What I didn't do this weekend
Thursday after work I ran errands to prepare for my weekend biking trip up to Vermont with friends from my last job. I mainly ran to the grocery store to pickup some snacks and after ride refueling. Once back home I started to get all of the other supplies I needed. Helmet, check, backpack hydration, check, biking shoes, check, pedals, hmmm. You might wonder about pedals. Well the mountain bike I'm borrowing doesn't have any on it so I had to bring my own.
A trip down to the closet looking through my old and mostly forgotten spare parts bike box made me realize, I don't know where my pedal wrench is. Pedal wrenches are cool and do the job really well. Not having one makes for a PITA. The reason is that the threads on pedals are done so that as you pedal you actually tighten the bolt. If you haven't taken the pedals off your bike, which most people don't do ever, it's hard to get them off. A pedal wrench is big and designed to make that task much easier. Alas, I was without mine.
Digging through my toolbox didn't enlighten my mood. The best I was able to scrounge up was a pair of vice grips. The other nice thing about a pedal wrench is that it is very thin to make sure that you can get the pedal bolt and just that. The problem with a pair of vice grips is that they are not thin. In fact a pair of vice grips are too large to get around the bolt on my pedals. Time check 8:45pm. Doh! All the bike stores I could think of at the time had already closed or would be by the time I drove there.
Back in the car. Home Depot to the rescue. Doh! What size was the bolt? 8/16th 9/16th was it even American sized. Doh! Maybe 10mm? Let me think. My tires are measured in mm, most bike frames are done in cm. Time to look for metric wrenches. Gah, back to the size issue. $8 a wrench! Not the time to guess wrong. Oh, those are the really nice ones. $4 that's better, but what size. Blah screw it, variety pack it is.
The problem with a regular wrench set goes back to that torque issue. As I already mentioned a pedal wrench is big. About 2 feet long. This wrench, which took the biggest one in the set to fit, is only about 8 inches. Time to get on the bike, apply pressure on one side and yank, yes yank is the right verb as these bolts get tight. Right tighty, lefty loosey, 1, 2, 3, and go. I should note that my bike is in my trak stand at this point so I don't actually need to steady the bike while all of this is going on. Maybe someday I'll buy a bike work stand.
Pedals off, time to finish packing. Check the weather. Warm, cold, rainy, dry, windy, calm, it would be great if there was any similarity between forecasts. A clear case of over packing ensued. I'm pretty sure I took fewer clothes during my week long gaunt around Bangkok then I did for a day and a half of biking. Camping gear was next tent, sleeping bag, and mat. Don't need a stove. Man, I've been using this tent forever! I used to use this tent when my family took driving vacations around the country while I was still in middle school. I think this was the tent my dad used on his biking trips. Wow, what a trooper. In the car with everything else.
5pm time to jet. Traffic suicide is more like it. What was I thinking leaving Boston at 5pm on a Friday heading north. Of course the highways are going to be crowded. Mmmmm, Lamb, at least I've got good music to listen to. Out of Mass, into NH. When will this traffic ever end. Concord. Finally the traffic is easing up. Man I'm hungry, oh yeah, I should probably have dinner. Panera. Good food. Ahhh fake fire place with comfy chairs. That's a great way to spend a little time eating supper. Too bad I didn't notice that until I was on my way out.
I'm now in the middle of no where on 93 in NH and traffic is coming to stand still. WTF! A quick look to my right at the navigation system shows an auxiliary road that runs parallel to 93. 132 you are my only hope. Given the amount of traffic on the road, it must be right. What a fun 10 miles. It would be so much better to do that stretch in the daytime. Twisty, turny, up and down. A road made for driving a car like the Z on. Back on 93 and not a car in site, crazy backup avoided.
Finally made it to 91 in Vermont, not much further now. Turn on the wipers. Finally roll in a little before 10pm. Dark and rainy, always a bad combination to try and setup a tent in. The heel on my L.L. Bean boots is solid. Very handy for digging a little trench in the dirt to help divert the water running off of the tent's fly. Time to call it a night. Man, that rain is really coming down. Turn over. Wow, that rain is really coming down hard. Turn over. Ewwww! Turn over. Double ewww.
Plastic sheet, tent floor, sleeping mat, and sleeping back have all managed to fail in keeping the rain out. My sleeping conditions have now been compromised. 4am is not the time you want to be finding this out. Break out the flash light. Doh! The entire tent floor is wet. The sleeping mat has been wicking up the water and now my weight on the sleeping bag has completed the picture. My butt is wet. Retire to the car. Doh! Trying to sleep in the 350Z is like being on an airplane. Not that much leg room and the seats don't go back far enough to be really comfortable.
I'll also admit that I attempted to crawl into the trunk space and sprawl out there. That didn't work so well. Part of the reason was that I still had all of my other gear in the trunk and the tension bar cover kind of cramps how you can position your body. While those that know we well won't be surprised to know that I did fit in the space, it wasn't comfortable enough to sleep in. The driver's seat can recline further than the passenger's seat provided you remove the head rest and move the seat forward. The problem is that the steering wheel and pedals make it very uncomfortable. I ended up in the passenger's seat sideways, pretty much in the fetal position covered in my winter jacket.
Time passes and finally it's time to get up. Well more like I'm tired of trying to sleep uncomfortably and just read instead. Finally signs of life from other people. The rain also hasn't abated at all. In fact since last night it seems to have gotten worse. Raise the pop-up tent and eat some breakfast. The park has closed all the single track mountain bike trials for the day. Only two hours to Montreal.
Bus hitting car. Oh wait that was after the other car already hit that car. What the hell just happened. Car brakes and swerves, can't stop in time, hit by the other half of our group driving in the other truck. What the hell happened, hit car's driver turns around gets hit by bus. What the hell happened. Pull over. Wait. Wait. Hit car never shows up. Guess we are off the hook. Time passes. Don't know if it was an additive but my gin and tonic looked really cool under the black lights.
Wake up Sunday morning, still wet as a bath tub outside. Temperature much colder than I want it to be. Doh! Pretty leaves driving back. Time spent riding: 0.