Tag: bicycling

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Wednesday Night Ramble in Tiverton RI.  Six of us showed for this first Wednesday night ride of the season..Lots of Goldilocks hills. (Not too shallow, not too steep).  This and my daily ride around town gives me 27 for the day, which is my average daily miles for the month.

The summer tour is imminent but the route is still undecided.  I’m really leaning toward Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard for a short 5 or 6 day ride. West Virginia with the Rails to Trails group is still a possibility.

NYC Five Boroughs Ride.

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Riding in the Rain in NYC

Our team of 10 riders traveled to NYC to do the Five Boroughs Tour. I have to confess that I don’t know some of the team members, nor have I met them.  I only saw one of the nine others over the weekend and things did not work out that well for him. Did you ever stop your bike not unclip and fall over. Yea, me too.  It happened to Paul at around the 25 mile mark in Queens.  He is going into surgery today to have his broken hip repaired.

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Things were a bit worse on at the Red Hook Crit on Saturday night 10 seconds into the race when the pace motorcycle stalled.

Our ride started in a light rain and all the comments were how not so bad it was riding.  By 10 AM the F bombs started as the intensity of the rain increased. The last 10 miles on the Bronx/Queens expressway sucked.  Heavy rain, wind and almost all up hill. Everyone who finished was glad they did.  A lot never got that far.  I’m guessing the subways got crowded as people bailed.  I can’t wait for next years tour.

Did I make a movie.   Of course.

2016 NYC FIVE BOROUGHS from John Sullivan on Vimeo.

Nature Is A Symphony

The East Bay Bike Path bridge in Warren
Bridge over the East Bay Bike Path in Warren, RI

Today’s assignment is Water. Take a photo of water and write about it.
What better way to do so than riding my bike along the East Bay in Providence, RI.

You can listen while your reading. It’s soothing.

LISTEN TO NATURE from John Sullivan on Vimeo. Continue reading “Nature Is A Symphony” →

One Hundred Million Dollars

The day screamed for a long bike ride and I decided to cross the bridge into the city of New Bedford.  I ran into a fellow bike rider and invited him to join our ride on Sunday.  When I told him it would be around 30 miles he reneged saying his bike was only good for 20 miles or less. I mentioned that we stopped at a cafe half way through the ride, so it’s actually two 15 mile rides, which is well within his 20 mile limit.  He didn’t bite.  Continue reading “One Hundred Million Dollars” →

Driving To The Airport After The Snowstorm

Owen and Lucy in the Snow from John Sullivan on Vimeo.

Second Time Around Last February the kid came home to 3 feet of snow. His visit this year was a bit better. It’s always better on the second time around.

It’s still snowing but we are anticipating good roads to the Providence R.I. airport in Warwick R.I.  The people of Warwick are a bit perturbed that the airport in their city is called the Providence Airport.  The conundrum is that we will be driving during the evening commute.

The kid spent a few days in Massachusetts and was lamenting the lack of snow.  He visited last year and was hoping for snow and he got snow.

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He lives in Austin, where it’s probably around 80 degrees, so this is a treat for him.

Last June he booked and evening flight out of Providence, there were not enough seats sold and the flight was cancelled.  It was the last flight of the day so he had to fly out the next evening.  He is due at work at 11 AM tomorrow, so a canceled flight could be a problem. We’ll see how the flight goes today

A friend posted a photo online about looking at her bike and not being able to ride. I countered with a photo of my bike getting prepped to be ridden.

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Exactly The Same . Just Different

Can’t Stand Me

Play the music while your reading if you wish.

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My view riding to the gym.

I have a few bike blogging friends who have been riding in the snow for a couple of weeks. I  read their stories and shake my head thinking, I’m too old for that and really don’t feel like riding in snow.  I tell people that I might if it snowed, but didn’t really mean it. Well, it snowed last night. Continue reading “Exactly The Same . Just Different” →

I Love My FedEx Driver

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There was a beautiful box on my front porch when I got home from delivering my peeps. (The bell ringers). My original plan was to go to the show and see one of the newly released movies.  When I saw the box, I didn’t even bother to see what was playing.

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It didn’t take long to reassemble the bike as Sol at Austin Bikes took good maintenance_howtoinflateatire_valves_lgcare packing and marking everything for me. The tires have schrader valves, so I had to order some new tubes and will pick up or order a rear rack tomorrow.  All my pumps have dual valve attachments so for now the bike is ready to roll.

 

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Out of the box.
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Getting acquainted with the family.

Kodak Zx5 Video Camera

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I started video recording a lot of my rides a couple of years ago while preparing for my three state bike tour of West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. On a side note. two of us will be riding the Erie Canal, end to end in June of 2016.  We have done a few tours together and separately, and both agree, that the Erie Canal is such a sweet bike ride that we will do it for the third time.

My Kodak Zx3 worked fine for over a year.  One day it seized, and that got me to check online for solutions.  It was unanimously reviewed that it was a piece of junk, and to not even try to get it working again.  After months of on and off attempts, I posted on that same forum how much I concurred.

I wanted to video some of my rides again and found a good deal on the Kodak Zx5 that got much better review than the Zx3.  I do much of the recording while riding and that’s the reason I don’t use my smart phone.  Dropping that would get very expensive, and also the Kodak has a wrist strap and is much easier to operate than a Droid.

I also don’t use YouTube much. I much prefer Vimeo for many reason.  I also bought a pretty high end video software back then and kind of feel compelled to use it.  One of my favorites is HERE.  A ride in Provincetown MA, on the outer tip of Cape Cod.  Standing at the beginning of US Rt 6 that terminates in Long Beach, CA was very cool.  The dunes made me wonder if I was still on earth.  You’ll see it if you check out the Video.

Below is the unedited Zx5 in action.