Sunroom Painted

These came out kind of dark but this is the sunroom after we painted it. It is a kind of ivory color called White Shell. It was a bit of a chalange to paint with the help of four cats but we got it done. Now we have to do the celling as you can see in the upper corner of the first photo it is not finished. But first things first and we have outside chores to do first.

Ristra Display

I could see this ristra display down the ally way we couldn't get into.

The Other Side of the Road

Back in Boston for a few days, I am in re-adjustment limbo - feeling tentative, not altogether present. Everything here is so familiar - the roads, the sounds, the smells, the people. And at the same time it all feels utterly strange, as if replaced with a hologram of the real thing. A muggy heat engulfs me when I exit the airport, giving the landscape that hazy, blurry, flickering look.



In this disoriented state, I decide to join my cycling club's Tuesday morning 100K ride. I need to feel more solid, planted, integrated into reality - and I realise this is the best way I know how. The thought irritates me. Since when did cycling turn into this? This... defining thing, this part of my chemical composition?



In the morning, logistics are irrelevant. I pull together a mismatched outfit from the hamper. I don't have my roadbike, so I grab the cyclocross bike that still lives at my house. And then I push off - on the right ("wrong!" my brain screams) side of the road, in morning commuter traffic. On autopilot, I weave my way to the Ride Studio Cafe and the miles between us disappear.



No one knows I am coming, not evenPamela. Reluctant to admit to myself that I miss her, I nonetheless watch the door in anticipation, until there she is - platinum braids thick as ropes,tanned slender limbs,Southern accent and all. She is duly surprised by my presence and we talk in bursts, in the way of friends who have not talked in some time. "You think I'll be okay on this bike?" I point to the fat all-terrain tires. Pamela waves it away nonchalantly, as if to say "Bikes! What do they matter. Let's go."



Of course everyone but me is on skinny tire racing bikes. The thought that this might be brutal drifts through my mind.The Tuesday rides are described as "social pace," but of course for me that means "best effort pace."My eyes are swollen from lack of sleep and my legs ache from the sum of all earlier rides. I realise that brutal might actually feel good right about now. Again, I am irritated at the thought. Now why would brutal feel good, what on earth is wrong with me?



It is obscenely hot and the turnout is low today. The 5 of us set off in a single file and stay that way for most of the ride. Remarkably, I am in the middle of the group, rather than struggling behind it. My legs turn the pedals as I play a little game I learned in Ireland, called "same cadence, bigger gear." It is a fun, but painful game. I have played it for 10, 20 miles at a time before. Today I would play it for 60.



We arrive in Harvard, MA, eat lunch, then climb to the Fruitlands. On top, we stop at the side of the road to take in the view of surrounding mountains. After Northern Ireland, this strikes me as funny, that there is a specific destination with "the view." Over there, the landscape is so open that the view is everywhere. As you're riding, you can see for miles and miles - undulating glens, the sea, the entire Sperrins mountain range, even the hills of Donegal across the water. By contrast New England is so woodsy that you seldom see beyond your immediate surroundings; it is as if you are riding through a tunnel the entire time. Psychologically this feels very different. Riding through forests turns me inward; riding through glens opens me up.



The descents here feel tame compared to what I've been doing in previous weeks. On the other hand, the condition of the roads is even worse than I remembered - enormous cracks, ridges, gaping ditch-sized holes in the crumpling pavement - stunning when you're not used to it. But the texture of the pavement itself is smoother. In Ireland, the tarmac is a sort of chipseal, its surface nearly as rough as gravel at times.



By the afternoon, the heat has reached its apex and we all feel it. We start to take breaks now. We groan, we pour water over our jerseys. I am drained, but also lulled into a pleasurable trance by the intense scent of pine trees in the heat - this is something I've missed.My legs are leaden and I am caked in salt, but I give it one last push, inspired by Scott's relentless pace. Scott is a strong rider, whose compact, muscular body looks like a purpose-built machine when he pedals. I focus on staying on his wheel. Even though I know he is controlling his speed for my sake, just being able to follow him like this feels unreasonably good. Then I push further still and lead for the last couple of miles.



Back at the club house I hear "Hey, you're back!" The familiar voices are as welcome as the blast of air conditioning that greets us. Suddenly shy from the attention and the disconcerting sense of ...what's the word I'm looking for, belonging? I mumble "Yes... Well no, I'm only here for a couple of days." But with my legs weighing me down, Pamela sipping iced coffee at the bar, and the jungle of bikes suspended from the ceiling, I do start tofeel more grounded, and Boston starts to feel realer.

Sorry, no bathing beauties here!

Northern Indiana is known for it's two largest lakes, Wawasee and Tippecanoe. Then there's Big Barbee and Little Barbee too. But there are numerous small lakes in Kosciusko County. So it was that, while growing up, we spent quite a bit of time at the lakes. Aunt Jane had a cottage and later, a small trailer, at Goose Lake. We lived not far from Barbee Lakes. And the town of North Webster, where I went to school and worked, was on the west side of Lake Webster.

Apparently though, during all those lakeside visits there was no camera around (thank goodness). Even as a youngster, me in a bathing suit was not a pretty site! In all of the family picture albums I found only one of a family member in bathing suit, of my grandmother and her sister, and it was contributed to last year's edition of the COG.

When I was about 10 years old we moved to a "modern" home in a subdivision we called Whitville (because it was developed by Gene Whitacre). It was on what was then called the Armstrong road, which was the "main drag" between North Webster and the south side of Lake Tippecanoe a few miles to the west. In the summertime we'd have some fun with the "lakers" looking for the Tippey Dance Hall, which was "the" place to go on a Saturday night for young adults. We'd sit out in the front yard and invariably someone would stop and ask how to get to the Dance Hall and we'd tell them "you can't get there from here." Ah, the joys of youth. It took so little for us to be happy back then.

But I digress. One of the things that my brothers and I used to do after we moved to Whitville, was walk. Everywhere. We had to look after our little sister so we'd put her in the wagon and walk to the lake, which was about two miles away. But along the way, we would pick up pop bottles from alongside the road and put them in the wagon with my sister. The Jot-Em-Down grocery store was "sort of" on the way to the public access area of the lake and we would stop there to cash in the pop bottles. Of course, we immediately spent it on candy and pop! Then it would be off to the lake for a cool swim.

The picture below is of my brother and his son in June 1983 on the occasion of my nephew's second birthday. My brothers in-laws had a lakeside house on Chapman Lake, which is near Warsaw.


Photograph Copyright © 1983 by Rebeckah R. Wiseman

This post was written for the 74th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy :: Annual Swimsuit Edition.

Belt Driving Impressions

I've wanted to try a bicycle with a belt drive for some time, but they are not exactly mainstream around these parts. So when I saw a belt driveSevenCafe Racer in my size at theRide Studio Cafelast week, I seized the opportunity and took it out for a ride. The belt drive Cafe Racer is a single speed version ofthis bike, one ofSeven's commuter models. I will save my impressions of the bicycle itself for a different post, focusing for now on my impressions of this unique drivetrain.




The belt drive is a product called theGates Carbon Drive-a polyurethane belt that replaces a traditional bicycle chain. Unlike a bicycle chain, the belt does not need to be oiled or otherwise maintained, which also means that it won't get the cyclist's clothing dirty. It is said to be longer lasting than a traditional chain. And it is silent. For these reasons, many praise the belt drive as a revolutionary innovation in cycling - particularly cycling for transportation.





On the downside, the belt drive requires a dedicated split-frame construction; it cannot just be retrofitted on any old bike. This is because the belt itself, unlike a traditional bicycle chain, cannot be split apart. In the picture above you can see that the seatstay of the Seven frame disconnects from the dropouts to make the belt installation possible (and that is a Surly Tuggnut chain tensioner they are using, in case you are wondering).





The belt's unique groove structure also requires it to be used with belt drive-specific front and rear pulleys instead of traditional chainrings and rear cogs. It is, however, compatible with standard cranks and hubs. The drive can be used with single speed and internally geared hubs, but not with derailleur drivetrains. As I understand it, it can be used with fixed gear and coaster brake bikes, as long as hand-activated brakes are present.





I rode thebelt drive Cafe Racer for 5 miles or so along the Minuteman Trail in Lexington and Bedford MA. Compared to a traditional chain, the belt felt smoother and "softer." It was a neat sensation, distinctly different from cycling with a normal drivetrain. On first impression, I would say that it felt nicer. Although some describe the belt as silent, I would not say that exactly. It was definitely quieter than even the quietest traditional chain. But it made a gentle "swooshing" sound that I could hear whenever my surroundings grew silent. Additionally, I am pretty sure that I could feel something happen in the drivetrain at the end of every crank rotation. It was the subtlest of sensations, but definitely there. It was almost as if the belt had a seam in it, and I could feel when that seam went over one of the pulleys.




To be clear, neither the "seam" nor "swooshing" were something I would have noticed, had I not been intentionally paying very close attention and trying to take in every single aspect of the belt drive experience. They were more like ghostly traces than full-fledged sensations.






Prior to trying the belt drive myself, I'd read and heard a number of impressions from others. Alan from ecovelo is probably the "king" of belt drive test rides; he has tried at least half a dozen different bikes with this system and loves it. On one of his personal bikes, the belt drive has worked reliably for him for some time. Others (including commentators on ecovelo posts and persons I've spoken to locally) have reported a number of issues, such as squeaking noises, the belt slipping, and the system performing sub-optimally in winter conditions. I think that in order to get the big picture of how the belt drive performs, we need to wait until more cyclists use it for considerable periods of time, in different climates and weather conditions, and on a variety of bikes.



Next month I will be receiving another bicycle for a long term test ride that also happens to have a belt drive. No doubt I will have more to say after a few weeks of real-world experience with the system; maybe it will even start snowing by then. In the meantime, I am glad to have tried it on a different bicycle first - having done so will allow me to separate the feel of the belt itself from the feel of the specific bike. As far as first impressions go, mine are positive and I would love to see a classic city bicycle fitted with the GatesCarbon Drive... speaking of which, why do we never see that? The belt drive seems best suited for everyday commuting, yet most bicycles I see fitted with it are "weird" and "techy," if you'll pardon that biased terminology. An elegant belt drive city bicycle would be a delight to try.

Soma Smoothie Impressionism

I should really know better at this point than to let something as superficial as colour scheme influence my impressions of a bicycle. But when I think of the Soma Smoothie I've been test riding this summer, it is in my mind a whirlwind of pinks and greens - a mobile impressionist garden. It does not help that every single time I've been on this bike so far it has rained. My view from the "cockpit" is a saturated blur of apple green handlebar tape and terracotta tire, as the wheel spins through rain puddles. It's like riding through an endless Water Lilies painting.






But don't let my silly colour choices fool you: The Smoothie is a serious bike. Its biggest draw as I see it, is the successful combination of several features that are not easy to combine. On the one hand it is a racy roadbike, with the aggressive geometry and responsive handling that this notion implies. On the other hand, it is equipped to accept reasonably wide tires (up to 28mm), fenders and even a rear rack. It is also comfortable, in a way that's kind of thrown me for a loop. The best way I can describe it, is that I feel more relaxed on the bike than my positioning warrants.





The Soma Smoothie is a bike I'd call "aesthetically neutral." There is nothing fancy about it, but neither is it ugly or boring. The frame is welded; the fork crown is lugged. The tubing is skinny-ish. It has a mildly sloping top tube and a threadless stem. It can be dressed up as a modern bike, as a classic bike, as a fun bike, as a practical bike. A blank slate, waiting for the owner's decisions. I like that about it.







My biggest challenge in test riding stock roadbikes, is that I am most comfortable with Campagnolo ergo shifters and it is very rare to find a demo bicycle set up with Campagnolo. The group need not be fancy; I am fine with the lower-end Veloce. I just find the levers dramatically easier to use than any others. The guys at Soma set the bike up with Chorus levers, which are what I have on my own roadbike and made for a seamless transition.





Most of the other components on the bike are IRD - the SOMA house brand.





Overall I like them, particularly the Highway One handlebars with the nice flat ramps and shallow but not too shallow drops.






The 10cm stem is a spacer away from being "slammed" and I find that height very comfortable. If this were my bike, I'd get the steerer cut accordingly.






I was initially skeptical about the tires and was planning to replace them with my own. These are Soma's New XPress tires that have recently come out. They are available in several colours and sizes 23mm-35mm. I guess the bright colours made them look a little gimmicky to me, and I was worried the flat protection might not be sufficient. However, so far so good and I think I'll keep these on the bike for the duration of the test ride period. The tires are supple and feel wider than 23mm; I quite like them.








The wheelset they used is also pretty nice.





The Cardiff saddle I recently reviewed here. Not sure what I was thinking in asking for a zero-setback seatpost on a bike that already has a steep seat tube angle, but that is my own doing and not Soma's.





The one aspect of the bicycle's set-up I do not like is the IRD crankset they fitted it with. There is nothing wrong with the crankset itself, but it is not entirely compatible with what is otherwise a Campagnolo drivetrain. This causes problems when shifting from the big ring to the small, throwing the chain unless I press the lever very gently. Considering this, I am reluctant to take this bike on a paceline ride - a pity, as that would be the ultimate test of its performance as a racy roadbike. I am still trying to decide what to do about this issue and might try to get a local bike shop to loan me a Campagnolo Veloce crankset and a suitable bottom bracket.





The Soma Smoothie is an intriguing bike and I am grateful to have it at my disposal for long enough to truly get to know it. My most dominant impression so far is that it is extremely comfortable for something so aggressive and speedy. It strikes me as a good choice for those who "want it all" in a single roadbike - speed, comfort, as well as options for commuting and randonneuring - and want it at a reasonable price. As I ride it however, I find myself trying to reimagine the design by pushing it into more extreme directions. What would it be like had they designed it for 650Bx42mm or 700Cx35mm tires while retaining the racy geometry and lightweight tubing? Alternatively, what would it be like had they gotten rid of all the braze-ons, used even lighter tubing and made it a pure racing bike, no holds barred? Idle musings of course, but it's interesting that this bike inspires them.

What a View!

Tuesday, June 7th - - Man joined us for lunch again – this time we went to The Pantry at The Lions House. We all selected the “Coca Cola Roast Pork” and were not disappointed. It was so tender you could cut it with a fork and it was scrumptious. The food here in Salt Lake City has been excellent!



After lunch, and even though it was my next-to-last day of research, Man insisted that we take in the view from the 27th floor of the Church Office Building. It was definitely well worth the time. The weather couldn't have been much better.





Looking west and a little south with The Temple in the foreground and the Tabernacle (oblong , shiney building) behind it. And behind the Tabernacle is the Family History Library. The tall building south of the Library is the Plaza Hotel.





Looking west along North Temple Street. The building to the right of the Tabernacle is the North Visitors Center. Off in the distance is the Great Salt Lake. If you look closely in the pictures below, it appears as a narrow strip of light blue running along the base of the mountains.





Looking west and a little north. The building on the right, with the trees on the roof, is the Conference Center.





Looking toward the northwest.



Looking north toward the Capital Building.



The view to the east. North Temple Street on the left and South Temple Street on the right. The campus of the University of Utah stretches along the foot of the mountains.





And, finally, a view to the southeast.