Canal Season and New Wheels

Great Blue Heron, Canal Road, 2 February 2020

1 March 2020


Oh, hi!

Been a while.

A month.

Let's get caught up.

This winter has ricocheted between sub-freezing and 60-degree days, with plenty of rain in between, and no snow.

February 15 was on one of the frigid days — in the 20-degree neighborhood — when Pete G and I set out from Washington Crossing. Nobody else in the Hill Slug/Insane Bike Posse/Usual Suspect circles was interested in the idea.

We went up the Pennsylvania side towards New Hope. Even Pete, who chides me for taking so many pictures, had his camera out.

I stopped more than he did, of course.

Entering New Hope from the south, we reached a spot where we could look across the river to New Jersey. The towpath was a narrow, beige line near the water's edge.

We walked across the bridge at New Hope.

We weren't far south of Lambertville when Pete noticed the giant wasp nest in a tree, dangling over the canal.

Pete had ridden in from home. When we got back to Washington Crossing, he didn't stop. I packed my bike away and drove over the bridge to Newtown, to pick up my latest load of vase attempts. It was enough to close a chapter in my glassblowing diaries, so rather than write a blog post about the ride, I blathered on about glass instead.

On February 14 I picked up Kermit's new wheels. On February 16, a day that was slightly warmer than the one before, I bundled up and rode from home to Jim's Six Mile Sunday. The rims are wider on these wheels, giving the tires an effective size of 27 mm, much beefier than the 23 mm I was used to. Disregarding the conventional wisdom that wider tires need less air pressure, I pumped them up to my usual 110 psi.

Needless to say, it was a rougher feel than I was used to. Dave H admonished me. I could have let some air out at the rest stop, but I left things as they were and clattered on home.

The wheelset is Altamont Lite by Boyd. They let me pick the decal colors, so you know I wasn't going to stick with just one. I chose blue for the front and green for the back. Both pick up the colors in the frame.

Two weeks later, Ricky suggested that I could have chosen four colors, one for each side. "Oh, man," I said, "I missed an opportunity!"

"I start shit," he said.

For $25 I could — oh, never mind!