Going downhill was a ride well worth the price of admission of climbing uphill for so long. I’ve gone fast on my bike before (faster than I went today, anyway), but never for so long. It was exhiliarating, cruising down a mountainside at 30/35 mph for minutes on end. I’m almost not looking forward to getting to the flatter coastal plain on days 5-7.

On the tech front, Flickr is being a problematic child: ignoring what I tell it, or telling me it’s going to do what I ask then not doing it. I managed to get another photo up, but have another four or five queued up, being ignored. I’m trying to see if I can e-mail photos to it instead of using the whiney BlackBerry app. Speaking of the Berry, the battery is still being a wimp. I’m actally plugged into the wall to type and send this. If I see an AT&T Store on the ride, I may be forced to stop in for a new battery.

That’s all for now… more later…

(UPDATE: Apparently I managed to find the right spot, held the Berry the right way, and muttered the right cross words, because all of the photos I meant to upload are now uploaded, albeit a little out of order… you’re big boys and girls, you can figure it out.)

No… documenting this ride in words and pictures promises to be challenging for several reasons:

• This silly little BlackBerry keyboard (not that I’d want anything else instead… if I can’t have a big full-qwerty keyboard, I want a small full-qwerty keyboard, thank you.)
• The WordPress mobile admin interface (have to type in all the HTML by hand… Oh, the horror! At least I can cut-and-paste… take that, iPhone!)
• The wonky battery in my BlackBerry (seems the silly thing lies to me, dropping from 3 bars to zilch/blackout… I’ll be taking wall and auto chargers with me on the bike.)
• Low/no signal strength (Can you hear me now? Huh? What? Is someone there? Hellooooo?)
• Timing (Will I actually stop for 10 or 15 minutes to blog something cool I might come across? Not likely… Blog will in all likelihood be a once-an-evening thing; watch my Twitter feed for more timely updates
• No spell-check (Please forgive any missspelligns, or blame it on the keyboard. I’ll clean it all up later.)

Anyway… Recapping and embelishing on Twitter: I was terrified by the “hill” I had to drive over to get here. Turns out tomorrow starts with us ascending to and crossing the Eastern Continental Divide at about 3 miles into the ride. :/ Also had a complete sandal failure and had to buy new ones in town (see the Twitter feed for the gory details.)

I have figured out getting photos to Flickr from this thing. You can see any photos I take and post here: http://flickr.com/photos/straffin/tags/cnc2008/. Currently featured: a picture of my new sandals! Look for more interesting pics tomorrow.

G’night…

…and it was in a pool.

I took my youngest daughter to her swim practice this afternoon and, since I was able, I went for a swim myself. (They practice in two lanes of a Durham Parks & Recreation pool… I swam in one of the other lanes.) It was weird… it was the first time I’ve swam any significant distance in a long time. I was feeling seriously fatigued within the first 300 yards, but I kept going, though not very quickly. I also had a brand-new pair of goggles which were defective (by design… they punched a hole in the eye-seal for the strap-loop… morons) and leaked steadily the whole time. I might have swam farther if I hadn’t had to stop to empty the one eye-cup every 25 yards.

I managed to finish 2000 yards (a mile is 1760 yards) in the hour of Amanda’s practice. My goal was the mile, but once there and seeing I had five minutes left, I figured I might as well go for the nice, round 2000 yards. Embarrassingly, the extra 200 yards took the entire five minutes. :/

Coming into the home stretch of a 24-mile ride this morning (13.2 avg mph), I spotted a car slowly backing down its driveway with something decidedly out of place on its roof. Having been in this situation far too often to admit, and wishing that I had had someone to do the same, I swung around and started waving. The driver waved back. Okay… it’s early, and lots of folks greet each other on the way out to start the day… I’ll give him that. But how many folks turn around and go out of their way to do so? I stopped waving and held up my hand in a policeman’s “STOP!” gesture. The car stopped. Ignoring the giddy feeling of power I felt (“I stopped a car with one hand!”), I pointed upwards. I was now close enough to see the look of realization on my rescuee’s face. Coasting around the side of the car and into his driveway, I reached up and handed the Ziplock storage container and NutriGrain bar through the now-opening car door.

“Wow… thanks!”

“No problem… I’ve done it plenty myself.”

I then pedaled off, finishing the last quarter-mile to my house, feeling a bit like Superman after handing a little girl her formerly-treed kitten. What a great way to start the day…

This year will be different.

(cue snickers from the one or two people who might actually read this thing)

No… seriously. I’m gonna try to get something up here at least once a week, hopefully more.

Let me know how that works out, okay?