Riding lately has been a mixed bag. I’ve done some fantastic weekend rides, long and short, but aside from commuting, I’m hardly riding during the week at all. I am planning on riding an upcoming century ride with Bill Lambert, of the Bike Oak Bikes blog. I should be training for that, but I’ve been having a hard time finding time for evening rides. And it’s rained the past two weekends; I still got out a little bit, but not the long miles I’d like to be riding. I have enjoyed the weekend rides I’ve been able to do, and I’ve enjoyed my commutes and even the few weeknight rides I have done, but for some reason that isn’t translating into frequent rides during the week.

I think part of the issue is my new commute. My round trip is now over 10 miles each day, and hillier than my old commute. I like that this encourages me to ride more miles each day, but I feel less inclined to go out for training rides afterwards.

I’m also trying to strike a balance. Family and work are important to me, and cycling is not my only hobby, either.  Each year, the balance seems a little different. This year, riding seems like a little less of a priority. But oddly, at the same time, I reached 1,000 miles for the year a couple weeks ago, which is earlier in the year than ever before. So, obviously I have been riding more than I realize.

I think what I really need is a few defining rides to point me in a new direction. I’m itching to do more mountain biking, and to find new gravel roads. The obvious solution is to further explore Hoosier National Forest; it’s nearby, and has hundreds of miles of gravel and trails. I also want to branch out and do some longer road rides, and of course some touring/bike camping. There is so much I want to do that it’s almost paralyzing.

So, it’s safe to say that I’m in a bit of a rut. I need to mix things up. With a few upcoming riding opportunities, maybe that’ll happen.

New camera

On a positive note, I got a new point & shoot camera. My old camera got some scratches on the lens and developed a real problem with lens flare. Plus, I wanted to upgrade a bit anyway. The new camera is a Ricoh CX2. This is a bit of an oddball camera, with limited US distribution. It’s only available in the US from Adorama.com, for some reason. This will be my new primary camera for rides and such. It has a fantastic high contrast black & white mode designed to simulate high-contrast film photography, complete with lots of very pleasant grain … and lots of other tricks up its sleeve as well.

I’m finding I can tweak the settings more on this camera, to the point where I think I will be able to get the results I want directly out of the camera, with little or no post-processing. All these images are directly from the camera. Note that the color shots are in “vivid” mode, which yields more-saturated images. In general I like to push the saturation a bit, but some of these are a little over the top, I think. I’m still learning.

I’ll write more about the camera later, but here are some recent photos.

Here is part of our ride, this includes part of the long descent on the Aynes loop. I tried to include some fast flowing parts and some of the slower, trickier stuff as well.

My helmet cam struggled with the level of detail a little bit, but overall it looks pretty good. I really like the wide angle lens, as it portrays well how the trail skirts the edges of some ravines.

I took some more footage of the North Tower Loop, but I haven’t had a chance to edit it yet.

• Throughout – Bike lane is situated in the door zone. Riding on the left edge of it helps, but I still don’t feel 100% safe with it. Sometimes I have to ride in the traffic lane to avoid the door zone.
• 0:22 -  Weird dividers between the bike lane and traffic lane. Not sure if these are really problematic but they seem odd and make me a little nervous.
• 0:34 – Hazard in bike lane (manhole cover, slippery when wet)
• 0:50 – Starting at this point, the street gets wider and the bike lane moves to the far right of the street, which soon becomes a right-turn-only lane. I avoid this by staying in the main traffic lane to go straight. After the intersection, the bike lane continues on the far right, which once again becomes a right-turn-only lane. I suppose you could go straight from the right lane, but this seems like you’d be setting yourself up for a right hook.
• 1:39 – The bike lane continues on the far right, but this is a one-way street. State law permits riding on either side. If you want to turn left (as I did), you have to maneuver across the traffic lane anyway.

In my view, this road is good for biking, and would be even better *without* the bike lanes. They encourage/force unsafe riding practices — riding in the door zone, going straight from a turn lane.

Here’s another video, in which I go through part of downtown Bloomington. I had previously been taking a route that missed the square entirely, but I’ve discovered it’s actually very pleasant riding by the square.

When I posted the test video, I was surprised at how much attention people were paying to various details, and some of the comments talked about my riding style and traffic controls in the brief ride. So, I’m curious what people will see here.

Before I post the video, I have a few unrelated comments.

1. For quite a while now, I have been having some problems with my little toe on my left foot. Nothing has worked to get it to heal on its own, so I will be having surgery next Friday. It’s fairly minor and routine, or so I’m told, but I’m very much not looking forward to it. I will be off the bike for at least two weeks. After two weeks, the stitches come out and I can do whatever I’m comfortable with.
2. Moving, and doing some work in the new house, is proving to be very time-consuming. So I have not done much riding. We also don’t have Internet access in the new place yet, so it’s proving difficult to blog much.
3. My new commute will be close to twice as long as the old one, so things are going to get more interesting on the commuting front. I already started riding the Trucker when the weather isn’t too bad, and I have to say, it makes my commute much more enjoyable.
4. I tried to make a video of a fantastic night ride I did with my friend Dave. It was cold, dark, snowing, windy, and we were riding on hilly gravel roads. It was phenomenal! Unfortunately, the helmet cam does not handle darkness very well. I’m not sure yet if any of the footage will be salvageable.

Anyway, back to the commute video: I hope you enjoy it!

I’ve enjoyed quality time with my wife, mom, sister, and nephews, good food, a little time on the bike, new birthday toys to play with, and a beautiful drive with my beautifuler wife. What more could I ask for?”

What I didn’t mention is what I meant by “toys.” My wife got me a really cool gift: a helmet cam! It’s a “Go Pro Hero Wide.” It’s a tiny video camera that can mount on your helmet, handlebars,  etc. I did a short test yesterday with it on my helmet. The wide angle view lets you see a lot.

The best thing about this camera, though, is that it has slick mounting brackets that make it very easy to mount the camera or remove it, without hassle. It’s also very small, so it should be easy to take it on rides.

Here’s my brief test video from yesterday. The image quality is pretty good. This thing is going to be fun! This ride isn’t particularly interesting — just a test around the neighborhood — but it gives you an idea of the camera’s capabilities.

What shape this project takes remains to be seen, but sometimes having more of a purpose makes photography more interesting. This time, it was a sunny day with deep blue skies, perfect conditions for a polarizer. However, I had left my filter at home. So, I tried to simulate its effects by exposing the shots differently from how I normally do it. I also tried some new post-processing techniques. I think I had some success, and these shots are stylistically rather different from the ones I took in Spencer.

Railroad tracks run right alongside one of the roads, in a bit of a strange way.

As you might expect, in a town where many of the downtown buildings are vacant, some things are falling into disrepair. It’s not too bad, but some awnings and roofs have mold visible on them.

I especially liked the dusty scooter in front of a law office.

Then there was an odd Mexican-looking building, which was for sale. This gave us second thoughts about the house we put an offer on. OK, maybe not.

This fallout shelter was labeled for men only.

There was another fallout shelter on the other side of the building, which I expected to say “WOMEN.” But it had no designation at all.

There also appeared to be some sort of …. uh … dungeon(?) … beneath the courthouse.

CLOSED

There was also a very detailed statue of a soldier, commemorating the town’s WWI heroes.

It was an interesting outing. Seeing these scenes made me want to learn more about the history of the place. I try to picture the downtown area in a past era, bustling with people, rather than vacant like this. I wonder what it’s like on a weekday now, even, when the courthouse and the post office and the remaining businesses are open.

I’m sure we’ll return to Spencer at some point, and maybe we’ll branch out beyond the square next time.

1. Ride 3000 miles. This should be very doable, in fact I hope to end up with a bunch more, but I don’t want to ride less.
2. Ride a century (100 miles in one ride). I’ve been talking about this for far too long, it’s time to step up and do it.
3. Do at least three overnight bike camping trips (S24Os).
4. Do at least one longer bicycle tour, two nights or longer.
5. Ride my bicycle in at least two states other than Indiana. North Carolina will be one, I’m not sure about the other one yet.
6. Explore new roads and trails.
7. Continue 100% bicycle commuting.

I do have other goals, not related to cycling, I won’t list them here, except to say that I intend to spend more time on some of my other hobbies, which have been neglected the past couple of years (music, photography of a non-cycling nature).

There’s nothing quite like riding through the woods at night. All you can see is what’s illuminated by your lights, immediately in front of you. It’s hard to explain, but this video (not mine) demonstrates it very well. This video was taken on the Hesitation Point trail, which is more difficult than what we were riding, but hopefully you get the idea.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve been contemplating route options for a long, difficult, scenic mixed-terrain ride. Something to really challenge me, and give me an opportunity to spend all day riding and taking in the autumn colors. I came up with a slightly insane, but promising route of about 53 miles, about half gravel, with a lot of climbing. I’ve certainly done longer rides, but the terrain on this ride would be particularly rugged. Here’s a map and elevation profile of the ride, which totaled over 56 miles, and 3000 feet of climbing. It’s probably the weirdest-looking route I’ve come up with, on the map.

View 2009-10-18 Fall Mixed-Terrain Ride in a larger map

I decided that to best capture the foliage, I should bring my DSLR. Usually this camera does not go with me on bike rides, but I figured it would be safe in a pannier, with some T-shirts as padding. Also in my pannier were a water filter and some food. I knew I would be in remote areas with no services for most of the ride, so I had to be self-sufficient.

The ride started out easy as I rolled on some paved roads, riding away from town over some rolling hills. Immediately, I could feel the extra weight I was carrying, even though it was only a few extra pounds. And while I usually take photos with my point & shoot camera while riding, I had to stop any time I wanted to shoot and dig my camera out of my pannier. A little cumbersome, but it also forced me to spend a little more time setting up the shots.

I felt a bit chilly, which surprised me as I felt warm before I left. However, the wind from riding really cut through me at times, and the shady areas were a lot cooler.  I kept telling myself I would warm up from the physical activity. This never quite happened, but I wasn’t terribly uncomfortable, just a bit cool throughout the entire ride.

I took Lampkins Ridge Road across the ridgetop before going into a long, bumpy descent. I always enjoy riding in this area and in the flat lowland at the bottom. Here I hit my first gravel, on Friendship Road.

We are having a strange fall — the trees are turning in stages more than usual. Many trees lost their leaves a week or more ago, but some are still completely green. Others look quite colorful. All this means we are having a less-spectacular fall than usual … but don’t get me wrong, it’s still quite beautiful.

I was briefly back on paved roads. So far this was all familiar, but soon I turned onto Kent Road, where I’ve only ridden once, and that was in the opposite direction. Kent is partially paved and part gravel, and only has a few small hills, but even those small hills gave a good view of the neighboring fields. It also followed Salt Creek for a while. Just beautiful.

Soon I made my way over to Lower Schooner Road, a new road to me. It followed the creek some more, climbed some small hills and soon, a bigger climb (~175 feet). Not a huge hill, but more than I expected. I only stopped a few times to take photos. I’ll have to go back sometime and take some more, especially of some higher views of the creek. But I was having too much fun to stop. The climb paid off in a fun descent on the other side.

Next I had to go about a mile on State Road 46. This is a busy highway that I prefer to avoid, but there are times when there is no other way to get where you want to go. Traffic was really surprisingly light, and a bit of a shoulder gave me more room than I expected. It really wasn’t bad, but I was glad to turn off the highway and onto Yellowwood Road.

As you might guess, Yellowwood Road leads to Yellowwood State Forest and Yellowwood Lake. I had ridden on some parts of the road before, but not this part. The ride had been deceptively easy up to this point, but there were some good hills ahead of me. But it’s an incredibly beautiful area, and also where Sarah and I got married. We have wedding photos of us by the silo in the below shots.

Past this point, the road turned to gravel. Once in the state forest, I had a couple more climbs, and then I stopped at one of the campgrounds to have a snack and get some water. I was only 16 miles into the ride, but this would be the only opportunity to fill my water bottles without having to filter water.

I got back onto Yellowwood Road. Now I had a long climb up to Lanam Ridge Road. I’ve ridden here before a couple of times, so I knew it was doable, but it’s a wild ride; the road climbs for 3 miles or so, and even goes through a couple of creeks.

Eventually, I made it. Right when I reached the top of the hill, I saw a deer across the street. I looked closer, and realized it was a young buck. I see deer quite frequently, but I almost never see a buck. Unfortunately, I missed that photo opportunity. Lanam Ridge Road has a couple hills, nothing too long but they are steep enough to make you work.

Soon, I reached the gravel Dubois (pronounced “duh-boys”) Ridge Road. Here is where the climbing paid off. After a few rolling hills, the road went into an extended, twisty descent along the top of the ridge, sometimes skirting the edge of some deep ravines. I frequently hit 25-30 mph going down this hill, and on a gravel road, that feels a lot faster. At some point, the gravel turned into more of a muddy surface.

I turned onto Green Valley Road, a new road for me. My plan was to take this to Bond Cemetery Road, and then take that back to State Road 46.

However, my plans were foiled when the road reached a blocked-off, rickety old bridge with a sign that once read, “Closed to all traffic.” Some lawn chairs sat on the bridge, and it seemed like people had been there recently. I probably could have crossed safely, but I decided not to risk it — especially since I wasn’t even sure if the road would have gone through once I crossed the bridge. So, I had to take Green Valley back over to Dubois Ridge, instead. This excursion added a few extra miles — and a couple of extra climbs — to my ride.

This wasn’t a problem, as I just wanted to head back down to SR 46 anyway. Really, this whole Yellowwood / Lanam Ridge / Dubois Ridge section was an extra loop tacked onto the route. I was glad I did it, but it could be cut out to make a shorter (but still quite challenging) route.

So, I took 46 again briefly, over to Crooked Creek Road, another gravel road through a different part of the state forest. It was flat for a while, and I watched a few wild turkeys running across a field. Soon, I reached a brutal climb. I stopped at the base and gawked at the hill.

But that was just the beginning of it. The road rose sharply, then got steeper before it tapered off a bit. I thought that I had reached the end of the climb, but then the road got steeper once again. The grade let up and I thought I *must* have reached the top, when it got steeper a third time. The repeated teasing was physically and psychologically exhausting.

As soon as I reached the top, the road turned back down. I enjoyed the descent, and stopped when I reached Crooked Creek Lake. I rode up to the top of the dam to rest and eat some lunch. It was a truly beautiful spot for a break. I also took this opportunity to filter some water from the lake.

After a rather long break, I got back on the bike. I passed some fields and hills, and reached an access point for Lake Monroe, with a great view.

The road turned and became paved. The riding was deceptively flat for a mile or two, but then I reached a huge climb on Dewar Ridge Road / T.C. Steele Road. This one was paved, but quite steep. Then, the grade let up … and then got steeper. Having done the big climb on Crooked Creek Road not long ago, I was really hurting at this point. I knew the ride would be hard, but … man! Ouch. I normally try not to stop in the middle of a climb, but I really needed to this time.

Once I reached the top and turned onto the somewhat-familiar Gilmore Ridge Road, I started playing through the rest of the ride in my head. I figured that I would only have one more big climb, near the end of the ride. There were some short, steep hills to contend with in the meantime, but there was only one extended climb remaining. I felt a sense of relief … but at the same time, sort of dreaded the last climb. I’d deal with that when I got to it. I hoped that I would get a bit of respite and feel refreshed by the time I got there.

I soon forgot about that climb though as I enjoyed an easy ride, rolling a ridgetop on a gravel road with some wonderful scenery.

And, some logging, sadly.

Soon, I reached McGowan Road.  I rode here recently, in the opposite direction, and it is possibly the hardest climb in the area. This time, I’d be riding down. Even that was difficult as the road surface was loose, chunky gravel, and there wasn’t much traction to be had. I rode the brakes and rode very slowly. I was afraid if I got going too fast, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Next came a few rolling hills, which were short, but some fairly steep. Once again, the loose gravel made things challenging.

There were also some longer downhill sections, which were a lot of fun. Once I reached the bottom, I knew the road would be flat for a while. The scenery was absolutely fantastic, and the flat riding gave me a welcome break from riding hard.

I reached paved roads again and rode a few fairly easy, flat miles.

Finally, I reached the last big climb of the ride. It was long, and steep, but I made it. Now all I had left was about a mile of singletrack trail, and then a ride home through a few residential areas.

As you can see, this was a truly stunning ride … one of my favorite rides in recent memory. The fall foliage, the remote gravel roads, and the hills made for some great scenery. And while the ride was very difficult, I never got frustrated with it — I was just glad to be out riding. I’ll definitely have to ride this route again sometime in the future, but it’s difficult enough that I doubt I’ll do it too often.