When Bikers Learn to Fly

I have some bad news.  It turns out I'm old.  I know this may come as a shock to you, considering my bubbly and youthful personality.  But, I'm going to let you in on a little secret.  It's all a facade.  I've been faking it for a long time.  But now I'm ready to let the cat out of the bag:  I'm really old.

There are many little stories I could present as evidence of my elderly thesis.  Today I will present only one.  But be warned.  Blood was shed during the making of this story.  Lots and LOTS of blood.

It all started out pretty simple.  I went for a morning bike ride, which is something I do fairly often.  One might even use that fact as a data point to support the idea that I'm not old.  Well, read on to see why that assumption is false.

Like I said, I went for a morning bike ride.  I had a general idea of which direction I wanted to go, but the purpose was the ride more than the destination, so I wasn't paying too much attention to where I was headed.  I came upon a small park, and determined that it would be fun to go through the park.

Here's the part where I thought I was much younger than the reality.  You see, when I was a pre-teen, I rode my bike everywhere.  It was no big deal to ride across the grass.  It was no big deal to hop over a curb.  Then for some reason I stopped riding a bike.  Then 20 years passed.  That brings us to today.  Apparently, I was unaware that 20 years had passed.  Apparently, I thought that jumping a curb would be an easy thing.  (It was 20 years ago.)

So I headed for this park, with full knowledge of the fact that there was a tall curb in the way.  I approached the curb.  I jumped the bike.  And then I learned how to fly.

I'm not sure exactly what went wrong.  Did I jump too early?  Did I not jump high enough?  The specifics are fuzzy, but one thing is clear.  I definitely failed to jump the curb.  My front tire hit that curb and promptly stopped the bike.  However, my body did not stop moving.  (I blame Newton and his stupid, fat, first law of motion.)  And, as I stated before, Isaac Newton made me fly through the air.

You see, twenty years ago, when I tried the same thing it looked more like this:

I still flew, just without leaving the bike behind.  I didn't even need E.T. to make it happen.

So, as you can see, I'm clearly old.   But let's move on with the story.

The problem with flying is the fact that I can't fly.  What I really do is fall with style.

The main problem with falling, no matter how much style you may have, is that you eventually hit the ground.  Most people do fancy things when they hit the ground.  The really good ones do fancy rolls where their momentum continues and they don't get hurt.  Lesser people do such fancy things as catch themselves with their hands.  Me?  Well, I'm the fanciest of all.  I caught myself with my nose.

I do remember trying to put my arms in front of me.  I'm not sure where the failure was.  Perhaps, it was just in the gargantuan size of my nose.  All I know is that my nose absorbed 100% of the impact.  Everything else came out unscathed.

And that's when the blood started.

How is it that so much blood goes through the nose?  If you stabbed me in the heart, it would be more lethal than hitting my nose, but I am convinced it would not be nearly as bloody as a bloody nose.

At this point I had a problem.  Blood was pouring forth, and I didn't know what to do about it.  I hope blood is a good fertilizer because I sure fertilized the grass in that park.  After sitting and bleeding for a few minutes, I devised a strategy.  I figured if I just waited it out, one of two things would happen.  Either, it would clot eventually, or I would bleed to death.  I figured the likelihood of me bleeding to death was slim, so I waited for it to clot.

Fun fact:  I'm still alive, which means it eventually clotted.  Not only that, but despite all the blood that I left in the grass, there was not a single drop on my clothing.  It was all part of my brilliant lean forward and bleed on the grass strategy.

Once it stopped bleeding, I did my best to wipe off my nose and become at least somewhat presentable.  But, I utterly failed at that attempt.

The good news is, I wasn't planning to win a beauty contest on that ride anyway.

I rode home as a bloody mess, took a shower, washed all the blood away and went to work where I sadly reminisced about the days when riding a bike wasn't so gory.  You young whippersnappers don't know how good you have it.

Biking with Bugs

I may or may not have mentioned that I'm into biking now.  Have you heard me say something along those lines?  Well, if not, I'll just clear the air right now.  I'm a biker.  I bike.

I love riding to work in the mornings.  My favorite part of the ride is the 2 mile stretch where I ride along the shore of Utah Lake.  I see all sorts of birds, I've seen deer.  I've seen raccoons.  The wildlife is quite abundant.  However, there is one form of life that hangs out next to the lake that you might say I enjoy slightly less.

There are huge swarms of bugs that hang out right next to the lake.  The good news is that they're not mosquitoes.  The bad news is that they're still bugs, and they swarm in incredible numbers.

I'm always riding along, enjoying the scenery, when I notice a swarm in front of me.  Of course I ride through the swarm because there's no other option.  At first it's kind of cool.  It's as if I'm the star ship Enterprise flying through the galaxy with the stars blowing past me.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, here is a visual representation.

However, the analogy to being a star ship only goes so far.  Obviously there are minor differences such as the fact that I'm not in space.  But the major difference that I've noticed is that stars never hit the Enterprise in the face.  They always have little ensigns as the ones driving the ship, but apparently they are better pilots than me, because I get a face full of bugs.

In addition to being a bad pilot, it turns out I'm a bad strategist as well.  My strategy thus far has been to duck my head down as I plunge into the swarm.  This does well in keeping the bugs out of the various orifices in my face, including eyes, mouth and nose, (I really wanted to say eyes, ears, mouth and nose so that you would think of the children's song, but I've never had a problem with them getting in my ears so I felt that would be dishonest.) but it causes something else quite horrible.

You see, my helmet has lots of holes in it that allow air to flow and make me a happy boy most of the time.  But those very same holes make it so that my helmet also serves quite well as a bug trap.  As I ride through the swarm, the holes funnel all the bugs into my head.  Then the bugs are unable to escape and I can feel them crawling all over my scalp.  I usually don't have a huge problem with bugs, but the swarm hanging out on my head really creeps me out.

I snapped a pic of this guy on the inside of my helmet when I took it off.

So that's the story of the way bugs ruined my dream of being a star ship.  It doesn't really have any sort of a moral to the story, except that I think I'm hardcore and that I've endured great hardship.  So if you could, go ahead and think I'm hardcore for enduring bugs to the face and to the scalp.  Thanks.  It's much appreciated.

Biking With Deer

Have I mentioned I'm a biker?  It's true.  I'm a biker.  I bike.

On my bike commute to work there is a stretch about 2.5 miles long where I take a bike trail along the shore of Utah Lake.  It's my favorite part of my ride each morning.  It's a super active area when it comes to wildlife.  I've seen ducks, pelicans, cranes, and dozens of other kinds of birds that I can't identify.  I've also seen squirrels, chipmunks, deer, feral cats, and more bugs than I care to mention.

Most of the time the wildlife keeps itself at a pretty good distance.  However, recently  I came upon two deer who got a little closer to me than I think they intended.

You see, I was coming along the bike trail when I noticed that there were two deer standing in the trail, right in front of me.  The interesting thing about this bike trail is that there are only certain areas where you can get on or off it easily.  It has big cement rail on one side, separating it from the highway, and the other side has a fence protecting you from the drop off into the lake.

Without room to make evasive maneuvers, the deer used a pretty basic strategy of just running away from me.  I'm sure they normally have no problem outrunning humans.

"This dude will never catch up to us!"

"We're so fast!"

"Ummm...  I think he's catching us."

"Ya, he's pretty close, we better bail."

 Not pictured:  The first deer managed to crawl under the fence.

"Hey!  Wait for me!"

"How am I supposed to fit under here?"

I was pretty impressed at their ingenuity in their mode of escape.  I actually slowed down as I started getting closer because I didn't want to give them a heart attack.

The moral of the story:  nature is cool.

The Time I Wore a Diaper to the Grocery Store

Okay, I'm going to admit up front that the title of this post is totally sensationalism.  I didn't actually wear a diaper to the grocery store.  It just felt like it.

So here's the thing.  I've recently become more of a biker.  I've been biking to work.  I've been biking on the weekends.  It's really fun, and I really enjoy it.  But, there's one little drawback to all that biking.  I've written before about how I have no bum.  Well, it turns out that bumless people have a problem of having zero padding in the seat area.  This means that prolonged biking can become quite painful in the hind end region.

Well, as a biker, I've greatly utilized the local bike shop.  The salesman always laughs at my jokes, which means his sense of humor is impeccable, so I assume he is wise in other areas as well.  When I asked him what to do about my tender hind end, he suggested padded shorts.

What a brilliant idea!

So I purchased some ridiculously expensive shorts.  From the outside they look pretty normal.

But on the inside is where the magic happens.

That brightly colored yellow pad runs all through the inside and gives a nice gentle cushion to all the parts that get pushed up against the bike seat and become much too uncomfortable.

While riding a bike, it's like sitting on a cloud, or a light feathery pillow.

But the moment you get off a bike, it feels like you're wearing a diaper.  It's basically the most awkward clothing you could possibly wear for anything other than riding a bike.  I'm not really sure if other people can tell that there's extra padding in there.  But, it really doesn't matter because regardless of what others see, I feel deep down in my soul that I'm wearing a diaper.

So, basically, I try to avoid wearing these shorts at all costs, unless I am on a bike at that exact moment.

Which brings me to the story about why I had to wear them to a grocery store.

I mentioned earlier that I've been riding my bike to work.  When I do this, I put it in the back of my truck and drive to the American Fork train station.  This allows me to get past a couple miles of heavily trafficked roads where there are many bloodthirsty drivers who yearn to kill innocent bikers.  From that point on, the rest of my commute to work is through farmlands and next to Utah Lake.  It's a beautiful ride.

Well, apparently, due to my frequent bike commutes I've been driving my truck more than I realized.  The gas gauge on my truck doesn't actually work, so I have to be somewhat aware of how much it's been driven.  (Which I apparently wasn't in the story you're about to read.)

On Saturday, I had planned to take Robyn on a scenic ride out next to the lake.  I'd picked a trail on the east side that we hadn't done yet.  It was going to be really fun.  We put our bikes in the back of the truck and started heading out there.

I've never been driving when a vehicle has run out of gas before.  It turns out it's a really surreal experience.  The car doesn't just instantly die.  What happened to the truck was that it seemed like the gas pedal just quit working.  I pulled over and tried to rev it but it wouldn't do anything.  Then after about 30 seconds of idling, it finally died.  I wasn't completely sure it was out of gas, but that was my best theory.  I really hoped that was the problem and not something else.

So there we were, on a random highway in Saratoga Springs.  The only way to test the out of gas theory was to go get some gas.  We googled the nearest gas station and it was about 3 miles away.  Luckily, we had our bikes.  Our scenic ride by the lake was replaced with an un-scenic ride up a busy highway to a gas station.

And that's when I had to take my diaper laden self into a grocery store.  The gas station was outside Smith's.  But they didn't sell the little gas cans at the pump.  I had to waddle my padded self inside the store.  No one gave me any strange looks or anything.  But I felt like they should.  I mean, couldn't they tell how thick the padding on my bum was?

It seemed like it took hours to find a gas can.  I made the purchase and the checkout lady said, "I hope everything works out okay."  I smiled and she gestured at the gas can, "That thing speaks to me.  I can tell you're not having a great day."  At least it wasn't my padded bum speaking to her.

But that's when the real adventure began.  I got to make the return ride with a gallon of gas in my hand.  Although, I feel I did it pretty well.

That's what thumbs are for.

We made it safely back to the truck.  I put my gallon of gas into the tank.  Crisis averted.  The truck was just out of gas.  I think I would have cried if it turned out to be a different problem.  I promptly drove to a gas station to fill it up the rest of the way.  The tank took 18 gallons after the 1 gallon I had put in.  I've never put 18 gallons in it before.  I didn't think it held that much.  Who knew?

Even though we'd only ridden 6 miles, we determined our adventure was over for the day.  I came back home and read a book.  I like books.  Books don't run out of gas.

Two Weeks with a GoPro

I have a new toy.  If you haven't figured out that I like gadgets, you probably better just keep that to yourself, because it should be very obvious, and if anyone finds out you'll be really embarrassed.

So now that we're on the same page about my love for gadgets I can tell you about my new toy.

So the deal is, I wanted a camera to take diving with me.  (Since I'm now scuba certified.)  I have a waterproof camera, but it only goes to 30 feet.  Clearly, I'm going to be diving deeper than that.

I did some research and found that there are some really super fancy schmancy dive cameras out there for gobs and gobs of money.  But I also found that I could get a GoPro for $300, and it can go as deep as 100 feet.  So there are nicer cameras that are better for diving, but none of them for as cheap as the GoPro.

So I made the purchase.  But it turns out that the GoPro has lots of super fun features in addition to being able to go deep underwater.  I haven't had a chance to take it diving yet, but I've made sure to try out some of the features.

I tried out the time lapse feature.  I wanted to get a sunset, but there were too many clouds.  It turned out the clouds were pretty cool too.

I bought the chest mount so that I could wear it.  It's an awesome fashion accessory.

Since I've become a biker, I decided to wear it out biking.  However, it turns out that at first I had the mount connected incorrectly so it was kind of pointed downward.  I thought it looked like it was pointed down, but at first  I thought maybe it was supposed to because the wide angle lense would compensate for it.  FYI, if it looks like it's taping your legs, then it is taping your legs.  I got excellent video like this with my first try:

"I hope it's not taking video of the ground.  It kind of seems like it is."

Good news: I tried the bike riding again and was able to wear it correctly.  Most of the video consists of me breathing really hard, but it is fun to look back and see exactly what I saw as a biker.

Of course, another important feature of the GoPro is that it has an iPhone app that allows you to see what the camera is seeing through your phone. This clearly means that my niece and nephew take awkward extreme closeups of noses and tongues.

The remote control app also works really well while wearing it.  I wore the chest mount and had my finger on the button on the phone.  Then I pushed it when Robyn started laughing.  I was able to capture this preciousness.

The moral of the story is, the GoPro is super fantastically cool.  You should get one.  I'll let you know how good it is for diving eventually, but until then I'll be geeking out about all the other features.

I'm Totally a Biker

Most of you are probably aware that exercise has become a much more important part of my life over the past year.  I spend the majority of my mornings on the treadmill before I go to work.

For the last little while, Robyn and I have been talking about what we could do to get some variety into our exercise routine.  We decided that a good strategy would be to become bikers.

We consulted a few friends on what kind of bikes we should get, and finally made our way to the bike shop.  Despite being armed with the information our friends had given us as well as what the internet had to say, we let the salesman at the bike shop know that we were newbs when it came to biking.  He thought that was hilarious.

Note to salesmen everywhere:  If you think I am funny, I will rightly assume that you are knowledgeable and wise.  I'll totally trust your judgement on anything you tell me from that point on.

We rode around the parking lot on a few different bikes.  While I was test driving the bikes, I made sure to look sophisticated and intelligent so that everyone would think that I was a knowledgeable biker looking for the perfect fit.  Mostly I was feeling to see which bike hurt my bum the least.

We each selected a bike and took them home to their new home in our basement.

Aren't they so cute?

We have too much junk in our garage, but eventually the garage will be their home when we clear space for it.

Naturally, I had to hop on my bike right away and give it a go.  Also, one of the first things I did while riding was take a selfie.

Fun fact: Taking a selfie while riding a bike is harder than it looks.  Therefore, achievement unlocked!

I rode around our neighborhood and quickly discovered a problem.  The fact that we live at the top of a hill makes the beginning of the ride super awesome, and the end of the ride super sad.  On my maiden voyage, I was only able to make it 90% of the way back to the top before I got off and walked.

I tried again this morning. This time I made it all the way to our driveway!  It was only my second try!  (Achievement unlocked!)  My legs were burning and I could barely stand, but I totally did it.  However, I did have to send this text to Robyn:

But don't worry.  I kept my promise this evening.  My new goal:  ride all the way to the top of the hill and still have strength to carry the bike downstairs.