Just Ride the Bike

I'm Patrick, now somewhat old, formerly young, from Indiana. In 2013 I posted here about my across-the-USA bike trip, and it wasn't the last; from 2014-17, I did shorter stuff like Indiana to Washington, D.C., and capped it off with a backpacking trip. This blog is (was?) mostly original writing and photos, with few reblogs or random gifs and seemingly more punctuation than the average tumblr! But at least there are pictures ...

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Kayaking rivers, or hiking next to them. These shots mostly show the White River in central Indiana. One photo, at the top, is of the Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, a whitewater destination.

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2021 hiking at Westwood Park near New Castle, Indiana.

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Hiking and mountain biking in various central Indiana locales: Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park and Rangeline Nature Preserve.

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Hiking at Mounds State Park, Anderson, Indiana, during winter 2020 and spring 2021.

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2021 and, to a lesser degree, 2020 have been my attempt at a return to bicycling. Here's a bit of proof.

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I spent two weeks in May hiking the length of the C&O Canal Towpath from Cumberland, Maryland, to Washington, D.C. It was a nice change of pace from riding the bicycle. 

At times I felt a greater sense of freedom as a thru-hiker than as a bike tourist. It’s just me, my feet, and whatever I can carry on my back—no machines involved. 

At one point, I deviated from the trail and walked about eight miles of rural roads; at the first junction I encountered, with four different paths leading to unknown wherevers, I felt an almost euphoric feeling of freedom. It’s one I never feel living the sedentary life. That’s something to ponder.

(The above iPhone photos were improved by using the Google app Snapseed.)

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The danger of civilization, of course, is that you will piss away your life on nonsense.

Jim Harrison

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Skin Patch for Bike Touring?

This would be interesting to use on a tour. Try it at the beginning and end, and measure the health benefits after many weeks of bike touring.

An edited excerpt of the story by the AP below: 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Researchers are creating a skin patch that can test those droplets while people exercise and beam results to their smartphones, possibly a new way to track health and fitness.

It's almost like a tiny lab stuck to the skin — and a study published Wednesday found it worked on sweaty bicyclists, sticking even during a long-distance race in Arizona.

"Sweat has biochemical components within it that tell us a lot about physiological health," said John A. Rogers, who directs Northwestern University's Center for Bio-Integrated Electronics and led the new research.

For simple fitness purposes, it could give an early warning that it's time to replenish electrolytes before someone starts to feel dehydrated.

How it works: Stick the patch on the skin and start moving. Tiny channels collect perspiration and route it to different compartments where it interacts with chemicals that change color to reflect sweat loss, the perspiration's acidity level, and concentrations of chloride, glucose and lactate. Together, those measurements can indicate such things as hydration levels or electrolyte loss. Hold a smartphone over the patch, and an app takes a picture of the colors and interprets what they mean

(Photo by The Associated Press)

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Go Look at a Tree!

Just looking at trees produces “significant recovery from stress” within five minutes, according to a Texas A&M University study.

— “Does House Landscaping Increase Home Value?”

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Photos (Part 3 of 3): Bicycle touring on the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal Towpath trails through Pennsylvania and Maryland, late October 2016

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Photos (Part 2 of 3): Bicycle touring on the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal Towpath trails through Pennsylvania and Maryland, late October 2016

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Punk rock on the Montour Trail. 

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Avoid Maddening Drudgery in Life, or Pay the Price

An interesting excerpt from a book I’m reading, 100 Million Years of Food, by Stephen Le:

Several researchers have suggested that part of the reason that our pets are getting more obese is that their lives are boring; psychologists have also noted a connected between human obesity and boredom. Also, obesity rates are high in “boring” jobs that involve a lot of monotony (like driving trucks, cleaning buildings, factory work, and even construction jobs) and low in occupations that might seem sedentary but are intellectually stimulating (professors, teachers, artists). …

[A] key issue may be how energy is allocated within our bodies. Energy can be stored in fat cells, but it can also be used in powering the brain. People who have higher IQs and more education are at lower risk of becoming obese. It could be argued that highly educated people are less obese because they learn in college that low-fat foods are less fattening; however, groups like the Maasai traditionally ate a lot of fat in their diet but remained thin, and public perceptions about dietary fat and getting fat is not exactly a secret hidden in college campuses. …

An alternative explanation for the link between intellectual activity, boredom, and obesity is that the energy that could be channeled toward fat cells may instead be channeled toward fueling the brain, if the brain is occupied with challenging tasks. When we engage in mind-stumping tasks, our glucose levels drop. In other words, “mental effort” is more than a metaphor ; it takes energy to reason intensely. …

As societies have become more peaceful and orderly over the decades and centuries, the day-to-day drama of finding food and a place to sleep at night and avoiding predators and disease has been eliminated and replaced by the safe but predictable routine of television, cars, computers, offices, factories, shopping malls, supermarkets, stationary bikes, and treadmills. Being free from the threat of assault and disease is a remarkable step forward for our species. However, the challenge of surviving the wild has been replaced by the challenge of trying to stay awake amid maddening drudgery, and all of this drudgery may mean fewer calories getting used by our brains and more ending up stored in our fat cells.

An interesting hypothesis, and seemingly a Roadie-approved book:

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Photos (Part 1 of 3): Bicycle touring on the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal Towpath trails through Pennsylvania and Maryland, late October 2016

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Taking Amtrak with Your Bike, Now Made Easier

There was some big fun news that came out this week, but I haven’t seen many people get excited about it, and that’s just crazy, because ... 

Amtrak has added train-side bicycle service to lots of its cross-country routes! That means it’ll be so much easier to use Amtrak in conjunction with bike touring, either long-distance epics or much-shorter trips.

Nine trains are receiving this upgrade, but the five that caught my eye are:

California Zephyr—San Francisco Bay Area to Chicago, with notable stops in Salt Lake City, Denver, and Omaha. I took this train most of the way home at the conclusion of my cross-country tour in 2013. (Most of the Zephyr route is shown above in the screenshot.)

Southwest Chief—Los Angeles to Chicago, with notable stops in Flagstaff, Albuquerque, and Kansas City. 

Cardinal—Chicago to New York, with notable stops in Cincinnati; Charlottesville, Virginia (which is Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway); Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; and Baltimore. 

Texas Eagle—Chicago to San Antonio, with notable stops in St. Louis, Dallas, El Paso, and Tucson. 

Sunset Limited—New Orleans to Los Angeles, covering some of the same territory as Texas Eagle, with a unique stop in Houston. 

If the expansion runs smoothly, then this is a huge deal, the possibilities are endless, etc. Now you won’t need to box a bike, take off the pedals with a pedal wrench, remove the handlebars, and rely on a local Amtrak station to have bike boxes for sale, as well as have them in stock when you need them—a sometimes dicey proposition. 

The trains listed above join a few other Amtrak trains that offer box-less bike service. Many are short or medium-distance routes linking major cities up and down both coasts. The two big east-west lines that I’m familiar with are the Missouri River Runner, which I rode earlier this year when touring the Katy Trail; and the Capitol Limited, a Chicago-to-Washington, D.C. train that has become a favored transit option for people riding the country’s premier actually-go-somewhere-and-avoid-cars trails—the Great Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal Towpath—from Pittsburgh to D.C. Until now, non-bike-box trains have mostly been a regional amenity. Now we have a major national expansion to include numerous cross-country trains.

Exciting travel scenarios that come to mind:

Live in Chicago? Take California Zephyr to Denver or Grand Junction, Colorado. Pedal all the way to Albuquerque. Take Southwest Chief home. 

Live in St. Louis? Bike to Kansas City, most of which could be on the Katy Trail. Take Southwest Chief to southern California. Ride the Pacific Coast route to San Francisco. Then take Zephyr most of the way home.

Live in Indianapolis? Take the Cardinal to Charlottesville, backtrack 20 or so miles along the TransAmerica Trail to the south entrance of Shenandoah National Park. Ride the scenic (and hilly) Skyline Drive northward, and link up with the C&O trail near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. From there, bike southeast toward the nation’s capital and take Cardinal back home. Or ride northwest, experiencing nearly the entire GAP and C&O trails, to reach Pittsburgh. From there, Capitol Limited will get you most of the way back home. 

Still live in Chicago? (Amtrak’s main hub appears to be in Chicago, so it’s really convenient if you do live there!) Take Cardinal to Schenectady, New York, and link up with the Adventure Cycling Association’s Adirondack Park Loop for a less-traveled tour. 

Or mix and match these routes and trains to explore a great swath of the country. The possibilities have opened up vastly. 

Like everything in life, it’s not all perfect, Here are three downsides:

You will be able to board or exit these trains with your train-side checked bike only if the stop offers checked-baggage service. Checked-baggage service is standard at stops in larger cities, but most small towns along the train lines are not full-service stops. This limitation will drastically restrict travel options, although I believe the possibilities are still great despite it. You can research on Amtrak’s website or use Adventure Cycling’s incredibly handy interactive map to figure out whether a stop offers checked baggage. 

The bicycle fee is $20 per steed per trip, which is kind of steep and could add up fast. But it’s a bit cheaper than buying an Amtrak box and paying the checked bike fee ($25 total). And, of course, it’s less expensive and less of a hassle than stepping foot in an airport (with or without a bike, but especially with!).

Some of the train arrival and departure times are very awkward. Want to leave Indianapolis and travel east on Cardinal? Boarding is at 11:59 p.m. Just want to go to Cincinnati? Your bike fee ($20) will eclipse the passenger fee (low of $14), and the train stops in Cincy only at 3:17 a.m. Even if you can live with the altered sleep schedule, it’s not exactly convenient to roll out of a major city on a bike at some of these times.

Still, I’ll gladly take the imperfections in exchange for a major upgrade for people who want to combine their bike and train travel. Here’s to hoping this works out as well as it could!

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‘If you don’t challenge yourself, you don’t know yourself’: Words of Wisdom from ‘SEAL’

I recently finished reading a book called Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet. It’s by Jesse Itzler, who has a diverse background as now-super-rich entrepreneurial businessman, an owner of the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA, ultramarathoner, and former rapper—of note, the performer of the modern classic jam “College Girls (Are Easy).” 

The book is written (or edited) in a condensed, quick-hits form that makes the pages go by fast. It’s like reading a Bill Simmons or Lance Armstrong podcast, in a weird way. Itzler also has worthy stories to tell about his life outside of the book’s extreme-training gimmick. But the centerpiece is an intriguing premise and subject: former Navy SEAL David Goggins, who guides Itzler through a month of training—rigorous even by ultramarathoner standards—during a rough winter in December 2010.

Goggins, who is known only as “SEAL” in the book but has since done promotion with Itzler under his real name, is what I would expect from a special forces serviceman: no-nonsense and tough as nails. He’s a powerhouse of endurance sports and training, specifically ultrarunning and “simple” exercises like push-ups and pull-ups. I like that his training approach mostly eschews weights; clearly, the average person will be able to get in amazing shape by focusing on running, riding, push-upping, and pull-upping. Itzler clearly admires the guy and writes about him more like he’s a demigod than mere mortal, but the portrayal is not dishonest. Goggins’ will is legendary, considering he has completed big races with broken feet and a torn quad.

The man is also a font of wisdom, and I stopped reading constantly in order to jot down memorable one-liners that can apply to athletic training as well as “real life.” Take a gander below the photo for my favorite “SEAL” wisdom drops and funnies. Some of the language is harsh, but special-ops guys can typically talk however they please, so deal with it!

On the joys of training:

“There’s only one rule in training: If it doesn’t suck, we don’t do it.”

“I earned [the pain]. Now I’m going to enjoy it.”

“Burpee test, motherfucker!”

“If you can’t do the basics, you can’t do shit.”

“Twenty-five hundred push-ups, motherfucker. Yes, I am [feeling] okay.”

“It doesn’t have to be fun. It has to be effective.” 

On expanding personal limits:

“Every day, do something that makes you uncomfortable.”

“When you think you’re done, you’re only at 40 percent of what your body is capable of doing. That’s just the limit that we put on ourselves.”

“Whatever you got going on, someone else has more pain. You gotta learn how to fight through it. ... Think about someone else and take a suck-shit pill.”

“You can get through any workout because everything ends.”

“If you don’t challenge yourself, you don’t know yourself.”

“If you can see yourself doing something, you can do it. If you can’t see yourself doing something, usually you can’t achieve it.”

On food and fuel:

“I just like to go to sleep hungry—so I wake up hungry. Life is all about staying out of your comfort zone.”

“Why would I want to waste the calories [on dessert]?”

“I’m not into sit-down dinners and fancy shit like that. I’m into fueling up and being on my way.”

“If you’re hungry, run faster. You’ll be home quicker.”

On a person’s outlook:

“Fear is one of the best motivators. Anger is the other.”

Before a training run in NYC: “Only the loonies are out there today, bro. Only the demented. It’s sick-fuck Friday.”

“I don’t like motherfuckin’ freeloaders. You better work hard for your shit or we aren’t gonna get along very well.”

“The only easy day was yesterday.”

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I believe the best ideas are the ones you don’t spend too much time thinking through. … Most of my success in life have come from learning how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Like I said, I just want to get better.

Jesse Itzler, “Living With a SEAL”