Husband, father, coder, photographer, traveler.
Yesterday I accomplished a goal I’ve had for more than 2 decades: I biked my first century ride! I started within 30 minutes of sunrise, and finished 30 minutes before sunset, booking 101.2 miles by the end of the day. The mental game of forcing myself to slow down was tough, especially when I started running out of daylight! Had a great time!
The Vintage Computer Fest is free to attend, but difficult to leave without spending anything. I bought a Mac LC III and a lampshade iMac G4. Stoked.
Chicago for the Vintage Computer Fest Midwest this weekend. Can’t wait to check it out starting tomorrow.
Tonight I’m waiting for my dinner order at an Indian restaurant across the street from my hotel. Good ethnic food is one of the biggest things I miss while living on a small town. Really looking forward to this meal…
I’m surprised OWC went for the bonded Ethernet route instead of just using a single 25GbE interface.
Oh, and my rings for today are insane. With that many calories burned, I felt no guilt going to one of the famous all-you-can-eat chicken dinners here in Frankenmuth tonight. About an hour after finishing dinner, I felt like I was ready to eat again.
Boom, 75 miles in the bag! Met some awesome people, and had a great ride. At the end, I actually felt like I could do 25 more… ?
Thanks to everyone who supported me during this ride and especially for those who donated!
Last call for donations for the Bike MS ride I’ll be participating in tomorrow, starting at 7am! I’ve biked more than 1000 miles this spring and summer to prepare for this ride. Let’s goooo!
Bike training, week 19. I rode 70.6 miles during three rides.
One week to go! Starting to wind down the training to let my legs heal before the big 75 mile next Saturday.
If you haven’t donated to my Bike MS page, there’s still time! I surpassed my initial goal, but have a stretch goal of raising $1000 for Multiple Sclerosis.
Bike training, week 17: I rode 24.4 miles during 2 rides.
Week 18: One ride today totaling 52.4 miles.
I’ve had a couple of light weeks on training while trying to avoid wildfire smoke two weeks ago and an unexpected trip this past week.
I’ve got less than 2 weeks to go before the 75 mile ride! I need to take my bike in for a tune-up this week, and then get some non-intensive training in during the run-up to the day of the event.
I’m still raising donations to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for the Bike MS event: https://events.nationalmssociety.org/participant/mikepj
One reason for my bike training this year is that I’m participating in a fundraising ride for Multiple Sclerosis next month. MS is a disease that affects millions, and I want to help. Please join me by donating:
Bike training, week 16. This week I had a lot going on, and spent more time doing yard projects than rides. I only found time one day for a morning ride, and then went on a 60 mile ride yesterday. Total: 71.4 miles.
The ride yesterday was a lot tougher than the ride last weekend. I’m telling myself it was due to the temperature being in the 90s by the time I finished, but I feel like I still have some training to do before going 75 miles.
Bike training, week 15. I went on 4 rides this week, and this was the first time I rode more than 100 miles in a single week (103.7).
Today I went for a 61 mile ride and it went well. I was on a paved rail trail so it was great not to have to worry about traffic.
The question I pondered for quite some time: what do they do with the RR ties and tracks before making the bike trail? The tracks could likely be recycled steel, but that’s a lot of ties. Hopefully they are repurposed.
Spent all morning trying to figure out where a network call was originating from, only to discover it’s likely in third party code.
Bike training, week 14. I went on 3 rides this week totaling 95.7 miles.
Yesterday I completed a 54 mile ride. The intent was to hit an even 50. However, due to a lack of proper route planning I would have done closer to 60…if I hadn’t run out of daylight. I got a ride the rest of the way home at 9:30 last night.
For the first time I feel like I could do 75 miles if I needed to, so that’s a good place to be. The charity ride (details forthcoming) is on August 23rd, so I still have some time.
We just dropped off the kids for a week at camp. What did we do first during our week without parental responsibilities? Why go to Costco, of course.
After my bike ride this morning, I noticed my gravel tires are starting to wear out. I guess that happens after putting almost 700 miles on them. I might be able to squeeze 1000 miles before buying new ones.
In a few weeks I’ll starting avoiding gravel roads and be switching back to the OEM slick road wheels (which I took off the day I bought the bike). I’m starting much longer rides and it’ll be nice to reduce rolling resistance.
Bike training, week 13. We went camping this past weekend, so instead of fitting in a big ride, I ended up biking the 27 miles to the campsite. Yesterday’s 27 miles back will go on this week’s tally, but I was excited to average over 15 mph on the return.
Overall, I managed a total of 73.5 miles last week.
I gotta say, it was a lot easier remembering to post on Fridays when I used Saturday – Friday as a “week”. Since switching to the more common Monday – Sunday, I’m constantly posting late.
Bike training, week 12. After spending a couple of weeks in the mountains hiking more than biking, I got back in the saddle last week and rode 82.7 miles. I surpassed 500 miles on the new bike in the process.
On Saturday, I went on a 46 mile ride and that felt pretty good to complete. I have 8 more weeks of training before the big 75 mile ride. Let’s goooo!
So much of my early interaction with computers was shaped by Bill Atkinson. I can’t count the number of hours I spent on our Mac 512Ke in MacPaint (the first app I ever used) and later in HyperCard. The way those tools captivated me has strongly influenced my eventual career path as an app developer.
Bill is a legend. RIP.
Bike training, week 9. I was rained out a couple of times this week, but managed to fit in 4 rides totaling 90.9 miles.
Averaged 15.1 mph on my latest ride, which is equivalent to three weeks ago, except this time my average heart rate improved from 151 bpm to 143 bpm.
I’m in this stage now though where my natural workout is to go out for a Zone 2 ride and just kind of cruise at around 13 mph. I’m finding that I need to force myself to try and go faster, otherwise I won’t make progress toward my goal.
75 miles takes a long time to ride, and the difference between a 13 mph average speed and a 15 mph average is about 45 minutes saved overall. I really want my cruising speed to be 15 mph before I do the long ride and need to work up to that.