Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Sitting on the front porch watching the storm roll in.

This one just chased me home, twenty miles In a hour and 40 minutes

I won

20 miles in an hour and forty on a bicycle ain’t particularly fast, but most guys ain’t riding a bicycle ballasted to 80lbs with four gallons of water either. I rode out to the turnaround point through the hottest part of the day in full sun and was pretty well whipped. See, I put in 70 miles on the same bike yesterday, and was doing a follow-up today to see if anything hurt.

Got to the turnaround, opened up the weather app (97F) and damn, a developing line of storms about two hours out. Riding a bicycle in a thunderstorm ain’t fun, riding a bicycle home in the dark in the wet after waiting for a front to pass ain’t fun either.

Fatigue vanishes, the chase was on, for the last thirty minutes the front obliged me with a welcome cool and damp tailwind.

Doesn’t matter if I had help, I won.

Sitting on the porch in the wind, waiting on the storm, drinking the first watered-down Merlot of the season.

That’s the beauty of bicycles, they allow even old guys to be athletes

Sounds like good times Birdy. Unless it's a tornado then maybe not.

Mike, you weren’t worried about lightning strikes on your bike?

Front came through here earlier with a 30 mph wind out of the North. It was 96 before the front hit. Only 69 degrees now.

What's the advantage of water in the tires?

Just blew through here. A nice dump of rain to fill the catchment system.

Here all day the wind has been up and that means that the dirt was up in the air.

Sometimes you might not have been able to see the end of the porch.

Birdy, You must be in damn good shape, not just for your age but for any age. Keep on trucking and living life on your terms doing what brings you happiness. 👍

Do you have any international bike trips planned?....,or any major adventures planned for the summer?

Storm Front Training. Franchise?

No water in the tires, my bicycle is purpose-built for cross-country travel; relatively long wheelbase for stability and room, flexible steel frame and forks to soak up road bumps, front and rear racks to hold four back-pack-like panniers. Max load capacity 80lbs, I was packing about 50.

Adventures?

Ride his bike out of debtors prison and buy a car...and a hot water heater.

Mike needs his own reality TV series.

Yes. Yes he does.

If I lived in god forsaken Texas where the average year round temperatures are 150* I’d think a water heater would be superfluous. Just running cold water through the hot pipes probably gives him enough water temperature to take as long of a hot shower as he’d need. Air conditioning is an altogether different animal......he’s batshit crazy for not having air conditioning.jk. 😁

I don’t begrudge anyone for living simply and sometimes the stress of modern life makes me wish for simpler times. I figure to each his own and if Birdy is happy and content that’s all that matters.

As for me.....I need my truck, hot water heater, air conditioning (in Washington for a couple weeks a year) and a comfortable bed but I haven’t suffered the loss of my marriage nor do I understand pain that he has had to endure so my sympathy (I’m not sure that’s the right word) for him is borne out of respect for his resilience.

His focus on his children and his grandchildren are what I deeply respect. Birdy catches a lot ofshit here and is always a gentleman and I respect that as well. I’ve known people that had everything and more with respect to money and possessions and they were some seriously miserable bastards so I don’t judge a man by his car or water heater. I’d sure be willing to give being monetarily rich a try though. 😁

No doubt about it, Mike is an interesting fellow. And, he's pretty darn good with a muzzle loader. Glad to call him my friend.

I’m looking to hit the road this summer, west and north this time, ain’t making any promises because it depends on my knees, my back and my wrists. Ya actually don’t gotta be in that good of shape to do this, the trick is to just mosey along all day with as little effort as possible; 7 to 10 mph. Do that all day long like it was your job and you’re looking at 60-70 miles a day, ballparks to about 2,000 miles a month, God willing.

As Murphy would have it, this particular summer I can’t roll until the last week of June. Leaving me about 40 days.Also because of work and family commitments I haven’t ridden a whole lot over the past few months.

Besides trying not to get run over, out there on the bike all day ya gotta manage four elements; sun, heat, water and salt. Big hat, little exposed skin takes care of the first, Long sleeves long pants all of thin UPF 50 nylon takes care of the second.

The good news is going in cold, between yesterday and today I put in about 100 miles and I ain’t especially fatigued or hurting. Whether I could do this forty days in a row is a whole different story.

If I head west to the Rockies I gotta cross West Texas and Eastern New Mexico, 70 miles or more between water in places, 100+ F some days, heading against the prevailing winds, afternoon sun in my face.

Saturday, on a hot day (not quite as hot as I hoped) I drank about 1 1/2 gallons over 70 miles. 70 miles between water and I’d need to pack twice that as insurance, 24 pounds of just water. Didn’t think to bring salt (Lite Salt -50% NaCl 50% KCl), I was missing it by the end of the day

OTOH if I run north to run away from the sun and heat, Sturgis is only 1,200 miles from here, three weeks. I could brag to all them Harley riders that ya, I rode American Iron to Sturgis too..... a Schwinn But it’s flat and boring most ALL the friggin’ way.

So I dunno. My ex also has to agree to look in on my dogs and cat too. Hopefully not a problem, she stepped up big time on my NY and IOM TT trips.

Power went off at 7:25. Just now came back on at 12:50. We had 70 mph gusts here. Lost one big elm tree in bottom. Got 2” rain in a little over 30 minutes. Im going back to bed. Goodnight Mrs Calabash, whenever you are!

To keep expenses down the trick is to sleep out by the side of the road as much as possible. This prob’ly sound bizarre to folks here but a brief perusal of this place will make clear how common the concept is, i thinks there’s like 12,000 tour blogs on here now......

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?doctype=journal

What I won’t do that many of those people do is hop a fence line. There are three reasons for this a) trespassing is uncool b) I don’t want to get my a$$ kicked and c) I don’t want to get my a$$ kicked. Out of the headlights, in late and out early is all you need, small backpacker’s tent to keep the ‘skeeters and snakes st bay.

Anyhoo, this fall will be three years paying off debt, on track to clear it fall of 2020. OTOH if I live like this until the fall of 2022 I can pay off the mortgage too. So I’m looking at three more years like this, God willing.

I love watching light shows in the sky.

Drug mule?

Ah, I re-read, I don't know how I got water in the tires from that.