A Tough Weekend For Cycling

Fortunately I am in Colorado this weekend, but this is close to my weekend cycling route to Harpers Ferry, WV when I am in Maryland.

Screenshot 2016-01-23 at 07.57.03 AM

About Tony Heller

Just having fun
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

42 Responses to A Tough Weekend For Cycling

  1. RAH says:

    I there is a solution to that problem if you end up having to deal with it:
    http://www.blessthisstuff.com/stuff/sports/radical-sports/ktrack-snow-bike-kit/
    Or you can leave the bike at home and get yourself a good set of cross country skis. Exercise some different muscle groups and probably make better time in the current conditions.

  2. ed K says:

    I am sure the Solar Panels around DC are working fine

    • Jason Calley says:

      Can’t the scientists just make some sort of snow panel that produces electricity when buried under snow? 🙂

      • RAH says:

        Well some folks were claiming that they could make solar panel surfaced highways that could standup to snow plows and all the other abuse that such road surfaces experience. So apparently solar panels can do it all and a little snow on top of them is no big deal. [sarc]

      • gator69 says:

        Under this snow covered panel, scientists have developed a groundbreakling way to generate electricity.

        http://www.norwall.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Generac-HSB-Winter-Snow.jpg

        • Jason Calley says:

          Hey gator! Is that old scam where they claim to rotate a generator by making a series of tiny explosions inside a metal block? You can’t fool me with that old chestnut! 🙂

        • RAH says:

          And that’s the way I’m heading eventually. Get one big enough for the whole house load with a transfer box and hook it into the natural gas line and a whole lot of worries and inconvenience goes away.

        • gator69 says:

          Add a thousand gallon propane tank (or two) to that formula Rah, and you have a real winner.

        • Jason Calley says:

          Hey RAH! Back about 1999 0r 2000, General Electric had a press conference where they announced a break through in fuel cell technology. They said that they had developed a fuel cell about the same size as an outside air conditioner unit. It ran on natural gas or propane and produced enough power to run a normal house. Maintenance was minimal and the cost of the electricity was below standard power line delivery. They planned to start selling them commercially in another year or so. Hot dog! It sounded just like something I wanted to get my hands on! I book marked the press release and check in every so often for updates. No updates… A year went past, then two and three years and no change. Their web site still had old date for commercial production (now way past due). After about four years or so the site went missing and I have not heard anything from GE about it since.

        • lectrikdog says:

          “They said that they had developed a fuel cell about the same size as an outside air conditioner unit. It ran on natural gas or propane and produced enough power to run a normal house.”
          Ain’t the electric power lobbyists just Grand! Government. phoo- 🙁

        • Jason Calley says:

          Hey lectrikdog! Could very well have been utilities lobbyists, but I can’t say for sure. With the supply of natural gas being so high the technology would be nice to have around. many fuel cell designs have seemed more promising at first and not so much later on. One problem in a lot of past designs is that the membranes tend to not last as long as first calculations imply. It would be nice to know what happened to it.

          The fact that there was never an update on the design makes me suspicious that the reasons were more political than technological. “Let’s just pretend it never happened…”

  3. RAH says:

    We didn’t get any more snow here in central Indiana but the ground is still covered and it’s plenty cold enough. So I just opened a bunch of cans of beans and tomatoes for my better half to start making a big pot of Chili. We like using three different beans in ours. Black beans, Kidney beans, and Chili beans.

    • Gail Combs says:

      I just made a second large pot of chicken soup — low carb style.
      Boil the bones with lemon juice to make the stock heavy in calcium and other minerals then add:
      Celery
      leeks (less carbs than onions)
      simmer 1/2 hour
      add mushrooms, spices and reserved cut up cooked chicken
      and while they are cooking, wash, slice up bok choy.
      add white stems next
      last add the green leaves of bok choy and baby spinach.
      cook ~ five minutes and serve.

      Rest goes in frig to be heated in the microzot to serving temp. — 3 minutes for a big bowl.

      Low Carb Vegetable List Serving Size: 1/4 cup
      Vegetable | Net Carbs
      Spinach – 0.2g
      Bok Choy – 0.7g
      Celery – 0.8g
      Mushroom – 1.0g
      Garlic (1 clove) – 1.0g

      Onion – 4.0g

      To compare onions to leeks since leeks are a royal PITA to get rid of the sand and prep.
      According to the USDA nutrition database:
      100 grams
      nutrient – Leeks — onions —- green onions (tops)
      calories — 61 ———–40 ————25
      protein— 1.5g ———-1.1g——— 1.6g
      fat ———-0.3g ——— 0.1g——– 0.0g
      carbs —– 14.1 g ——– 9.3 g—— 5g
      fiber ——- 1.8 g — — 1.7 g—— 3.33g
      sugars —— 3.9 g ——–4.2 g —-1.67

      Leeks are a bit lower in sugar and higher in protein and fat. It would also depend on how much bulb you use vs leaf. Green onions deliver the flavor of regular bulb onions, but for less carbohydrate, since only the bulb part has significant carbohydrate. So use only the green leaves and toss the bulb you get the flavor, fiber and more nutrients than in onions. You can also forget the leeks and toss scallions in at the last minute instead.

      Leeks are richer in certain vitamins and minerals than onions. There are 2.1 g of iron — 10 times the amount in onions. Leeks also are significantly higher in vitamin C and contain vitamin A where onions do not.

      Green onion (chives or scallion tops) are a good source of Thiamin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Zinc and Copper, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Riboflavin, Calcium, Iron, Potassium and Manganese.

      Green onions from:
      http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/7362/2

      (You knew I would research my soup ingredients now didn’t you.)

      • RAH says:

        Of course you would research it Gail! Sounds like it would work just as well with a left over Thanksgiving turkey carcass.

        Personally these days I’ve taking those gummy vitamins from Centrum. High in B 12, D, and E. I sometimes get some pretty severe cramps in my feet and calves when I lay down after long hauls and since I have started taking the vitamins incidence and severity of that cramping has been reduced considerably.

        • Gail Combs says:

          I have made lots of turkey soup from left over Thanksgiving or Christmas turkey or from beef or pork or goat or elk or venison.

          For pork, I toss in some spicy sausage along with the pork and either lentils or 15 bean soup mix though I now try to stay away from the high carb veggies. If you are going to go for a high carb veggie at least beans have a lot of protein and fiber too.

          I consider white bread an ‘edible napkin’ and actually worse for you than eating the napkin.

        • Gail Combs says:

          Severe cramps in feet and calves is often a potassium deficiency. I use KCl (Morton Salt Substitute) to counter all the NaCl (table salt) found in most foods.

          I found when I ‘crash’ due to excess heat in the summer an Atkins Shake perks me right up like nothing else will.

          Potassium Deficiency
          http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/muscle-cramp/basics/causes/con-20014594

          http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/nocturnal-leg-cramps-nighttime-calf-muscle-pain.html

          Part of the problem is often too much caffeine.
          What Happens To Your Body Within The First Hour of Drinking a Coke

          60 minutes in
          The phosphoric acid binds calcium, magnesium and zinc in your lower intestine, providing a further boost in metabolism. This is compounded by high doses of sugar and artificial sweeteners also increasing the urinary excretion of calcium.

          After 60 minutes
          The caffeine’s diuretic properties come into play. (It makes you have to pee.) It is now assured that you’ll evacuate the bonded calcium, magnesium and zinc that was headed to your bones as well as sodium, electrolyte and water.

          As the rave inside of you dies down you’ll start to have a sugar crash. You may become irritable and/or sluggish. You’ve also now, literally, pissed away all the water that was in the Coke. But not before infusing it with valuable nutrients your body could have used for things like having the ability to hydrate your system or build strong bones and teeth.

        • RAH says:

          I understand about electrolyte deficiencies but that was not the problem.

        • RAH says:

          Now the caffeine explanation is plausible for me. I drink a lot of coffee and it ain’t Folgers or Maxwell House. I’m not sure I could do my job without coffee. I know several truck drivers that don’t like coffee but do the Dew as in Mountain Dew. I figure that is worse than the black unsweetened coffee I drink. These days I am also drinking a fair amount of green tea with honey made by Real Tea after a couple cups of coffee when I’m behind the wheel. Though the cramps have been enough to wake me from a sound sleep at times none of them have been so bad that a couple of asprin didn’t provide relief. But I do my best to avoid taking ASA any more than necessary.

        • Donna K. Becker says:

          For those cramps, emphasize getting sufficient calcium, magnesium, and potassium in your diet. I don’t know the mineral content of Centrum, but it’s probably relatively minimal. Personally, I use supplements made primarily of phytonutrients (dried plant materials, around 20 different varieties).

        • Gail Combs says:

          RAH, tea is probably your best bet for a wake-me-up instead of coffee.

          Less caffeine and more antioxidants.

          http://www.choiceorganicteas.com/caffeineintea.php

          http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/antioxidants-in-green-and-black-tea

          Green Tea May Fight Allergies (I find black, green or white, it works well if it is not decaffinated. Also tea does not tear up my stomach or make me sleepy like anti-histamines.)
          http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/09/020919071413.htm

          Evaluation of anti-inflammatory effects of green tea and black tea: A comparative in vitro study
          http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3401676/

          Antioxidant and antibacterial properties of green, black, and herbal teas of Camellia sinensis
          http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249787/

        • PeterK says:

          RAH: I don’t know how true the following is, but one thing I will say, I started drinking a glass and sometimes 2 glasses (6 oz each) of water about half an hour before I go to bed about 6-months ago. In my particular case, I no longer experience leg cramps or feet cramps (arches) that I used to get on a regular basis while sleeping. Sometimes though, when I’m in my easy chair and I stretch, I will get a minor cramp, but not like the bad ones I used to get.
          **********
          Gravity holds water in the lower part of your body when you are standing (legs swell).
          When you lie down and the lower body (legs and etc.) seeks level with the kidneys, it is then that the kidneys remove the water because it is easier.
          You need water to help flush the toxins out of your body.
          Drinking water at a certain time maximizes its effectiveness on the body.
          2 glasses of water after waking up helps activate internal organs.
          1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal helps digestion.
          1 glass of water before taking a bath helps lower blood pressure.
          1 glass of water before going to bed avoids stroke or heart attack.
          Water at bed time will also help prevent night time leg cramps.
          Your leg muscles are seeking hydration when they cramp and wake you up with a Charlie Horse.

      • AndyG55 says:

        OMG, the forum has turned into an episode of MasterChef !! 😉

        • Gail Combs says:

          The western governments have lied their heads off about CAGW, about unemployment figures, about the economy and also about food and the ‘recommended diet’. So I figure it fits right in. Many of us are over fifty so a decent diet that keeps us away from the Obummercare or NHS Liverpool Care Pathway is of interest.

        • David A says:

          Peter, anyone that has gone through kidney stones is fairy easily convinced of the need for copious amounts of water.

      • David A says:

        Gail Combs says: January 23, 2016 at 4:33 pm
        ” I just made a…
        ========================================================
        Oh B.S. Wrong recipe, and you altered it. Some southern racist recipe to boot!

      • David A says:

        … not peer reviewed either!

  4. RAH says:

    Joes Saturday summary is out.
    http://www.weatherbell.com/saturday-summary-january-16-2016

    Says Gail and the rest of you folks getting nailed now have another snow event coming next week. He doesn’t believe it will be as severe as what your getting now but it’s going to follow the same track. That track of storms coming across the south then arching up the east coast is exactly what the guys at weatherbell have been saying was going to happen this winter since August last year.

  5. Jody says:

    Well, New Yorkers have things under control it appears:
    http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/printArticleJpg/158275403/3?print=n

  6. Robertv says:

    Good thing you’re a versatile sportsman.

  7. lectrikdog says:

    “The snow-measuring device at Reagan National Airport where official snow totals for the nation’s capital are recorded was buried in the blizzard, leaving weather observers unable to record the true amount of snowfall.” http://iceagenow.info/under-reported-snow-total-in-washington-dc/

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *