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Saturday, March 31, 2007

3000 Miles to fight Obesity! Seth Margolies

Seth was in much the same boat as I was. Fritz, over at Cycle-liscious first brought this story to my attention. Meet Seth Margolies, a fellow post bariatric cyclist.

The story is here, with either Hi resolution video or low res for dialup.


Seth is riding from Coast to coast on the Southern Tier route If you see him out there, wish him luck. GO SETH!


By the way, I've set my newscrawlers loose to try to track his story and progress, hopefully, I'll have updates!

Friday, March 30, 2007

This is My Google Group

I have several resources here, the interactive calorie burn spreadsheet and thew 207 training log sheet is available for download here as well. Feel free to use either one. My gift!

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Another GIMPified Bicycle Picture

I don't know what I am going to do with Mrs Stormcrowe, I mean look at her go!

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CyclingCycling 2Cycling 3Cycling 4

5 reasons I blog

Well, Shawn tagged me a while back in one of those memes. I just found it yesterday searching my back links (I haven't been visiting as regularily as I should, school stuff is keeping me busy!). I am supposed to list 5 of the reasons I blog. Well, here goes:
  1. First and strongest reason, I have fun doing it
  2. It sharpens my writing skills
  3. I use blogging as a reinforcer of my weight loss as well as my training
  4. I use blogging to act as a reinforcer for others weight loss as well as their training.
  5. I express my fanaticism about cycling in a way that doesn't drive my family to drink or drugs!
And now, who to tag......

Uncle Dan

Dan on Bike

The Historian

and you!


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Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Photos you wish were real!

Here would be mine!
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Talk about bragging rights!Gathering

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

One of the Best Economic Reasons to Bike Commute

Today, I saw the pump price at Supertest here in Lafayette. The price for regular unleaded is at $2.65.9 there. This is one off the cheapest stations in town. It looks like we're headed back up over $3.00 a gallon again! A week ago, they were at $2.39.9. The market isn't that volatile! There has been some fluctuation, but not enough for a nearly 30 cent spike!
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Even taking the health benefits out, the cost saving is a good thing. Bicycle Commuting to work is a good thing, personally as well as economically and environmentally

Thought I'd tell You About One of My Favorite Virtual Hangouts!

Bike Forums! This forum is one of my haunts in the virtual world....

It's full of fun folk and loaded with info on everything bicycle! Whether you ride an alternative bike, a bent, or a more traditional roadie, or a mountain bike, this place is the place to go! You'll find me hanging around in Clydesdale's Subforum, Advocacy and Safety, Politics and Religion, and most especially, Foo!

The URL is http://www.bikeforums.net

Monday, March 26, 2007

Spinner Saturday Results for March 24, 2007

Here they are, the results for the Spinner Saturday group. We had some no reports and have a couple of people on the injured list. I have to say though, that we are on our way to a really good March! We're already at the 6400 mile mark for the month and another week to go.....great job, all!

I'd also like to welcome our new members, Fujirocker, Fishboy_C, Archienutt and PellTA!


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Sunday, March 25, 2007

Mrs Stormcrowe's Second Try at First Century

Well, she made 67 miles and bonked. As far as I am concerned, it was a magnificent effort, though and no shame! We had planned a 100 mile figure 8 loop crossing back through town at the 70 mile point and that's where she bonked.

I did have to go get the van, after I made sure she was going to be all right. Oh well, maybe next time when she has a bit more saddle time in. I'm still proud as hell of her though for the try!

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US 231 on the way to South River Road

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Back From Williamsport

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After the coffee break

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Wabash Heritage Trail on the Lafayette side, flooded

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11 feet is FLOOD STAGE

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Training Ride for the Tour today

Unfortunately, the weather went south! We had a pretty good rain roll in as well as thunder, but we got a few miles in. Earlena is getting much more comfortable in traffic.
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Coffee Break At Panera's





It was definitely a nice ride though, but we only made it out near Dayton, Indiana before the weather started looking a bit on the nasty side. Well, we got a few miles in and tomorrow is looking absolutely prime for a good ride!

As far as the traffic goes, I love riding with the wife! Nobody crowd us with her on the bent! Everybody gives us a wave (and they even use all their fingers) and a smile!

Tour de Cure

Well, I'm about 30% of the way to my Tour de Cure goal, not counting what Joan at Supersized Cycles has pledged. We'll have the final total on that pledge in July. In the meantime, I'd really like to exceed my goal, so feel free to click the link above my banner for Tour de Cure and visit my page!

Below is the graphic I've designed for my Team Shirts, let me know what you think!
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In the meantime, remember those miles, today was Spinner Saturday! Ride safe and enjoy the journey!
Images © 2007, Tom Stormcrowe, All rights reserved

Monday, March 19, 2007

The Spinner Report, for Week Ending March 17

And here are the charts! Looking great this week. I certainly enjoyed Spring Break and the great weather we had here as you'll see from my miles!

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Guest Author on The Amazing Shrinking Man

Welcome John Forester, the author of Effective Cycling and a cycling safety advocate to The Amazing Shrinking Man Blog. Welcome, John!

The California Association of Bicycling Organizations Supporting David Prokop's Legal Case

Byline: John Forester

Thirty years ago, California enacted Streets & Highways Code 890 and
following. These defined the three classes of bikeway for
transportational purposes, giving each a technical name and a popular
name: Class One, or bike path; Class Two, or bike lane; Class Three,
or bike route. This statute required that each class have safety
design standards prepared, and required that all bodies that created
bikeways conform to these safety design standards. These standards
now appear as Chapter 1000 of the California Highway Design Manual.
The national standards named the Guide for Bicycle Facilities of the
Association of American State Highway and Transportation Officials,
and the standards of those states that chose to create their own, all
stem from the California standards.

There is a respectable body of law, both statute and case, that
immunizes the owners of unimproved property from liability when they
allow members of the public cross these lands for purposes of
recreation, as on dirt trails over unimproved land. A person who had
an accident caused by the condition of the trail would be unable to
claim damages from the owner of the land. In some California cases
(and maybe also elsewhere) bicyclists were the claimants, and the
judges quite correctly ruled against them. However, because the
injured person was a bicyclist, some judges called these facilities
bike paths. This was entirely incorrect, because the Legislature had
already defined a bike path as a facility that had to be built
according to specified safety design standards -- in short, like a
miniature highway -- but because there was no argument about bikeways
in these cases nobody noticed and the effect was unimportant. Then,
another court, dealing with a case in which the accident had occurred
because a real bike path had violated the required safety design
standards, applied to a real bike path the law that previous courts
had applied to dirt trails across unimproved land, because both
courts used the same name, "bike path." This has occurred now in two
real cases, and will continue unless the problem is corrected. One
would think that such a silly mistake would be easy to correct, but
in the legal world nothing is easy. The legal world operates on the
basis of words rather than facts, so as long as the words fit it
thinks that the facts must fit.

There is no question but that the conditions designed into the Los
Angeles River Bike Path violated the standards and that these
violations combined to cause David Prokop's accident, although this
will finally have to be judged in a trial court. Cyclists have
managed to get the current case into the appellate courts to get the
immunity ruling corrected for this and all future cases. In short, to
reinstate the legal requirements for bike paths that the Legislature
enacted thirty years but that courts have mistakenly invalidated in
recent years. David's injuries, while significant at the time, do not
warrant money damages sufficient to pay the cost of getting this case
into the appellate courts. The cost to date has been something over
$100,000. The California Association of Bicycling Organizations
collects money for this case; CABO is a registered 501(c)3 charitable
and educational organization.

Money should be sent to: CABO c/o Alan Forkosh, 33 Moss Ave #204,
Oakland, CA 94610.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Wife's 1st Bike Commute

Well, Mrs Stormcrowe did her first bike commute to school yesterday! It was kind of nice! I rode with her to help her feel a bit more secure. She was pleasantly surprised by the courtesy extended her (and so was I!). Not one close pass, even on the section of the ride using US52!

I noticed one thing in particular, with Earlena riding a recumbent trike, I guess people were thinking it was a wheelchair or something. The drivers made a conscious effort to give us a full clear lane as they passed.

From Mrs Stormcrowe, Her observations:

I was real surprised as to how easy it went! The trike rides real well, even against a headwind. Road riding, even on a busy road like Indiana 38 or US 52 by the mall is surprisingly easy!
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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

I was interviewed by Bella Online!

Part 1:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art49617.asp

Part 2:
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art49669.asp

In the light of this, I should remind everybody the reason I am coming out from behind my Screen Name, the Tour de Cure! Up above my video on the header, you will find a link to my Tour page, right above the Tour de Cure banner!

Also supporting my Tour de Cure bid is Joan Denizot with Supersized Cycles. Joan has a website devoted to bicycles for the larger rider, being one herself. She has pledged $25.00 for every bike sold between, well.....now and my ride on July 14th!
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Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The Spinner Report: Covering week of March 10, 2007

Well, sorry, I'm a day late getting out the Spinner Report. Everybody did well,with improvement across the boards. Remember, we're competing against our former times, and miles, by the way. The goal is for each of us to improve our cardiac health and ride further and smarter!

In the meantime, our Arctic Jill is taking it easy for a bit, she postholed in deep snow during the Susitna 100 while crashing the bike and finished the race with her personal best time ever.....with an injured knee! Tough lady!

Well, here are the stats!:
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What happens when I can't sleep!

I play around in my ministudio! I did House of the Rising Sun tonight. I used a multitrack recorder and I play all the instruments as well as eoing the vocals!

Well, you can't ride a bike all the time!Band 3

Monday, March 12, 2007

Test post by email

I'm testing out the email posting system out for the May Bike Tour. Short post, and I'll be posting the Spinner Saturday report this evening. Last call for miles and see y'all this evening!
--

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Here are some of my camp cookery recipes

Let's hear yours!

Recipes for light weight camping food:

Hangdog Oatmeal

2 ½ cups

Oatmeal

2 Tbsp

Brown Sugar

½ cup

Dried Bananas, powdered

¾ cup

Chocolate chips

At home:
Mix ingredients in zip-lock bag and tape it shut.

On the trail:
Boil 4 cups of water, add contents of bag, stir, reboil, remove from stove and set aside until cool enough to eat.

Couscous Curry Ginger

3 cups

Couscous

3 Tbsp

Powdered Shortening

1 tsp

Ground Ginger

2 tsp

Curry powder

¾ cup

Cashews

1 ½ cup

Dehydrated Vegatables

At home:
Mix ingredients (except vegetables) in a zip-lock bag. Bag the vegetables separately. Tapes the bags shut.

On the trail:
In the morning, place the vegetables in a large-mouth 1 quart water bottle and cover with water to rehydrate.

At mealtime:
Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, add all ingredients, including the rehydrated vegetables with the water. Boil under tender (5 - 10 minutes).

Chicken & Dumplings

2 envelopes

Lipton's Cream of Chicken Cup-o-soup

1 can

Swanson's Chunk Chicken Meat

½ pkg

Mixed freeze-dried vegetables

1 cup

Bisquick in a zip-lock bag

2 - 3 cups

Water

Mix the soup, chicken meat and vegetables in a relatively deep pot with 2 to 3 cups water. Place on camp stove. Heat to simmering, stirring occasionally. While soup stuff is heating, add water (see Bisquick box instructions for qty.) to Bisquick and knead in the zip-lock bag. When soup stuff is hot, tear off a corner of the bag and squeeze out plops of Bisquick into the pot. Cover and cook for about 10 mintues on low heat.

Tuna/Creamy Chicken Ramen casserole

1 package tuna (envelope),

1 package Ramen Creamy Chicken Soup


Boil water, add Ramen noodles and seasoning and tuna. Let steep til noodles are tender.


Serves one

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and corned beef dinner

8 cups

Water

1 pkg

Macaroni

1 can Libby Corned Beef

½ cup

Butter

1/8 cup

Powdered milk

1 pkg

Cheese Sauce Mix

Boil 8 cups water and add the macaroni. Boil 7 to 10 minutes stirring occasionally. Drain. Add the butter, milk, and cheese sauce mix and chunked Corned Beef. Mix well.

Serves 2

May Bike tour

What are you going to be doing in May? On May 10th, we're going out touring, the wife and me!
The following is the very rough itinerary, as far as I have it. I am using Back Roads in Indiana, by Charlie Myer for our routing. You can get this book through Hodson's Bay Co. here in my town, by the way!

Charlie has a significant amount of time and data collecting in the book and it sure looks to be useful! He has points of interest, camping. Well, without further ado, here we go, a rough outline of our tour! If you live in any of these Counties, feel free to comment in with any suggestions for your area!

Above is a somewhat blurry topo map of the first four days

County List

Route notes, 30 counties, 660 miles!

1) Tippecanoe



2) Clinton



3) Boone

Camping: Old Mill Run


4) Hamilton



5) Madison

Camping: Pine Lake Camping and Fishing: (765)778-2697



6) Hancock



7) Henry

Campgrounds: Jellystone Park: 765-737-6585, GasAmerica Truckstop: 765-785-6820

Knightstown, Indiana


8) Rush



9) Fayette



10) Union



11) Franklin



12) Dearborn



13) Ohio County



14) Switzerland County



15) Jefferson County



16) Clark County



17) Floyd County



18) Harrison County



19) Crawford County



20) Perry County



21) Spencer County



  1. Warrick County





23) Vandenburgh


24) Gibson



25) Knox



26) Sullivan



27) Vigo



28) Parke




29) Fountain



30) Warren



END: Tippecanoe

Saturday, March 10, 2007

While I'm out riding my bike.......

Here's a blog widget to play with! In the meantime, I'll be stacking on some more miles today!

Friday, March 09, 2007

The first great ride of 2007, I love Spring Break!

Spring Break started today, so I celebrated with the first good long outside ride of the season!:D

My computer showed 36.75 miles and GMaps pedometer shows a shade over 32.6.
Time: 02:20
Avg Speed by Computer: 15.75 mph
Gmaps Avg Speed: 13.97 mph
Calories burned: 5403.46 (Not adjusted for wind or terrain)
Wind: Outbound: Headwind, 12-15 mph, 13 miles worth!

Route Link: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=758345

The weather today for the ride was a tad windy, as I said, but temperatures were tolerable fair at 49℉. No jacket, no layers, no problems and even the fingerless gloves. All in all, I can say without irony that this was the best ride of 2007 so far!:D

Quick addendum! Am I a Russian Poet or composer? Apparently!

If I were a Dead Russian Composer, I would be Modest Mussorgsky.

I am a Romantic period psycho who's drunk more often than not. I died of this affliction, not surprisingly. My famous works include "Night on Bald Mountain" and "Pictures at an Exhibition."

Who would you be? Dead Russian Composer Personality Test

Spring Break! T- 4 Hours and 5 minutes!

Well, I have 3 classes and one exam until I can spend a week riding the bike, (Weather allowing), and doing the bits and pieces of projects I still have to work on for classes due immediately after Spring Break! This list includes a presentation on theoretical applications of MRI brain imaging in behavioral studies, a thesis/argument/conclusion paper for philosophy, and of course, work the database for Spinner Saturday!
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Another item on my agenda is to do more planning for our May Tour. This is going to be a great Spring Break!


Speaking of Spring, it's often time people start looking for a bike, which brings me to Joan Denizot and Supersized Cycles! Joan is a supporter of my Tour de Cure ride.
From the Supersized Cycles site:
In order to make the biggest contribution possible, we have pledged $25 per bicycle sold from now through July 14, 2007 to our friend and inspiration, The Amazing Shrinking Man, who will ride 100K (or 62 miles) at the Indianapolis Tour de Cure. The Amazing Shrinking Man is truly amazing--he has lost 352 POUNDS in less than two years, and biking has been his trump card as well as his addicition.

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Now, Spring is springing, the weather is getting sweet for most of us this week, so get out there and ride!

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

A Fun Quiz:

How did you do in High School? Here's another fun quiz! Below are my results!

Ironically enough, brain power often equates with health, so it's a valid question. Brain power also equates with the mental fortitude for endurance athletics like long distance cycling. While for athletic endeavors, knowledge isn't a requirement, but for strategies and evaluation of your training regimen, it does help!

You paid attention during 86% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Create a Quiz

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

In Memorium

Thursday, last week, my Grandfather passed away peacefullly in his sleep at 4:oo AM. His name was George Gilmour. He had a very long life and remained married to my Grandmother for 67 years until she passed away three years ago.

I have had a bit of difficulty composing this post as my Grandfather was more of a Father to me than a Grandfather. You see, my Father was never really there for me. For this reason, my Grandfather more or less provided me with the examples of what it takes to be a man. All that is decent in me as a man, I attribute to his influence.

Here in an excerpt of his obituary:
George Gilmour, 93

George Gilmour, 93, of Naples Land Yacht Harbor, Fla., died Thursday, March 1, 2007, at Lakewood Manor Care.

He was born Feb. 7, 1914, in Glasgow, Scotland, to the late George K. Gilmour and Kathryn Hunter Gilmour.

He was a former resident of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and Lafayette. He was a member of First Presbyterian Church of Naples and active in the Naples Land Yacht Harbor community.

Mr. Gilmour retired from both Magnavox Corp. of Fort Wayne and General Foods in Lafayette.

He was a member of American Society of Tool Engineers, Society of Manufacturing Engineers and Toastmasters International, holding offices in all.

His wife of 67 years, Jessie, died in 2003.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Thursday, March 01, 2007

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