, or ready to move on. He spent a lot of time ruminating on fears he had no control over. He’s not mental health care averse, but there’s nothing in the budget to cover it.

It was so incredibly important to have income during the pandemic. It was important after too, but Russ lost his employment in January. Just as it seemed like things might settle a bit, boom, again! He went from “essential employee seeing a light at the end of the tunnel” to lost. Russ has made the most of his 6 jobless months in some ways, but in productivity, he froze. If he could retire to stay at home and cook and play with the grandchildren, he’d be in bliss, and he might be faring better if that were possible. Ironies abound. Not needing to pursue anything could loosen the stress and free up the mind space to… pursue anything.

And Then, Again

With all of this, we’ve come to and temporarily past the point of cancelling the project so many times. As much as we want to help anyone who’s interested in our project to get stress relief, escape, fitness and/or entertainment value from the project, there’s also a self-interested aspect. The project will have significant demands and stresses, but it will also do the things that we want to do for others for ourselves as well. It would lessen the impact of not having healthcare coverage (unless one of us has an accident riding).

We could benefit from a year of the heavy duty riding that is part of the project, letting all those demons work themselves out as we peddle. I hiked a lot when I was going through my divorce. I’d head for the woods, and after a day on the trail, whatever was weighing on me when I left had mostly lifted. It would be nice if Russ’s six months of unemployment had given him a head start on that, or progress in any form it might take, but that isn’t how it happened. Russ really does have a freeze response to threats. (And I have attention deficit, but, that’s another story).

I’m enough of an introvert that not being ok through the isolation was a real surprise to me. It piqued my interest in forming relationships and I desperately want to accomplishing things. The project is a two person job, and doing it without him wasn’t a step I was willing to take. I would ride and write to keep the project alive, but I still spend a lot of time feeling like I was alone or in hover mode. Recently, I started just doing things. It took a lot for me to just say I was going to do something and invite him along rather than asking what he wanted to do and make a joint decision. I didn’t expect him to, but Russ came with me. Most of the times I’ve really need him to, Russ has met me at least half way.

Things are getting better. Russ is working. It’s a financial band aid for our personal life and a mixed blessing for the project. I say band-aid because at this point, if both of us were working, that would just be a bigger band-aid. Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as other rich nations and still have a decreasing lifespan with poorer care. My healthcare.gov quote for next year was over 22K per year, even though I’m physically active, and some covered years I never went to a doctor… Seriously, in the last 10 of the years that I was covered, I don’t recall ever meeting a deductible. That’s rate is hard to accept.

Seeking employment that would move me toward having disposable income, or eventual retirement, rather than just paying for insurance for part of a catastrophic health failure requires that I get not just full time work, but demanding employment. Age and sex discrimination is real and my hodgepodge background doesn’t help. If I were lucky enough to get employment that would benefit the family rather than just cover personal health insurance, it would also require abandoning some other responsibilities I have been taking on, but how confident am I that I can get through another year without catastrophic coverage? If I had the coverage, would the cap be below the cost of whatever health failure I had? Riding a bike, even if it were a new high end bike, may well be the biggest healthcare bargain there is.

The T-Shirts

With all these questions and challenges, we’re taking a side step into t-shirts. We have a theme and hope the T-shirts will have at least as much positive impact as we want the video project to create, as well as some needed financial relief. After that we’ll re-visit the trail video project. Hopefully the t-shirt project will produce enough income to make up some of our losses and then, perhaps, to allow me more time to pursue the video project.

We’ll see.

Tuesday Trippin’ October 4

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

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

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

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?

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?

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

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.