Culinary Overload

Jan. 28, 2009 - Here is the update you have all been waiting for -- FAIR FOOD.

No, I didn't take any pictures of fair food. I took pictures of the signs advertising fair food. That's because I'm not stupid enough to eat most of this stuff. I mean, can you actually imagine consuming a deep fried Twinkie? Really, now.

However, once a year I do make the pilgrimage to the South Florida Fairgrounds and I do indulge. This year's menu: a corn dog, a blooming onion with horseradish and ranch dip, half a Philly cheese steak, half an Italian sausage with peppers, onions and cheese, and two cinnamon buns to go. Most satisfying.

The photos here advertise some of the stuff I didn't have.

I know this doesn't have anything to do with bicycles or the Palm Beach Trail. But it's my blog and I'll write what I want to.

Contest Log:

Time Failure

Jan. 24, 2009 - I was going to do a takeout on the "Honey Fitz", President Kennedy's yacht that is parked near the north bridge, but I find that my time has been commandered by the need for FAIR FOOD. It is a once a year compulsion that cannot be denied. I can smell in the depths of my soul those curled Italian sausages slowly sizzling in their beds of onions and peppers. I hear the chunk of the slicer that prepares those softball-sized onions for blooming. My senses dance to the tune of cinnamon and butter that will become a confection even more desired than Jimmy Buffett's fabled cheeseburger in Paradise.

Hail the South Florida Fair. Take me, you whore. I am yours.

Contest Log:

Wetware Failure

Jan. 22, 2009 - I'm sorry for not posting. My internal systems were infested with a virus and I required a cold restart.

That means I got my annual head cold with a strong does of sore throat and required multiple over-the-counter drugs and multiple days on the couch with nothing more stressing than the Discovery Channel and maybe a little SG-1.

One pre-crash ride and an errand went unreported, so here it is.

Contest Log:

Too Busy

Artist of the day: Barack Obama. I'm listening to his first book on my iPod. He reads it pretty well.

Jan. 15, 2009 - Restarted teaching my web class at The Children's Coalition today. We are going to try to set up a summer program to teach a group of kids digital photography and web design, then use those skills to build web sites for community businesses that don't have/can't afford them. Have to write a grant proposal, a sylabus ... Maybe I should take a digital photo class to see how they teach it.

I promise I'll post something interesting tomorrow.

Contest Log:

Too Lazy

Jan. 13, 2009 - Too busy playing World of Warcraft (lazy) to work on the blog. Just a ride update.

Contest Log:

Shaftie Bicycle

Jan. 11, 2009 - There was an unusual bike at the docks today. A fellow named Mark rode up on a bicycle with a shaft drive.

"It is perfect for a high salt environment (like Palm Beach)," he explained. "There is no chain maintenance, everything is sealed."

I know of the virtues of shaft drives on two-wheeled vehicles. I'm now on my fourth BMW motorcycle - all shaft driven. Change the oil every 100,000 miles and you are golden. No gunk from chain lube on your wheels. No forcing the bike onto a stand every time it rains to clean the chain and relube. Definitely worth the price of admission.

Below is a photo of Mark.

It was so beautiful today (sorry people who live in the north) that I did two loops. One with my friend Carlton Cartwright, who is Executive Director of The Children's Coalition, in the morning, and another as the sun was going down in the afternoon on my Brompton folding bike.

I'm trying to get my sea legs with the Brompton. Its almost straight up seating position initially threw me a bit, but now I'm getting used to it. To most cyclists, it looks like a toy, but actually it is a very substantial bike. Like my recumbents, kids love it.

Passed a guy on North County road who called out "That's a neat rig." He looked and sounded exactly like Don Johnson from "Miami Vice." He migth have been anybody, but since it is the season down here, I'm considering it star recognition.

Contest Log:

You Go, Ken

Jan. 9, 2009 - Ken Steinhoff has a wonderful story about the Riviera Beach Bridge on his site at www.palmbeachbiketours.com. I bow to him.

Contest Log:

Cool iPhone Tricks

Artist of the Day: Jack Johnson - accoustic guitar licks and good songs.

Jan. 8, 2009 - I have a small problem with my new Brompton folding bicycle. It doesn't have a bicycle computer so I can't tell how far I've ridden it unless I keep to a track I already know. And, because it folds, it may be difficult to put a computer on it.

So I thought, Ha!, a GPS is the perfect solution. You don't have to put it on the bicycle and, if you ever get lost, you can follow its maps home. But there are problems with GPS units, especially if you are a Mac person as I am. I haven't fully researched it, but there doesn't seem to be an all-purpose, plug-and-play GPS solution for the Mac.

The other day, Phill Elliott at the Palm Beach Trail Bicycle Shop showed me an iPhone application called iRide that is supposed to track bicycle rides, so I went looking for it. Instead, I found something called Motion-X GPS. This handy little program turns your iPhone into a GPS with all the usual stuff to track your rides. But that's just where the beauty starts.

Once you have tracked your ride, you tap twice and the program emails the information in two different formats to wherever you want. The email you receive has a link to Google Maps. Click on it and, voila, a Google map of your ride - no charge. (See photos above.)

The thing sends back files that can be imported into Google Earth and into regular mapping software as well. No connecting your GPS to your computer, running programs to download the data, map it and all that. Just click. It also sends any photos you have taken with the iPhone's camera as email attachments.

And, the iPhone program costs only $2.99. Yes, less than a fancy Starbucks coffee.

It all works great, except for one little thing. A two hour ride sucked half the juice from my iPhone's battery. This does not a solution make if you are doing any serious riding.

It does beg the question, "Why can't real GPS units be this easy?"

The iPhone computed my distance at 11.3 miles. I'll have to add a bit to that because I had to ride away from the buildings before I could get a satellite lock, so we'll call today's ride 11.78 miles - same as my last bike computer reading.

Contest Log:

It Arrived

Artist of the Day: Priscilla Ahn

Jan. 7, 2009 - Today it is not about the flowers. It is about the Brompton folding bicycle that UPS left outside my door at about 3 p.m.

It took about five minutes without benefit of the directions so thoughtfully included to unfold it. It took about another five minutes to get it on the road through City Place towards Palm Beach.

First impressions - this thing is fun to ride. It seems more stable than my Sun recumbent with the 20-inch wheels. It is as fast as my other bikes - which means nothing to the guys in spandex because I believe that if you want to go faster than 12 mph, you really want to be on a motorcycle.

Mine is a six speed. It has two shifters - one for the German-made three-speed hub and a second for the two-speed derailleur. The granny gear will get me up the intracoastal bridge ramps without having to get off the seat.

The seating position is pretty well straight up, which means you can look around all the time.

The brakes are good and it will turn on a dime.

Then the fun begins. Find a suitable audience - just about anyone - reach down, hold down a lever, lift up and the rear wheel swoops forward underneath the frame. This is the equivalent of putting down the kick stand. It is just so cool it has to be seen to be believed. At this point, it stands up on its own and, actually, rests on a set of casters so you can wheel it around like a piece of luggage.

Then you ... but wait. Why not have Andrew Ritchie, the British engineer who invented it, show you how to fold it.

I rode a loop on it, but without benefit of a bicycle computer, so I'm going to arbitrarily say the mileage was the same as my last loop - 11.78 miles. So, after one week of riding, I'm 46.03 miles ahead of schedule. But a cold front is a comin'.

Contest Log:

Perti Flars

Artist of the Day: Taylor Swift

Jan. 6, 2009 - That's South Carolinian for "pretty flowers" although I don't know that these things are actually flowers. Maybe one of you gardeners can help me out here. Click the link to Webmaster and tell me what these are.

Morning Update

Rode the Palm Beach loop early today because I am expecting delivery of my new Brompton folding bicycle and I want to be home to receive it. Miles: 11.78.

Oops. Just tracked the package and it won't arrive until tomorrow. What a bummer.

Afternoon Update

I took the Trek 5000 out for a spin. I've been riding my recumbents so much lately that I had forgotten what it is like to ride a real road bike. And guess what? After riding recumbents for a solid month, riding the Trek seems like work.

I had forgotten how much time you spend looking at the ground under your front wheel. I had forgotten how the bike keeps telling you that you aren't going fast enough. I had forgotten how many times you have to change handlebar position to stay comfortable. I had forgotten how much less you see during a ride because you have to either sit up or look to the side to actually see anything.

But I got another 11.58 miles.

Contest Log:

Another Beautiful Day

Jan. 5, 2009 - Another beautiful South Florida day. I shot this couple the other day near the Biltmore. No explanation is really needed.

If you want to keep track of your cycling over the course of the year, check out www.bikejournal.com. The site lets you set up a table to track your riding with every metric known to man, possibly including your blood sugar level. The only thing I didn't see was a provision for Ken Steinhoff to upload the GPS track of all his rides.

I typed in my statistics and was rewarded with a table showing that I'm number 643 out of 32,459 cyclists who are logging their miles. Someone slap me up side the head before I get impressed with myself.

Basic membership is free. For $20 a year, you get all the bells and whistles. You also get forums, club and ride listings, member profiles and all that good stuff.

I added the LOST Bicycle Club to the list of Florida clubs. If you are interested in this sort of thing, please join the LOST Bicycle Club on bikejournal.com. It would be a good thing to get the LOST riders on the trail again.

Contest Log:

Blog First! A Wild Reader

Jan. 4, 2009 - It's a Daily Double for www.charles-keefer.us. I encountered my first reader in the wild, Bruce, who lives vaguely in the direction of Palm Beach Shores and owns the 1974 Norton pictured above. A reader in the wild is someone you meet who, first, you don't know already, second, admits that he has read your blog, and third, you didn't bludgeon into doing same.

It is a Daily Double because Bruce's Norton is photo fodder for the blog. It ain't often you see one of these, especially one in beautiful shape and being ridden.

Sorry, Bruce. I forgot to snap your photo. I guess I was overwhelmed by your bike.

Now, on to business. We have several contest predictions to report.

The first to speak up was Ken Steinhoff from www.palmbeachbiketours.com who thinks I'll wilt on July 27 "about the time it gets hot."

Jan Norris of www.jannorris.com wanted more info before making a guess. "Can you give us a leg up on predictions? Like, does the heat get next to you? Or the cold?? How many miles did you ride last year?"The only help I'll give is this - I don't ride in the rain.

Jan's guess: Nov. 14 - "As good as any!"

Next up, Matt Steinhoff, who didn't like the contest because "all you have to do to win is ride December 31 and never admit defeat."

Nope. Wrong there. I have to ride 3,000 miles by Dec. 31. If it gets to the point where finishing 3,000 miles by Dec. 31 is impossible, then I blow up and quit.

Right now, at an average of 7 miles an hour, which allows for stops to take photos, look at the water, etc., I'll have to be on a bike about 425 hours or 17 and a half 24-hour days to make the miles. That means, assuming I could ride 24-hours a day for 17 days, that I would blow up on Dec. 14 because there simply would not be enough time to finish.

If I was really motivated and could ride 12 hours a day, which isn't within the realm of reality, I'd blow up sometime in late November.

You get the idea. I'll have to ride a fairly steady pace all year to make it.

Matt made a prediction anyway. "October 11, 2009 and fewer than 1,700 miles."

Damn. Makes me want to go out and ride another loop.

My friend Beverly Cash hopes to cash in with a prediction of "the third week of September." OK, we will arbitrarily pick Wednesday, Sept. 23, for that one.

5:17 p.m. Update - I did go out and ride another loop. I got 11.89 miles to add to the 15.15 miles I did earlier in the day. The way I look at it, that's another 11.89 miles towards making Matt a loser.

Now here is the ride report.

Contest Log:

Happy New Year!

Jan. 1, 2009 - No photo with this one. That's because it comes from our old friend Wikipedia.

Number 9 on the list of most popular New Year's resolutions, behind loosing weight, gaining weight, getting fit, getting a new job, and saving money, is my favorite.

Be less grumpy.

So, a less grumpy year to you all.

New Year's Resolution Contest

Blaze Superflash Lites

I normally don't make New Year's resolutions for the very good reason that, like most people, I don't keep them. But, it is a new year, I have a new job title - retired - and it is never too late to change. So here goes. I resolve to ride 3,000 miles on a bicycle over the next year. I'm hoping this shouldn't be that difficult. My almost daily bicycle loop, from my apartment in West Palm Beach's City Place to the docks at the north end of the Palm Beach Bicycle Trail and back is about 12 miles. If I can do this five times a week for 50 out of the 52 weeks of the year, I'll hit 3,000 miles on the nose. Any other recreational riding or touring will be just gravy.

We will keep track of it with daily entries right here. That way you can tell if I succumb to sloth and you can match my progress fulfilling my resolution with your performance fulfilling your own.

Just to make it interesting, and as an incentive to keep me riding, we'll have a little contest. I'll bet a Planet Bike Blaze Superflash Light Set that I make it. To win, you must most accurately predict when I blow up and quit.

That doesn't mean you get the light set the first day I miss an entry. That means if your prediction most accurately reflects the day I admit my goal is unreachable, you win.

Two other rules. If I'm still riding the day after your prediction, you are out of the contest. I'll not have certain of my friends betting on Jan. 3 and having any chance in the world to win. Also, you only get one prediction.

And, of course, I'll post your predictions and I'll remind you of them when I make you a loser.

To win the light set, send your predictions to charles.keefer@gmail.com.