Two Ferry Ride, July 31, 2022

We headed out with plans to take a ferry across the river,  ride north, then take another ferry back and return. There was no elevation gain on this ride, unless we counted climbing the stairs at Fortmond. Rain had us cut the ride short, taking an earlier crossing than Henry had originally planned. We did find some lovely dessert near the en of the ride

 

 

 

The Castle Ride - July 30, 2022

Henry had mapped out various rides for the group. Neil, Mike, Henry and I would do longer rides, while Paula and Sandra would often drive out partway and do a shorter ride with us. The terrain was quite flat, as expected. It was easy for the group to stay together. There were times though that I wished for bigger gears than what I'd brought for touring in Ireland! 

Cycling is a lifelong national pastime here. It was Saturday and the paths were absolutely full of cyclists, many older couples out together, and lots of folks of e-bikes!

 

 

The Netherlands - July 29, 2022

Henry and Paula invited a few friends to join them in The Netherlands. Last summer, while visiting family, Henry found a house to rent an suggested a group trip. Mike, Sandra, Neil and I joined for this adventure. Henry and Paula had been in Europe for a while. He rented a van and would be picking us all ups at the airport. 

I spent the week prior in Ireland and flew in from Dublin. I ha arranged a flight that would arrive at a roughly the same  time as the others. Unfortunately, while waiting in a ridiculously long line to get through immigration, I learned that despite being EU, Ireland is not in the Schengen Area, which allows for travel between EU countries without a passport check. They did have a shorter line for folks with EU passports, which, of course, everyone else on my flight had! The others had flown through Spain and had no passport control. When I finally got through, my luggage was no where to be found, since everyone else on the flight had breezed through their short line. We eventually found everything and headed out. 

Once at the rental house, we assembled bikes, had dinner, an then headed out for a shakedown ride. Bikepaths are everywhere here, and when there is a path, you must use it. This would be our theme for the week.  

 

 

Back to Killarney - July 27, 2022

I took a round about way back to Killarney. I headed up Moll's Gap and then back over the Gap of Dunlop. Dunloe was crazy busy with e-bikes and horse carriages and walkers! Seems they kick the passengers out to walk the steep bits! Definitely check out the video!

I had hoped to stay at the same BnB I had a few days prior, but it was booked. I had booked another place and dropp[ed my gear there before headed out to the Castlemaine climb. 

Unfortunately the place I found was right on a busy road, with the room right at the front. I was uncomfortable leaving the window open, since it was right out to the street. But it was hot and noisy. So note to self not to stay here again! But it was handy for the train bright and early the next day. I'd take the train back to Dublin, pack up the bike and then fly to Amsterdam for the second leg of the trip

Priest's Leap - Jul 26, 2022

 Our friend, Dave Cain, alerted us to Priest's Leap, a few years ago, when he toured around Ireland. It's been on the list since. John and avid rode it a few months back, and now was my turn. First thing though was breakfast at Maison Gourmet. Then I'd find some proper Irish roads with grass up the middle and free range sheep. I even saw another lone cyclists, coming down the side I was climbing. I survived the climb, but was very happy I was staying in Kenmare for two nights and could ride it with less gear. I returned to town for a great lunch at my favorite French bakery and then take on another short loop before heading back to the BnB.

 

 

 

Killarney to Kenmare - Jul 25, 2022

John came over earlier in the year and travelled out west with David. They stayed at a BnB just outside of Kenmare that he raved about. So it was a must stay place for me. I reserved it for a couple of nights and then plotted a route via the Ballaghbeama Gap. This gap has featured on a few trips for us, so I knew what I was getting into. What I didn't expect was crazy traffic. Just after the pass, I saw an oncoming cyclists, then a speeding rental van, and another touring cyclist. This road is normally very quiet, but for some reason, lots of vans were here on this day. The day started wet, but sun came out by the end of the day. I found a great afternoon snack in Kenmare before making my way out to the BnB

The view from the BnB

 

Gap of Dunloe - July 24, 2022

After a day with family, Dave headed out with me briefly to catch the train west. It was a bit of a journey, with a change of trains, then finding the bnb, but daylight in Ireland lasts well into the evening, so I had time after arriving to take in a loop up the Gap of Dunlop. I was quite lucky to bump into a local who kept me company and showed me a lovely shortcut at the top. 

 

photos

Mount Leinster - July 22, 2022

This was my first trip after the pandemic started. I pack loads of masks, along with my bike and touring gear. A group of friends were planning to get together in the Netherlands for a week. That's too short for me to travel all the way to Europe, so I decided to bookend it with stays in Ireland. This coincided with my nephew's birthday, so I planned to start the trip in Carlow, see family, celebrate the birthday and then head to the west coast. 

John's sister picked me up at the airport and graciously drove me down to Dave and Siobhán's house. After my red eye flight, I thought about taking a nap, but instead decided to put the bike back together. It's been a while, and I ended up texting a few photos back to John to remind me which side had spacers a such. But I managed to reassemble the puzzle and then headed out for a short ride to check everything on the bike was right and clear my head of cobwebs. 

The next day, I set out for Mount Leinster, one of the toughest climbs in Ireland. It was a glorious day for it, with mild winds and wonderful views at the top. It was nice to do it somewhat lightly laden, as well.

Festive 500 - 2021

 

There is no such thing as fate, so stop tempting it

I often talk about superstitions  - the ones that you can't say out loud what you fear... or it will happen. But let me just state that I firmly believe in science. (It's sad that one actually has to state that these days!) I don't believe in fate and I know that I can't tempt fate by saying something out loud - or typing it - or even thinking it.

Despite all that, I have threatened to ban people from my rides because they insist saying something silly like, "At least it's not raining." Despite all scientific evidence that this cannot possibly cause us to suddenly get soaked, it almost always does. As a result, I practically forbid ride companions from evening uttering the R-word. See what I did there: cause and effect. You talk about rain... it rains... causing me to not want to ride with you again.

So given my reputation for this weather superstition, readers must have noticed me tempting fate by vowing not to write about yet another injury/recovery. Well, here we go again... I do promise to post way more about rides and tours, but humor me now as I write about my latest adventure.

In January of 2017, I was out riding my new fat bike and let's just say that I found myself in conditions beyond my skill level.  I recognized this relatively quickly and turned back. I was inching my way back down the icy rutted track and almost within sight of the end of the dodgy part, I found myself on the ground with a busted collarbone. It wasn't too bad. I walked most of the rest of the way back to where we started. I saw a surgeon and had it repaired with a plate and was back riding within a month. Eleven months later, the plate was bothering me so much that I had it taken out. Then three weeks after that I was reaching overhead to adjust a heat vent and it re-broke in the same spot. The surgeon who took the plate out was adamant that it had healed properly and that we couldn't do anything else until the screw holes fully healed. A second opinion suggested otherwise and after more downtime than I'd prefer, I got it repaired again, this time with a bone graft from my hip. A rubbery fibrous joint had formed at the original fracture site. This was cleaned out and bone and barrow from the iliac crest were packed in to form a basis for healing. The new surgeon put in a plate across the full length of the collarbone, and now we just get to watch it heal.

I had hoped to go home the same day, but woke in so much pain that I agreed to stay the night at the hospital, just so they could give me strong pain meds. While the donor site, the iliac crest is not weight bearing, it was extremely painful and I could barely stand up. I'm sure the surgeon had warned me that it would hurt, but I didn't realize just quite how much.

In the last five years I have broken my left collarbone three times. I fractured 4 vertebrae and crushed a fifth. I also broke 6 ribs. I have been treated for breast cancer, complete with a year of infusions and a bilateral mastectomy. Then last spring the osteoarthritis in my right shoulder resulted in me having no cartilage left at all, so I had a total shoulder replacement. 

When I got the shoulder prognosis, I bought a recumbent trike to enable me to ride without any stress on the shoulder. The trike was handy because it allowed me to safely ride through my recovery. While it was fun like a go-cart, it was also very hard work and I was thrilled after a couple of months to get back on my regular bike so I could keep up with friends and ride my beloved dirt roads and trails.

Maybe it's superstition talking, but I'd just packed the trike away in the basement when I re-broke my collarbone.

Needless to say, there has a lot of pain in the last 5 years, and my pain scale has been adjusted accordingly. I've also become way too familiar with pain medication.

But the current climate is one that is unfavorable for prescription painkillers. So despite the fact that I have some amount of pain everyday, I am completely off all painkillers and anti-inflammatories. 

Shortly after my latest surgery, a friend, who is also an anesthesiologist, sent me a link to an article about the experience of American woman in Germany, who had just given birth, and was told to simply take OTC Tylenol. The thinking there is that pain should be a guide/limiter. You should rest and recover.

The problem I have is that a lot of my pain is a result of weakness and I need to do some strength training to rebuild muscle. But those activities are painful. So where is the point that I let pain stop me, versus pushing through. 

The big problem for me is guilt. I can't rest. I have to ride or walk or something, because otherwise I'm just being lazy. I'm also not a spring chicken and after so much trauma in the last 5 years, each recovery is harder and harder, and each comeback fails to bring me to the level I was before. Do I accept it or push harder?

I'm still trying to find that balance. 

Festive 500 Furlongs

Since completing our first Festive 500 in 2011, riding 500km (or more) between Christmas Eve and New Years has become a yearly tradition in our household. Unfortunately, it has also become a yearly tradition for my annual Festive 500 story to be one about overcoming injury or illness. Well, loyal readers, have no fear for this post is not more of the same. Because this year's story is quite different. This year, it is about my epic failure.

It had a promising prelude. See, back in the spring, my sister-in-law phoned and asked us to sit down before she shared her news.  After 12 years, she and the fiancé had finally set a wedding date.  She then asked John to walk her down the aisle on New Year's Eve. My initial reaction was disbelief!

After all, they had been engaged for as long as I can remember. I'd finally given up asking if there was ever to be an actual wedding. But New Years Eve! Really? Surely they wouldn't make us travel at that time of year. Flights are expensive, airports are crowded and weather delays are inevitable.  But, most importantly - it's Festive 500 week! I mean, really, did she not know how this would impact our Festive 500, the challenge that Rapha promotes precisely to create family disharmony at Christmastime. 

It's already hard enough on marriages when the big credit card bills show up shortly after the black parcels arrive. If you have joined the Rapha cult, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

But then the evil folks at Rapha came up with a plan to get MAMILS out of family gatherings over the holidays by offering a ... well ... a woven roundel - a truly remarkable reward for riding 500km in eight days, up and down mountains, through cold, snow, wind and rain. And if the roundel isn't enough incentive, there is also a badge on STRAVA! And for the lucky one in a million, there is a grand prize of something like a jersey. Now surely the bragging rights alone are worth abandoning children and grandparents while testing the limits of traction on icy roads, but the roundel - well it's all about the woven roundel, right?

Fortunately for our marriage, those black parcels always seem to contain items for both of us and we both look forward to the annual challenge, often logging many kilometers together. We're also quite happy to have something motivational to do over the holiday week. While others obsess about roasting turkeys or the best recipe for stuffing or shopping or gift wrapping or getting a new big screen TV, we are poring over maps, deciding which route to ride each day, and then doing laundry each evening while sorting through photos.

Living so far away from family, we've never been faced with the risk of alienating any of them by spending the week riding bikes. But now - a family wedding intruded on our unconventional holiday tradition. John quickly came up with the peace-keeping idea of heading to southern Spain for 10 days before the big event. We could actually complete our Festive 500 kilometers in mild sunny conditions. No studded tires! No need for fat bikes or moon boots or down jackets! And no risk of frostbite while taking photos! After a nice holiday in Spain, we could just stop in Ireland on our way home and attend the wedding on NYE. 

This sounded heavenly to me. I went online and ordered a case of sunscreen.

Alas, fate intervened. 

Rewind a bit. 

Last December, just before the start of the annual challenge, we bought fat bikes to help us stay sane with all the snow. We even logged some of our Festive 500 kilometers on the new fatties. 

Then in early January, while out riding in less than ideal conditions, I went flying over the bars on a icy rutted descent and landed face first on a very thin layer of snow hiding a rock that took precise aim at the middle of my collarbone. 

It wasn't a bad break, but it would be enough to keep me off a bike (and skis) for the winter.

Luckily I got a plate put in and was actually back to riding after a couple of weeks. I even managed a few days  on x-c skis near the end of the season.

Officially a Coffeeneur

The Coffeeneuring challenge turned seven this year!

Coffeeneuring is a take-off on randonneuring, with a whole host of arcane rules, but it is fundamentally about riding bikes and drinking coffee and taking photos. This is precisely what we do. All the time. NeverNotCoffeeneuring! Yet somehow, despite the fact that we #alwaysbecoffeeneuring, we have never officially taken part in the challenge.

But then last spring, after John and I both found ourselves convalescing from busted collarbones, Mary, aka @coffeeneur, sent us a couple of AlwaysBeCoffeeneuring patches. While we were injured, we were not to be deterred from our constant quest for coffee, photos and activity. So we simply walked to coffee shops, because ya know, #alwaysBeCoffeeneuring.

 

So this year, when the challenge rolled around, we decided we really should make an effort to do it officially and properly earn those patches.

For those of you out of the loop in the coffeenuering world, the challenge is to ride to seven different coffee shops - No problem.
The rides must be at least 2 miles - No problem.
Only one coffee shop per day counts - Bummer, we can't complete the challenge in a day.
Maximum 2 per week - Bummer, we can't complete the challenge in a week.
The challenge ran for approximately 6 weeks from October 13 to November 19.

The tricky part for us was to pick just two rides from each week to be official, and to keep track of which coffee shops we counted as official, so as not to repeat. We pride ourselves on not doing the same rides over and over day after day - we explore a lot and cover a lot of ground. And we go to a lot of different coffee shops. But in a 6 week period of time, we may visit the same place more than once.

So now I have to pick 7 from fifty!

Vermonster 2017 - Day 4

The final day was the downhill day. Look at the route profile at the bottom of the page and you'll see what I mean. Sadly after surviving all the climbing on day 3, Kait's stomach rebelled overnight and she felt too sick to ride and called for rescue.

So we were down to four.

Unusual for us, we did have a brief climb at the start, but this helped warm us up as it had gone quite chilly overnight.

But then we got to coast along for hours... Well not really, the guys hammered downhill!

Vermonster 2017 - Day 3

Day 3 started with a chilly descent, because we always end the day with a big climb.  And what goes up must come down.  No fear though, we warmed up quickly on a long steep climb, because what goes down...

And this pattern would repeat over and over throughout the day.

When SadiB, my alter-ego on ridewithgps mapped out the day, it was clear that it would be a tough one. I had wanted to take a more westerly route than last year, but the trick was to find a place to stay within a reasonable distance from Woodstock. A friend has a place near Prospect Mountain, but every route I came up with to go there was too long and also involved more main roads than I'd like. At some point, while scanning the map, I realized Mount Snow was a reasonable distance. As a ski resort, we might have some hope of finding reasonably priced accommodations in October. Sure enough I found a B&B that had a large room that could take 5 people for not a lot of money. John and I had ridden all around the area before and had a few must-do roads both north and south of Mt. Snow, so I mapped out the final two days as one route, taking in roads we knew with just a few new-to-us sections. The climbing ratio was the typical 100 feet per mile. So it seemed a 75 mile day would be long, but doable.

However when Kait broke it up into the individual days, she pointed out that 75 mile day had well over 9000 feet of climbing.  It should have been obvious to me since ski resorts are on top of mountains.  At least the next day would have a lot of downhill! Since Kait expressed so much concern about this day, I jokingly subtitled the route - Kill Kait.

Vermonster 2017 - Day 2

Vermonster continues, now with 8 riders. Dave and Nancy planned to join us for one day. They had just returned from a tour in Japan, and had literally reassembled their bikes the night before. Injury had prevented Nancy from riding last year, but this year she planned to take advantage of her fitness from the recent tour.

Daniel joined Kait and Caleb on the train up Friday night. They had a mild evening to enjoy a short but hilly ride from Montpelier up to Waitsfield.

The route profile for the roads John, Jamie and I took from Burlington looked pretty benign, meaning we all had relatively fresh legs.

But now we would face some proper (SadiB) Vermonster terrain, rolling up and down along a ridge, before a climb to the highest elevation for the weekend, then a long fast descent followed by some choppy climbs to finish the day. Now I am allowed to say this, today, a month and a half after the trip. At least we had better weather than last year! So  folks could enjoy the magnificent views along the ridge, and have fun playing with cute farm animals.

This section of the route was suggested by Dave. It was a bit rougher than the pristine dirt roads SadiB had picked, but it served to properly break in Daniel's brand new bike. When you have a new bike, you need a good story for the first scratch.