Mid-Morning at the Oasis

Rest stop at the Chesterville Mall

May is Bike Month, and with any luck it will bring temperatures higher than 50 degrees, the last remnants of snow in the woods will melt away (instead of pouring cold air down the hillsides onto unsuspecting cyclists riding by), we can go out in short-sleeve jerseys and shorts - and it can't come soon enough.  Last Saturday's ride in Wayne was a lot dryer than expected and we had our usual cadre of smiling velonauts, but warm? - it was not.  Perhaps May will remedy this.  If nothing else, this Saturday we will have a new route from Pike's Oasis in Livermore, laid out by John Lanoue, and that should count for something.  Hope to see you there!

 

Saturday, May 3rd - LIVERMORE

"The Oasis Loop" - a not-quite-desert-like tour of the ponds and ridges around Livermore, Fayette, and Chesterville.

START: 10:00 am at Pike's Corner Oasis at the junction of Rt. 106 and Rt. 133 in Livermore.

DISTANCE: 28 miles.

TERRAIN: flat to moderate with a few good hills.

HIGHLIGHTS: some scenic back roads including the famed Ridge Road along the Chesterville Esker, and perhaps a post-ride ice cream stop.

LEADER: John Lanoue.

 

For more information on the Kennebec Valley Bicycle Club find us on Facebook, or contact Jim Merrick at hjmerrick@gmail.com.

Wayne, Maine

We had an eventful ride this past Saturday along the Kennebec River Rail Trail and beyond.  We had eleven riders in rather crisp temperatures, but the potential rain never materialized and we got in a nice ride along the river.  We never got a chance to thank our ride leader, Jim Floyd, as he was called away by troubling news from home as his wife Martha had suffered an accident while out for a hike with their dog.  Thankfully for cell phones and dog whistles, Martha was found by the rescue team and transported with difficulty to safety.  Our thoughts are with both of them and we hope Martha is home soon and on the way to recovery. 

 

This Saturday's KVBC ride will start and end in Wayne at the Elementary School on Pond Road (off of Rt. 133).  Hope to see you there!

 

Saturday, April 26th - WAYNE

"The Wayne Way" - a tour of the lakes and waterfalls around Wayne, North Wayne, and Fayette.

START: 10:00 AM at the Wayne Elementary School, 48 Pond Road, Wayne.

DISTANCE: 20-23 miles. (Options for a longer ride are possible.)

TERRAIN: moderate, with some surprisingly flat sections.

HIGHLIGHTS: some nice scenic lake shore roads, meadows, and scenic view of White Mtns from Home Nest Farm - great touring country.

LEADER:  Jim Merrick, hjmerrick@gmail.com.

 

For more information on the Kennebec Valley Bicycle Club follow us on Facebook, or contact Jim Merrick at hjmerrick@gmail.com.

Wake Up the Earth 2014

We had a great warm-up ride last Saturday in North Augusta thanks to Jim Floyd and David Lipman.  They picked a perfect day, and we had a nice turn-out of twelve riders on short notice.  We didn't lose anyone (we think) and the roads were a lot better than expected.  This Saturday's ride will be our first official ride of the season - the "Wake Up the Earth" ride along the Kennebec River Rail Trail, with a possible stop at Slates Bakery in Hallowell (actually two possible stops, as we pass by it twice, and it's hard to pass by).  The ride will be on gentle, mostly flat terrain, and will be moderately paced - perfect if you haven't been out much as yet this year.  Hope you can join us as we kick off another great year of cycling!

April 19th, Saturday - AUGUSTA

"Wake Up the Earth" - an early Spring/Earth Day ride along the Kennebec River Rail Trail through Augusta, Hallowell, and Gardiner.

START:  10:00 AM at the Augusta trail head of the rail trail - the municipal parking lot off of Water Street adjacent to the Maine State Housing Authority (353 Water St.) in the shadow of Memorial Bridge:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=kennebec+river+rail+trail&sll=44.311274,-69.77447&sspn=0.028006,0.055189&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Kennebec+River+Rail+Trail,+Kennebec,+Maine&ll=44.311497,-69.774309&spn=0.003501,0.006899&t=h&z=17&lci=bike

DISTANCE: 20-25 miles

TERRAIN:  flat (and we mean flat, unless of course we take a detour to add on more miles)

HIGHLIGHTS:  the first ride of the season, a pleasant run along the Kennebec River, with some great natural scenery mixed with some urban vistas, kicking off another great year of cycling; possible stop at Slates Bakery in Hallowell, too!

LEADER:  Jim Floyd.

For more information on the Kennebec Valley Bicycle Club contact Jim Merrick, hjmerrick@gmail.com or check out our Facebook page.

Gabriel Blow that Horn

 

 

The first official KVBC ride of the season - the "Wake Up the Earth Ride" - is scheduled for Saturday, April 19.  But this has been such an interminably long Winter, just about all of us are getting a bit antsy, and waking the Earth may require some defibrillation ahead of time this year.  So we will take advantage of this Saturday's forecast of sunshine and mid-50s, and embark on an impromptu preseason ride to see what shape the roads are in North Augusta and vicinity.  Get those road bikes out!

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday, April 12: NORTH AUGUSTA

"Reverse Cryogenics" - a preseason tour to encourage the winter snows to melt away from our roads so we can see where the potholes are.

START: 10:00 am at the parking lot by the TRC industrial building on Gabriel Drive, just off of Civic Center Drive between Johnathan's Restaurant and the Maine Farm Bureau; park on the left side of the building along a row of pine trees.

DISTANCE: to be determined

TERRAIN: to be determined

HIGHLIGHTS: Hey, a Bike Ride!  Praise the Lord and Pass the Chain Lube!

LEADERS: Jim Floyd and David Lipman.

 

For more information on the Kennebec Valley Bicycle Club, contact Jim Merrick at hjmerrick@gmail.com, or check out our Facebook page.

Nano Cycling - the New Frontier

From early days, engineers sat at their desks and contemplated shrinking bicycles and riders down to microscopic levels, hoping to set off and explore new frontiers. (And escape from bosses, supervisors, tax collectors, tedium, and other ills.)

Early attempts at reducing the size of cyclists were encouraging, but not always successful. Shortly after this image was recorded, the cycling couple rode off and were never seen again. It was decided that perhaps it was best to concentrate on producing nano bikes first, and cyclists later.

After much effort, engineers began to make significant progress. Fully functional bicycles of incredibly small sizes began to appear.

Unlike the camels of old, these bikes could pass through the eye of a needle (if you turned the handlebars). Still there was a long way to go in terms of reduction.

Finally, a significant breakthrough involving proximity to a critical mass of Reifenabrieb (rubber tire dandruff) allowed the transformation of cyclists into true nano cyclists, and the jubilant engineers were on their way.

Understandably perhaps, the engineers first tested out nano cyclists in the repair and maintenance of bicycle inner tubes while in actual use, installed on rims. It was thought that teams of nano cyclists could forestall flats before they happened, by servicing and repairing weaknesses in tubes, such as the nano snakebite in Photo 2 above.

Brilliant in principle, but difficult in practice as the distances inside a standard 700c bike tube are enormous on a nano level. Here one the nano cycling scouts has located a minor leak and is awaiting the arrival of the patch crew. Fortunately it is a very slow leak. Once patched, the team can proceed on to the next leak - after stopping for ice cream, perhaps. Of course, they may just decide to let the lazy engineers patch their own tubes, and set off instead on a transcontinental trip across the engineer's mouse pad. In nano cycling, the possibilities - and the distances - are endless.

Celebrate Pratt's Birthday!

Charles E. Pratt (center) on the 1st Wheel Around the Hub

It's March 13, the birthday of Charles Eadward Pratt, perhaps the Father of American Bicycling, who was born in Vassalborough, Maine in 1845. Pratt was a highly influential early cyclist, the author of the first American guidebook for cycling, and the first president of the League of American Wheelmen. We've written about Pratt and his accomplishments before. Here's a piece that he wrote in 1889, on How to Ride a Bicycle - for Good Health and Plenty of Fun (below).

HOW TO RIDE A BICYCLE: For Good Health and Plenty of Fun (1889)

By CHARLES E. PRATT, Ex-President of the League of American Wheelmen.

            The best way to learn to ride is to take a bicycle and ride it. I answered that question for myself in that way eleven years ago, and have been learning how ever since; but my experience confirms me in the belief that it is an art which though simple and rational and easy, cannot be easily imparted or acquired by description. How to ride a horse is only to be learned by taking the horse and riding him. Buy one if you can; if not, borrow one, or hire, or beg the best one, if possible; but any way a bicycle— and ride it like a man on the road. If you have not ridden before, you have the pleasure of conquest before you. If you are sensitive or cautious, go into a riding school early, before others get there, or ask a friend who has the art to give you some suggestions or to answer your questions; to hold the bicycle while you mount it and try the pedals with your feet and the handles with your hands, and move back and forth and up and down on the saddle and get the adjustments comfortable to you, and then let him hold the back-bone abaft the saddle while you tread the pedals until you get the motion of the machine, and then he will let go when you don't know it. You must feel out for yourself mostly how to mount comfortably and to dismount and to guide and to propel with the least exertion, to "take" ruts and gullies and grades—in short to ride.
            These things are the rudiments of riding; once acquired they are always kept, and become second nature. They are exercised without much thought, just as we walk, or ride, or drive, or swim or paddle a canoe. After they are acquired the bicycle is ridden either for business—and then the exigencies of business will suggest how—or for pleasure, and then the how becomes complex. I would suggest riding slowly, at a strolling gait, that is, at an average of eight or nine miles an hour; then the rider does not become exhausted, does not become absorbed in the riding, but is free to look at everything along the way and to think and to feel the beauties of air and scenery and sky. Ride not too long distances, especially at first acquaintance or in the spring after the disuse of winter. Ride in the early morning, but not without taking a slice of bread and a glass of milk or a light breakfast first. Ride in the evening as a rest and diversion from the cares of the day, then take a warm bath and sleep as only the honest wheelman can. Ride for an object on the holiday or the half day off, to some picturesque valley or noble hill, to some ruin, to some place of historic associations, to a pond and take a swim, to a wayside inn and eat as only a wheelman can. Ride in vacation or on an excursion of several days and nights. Here the true charm of bicycling is found. One is surprised at the freedom he may enjoy, the light encumbrance he needs, the non-necessity of almost everything which takes his attention usually, and the worth and comfort of things he does not usually think of. A few small toilet conveniences, a map or two, a pocket compass, a measuring tape and a rule—the few things that he can put in his pocket and in a bag a quarter of a cubic foot in capacity and carry on his machine without inconvenience; let him add, too, to his outfit a small camera and a few extra plate-holders with ready plates. Let him take one or two companions, not more, for good fellowship. Thus equipped he may start in any direction, be free of time-tables and stables and public places, be out of the crowd, stop when he pleases, stay as long in any place as he finds it pleasant, forage on the country, make topographical surveys, observe the inhabitants, and think and dream and breathe and eat and sleep and recuperate and be careless and thankful.
            But the more I write the more I am conscious and you become aware that I cannot tell you how to ride a bicycle. I tried to do so in a little book called "The American Bicycler," published some years ago. Both editions of it are now out of print, but if any one is sufficiently desirous of knowing the best things I could write on that subject when the flush of enthusiasm was upon me, let him ask his second-hand book-dealer to find a copy of that book for him, and read it. But by all means ride the bicycle, for to ride anyhow is better than hesitating about how to ride. Ride resolutely, notwithstanding Ruskin. The wheel is the Continental yacht. Ezekiel prophesied it, Michael Angelo sketched it, and Karl Kron has written of it lovingly and as patiently as Walton wrote of fishing.

[from Alfred F. Aldridge (compiler), Brawn and Brain: considered by noted athletes and thinkers. New York: John B. Alden, ©1889, pp.52-55]

Blueberries, Alewives, Hot Dogs & Apple Pie (and maybe some Moxie)

We have a great-looking line up of rides planned for the year!  We've managed to design a schedule to take advantage of a variety of local events, including the Benton Alewife Festival, the Wilton Blueberry Festival, and the Monmouth Apple Festival.  A couple of changes: Ken's Hot Dog Ride has been moved up to June 22, leaving the weekend of July 12-13 open - however, we've learned that there is a half-century bike tour (and a shorter option) planned to coincide with the Livermore Falls Moxie Festival on the 12th, so we may work that into our schedule.  We are planning to offer at least one metric century this year, running out of Wilton during the blueberry festival.  And Steve Robe has suggested we might revive the 100-mile Tour de Kennebec from Jackman to Waterville, perhaps during one of the open dates below.  If you are interested in the Century ride, or in any of the other rides or open dates, please let me know.  Hope to see you all on some or all of our rides this year!

 

Here's the updated KVBC ride calendar:

 

April 19, Saturday, 10 am: Augusta "Wake Up the Earth Ride" - Jim Floyd

April 26, Saturday, 10 am: Wayne "The Wayne Way" - Jim Merrick

May 3, Saturday, 10 am: Livermore "The Oasis Loop" - John Lanoue

May 10, Saturday, 9:30 am: East Vassalboro "China Surprise" - Jeanine Libby

May 17, Saturday, 9:30 am: Clinton "Biking with the Alewives" [Benton Alewife Festival] - Jeanine Libby

May 24, Saturday, 9 am: Manchester "Cobbossee Odyssey" - John Lanoue

May 31, Saturday, 9 am: Vassalboro "Velo Vassalboro" - David Lipman

June 7, Saturday, 9 am: Windsor "Tour of the Back 40" - Leanne Moll

June 15, Sunday, 9 am: Mount Vernon "Eleven Ponds Ride" - Jim Merrick

June 22, Sunday, 9 am: Wings Mills (Mt. Vernon) "Ken's Hot Dog Ride" - Ken Louis

June 29, Sunday, 9 am: Damariscotta "A Pedaling Purview of Pemaquid Point" - David Lipman

July 5, Saturday, 9 am: Sidney "Independence Day Ride" - Jim Putnam

July 12 or 13: OPEN (possible Moxie Ride in Livermore Falls on the 12th)

July 19, Saturday, 8 am: Augusta "Capitol Breakfast Ride" - Jim Merrick

July 26, Saturday, 9 am: Gardiner "Back Roads to Bowdoinham" - Roger Rocque

August 2, Saturday, 8 am: Wilton "Blueberry Metric" [Wilton Blueberry Festival] - Jim Merrick

August 9 or 10: OPEN

August 16, Saturday, 8 am: Waterville "The Colby Loop" - Jeanine Libby

August 24, Sunday, 9 am: Vassalboro "Hills and Beans" - David Lipman

August 30 or 31: OPEN

September 6 or 7: OPEN (although we may opt to field a team at Pedal Penobscot in Bangor on the 7th)

September 14, Sunday, 9 am: Farmington "The Ups and Downs of Industry" - Larry Childs

September 20 or 21: OPEN

September 27, Saturday, 9 am: Winthrop "Monmouth a la Mode" [Monmouth Apple Festival] - Jim Merrick

October 11, Saturday, 9 am: East Winthrop "The Big Lakes Tour" - Denise Crowell

 

Many, many THANKS to all our volunteer Ride Leaders!