spokesNspin

A few months ago I moved.  I love where I live.  I can walk or ride my bike pretty much every where I need to go.  It is an area the was developed in the late 19th century as a suburb with easy rail  access to D.C.

You can read about the area here.

It has a very interesting mix of housing  styles.  Here are two of my favorite houses.

Most of the houses in the area don’t have such fascinating colors.

I am very close to a wonderful avenue with lots of cafes and various types of boutiques.

And the very best custard in the world is available at the Dairy Godmother.  I have spent a bit of money there since moving here.  It is so good that President Obama and his daughters went there for ice cream last month.

If you want to check it out you can go to their custard cam. So be careful or you may get caught cheating on your diet.

On a Friday or Saturday night the line stretches from the counter to the back of the building and then turns and goes out the front door.  There is no grumbling, pushing or shoving.  Everyone is just happy to be there.

You can get your custard or sorbet and then go out on the street and find a place to sit and watch the people go by.

That’s it for Friday Foto Fiesta.  Go see Carrie to join in and have a great weekend.  I think I will go for custard.

Bicycle club rides are  a  good way to improve your riding skills and  socialize with people who have a common interest. 

Rides are classified by difficulty.  “D” rides are the slowest and shortest.  These are very very slow and are mostly about the social aspect.  “C”  rides are a decent pace and have a social aspect.  You have “B” rides and “A”  There are also double letter rides within each category, ”BB” rides or “AA”  for example which are just a little more difficult than the single letter ride.

On most rides of “B” or less it is generally assumed that the group will wait now and then for slower riders.  They might also have a sweeper who stays at the end to ensure everyone is there.  “A” rides are for die hards and have a take no prisoners approach.  You keep up or get dropped.

I generally go on rides anywhere from “C” to “BB”.  It just depends on what I am in the mood for.

A few weeks ago I decided to go on a “C” ride.  It was in D.C. and was with a different group than I normally ride with.  I thought it would interesting to see some new areas.

It was a strange club ride.  The leader will never win Miss Congeniality that is for sure.  She pretty much handed out a cue sheet and left people to themselves.  Cue sheets help but can also be very difficult to follow.  We were in D.C. following roads and bike paths so there were lots of turns.  It was hard to follow.

There were also many difficult hills that were never mentioned in the ride notice.

We were losing people right and left.  Riders would tell the leader that we had lost people and she would just kind of shrug it off.

There was a husband/wife couple riding who bickered for much of the ride. Very unpleasant.  He was basically a jerk and criticized everything about how his wife was riding.

We stopped for lunch at a food co-op.   I went in to fill my water bottle and when I came out the leader had taken the group and left.  Amazing!

I was darn lucky I was able to catch them.  I asked my riding partner why she didn’t say something.  She said she knew that if she got dropped she would never catch up and figured I had a better chance than she did.  Can’t blame her for that.

I did see some new sites which is what I wanted.  Along the way we stopped at Fort Stevens.  They were having a reenactment of a civil war battle that took place there in July 1864.  President Lincoln came out during the battle to observe and came under fire.  It  was supposedly only one of two times that a sitting president has come under direct enemy fire.

Here are some pics from the event.

The military band was using period instruments.

On Wednesday I came home to find my Internet had been disconnected due to non-payment.  Interesting  given that I thought I was making the payments. I have paid every bill I received from Verizon. This would be laughable if it wasn’t so frustrating.

Yes I have the network.

See all those people who are supposedly supporting me?  I spoke with probably half of them before I got my problem resolved. 

Do you remember the fable about the blind men trying to describe an elephant?  That is what trying to get a problem resolved with Verizon is like.   Each customer service rep can only see a small part of the problem.  It was so aggravating.

I just about got to the point where I was going to say to hell with them and just get a new provider. I was thinking it would be faster.

This is what took place over the 3 days.

Day1:

I was routed to seven different people and given five different phone numbers to call.   I was routed to India twice and to two of the same people twice.

One of the people in India kept referring to me as ma’am.  And we had an atrocious time understanding each other.  I had to spell my last name four or five times before he got right.

The last person I spoke with on Wednesday said my account was indeed delinquent.  She couldn’t pull it up and explain the problem because I couldn’t give her the correct account number.  Pretty hard to do given that I have never actually received a hard copy Internet bill.

She said she would send me a bill and I could then call back.  Yes, I know very helpful.  I wait until I get a bill snail mail and then try to resolve it.

Day 2:

I went to the library and logged on to myverizon and got what I thought was my account #.  It was hard to tell if my Internet was actually on that bill.

I came home and started calling.  After almost an hour and 4 more people I ended up with Jessica.  Of course they don’t use their real names.  Jessica told me I was owing $229 and of that $169 was past due.  She told me I could pay up and have my account reactivated within four hours.  The problem is she couldn’t do that over the phone with a charge card.  Nope! I need to do it on line or via the telephone automated system.  Pretty hard to do since the account # seems to be in question.

She gave me the account number.   She then decided against having me pay online.  She said there seemed to be a land line associated with my account and she didn’t want me paying a bill and  it actually not going to the  correct place. She said she would activate my account as a “courtesy”.  She then gave me another phone number and told me I would need to call them the next day to resolve the problem.  She said to call first thing in the morning because she wasn’t sure how long my account would stay activated.

At least she was able to do something.

Day 3:

On day 3 I called and spent about 30 minutes with three different people and being disconnected once.  The second person was Ron and of course was in India.  He pulled up my account and gave me the number.  He said it showed active, no land line and the payments had been received right along.  He seemed to have the correct information as to when I started, when the payments were received, my account login etc.  He said they had received payments from my phone company yet I wasn’t on the one bill option.  He then gave me a number to call for one bill.

I called one bill and I think I am now set up.  But can you understand how I can be skeptical that anyone there really knows what is going on?

In the past I have been very happy with Verizon but now I don’t know.  But they are all the same.

Three days, 2 1/2 hours and 14 different people.  It is really astounding!

I recently visited the FDR Memorial in D.C.  It is one of my favorite memorials.  Unfortunately it is also a little bit out of the way so many people miss it.  It is like a statuary garden that depicts his entire presidency.

I especially like this quote:

If you ever come to D.C. be sure to check it out.  It is on the opposite side of the tidal basin of most of the other memorials.

Happy Friday Foto Fiesta.

I have recently gone through a major life event.  In such situations middle aged men do some crazy things.  I did just that a few weeks ago.  No I didn’t buy an expensive sports car and marry a super young blonde bimbo.  I can’t afford a sports car and don’t care for them anyway.   Since I can’t afford a sports car young women won’t  give me a second look and I wouldn’t care for a young bimbo either.

But when the end of June rolled around I did manage to do two things that rational people might attribute to a mid-life crisis.  The first I will not mention.  The second was that I bought a new bike.

“Wait”,you say,  “What’s the big deal about a new bike”?  You folks already know I have a lot of bikes.  But the new love of my life is special.  In fact, Tina has been mostly ignored for the last two weeks as Cassie has become the object of my affection.

Take  a look:

No look closer:

Notice anything special about Cassie other than an amazing paint job?

Cassie is a single speed fixed gear bike.  Yes I got a fixie.  The wheels of choice for bike couriers and twenty something  counter  culture men who ride without helmets and sport tattoos and body piercings. 

For my family and friends who read this blog and are not familiar with a fixed gear bike let me explain.   A fixed gear bike is a single speed bike.  That is no big deal.  The “fixed” aspect is what makes the bike a kick to ride.  A fixed gear bike has no free wheel.  You can not coast.  If the wheels are turning the pedals are turning.

I wasn’t sure an old guy like me could learn to ride a fixed gear without breaking any important parts.  Personal parts I mean not bicycle parts.

You’d be surprised at how often one coasts  or even back pedals on a bike without even thinking about it.   There is more to a fixie than just the fact you are always pedaling.   I had to learn new ways of stopping and turning. 

Imagine the feeling of flying down the road on your bike and leaning into  curve.  You put the weight on your outside pedal and the push the top of the bike down.  No can do on a fixed gear.  At least it’s not quite so simple.  Remember the pedals are always turning.  If things aren’t lined up just right when you take a curve the inside pedal may be on the bottom and hit the ground.  Ouch!

I was also surprised at how routine stopping and starting on a normal bike had become and how different it is on a fixed gear.   With a normal bike one develops habits of positioning the pedals just so for stopping and starting.   If you try that on a fixie you might just find your self coming to a stop in the middle of the intersection instead of at the cross walk.

I didn’t ride it to work for the first week. I would come home from work and then go out for an hour on the fixie.   I wasn’t sure at first  I would make it.  There was one thing that kept me going. I thought of all the people I had gotten into cycling and after about two or three rides I convinced them to get clipless pedals.  I kept telling myself the same thing I told them.  Once you get used to it you will love it.  I needed to practice what I had been preaching.

I told myself I would give it until the end of July and if I wasn’t comfortable at that point I would switch it back to the free wheel. 

I have had some scary moments.   Visualize this if you will.  I am going down a hill at a pretty good speed.  My foot slips off the pedal.  Remember if the wheels are turning the pedals are turning.  So I am flying down a hill and my feet slip off the pedal. Try putting your feet on the pedals while they are spinning around like a couple of egg beaters.  Only option is to hold the feet away from the pedals and try to slow down.  But slowing down is no piece of cake.  

Yes I have brakes but there are some things you don’t even think about until they are gone.  I had never considered when stopping a bike how force was taken up by my legs and core against the pedals.  Now all I have are my arms holding me from sliding off of my slick leather saddle and flying over the handle bars of my now braking bike.  I am sure I looked really stupid. I certainly felt like klutz.

I decided from the beginning I would start with flat pedals.  It took two rides to decide that wouldn’t work.  I went and got pedals that are clipless on one side and flat on the other. That is what I have been using on most of my bikes.

I just about went off the Mt Vernon bike trail one day while trying to pass a slow rider and negotiate a tight turn at the same time.  Whew! That one was a heart stopper.

I know at this point you are concerned for my well being.  Let me tell you the only thing injured in the first few days was my pride.  And now as the end of July approaches I am loving the fixed gear bike.  It’s hard to explain but there is a simple pleasure in riding a fixie.   For one thing it is so quiet.  As one person said it is sort of a Zen thing.  It has become my main commuter and around town bike.

I still have a few things to learn.  How does one bunny hop a bump or pot hole?  What is a post over? If any of you readers happen to be fixed gear riders please let me know.

In the meantime, I will practice and try to learn a track stand and this really nifty off of the back of the saddle stopping maneuver that can only be done on a fixed gear. 

Failing to master those two skills I will continue on the fixie but settle for a couple of tattoos.