Pedal Pusher

50's and Lovin' It!

2010-03-10T20:19:00.004-05:00

So it's been a long 6 weeks since I last wrote about riding. As my previous post says the snow kind of kept me indoors and off the road. There were a few times that I was able to get out but just as soon as I started we got another batch of crappy weather. Not that I mind winter weather, but I'm not real fond of riding on ice, roads narrowed by temporary banks of snow, and loose salt.
Over the 6 weeks I rode a total of 7 times! Not a whole lot when considering I almost rode that much in a normal week. Oh well, I guess I could have not gotten out at all and been back to square one with a sore posterior and weak legs after my first ride out. Of course I don't really remember any of the rides except for one that I took into New Bloomfield, and the past three.
About a week after the back to back snow storms the roads were clear enough for me to get back out and I decided to ride into New Bloomfield. I wanted to take a spin around town and remember my childhood. It was a lot of fun and it was cool to hang out in the old stompin' grounds where my memories came rushing back - hanging out at the dam behind the cemetery with a clear view of the prison, playing at the play ground by the post office, and going through those awkward stages of teenhood in middle school. It really made me long for my childhood again. You never realize how great things are as a child until you're looking back. My parents picked the perfect town and county to raise their kids in and I thank them for it.

The other three weren't as exciting. The one ride came on my birthday. I was actually really looking forward to it, even though I decided to do it about 2 hours before I did it. My friends and girlfriend - Juan, Jenny, and Rebecca - were throwing me a birthday dinner after they got off work (they had an in-service day and I was off haha it was fantastic), so I decided - after spending the morning snowboarding - that I would ride down for dinner since Bec and I didn't both need to have two cars to drive home. I figured it was a great opportunity to ride over 20 miles and have a mountain to climb. However, about 7 miles in I went to take my knit cap off and was shocked to find I never put my helmet on! With the feeling of my knit cap I never noticed that I hadn't put my helmet on and just took off with out thinking twice. I was far enough away from home that I didn't want to turn around for it so I decided to keep going, but I will say it was the most cautious ride I've ever ridden. I constantly looked in my mirror for vehicles passing too close and looked farther ahead for any kind of obstacles to avoid. Needless to say I arrived at Juan's house safe and unscathed and enjoyed my dinner very much.
The other two aren't really worth mentioning since they were just rides to get in miles. However, there is one very interesting and exciting side note.... it was in the 60's for both rides! I have been waiting for warmer weather for a very long two cold months. The cold was really demoralizing and I was finding it hard to want to go out and ride, but now that the weather is getting warmer it's changed my whole outlook. The best part is that the long-term weather forecast isn't showing a high below 50 degrees. There's plenty of rain on the way, but I'm ok with that so long as the temperatures don't drop down below 40 again.
Well that's the short rough draft of an update from me. Hopefully with warmer sunnier days on the way more miles will be logged, which means more posts. Until then, feel free to fill your time with TV watching, internet surfing, and soda chugging contests - for the real go getter do all of them at once!

In the past 6 weeks 106 miles - 2655 miles to go.

Winter Break

2010-02-16T16:51:00.000-05:00

Have you ever shoved your face into cake and as you're face down up to your ears in cake you realize "crap! I can't breath!" Well, switch the cake for for snow, your face for legs, and instead of having cake and icing up to your ears it's snow up to your knees and your thought is "crap! I can't move!" That's what happened about 10 days ago. We received 17 inches of snow on February 5th-6th! I love the snow and any time we get any I throw my snowpants and boots on and out the door I go. Having gotten a total of 3 inches last year I was THRILLED to get 17, but that also meant... no riding. I'm not going to complain and say I don't want the snow, but it did cut into my riding schedule. Four days later the roads were fairly clear and there was a small berm on the side of the road to safely ride. Then winter's friendly face showed again. On the 10th we got another bout of snow, 10 more inches, rendering the roads unsafe again! I took it all in stride and decided to just take a break from riding and trade in my cycling shoes for snow boots.

Winter Break from Jesse McDonald on Vimeo.

You can tell by my face that I was reaching uncharted speeds

So for the past 10 days I've been spending my time off from riding and work, sledding down the hill in the backyard with Bec, building a ramp, and building a rail to ride my snowboard on. It has been a blast and there's still about a foot of snow left which means there is plenty more snow fun to be had.

Time spent riding - 0
Time spent in the snow - 10 days

World Famous

2010-02-04T19:39:00.003-05:00

So I'm not sure how it happened, but one of the creators of the DOUGHMAN competition found my blog entry about "training" for it and left me a nice comment. He also corrected my statement about who started it. Duke University had no part in the creation of the competition. It was the sole invention of 4 creative minded friends.
I would like to thank Jeff the DOUGHMAN - we're on a first name basis - for giving me recognition on the DOUGHMAN facebook group. I was super excited just to get to participate in the event, let alone be featured on the group site, so thank you very much.
Only 4 more months until the DOUGHMAN... can't wait!

Same Ol' Same Ol'

2010-01-26T19:39:00.012-05:00

WOO HOOO!

The past two weeks, although not very productive, left me with some fun, memorable rides. Over the weekend the temperature got down into the teens and, as you can see, affected my face during the ride. The first time it happened it was just little beads of ice stuck in my beard. The second time I had near stalactites forming off my chin. I laughed pretty hard when I first saw them and thought it was pretty cool, but all that stopped when I pulled them off and half my chin came with them. Every time I stretched my mouth I could feel the ice breaking and pulling the hair, it was really weird. I couldn't believe that just from breathing ice actually formed on my beard. On top of that, my water formed about an 1/8 inch layer of ice in my bottle and froze the spout completely shut. I mean I couldn't even open it, not even with my teeth - it was nuts!

The one day I was really rushed to get my ride in so I decided to do a 10 mile ride. The whole time my legs were burning and all I could think of was getting back so that I wouldn't be late to pick Bec up from work and make it to my hair appointment on time. After I got back I was going through my bike computer and noticed that my average speed was 17.3mph. Now for anyone who doesn't ride that doesn't really mean anything, but for me it was crazy. My average is usually around 15 - 15.5mph, so to bump it up 2mph was quite a jump I thought. But when I think about how professionals average 20-25mph over 100 miles it kind of puts things in perspective.

After I started this whole biking idea I decided in order to keep it from getting boring I would need to come up with different types of rides and exotic places (in a 200 mile radius) to go to keep my interest and not have it feel like work. One of the rides I wanted to do was ride in the rain. Luckily for me, I live in PA where winter means it will snow one day and then 2 days later rain so much it'll cause wide spread flooding - and that's exactly what happened. Riding in the rain wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I thought with being all wet I would get really cold, but I never did. The only time I got a little cold was when I would stand up to climb a hill and I had to sit back down on my wet padded shorts. That chill runs right up your crack and into your spine! I learned to only stand up when I had to.

Rain Ride from Jesse McDonald on Vimeo.

After I took off my other sock water came streaming out when I twisted it. That was what I really wanted to show, but unfortunately I chose the disappointing side that had nearly no water. Now I just look like a fool and a sissy for saying I was so wet. I totally would have looked tougher if I had wrung out the other sock.

Well I'm officially one month in and I have yet to be run off the road by a car, fall over from being stuck in my pedals, or blow a tire in the middle of a ride. I look forward to one, or more likely all, of those events happening and getting to post from a hospital. Until then I'll just keep posting the normal boring way... at home.

109 miles in 2 weeks... 2761 to go

Doughman

2010-01-24T10:59:00.013-05:00

Ok so a few months ago I was watching this nardly show called "Man vs. Food" on the travel channel. The host, Adam Richman, did an event that was probably the greatest mix of competition and gluttony and inspired me to better myself and join in!
The competition takes place in Durham, NC (so Larissa and Brady we'll be booking a room in your hotel) over Memorial Day weekend and is a 4 person team quadrathon. The "Doughman Competition," as it's called, is set up into for legs: 1 running, 1 biking, 1 run/swim, and a final group run, but the twist is that each leg consists of an eating portion! How nectar is that? Not only are we trying to chase down about 200 other competitors we're also trying to shove food down our gullets quicker than them. There is so much action packed competition in this race I can already feel the nervous farts building up!
It's only been around for a few years, I think, but they've said that each year it increases by dozens of people and is becoming very popular. The money raised goes to the Durham Inner-city Gardeners, a program that helps teach kids life responsibilities through organic gardening. The event was created by a man named Jeff and 3 other friends "It was the brain child of 4 insane people who I happen to be friends with, and we put the event on each year working out of a house in Durham!" Crazy huh? Anyhow, after I saw it on "Man vs. Food" and realized it was relatively close I decided I wanted to do it. So, I gathered up 3 other hard core athletes and we had a group meeting. The group is comprised of Rebecca (my GF), Miriam (our friend), and Nathan (Miriam's husband/our friend). The meeting was basically a planning hour to come up with costume ideas because an added bonus is that we get to dress up for the race if we wish, which we definitely do. We never really came up with one good solid idea so if anyone out there has a good idea let's hear it!

Doughman Training from Jesse McDonald on Vimeo.

There is ONE cuss word in the song so if you have little ears around you might want to turn it down at second 41 and turn it back up after second 43. But if you're hard of hearing or just like cuss words CRANK IT!

So to the real point of this post, the group did a silent ballot and chose me to ride the biking leg of the race. Not wanting to let my teammates down, and wanting to beat some 14 year old girls on the pavement I'm starting a time trial work-out. My original loop was 15 miles because that's how long I thought my leg was, but after doing some research it looks like it'll be somewhere around 7-8 miles. But anyhow, I took the camera out on the ride with me and did another time lapse since the other one was so fun. It took me about 42:oo minutes to complete, but as I think about it that seems pretty fast. My bike computer may be lying to me since it said my average speed was around 16mph... ehhh it makes me look good so I'll stick with it!

Heat Wave

2010-01-20T20:10:00.013-05:00

Since I'm riding so often, I figured on posting a new entry once a week. If I posted an entry after every ride my entries would just become repetitive and boring, unlike the thrilling ones I post now. This entry, however, comes a little late.
I recently bought windows 7 - for $10 through CV school district, I love being a school employee - and on Sunday decided to upgrade from vista. Well, I followed Microsoft's "directions" on how to upgrade without wiping my whole computer clean and it didn't work! Over and over I tried to "upgrade" and it wouldn't work. I about threw my computer across the room, but I didn't. To make a long story short after 4 days and 2 complete uploads I finally got windows 7 installed on my computer. After all that frustration I learned two very important things - don't update an operating system until you've posted your new blog entry....... and Microsoft sucks! Anyway that's why this entry is a little late. I blame it all on the conglomerates behind Microsoft.
This past week of riding was really nice. We had some very beautiful sunny days that reached into the upper 40's and was near perfect weather for riding.The one day I had ridden to an animal shelter to look at some cats to adopt. We've been looking to adopt one for a little while and I thought it would be fun to ride to a shelter in Mechanicsburg to look at some. Well I was having such a fun time petting and playing with the cats that I lost track of time. Earlier that day Bec and Juan asked if I could pick up a few groceries so that we could start making dinner at 4:00. Well it was 3:30 and I was still at the shelter 8 miles away. I quickly hopped on my bike and peddled as fast as I could to get back to Juan's and then over to the store. As I walked in the door wouldn't you know it, Juan and Bec decided to pick up my slack and get the items and start on dinner. I will admit it was nice to come back from a ride and know that it wouldn't be long until I got to eat. We had amazing enchiladas prepared by Juan. He is the next Emeril Lagasse... but better.

This is an abandoned house that I really want to buy and fix up. It has a really cool view over this big corn field.

I also got to do a long ride with a friend of mine. His name is Jake (for identity theft purposes I won't reveal his last name, but it rhymes with Roman) and he is actually the one who helped advise me on what brand bike to buy. He's been riding for many many years and knows a lot about cycling and is nice enough to let me tag along with him on rides, even if I slow him down. But when Jake is not riding he's often found reading the dictionary, teaching himself computer programming language, implementing ecological uses for human waste, or running.
So I got an opportunity to go for a spin with him and see the western farmland of Perry County. We covered about 37 miles, some was due to a small detour, and ran into another biker out for a ride. It's not often another cyclist is seen in PC so we of course spoke with him for a few minutes. After that Jake had a close brush with death or an ambulance. As we were zipping down a back road hill we saw a large thick sheet of ice covering about half the road. I quickly move over so Jake could swerve around the slab. Jake, quickly thinking, figured it would be safer to ride right over the ice instead of chancing to swerve and miss and possibly hit the ice at an angle, then catching friction from the road and throwing him from his bike. As I watched him ride over the ice his bike rattled and front wheel jerked back and forth while the ice crunched beneath him. I thought for sure the 1" wide slick tires would lose grip sending Jake into a deathly tumble, but he held tight and didn't let it get the best of him. After he was safely off the ice I was relieved not only because he had made it without injury but also because I wasn't recording and if he had wrecked I would have missed it all! After that the rest of the ride went without incident, unless you call my jello legs an incident? Here's the amazing part though, Jake rode 15 miles to meet me, then rode 37 miles with me, followed by a 15 mile ride back to his house... 67miles without more than a 20 minute break in between rides. He's a monster!

I'm finally starting to feel my legs and riders "butt" getting into shape. It feels great to ride and actually enjoy it instead of thinking "Holy crap my quads feel like they should hire Bill Cosby to be their spokesman" and "I had no idea you could bruise a tailbone just from sitting!" Yeah that's a good feeling!

73 miles this week... 2870 to go.

Week Sauce!

2010-01-10T17:13:00.009-05:00

So this whole week has been bitterly cold! With only 2 days getting out of the 20's and almost everyday having winds of 15mph or higher it has made a very testing start. However, I maintain the thought that if I ride in this kind of weather nothing should keep me from getting out on the road.
My rides were pretty uneventful. Often enough something kind of funny, interesting, or crazy happens. Like on my first ride - my last post - I was less than a half mile from the house and I was looking down at my bike computer to see what my total mileage was. As I looked up a large doe was crossing the road about 50ft. in front of me and I traveling at about 25mph had to lock up my wheels. I skidded narrowly close as the doe's hooves slipped on the pavement trying to escape collision. That was definitely one of the better memories I have of riding. But nothing like that happened this week.
Although, with the fair amount of winter weather we've had the plow trucks have been throwing down a lot of salt and the one day as a dump truck passed me he stirred up a lot of dust and all of the sudden I tasted an intense flavor of salt. At first I wasn't able to figure out what was going on and then it hit me "with all the salt on the road some got mixed with the air and went in my mouth." Kind of gross when I think about all the horse and cow manure that falls onto the back roads of Perry County. I guess that's not as bad as having it spray off my tires and on my face and back.
There was one other thing that happened while I was riding that I'm kind of proud of. Monday, the 4th, was probably the second coldest ride at 25 degrees and steady 20mph winds. I rode a hard fought 15 miles in a blistering (the tone on "blistering" is sarcastic) 47 minutes and when I reached the end I grabbed my water bottle for a well deserved drink only to find that it had started to slush up. My water had actually started freezing on the ride!! I couldn't believe that I had been riding in weather that allowed my water to freeze. Probably even more interesting was that I had sweated enough that I wanted to drink. Didn't think I would be thirsty in 20 degree weather.
That pretty much sums up my whole riding week. It wasn't terrible but it sure wasn't the best. It's supposed to warm up a little this coming week so I'll have to take advantage of that, maybe add a few extra miles. As much as I love the winter and snow it sure will be nice when spring rolls around.

Winter Ride from Jesse McDonald on Vimeo.

I figured I would try to take you on a ride with me using some time lapse. But of course due to the cold the camera turned off, but only a mile from the end.

47 miles this week - 2943 to go

I'M BACK!!

2010-01-02T21:48:00.003-05:00

For all my 3 loyal fans out there I'M BACK! After a long hiatus and much anticipation I have returned and don't expect to be gone anytime soon. So crack a cold soda, grab a bag of funions and get ready to read some new entries.
Don't forget to brag to all your friends about me so I can get my following up to a solid 10 people.
Also, if anyone has an area they would like to see me ride (within the PA, DE, MD, NY, NJ area) let me know and I'll plan to ride it.
Let the fan mail begin!

Julie & Julia

2010-01-02T19:40:00.009-05:00

New year, new post! After about 5 months of dust accruing on my bike I finally got around to fixing it. It took all of $20 - for the tool - and 10 minutes to repair, I really should have done this LONG before now! The truth is I was inspired to fix it from a movie. Although it's a bit of a girly movie I'm not ashamed to admit I watched and liked... Julie & Julia! For those of you who haven't seen the movie it is about a young girl who decides to cook all 524 of Julia Child's recipes from her cookbook.... in 365 days! Being based on a true event I thought that was quite an incredible task. Almost 2 recipes a day, and anyone out there cooking (Hope) knows what a feat that can actually be. So I thought "I should do something like that with riding." That's when I decided I was going to ride 3000 miles in 365 days. 3000 might sound like a lot, but its less than 10 miles a day AND allows me to take off 65 days throughout the year if need be.

Of course I used one of my 65 days on the New Year's day to watch all the bowl games - especially PSU vs. LSU which turned out to be way too close in the final minutes leaving my left ventricle nearly collapsed - that meant my first day would start on the coldest day we've had yet this year. With the temperature hitting a stifling 25 degrees I bundled up and headed out. It had been windy all day but I didn't realize how windy it actually was until I rode directly into it. With 20mph winds and gusting to 40mph I struggled the first leg fighting the whole time, averaging around 10mph. Not only did it wear me out quickly the -6 wind chill about froze my fingers, toes and nose. However, on the way back with the wind with me I warmed up and averaged about 22mph... quite the difference!

Unfortunately, after I had headed out and tried taking some pictures I realized I had forgotten to put my memory card back in my camera! I didn't get any photos of this ride - not that I would have wanted to stand in the cold talking lots of pictures anyway. Luckily, Bec took some pictures of me before I left so I have something to record this ride. But after 10 miles in FREEZING weather, I really didn't need pictures to remember this ride.

10 miles down... 2990 to go!

7 score and 6 years ago

2009-08-19T20:51:00.024-04:00

Abraham Lincoln said it best when he said, "The south cannot win with the Canadian's on our side in Gettysburg, so long as we attack from behind... OO-RAH!"
Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the civil war lasting 3 days and resulting in 46,000-50,000 casualties (it's unclear as to how many confederate casualties there were).
It was said that a creek that ran through one of the battle areas ran red with blood for hours after the battle had ended. Whether you were a soldier at Gettysburg or a civilian, I think both could agree that the sites that were seen were horrific, terrifying, and shocking yet awesome. Now, not awesome in the sense of a 12 year old boy who just got his first temporary tattoo of a scantily clad woman on his forearm, but rather, in the sense of wonder and amazement in what they were witnessing.
Being that I'm very interested in history and living just a little over an hour away from such an important and highly discussed US historic landmark, it only makes sense that I would go to tour the battlefield on my bike.
As I was driving down, I was getting very excited because I was looking forward to riding the whole tour loop. I tried it once last year, but I went on a very hot, humid, sunny day and by the time I was at mile 18 most of my energy was drained. Little did I know I wouldn't finish this time either.
Within the first 4 miles I could feel something clicking as I was riding, so I stopped and checked out my bike to see what it might be. I couldn't seem to see or feel anything loose or touching anything that moved so I figured maybe it wasn't a big deal. It continued to click but I decided to ignore it and just keep riding. It wasn't until about mile 15 that I got fed up with it and gave it a more thorough look.
After my close inspection I noticed that the pedals were shifting back and forth. Somehow the threads on the bottom bracket had come loose and was allowing some play in the pedals. At the time, I wasn't sure if it was the bearings going out, the threads being stripped, or if it was just loose, so I made the difficult decision to ride back to the car and stop the ride short. Fortunately, I was able to see the majority of the battlefield, but unfortunately it ultimately meant my riding would be stopped until I could get the problem fixed.
Aside from that only dilemma, the ride was great! It wasn't too hot or humid, traffic didn't run me off the road or squirt me with windshield wiper fluid and I got to see some living history reenactors. The only thing that might have made it better would have been a ghost walk.

View 7 score and 6 years ago in a larger map

The marker in the photo shows the location where Major General John F. Reynolds was shot and killed during battle. He was the highest ranking officer to be killed during the battle at Gettysburg.

The eternal peace light memorial has burned continuously 24 hours a day since it's dedication in 1938 (except for 2 occasions).

The Lutheran theological seminary. There's an audio track from the auto tour that I put with two images of the seminary about it that's quite interesting.

This is the field where Major General George Edward Pickett lead 12,500 soldiers in the famous Pickett's charge. After the 50 minutes of battle, some Union soldiers found a 16ft length of fence riddled with bullet holes. After counting the holes they came to a total of 836 - a mark of the intense fire power that went on.

A view from Little Round Top where Union soldiers fought the advancing Confederates.

Looking up toward Little Round Top

Devil's Den - A rock formation that the Confederates used for cover from the firing Union soldiers on top of Little Round Top.

The small nook made famous by Alexander Gardner's image "A sharpshooter's last sleep." However, Gardner actually set up the image by moving the soldier into place and laying his rifle against the rocks.

Here in the Wheatfield, some of the bloodiest and toughest fighting took place, not only during Gettysburg, but the whole Civil War. There were accounts made that stated in areas you could walk across the field and not even touch the ground it was so littered with bodies. The majority of fighting was hand to hand and was said that if you fell here it could take a couple of days until you were able to receive medical attention.

The hole you see in this brick barn was made by a cannonball during the battle.

The field of Pickett's charge as the Union soldiers would have seen it.
The tree line in the distance is where the confederates started advancing

Long miles and burning legs

2009-08-07T10:22:00.007-04:00

So the other day I decided to do a long haul ride that I had been planning to do since last year. Ok so when I say long haul people might think 100-150 miles. Well the long haul I decided to do was 41 miles. Not nearly long enough to be considered a "long haul," but for me it is since I usually ride around 20 miles on normal day.
I chose this route because it has a nice mountain to climb, but I only have to climb it once (to get back I just ride through a valley). It also took me into a bordering county that I've only ridden in once, and on top of that a portion of the county I've never been. Although much of the scenery is the same whether I'm in Perry county or Juniata (the bordering county) I like seeing new places and doing it by bike allows you to slow down and see "more."
As I started out I felt really good. I wasn't getting winded and my legs weren't feeling tired at all. As I started to climb the mountain 10 miles in (this is the same mountain I climbed in my last post, but I climbed the front side this time) I was really surprised at how good I felt. Now the front side of this mountain isn't nearly as bad as the back side, but I still had plenty of energy even after getting to the top. At that point I thought "hmm maybe I should turn this into a half century," but being cautious and only 13 miles in I decided to wait and make that decision later. Thank goodness I did. At about mile 28 and having ridden over about 8 miles of a hilly rough back road my legs were finally starting to feel the burn. It was then that an 80s hit song by Oliva Newton John popped into my head. I'm sure everyone is familiar with her wildly popular song "Physical" (in case you're not). Ok so the lyrics didn't really fit with what I was doing, but it seemed appropriate at the time.
Luckily after I got out onto a main road it was - literally - smooth sailing from there. There weren't very many hills and I didn't get any vibration from the road. Nothing wears me out more than rough gravely road, not even hills. However, the damage had been done and I knew I wasn't going to be able to do the half century. In fact toward the end even small hills that normally wouldn't give me much trouble had me shifting to lower gears to make it to the top.
Although the last 8 or 9 miles were a little tough and had my legs exhausted by the end I had a great ride, got to see some new sights, and I get to say I road 41 miles in one ride... but most of all I get to say I didn't have to call Bec to pick me up!

View Long miles and burning legs in a larger map

Loysville

A common sight in Perry County

Some nice PA trees (picture is mostly for Alan)

Who knew there was this nice little hideaway in the
western back woods of Perry County

Family Affair

2009-07-31T19:55:00.017-04:00

This past Wednesday and Thursday Larissa and Easton paid a visit to the country. With Brady gone for two days on "business" in Texas (that's just what Larissa tells us but I think he's there as a coyote) she decided to take time to come up and see a few people before their move from DC back down to NC.

She wanted to meet up with both Bec and me, but Bec didn't want to. She used the excuse that she had workshops and curriculum planning with the other language teachers. It turns out that was true, however, I didn't have a way out so I ended up having to meet with her and cute little Easton.
We originally planned (planned as in the night before) that we would meet up for a late breakfast somewhere close and then Larissa would leave to meet up with Pappy, a dear old gent, for a quick visit. Well I couldn't find anything close for Larissa and me so we decided to meet a little later and closer to pappy's house so we could all meet. In my infinite wisdom I thought it would be a great idea to ride in to Mifflintown to meet everyone. Of course there is a long, fairly steep mountain between home and there. With a soccer game later that day, I figured it would be best if I drove to the top of the mountain and started there. That couldn't have been a better idea because after riding 22 miles I could have only ridden that 3 mile 1300 vertical climb once. It actually wasn't too terribly bad, but the last quarter mile or so got really steep and after 2.75 miles it rendered my legs nearly useless.

After I got to the top and I could feel my legs again, I thought back on the memorable, thrilling, and timeless 30 minute lunch I had with Larissa and Easton and realized it was all worth it! Although it was short, I'm still glad that we were able to get together and that I could see Easton. It's nice to have family back on the east coast!

Getting stuck in construction traffic

Juniata River outside Mifflintown

My max speed going down the mountain

El Futbol!

2009-07-23T00:29:00.023-04:00

So this past weekend Bec and I had the fantastic opportunity to attend a Gold Cup quarterfinal match down in Philly. It started a few weeks ago when I noticed that Financial field was going to be one of the venues for the Gold Cup, so I thought with it being so close I would just do a little browsing to see how much tickets were. Well... I will just say I found good seats for $60... $60!! I stood up, did an Irish joy jig, sat back down, and bought 2. I just couldn't believe that I could get quarterfinal tickets that cheap, and for 2 games, it was awesome! I realize soccer isn't as wildly popular in the US as it is throughout the world, and that this cup isn't necessarily a top tournament, but I certainly didn't expect the tickets to be as cheap as they were.

The games were exciting, but not more exciting than all the Honduran fans, they were CRAZY! It was such a site to see and it really made me want to attend a match south of the border. Honduras was matched up against Canada and was a great game. Both teams were evenly matched but Canada would be penalized in the box setting Honduras up for a PK and the only goal of the match, which gave them the win.
The second match of the night was the US vs. Panama. The US started out slow and sloppy giving up a goal at the end of the first half, but a different US team would start the second. In the first few minutes of the second half a goal by Kyle Beckerman would tie it up and would stay that way through the end of regulation time. Entering extra time I was confident that the US would finish the game on top. They had controlled the ball almost exclusively since the beginning of the second half and had a number of shots on goal so it was just a matter of time. But none of that mattered because a Panamanian defender would give a gut check with the bottom of his boot to Kyle Cooper in the penalty box setting Cooper up for a PK and giving the US the lead and in time the W!
As I walked out of the stadium with the excitement of the games still fresh in my mind, the blue and red police lights flashing around me, and the cops chasing down civilians/breaking up fights, I felt like I was walking on air. All in all... not a bad first professional soccer match!

A short video of the game

Gold Cup from Jesse McDonald on Vimeo.

Bec and me outside the stadium

The pitch Bec and I FINALLY get to blow one of the horns!US and Panama entering the stadium

photos courtesy of Rebecca Sior

Scuola Vecchio

2009-07-15T14:51:00.014-04:00

So apparently good things do come to those who wait, or in my case, are forced to wait. Back on the 4th of July weekend Bec and I had gone to see fireworks in Harrisburg. I had been pretty excited to see them because it's a fairly large display (well in comparison to New Bloomfield) and who doesn't like fireworks? As expected they were great and Bec and I enjoyed watching and taking pictures of them, but that was only half the fun that night.
On our way home I decided to take a back road for a change, and to avoid a little traffic, and along the way out of the corner of my eye in the dark I saw what looked like the faint red twinkling of a bicycle reflector reflecting the light from my headlights on the side of the road. I zipped passed and began to think "hmmm was that a bike someone was trying to get rid of or throw away?"
Having been keeping my eye out for 80's era bicycles and curious as to what that reflection was I quickly asked Bec if she would mind me turning around to see what it was. Of course Bec being the sweetheart she is didn't mind at all.
As I pulled up to the bottom of this driveway I could see some things laying in the yard of this home. Positioned for abandonment I knew the items were being discarded. I saw one bike lying there, but could tell that it was just a junkie mountain bike, and behind that a piled mess of stuff. I figured it couldn't hurt to stop and see what it was so I did. As I walked up to it I could make out the faint outline of a bike, as I got closer I realized it was a road bike. Not until I picked it up could I tell that it was definitely an 80's bike. With the little glee of a school girl I ran the frame over to the car to see what kind of condition it was in and then the best news of the night... it was a BIANCHI! I about sharted there on the spot. An extremely well known brand having been around since 1885 producing some the finest bicycles in the sport. I of course was not going to let this bike go and I promptly threw the frame and two wheels into the back of the car.

I couldn't believe that someone would just throw this bike away! It may not have been brand new and was in need of a little fixing up, but to throw away such a great bike! But as Bec then stated on the way home, as I was giddy with joy, "one man's trash is another man's treasure." At no other point has that phrase pertained to me as much as it did right then.

Since that glorious night I've been working on cleaning it up and replacing some of the parts to get it in working order again. I think I have to thank the person who owned it not only for getting rid of it, but for keeping it in such great condition over the past 22 years.

The Original

Cleaned Up

I tore everything apart to give it a real good cleaning All the components off the bike for cleaning All cleaned up and put back together

A complete nearly restored 1987 Bianchi Strada

Morning Ride

2009-07-13T11:46:00.008-04:00

With the summer break coming to it's half way point I realized that my summer "resolution" to accumulate 1000 miles is FAR off in the distance, about 800 miles off! That being the case I got my self up this morning to do a quick 22 mile ride and work toward that goal, as far off as it may be.

View Morning Ride in a larger map

I decided I would ride out toward Blain on the back roads for some nice scenery and then ride the main road (274) back in for some speed, since Bec and I had to meet a friend in Carlisle at noon.
This particular loop is one of my favorites to do because of the great sights. It takes me on tree covered roads, passed farms and fields, crossing paths with Amish families out working or traveling, and the best part, having the road nearly all to myself (except on the main road). Generally I like to extend this loop out Rt. 17 and through Ickesburg for additional sights and ride time, but today I didn't have the time so I kept to this relatively short loop.
As always the ride was great, the sun was shining, the breeze was warm, and the muscle burn is still being felt!

Around Town

2009-07-06T08:45:00.006-04:00

Yesterday, Bec and Hope had decided to get together to hang out and do some cooking and Hope was kind enough to extend the invitation to me. I gladly accepted, because who's gonna say no to some good cookin', and then made the decision that I would ride in instead of in the car with Bec. Bec probably would have accompanied me but it got a little too late and she knew that she couldn't ride to Hope's in the 20 minutes she had so I rode it alone. Riding into New Bloomfield alone, however, meant that I could extend my ride to get a few more miles.
I decided to go by way of back roads, as I usually do for safety and scenery, and I was not disappointed! Getting to see the green rolling mountains and the vast corn fields by bike is very soothing, and getting to see some wildlife along with that is gravy on the waffle!

View Around Town in a larger map

About halfway through my ride two fawn walked right out in front of me, about 20 yards, and as they spotted me froze in place and didn't move, so I was able to get a shot of them. Then their mother sprinted back into the woods which sent the fawn in a nervous sprint as well, which I was able to get a shot of as well. After that it was just landscape and the sweet summer breeze in my face!
Total I rode 18 miles in 70 min.s which wasn't too bad for me so I was pleased. But all in all it was a nice ride and even nicer to ride on the road again after the bouncy, muddy, and uneven C&O. Thank goodness for pavement!

C & uhh-O Canal

2009-07-05T10:30:00.007-04:00

This past week Bec and I had set out to bike the whole C&O Canal... all 185 miles of it! What we hadn't planned on was the cart carrying all our stuff to break... TWICE! At mile 26 the axle broke and left us stranded 7 miles from the nearest town. After some deliberation we decided to ride in and hope that the town's single hardware store was open. We rolled up about 25 minutes later to find out we made it, with 2 minutes to spare. After getting the parts we needed we grabbed some dinner and rushed back to our campsite before dark set in. Having done some early back tracking, rough riding, and unexpected detours we finally could sit and rest around the fire, and after 43 miles we needed it! The following morning we fixed the cart and set out to get to our next destination. Since we had to stop at mile 26, 9 miles from where we were supposed to stop, we had to try to ride more miles than we had planned for the second day. We pushed all day trying to keep our spirits up but it was clear we weren't enjoying it as much as we should have been. The thought of having to ride 50 miles on the rough rutted terrain was draining in and of it's self. Around mile 50 and with 25 to go we stopped for lunch and a well needed rest. At this point it seemed as though we might just make it to our next stop even though our bodies were saying we were done. We pushed through the next 21 miles and had to force ourselves to keep going when again the axle broke! Looking back and watching the wheel roll freely into the weeds peaked my frustration on the ride. We were tired, sore, and frustrated and this was the straw that broke the camels back! The only lucky thing was that I had bought some extra axles so I was able to replace the broken one on the spot and make it the last 4 miles to our campsite. However, I knew at that point the cart was not going to make it the next 70 miles to where Bec's parents were camping and waiting for us, so unfortunately we had to call them and have them pick us up. So we didn't get to ride the whole entire thing but we did get to ride some extra with Bec's parents bringing our total miles on the C&O to 80 and our grand total to 133. Aside from the mishaps the trip was pretty good and we got to see some history, although that wasn't Bec's highlight. Perhaps we'll ride it in it's entirety some time later but for now we'll have to be happy with 80 miles and prepare for our next journey, the Erie canal!