Middle-Aged-Man

Since, I just turned 51, and was inspired by Smittie Smith’s 50 list, I did one myself, but mine is 51 items, because of my birthday.

1 I love to watch TV with no sound
2 I hate to log in to the bank website to check my balances
3 I love to learn things watching videos
4 I do not read for pleasure, I expect to learn something, if I have to read
5 I like to walk, and walk and walk.
6 I have to use reading glasses, thou I had Lasik’s to correct far-slightness
7 I love good (any) wine
8 I like music that no one knows, but get excited when someone knows
9 I have live only in California and Florida
10 I am a beer snob, but trying to reform and learn to drink American lagers
11 I want to move out of California
12 I believe that all know, earn, deserve, does not mean anything and will burn, only my relationship with Christ will endure
13 I graduated from high school not knowing how to read and write
14 I am proud to left handed, right foot and right eye dominate
15 I want to look good in hat, but think I do not look good in any kind of hat
16 I will not wear shirts unless they have collars
17 I do not have a favorite movie and I do not collect them, but want to.
18 I love Christmas music until the day after Christmas, than I want it silenced
19 I do not make Christmas/birthday lists, because no one ever gets me thing from my lists
20 I like to cycle, wish I had a cooler looking bike
21 I want to be good at photography
22 I love my family
23 I think I look like a turtle, but with the shell in front
24 I like change when I understand it, but I shut down when I don’t
25 I am a system admin on a few networks, and get frustrated with error message, that state, see your system admin
26 I am a geek, I love technology
27 I like food and food likes me.
28 I love working with young people
29 I use to stutter
30 I want to be the person my dog thinks I am
31 I use to work for a meat market when I was a lad
32 I am very conservative politically
33 I like to give when it is not expected
34 I dislike greeting cards, I think they are a waste of money
35 My wife and I home school my children
36 I want to be off the power grid
37 I want to be understood
38 I have many regrets, but learning to own them and not have them owning me
39 I am dyslectic, but hide it well
40 I do not know anyone famous, but know people who do
41 I use to be a night owl, now I get up early
42 I sleep 4-5 hours a day
43 I have never left North America, visited only Mexico and Canada
44 I do not own a gun, but recently purchased a knife (for walking and cycling)
45 I prefer to laugh over crying
46 I can be hurt easily, but you will never know it.
47 I learned to read/write because of technology, it is part of my testimony
48 I stopped purchasing music, I now use Pandora
49 I am learning to face the fear and do it anyways
50 I wish I could speak another language
51 I like being hot over being cold

Today, I cycled to and from work. This is the first day back on the bike after riding to Reedley. The morning ride was OK. Not too slow and not too fast, but I felt tired. However, coming home the heat was up 98 degrees and the wind was out from the south west at 23 MPH. I guess, I was either stronger or rested. My home time 46:23 and average of 14.78 miles/hr. This is my best time ever coming home. This is more like the morning speeds, because the mornings have almost no wind.

Also, I have been using this blog for a couple of years now and today is the 400th article.

There was some conversation over the last year about cycling to Kickback. Kickback is our annual High School church group (Highlife) escape from Lancaster to Reedley. As a group we talked about this 200 mile ride for some time. We would do two 100 mile days. The longest I have ever rode up to this point was 108 miles in one day, so I know this would be hard. Two days of back to back riding would be much harder. As the date got closer it was down to two riders, a young man, Brendan Patz and me. He is 17 and very strong and for me, will as you know I am the middle-aged-man.

We did two training rides prior, the first being a 44 miler, and second of a 66 miler. The day arrived to leave, so on Sunday June 20th at 6:15 am we left Brendan house and started leg 1, which would end in Tehachapi. The ride started across the Antelope Valley up to Backus road was nice and cool. After a rest at Backus Road (20 miles), we headed up to Tehachapi. This started the climb segment. We were well into the slow moving part, when one of my work friends Dan Dunn and his wife drove next to us and we stopped to chat. I showed my maps and he made some changes. He drove off to go home and change to ride with us. We then did the death march over the top (elevation of 4,802 ft.). Overall the elevation gain was 3,045 feet. Dan caught up with us riding into town on Dennison Road. The three of us cycled in to beautiful downtown Tehachapi for some lunch. We eat sandwiches and many glasses of ice tea.  Leg 1 was finished with a moving time of 3:50, and an average moving speed 9.8 MPH.

Leg two was from Tehachapi to Bakersfield. Leaving the lunch restaurant Brendan, broke a spoke on his bike, we rode to Dan’s house where he had a spare bike. He sized the bike to Brendan. Let me say, Bredan’s old bike was 25 years old, Dan offered him a pretty new Klein, just been tuned up (Dan’s daughter rides it, but she was out of state). I think it was valued at $3,500, my guess. The three of us rode down Woodford-Tehachapi road to Keene, where we rode Highway 58. Dan rode with us for a few miles and looped back home. We continued up on the Hwy 58 for 10 miles, and exited from the fast lane ( a little scary), on E Bear Mountain road, and started riding on Bena Road. This was the best part of this leg. It was downhill (after a moderate climb). It was winding and flowing. I would love to ride this in the spring time, when everything is blooming. We ended on the flats and rode where Bena become the Edison Highway. We rode to our hotel, showered and eat. We were a sleep by 7:00pm. Distance for this leg was 43.86 miles, with an average moving speed of 14.8 MPH.

Leg three, up at 5:00 am, prepare and eat. We were on the rode at 6:30 and road out of Bakersfield up to Earlimart. This leg as flat with lots of open areas of farmland and this leg was around 49 miles. It was getting warm and windy. No real events to report, except our butts were very sore. It is hard to sit on the saddle for two days. Moving time was 3:28 at an average moving speed of 14 MPH. We eat and got more fluids in a small restaurant in Earlimart.

Leg four the final leg, was flat and windy. I expected the roads to be bad condition and they were for the first 2/3 of the trip. We crisscrossed the back roads, paralleling the 99 freeway, until we got to Visalia. We chatted about stopping in the park. We were on a nice segment of bike path, smooth and winding through the park and golf course, when we hear a metal pop sound. Brendan, thought it was me, I him. When we stopped to rest our butts, he noticed another broken spoke on the loaner bike. He had tape to secure it, and I followed him, to evaluate whether it was going to wobble. It looked good and we continued. We made a rule, if another broke, we would call it off. We were 22 miles from Reedley and we wanted to finish. We rode up a freshly repaved part of Hwy J19 to Dinuba, turned left and rode into Kelly’s Beach in Reedley to finish. This leg was almost 60 miles with an average moving speed of 12.6. We arrived at about 5:00pm.

Sore and tired, we just rode 197 miles in two day with an average moving speed of 12.5 MPH. However, we were not really that tired, as least compared to day one. I managed to do well, I eat, I did the events and went to sleep around midnight. I got sorer after the next couple of days. I had two fingers that were numb for two days. My knees were sore. It was long ride, but I can’t wait to do it again next year.

Me, Dan Dunn, and Brendan Patz

I have been walking and counting my steps since, January 21, 2008, entering my steps into www.walkertracker.com each day. Today I went over 11,000,000 steps.

Total steps to date, is 11,036,171, which is equivalent to about 5,400 total miles (that is virtually walking across America and back) or my daily average of 12,656 steps  (six miles). This month is slightly up with an average of 13,747 steps each day.

It has been a long time since I posed, but I plan to ride to Kick-back with one of high-schoolers. Doing 200 miles in two days. Leaving our homes and riding to Bakersfield (day 1) , get up and ride again for another 100 miles. The plan is arrive at Kelley’s beach in Reedley, Monday afternoon.

Today was a conditioning ride of 66 miles, from the house to 3-Points and come out at Neenach. We saw our friend pastor Mike Rice mowing the lawn at Grace Chapel of Neenach. From there we rode home with the wind behind us.

The elevation gain was 2,550 feet maxing out at 4,116 feet, the moving average was 12.5. The wind was very strong from the west. We rode all the mountain in a facing wind. Sometimes this wind must have reach at least 40 MPH and was trying to stop us. Even some of the down hills, we found it hard because of the wind.

Today is May 17th at this time normally we are way into summer. Well, not this year. Riding home from work, I got rained on. But, I enjoy this weather, it will get hot soon.

Activity: Cycle
Google Maps URL:
Shortened Google Maps URL:
Started: May 17, 2010 4:54:02 PM
Ride Time: 47:30
Stopped Time: 0:00
Distance: 10.65 miles
Average: 13.45 miles/hr
Fastest Speed: 21.74 miles/hr
Climb: 164 feet
Calories: 744
Official Route: No

 California Bike Commute Week , May 17-21, 2010

California Bike Commute Week is comprised of several regional Bike to Work Day events throughout California, and is held in conjunction with National Bike to Work Week

Click Here to find out about Bike To Work Day events in your area! 

Today I rode to work. All is good, but I do still have to ride home.

Google Maps URL
Shortened Google Maps URL
Started: May 17, 2010 5:55:28 AM
Ride Time: 43:27
Stopped Time: 0:00
Distance: 10.60 miles
Average: 14.64 miles/hr
Fastest Speed: 20.64 miles/hr
Climb: 230 feet
Calories: 792
Official Route: No

My friend and fitness guru Tracy Whittaker and I have been walking all over the place and walk together at lunch when we are at work. We started to track our walking on www.walkertracker.com over two years ago. Amazing that we are about the same amount of steps, but she is ahead of me.

I just walked over 10 million steps in 786 days, or an average of 12,724 (Tracy’s is 12,887) per day. It is really a lot of steps. For easy calculations, 2,000 steps is about a mile, so we have walked around 5,000 miles. That is walking coast to coast and back.

My public profile is http://walkertracker.com/douglas.

It was a beautiful Sunday for a ride and I talked Chris Twogood, one of the high school guys to go out riding. He had some obligations, but he managed to change them or drop them. We left the house around 1:30pm and rode out to H, G, 30th, and west to 110th west. Up to avenue I and out the Poppy Reserve. We met up with Pat from the High Desert Cyclist group. We also saw many lambs being moved my dogs and a Shepard, while many cars stopped to take photographs of these lambs. Many folks were out hoping for poppies but they were still being shy. The ride was 37 miles and was a great day.