So I woke up this morning in a hotel. Yesterday I rode the last day of RAGBRAI: 65 miles with plenty of hills and a hell of a head wind. Then Zach and I rode another 9 miles to the hotel. We hung out for a while. Got clean and then both fell asleep around 9. I slept until 8am. It’s really nice to wake up clean and not have any major ride in my plan for the day.
Today Zach and I are gonna hang out and go down to the river. But that will be a 20 mile or less and at this point that is nothing at all.
I already spent a couple of hours looking for apartments in portland. I have 8 places to inquire about. I think it will go well.
I rode 75 miles (actually maybe a bit more) today in around 8 hours. It was hilly for some of the route but not too awful. We had a head wind for the middle part.
I learned to draft today (ride my bike close enough behind another rider to be in the pocket of air they are pulling along). It was fun and not nearly as dangerous as it sounds. I was usually 2 to 3 feet behind the rider in front so it wasn’t that different from normal riding when the road is full. It made riding into the head wind WAY easier. This is because instead of riding into a head wind you are actually being pulled along a little by the pocket of low pressure behind the rider in front.
I talked to various people while on the road. It was fun. Overall the day went as follows (very roughly):
Bagel and peanut butter and cream cheese.
Ride 10 miles.
French toast.
Ride a few miles.
Trail mix.
Ride 15 miles.
Burrito.
Ride 5 miles.
Ice cream.
Ride 10 miles.
Key-lime Pie.
Ride 10 miles.
Lime-aid.
Ride 20 miles.
So you can see why RAGBRAI can be though of as “eating you way across Iowa”.
I finished my 4th (the 5th for most people) day riding RAGBRAI. Today was like the very first day but the lite version. Lots of hills but a bit less than the first day and it was cloudy most of the day so it was much cooler and more comfortable. It went well I was able to fight my way up most of the hills powered by ice cream and Dutch pastries (Rasberry and cream cheese and flaky dough).
I am much happier with things. It’s going well. Only 2 more days of riding. Time to deal with other things. And sleep. Lots of sleep. God riding is tiring.
Sunday was awful. But I made it through. I decided not too ride today (Mon) because I hate being miserable. I plan on riding the rest of the week. It should be easier than the last couple of day. I think taking a rest day was wise.
Tomorrow will be around 70 so yet another day riding farther than I ever have before in a day. But it will be mostly flat.
I think I may buy a bike computer tomorrow evening. I’ve been wanted one and I think this may be the time. $25 dollars is reasonable.
I should have done this a long time ago but here are some pictures and video of me throwing my fire whip. In these pictures I am throwing my 6′ kevlar rope whip. It’s not a very good whip and I’m not that good yet, so I cannot do that many different cracks. But I’m still pretty happy with it.
All the pictures and video here were in late July through mid August.
I also just ordered a lot of kevlar so I can make my own fire whip which will hopefully allow me to do all the cracks I can do with my nylon whips with a fire whip. I’m quite excited.
So I made a cheap desk. Then I needed a keyboard tray. So I built one.
I simply used a piece of 1×12 hung underneath the desk by threaded rod. The desk top is hollow (well mostly, it’s got some papery junk in it) so the threaded rod is attached to the under side using toggle bolts on the inside of the desk and a washer and nut on the outside. This was not as strong as I hoped; the holes had to be so big to allow the toggle through that there was a lot of play. But once the nuts where tightened down it was OK. Read more »
So when my monitors got to me in Portland one of them only displayed solid white when plugged in. I knew it was the monitor because it would only display white even when it was not connected to the computer and should have displayed the “check cable” box. I also deduced that the issue was only with the LCD and not the backlight because it still went and off in the way it should. It just only displayed solid white instead of the image it should. Also it was a clean even white so I was sure the LCD it self was intact. Therefor it must be the controller or the cable. And I guess the cable. In retrospect this was probably only because I could fix a cable.
So I decided to take apart the monitor and try to remount the cable. I want to apologize up front for not having pictures of the whole process. I started taking them at the beginning and then forgot once I got going because I was so focused on trying not to break anything. So I have no pictures.
