#i've had an apple. it was nice! i like honeycrisp the most i think

[keeps-ache]

ohhh my lucks and misfortunes

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 21: Grand Ledge to Kalamazoo

Distance Covered: 70.69 miles

Total Time (including rests): 7:06 (8:17am-3:23pm)

Time spent riding: 5:29

Average Speed: 12.9 mph

Apples Eaten: 4 (fuji - 7/10, honeycrisp - 7.5/10, honeycrisp - 7.5/10, honeycrisp - 7.5/10)

Another mostly boring ride today. I'm kinda glad the trip is coming to an end, if just for the fact that I'm running out of ways to describe the ride. Biking across Michigan was much more hilly than the last several days, but still flat enough that I never had to switch to the small gear in front. It was almost completely on paved roads, with the small bit on a dirt road being the best dirt road I've been on. It was kinda cool when I started the ride, but it got hot relatively quickly, and by the time I was really into the ride I was greatly looking forward to the portions of shade.

I had a slight tailwind from the north, which was a nice contrast to yesterday's headwind. The tailwind ended up being slightly problematic, because it meant I was going to arrive at the campsite before the 3:00pm check-in. To remedy that, I ended up taking an extra long lunch break, but it still felt like a waste. Today's ride took me on a lot of high-speed state roads, but luckily most of them were either lacking in cars or had a wide shoulder. I spent a tiny bit of the ride near the end on a bike trail, but it was such a short distance that it didn't really impact the feeling of the ride.

I took 2 breaks, at about 25 and 50 miles into the ride. I had a bite to eat (PB&Js as usual) at both stops, but they were both just off the road with a little shade, so they weren't that interesting. As mentioned earlier, the second of those rests was rather long, just so that I wouldn't arrive at the campsite too early.

Small Notes

Train crossing - I've crossed many train crossing and seen many trains on this bike ride, but today was the first time I actually had to stop at a train crossing because of a train coming by

Lost dog - shortly after my first break, a car stopped near me and the driver asked if I had seen a dog running past. Unfortunately, I hadn't, so I couldn't help them with their search for their lost dog.

Bee sting? - at some point on the ride, I heard a buzzing noise behind my head. It didn't disappear when I kept riding, so I thought a bug or something might be flying with me. I waved my hand behind my head, and felt something in my hair. I tried to pull it out, and when I did, I felt a sharp (but small, probably a 1 or 2 out of 10 on the pain scale) pain in my thumb. The thing in my hair fell out and I didn't get to see what it was, and my thumb stopped hurting after 15 minutes or so, so I don't think it was actually a bee, but rather some other bug, but at that moment, I was pretty certain I had just been stung by a bee or wasp.

Pavement Notes (continued)

Here's a continuation of yesterday's notes on types of pavement, this time focusing on paved roads.

Sidewalk - a normally smooth type of pavement, except for a line crack every meter or 2, making it slightly different than just riding on smooth pavement.

Bike Trail (perfect) - when you have a paved bike trail, the pavement is usually rather smooth with no issues you have to pay attention to when riding.

Bike Trail (ruptured) - sometimes, the bike trail will have "seam lines" that come up on the pavement, like the pavement on either side of the line was pushed together. This pavement is usually nice, but you have to be careful with the seam lines/ruptures, as they can cause bumpiness or even flat tires if you go too fast over them.

Grainy Pavement - this is a type of road pavement, where the asphalt feels loose like gravel, even if it isn't. It can be rocky to ride on for both cars and bikes. It's most commonly found as the shoulder of a road which is mostly a different type of pavement.

Rough Pavement - I don't know really how to describe the next 3 categories of pavement, I just think it's important to note that there is a difference between the 3 when on a bike, even if they all feel very similar in a car. On this pavement, your bike tends to "bump along" while you ride.

Middling Pavement - on this pavement, the bike doesn't really bump, but the seat might shake a little, such that if you stay sitting too long on this type of road, you'll end up feeling very uncomfortable.

Smooth Pavement - best of the best, no blemishes, feels like you're riding on a frictionless surface.

Needs-Repairs Pavement - can be combined with any type of pavement (most commonly grainy or rough pavement), and with it there are a lot of potholes, as well as places where the pavement is at slightly different levels, like a partial fix has been made, but the pavement hasn't been completely redone. Common to see on less-well-kept roads in cities.

Design Notes

Don't have much in the way of design notes today. Just have mentions of a few games and what my next plans for them are, if any. This is mostly just repeating information from previous days and is basically just notes for myself, so it might not make much sense, but it was what I thought about today.

Characters, Inc - want to create item generation system, rebalance ability scores, change quest lengths

Time Loop - figure out how to have a small scale working prototype

Grid Delver - lots to do. First, a remake of the original, then create the framework for the new version.

Cardcasting - two directions I could see my self going: (1) work on the world building; (2) work on specific spells, as well as general ideas for spells

This is all. I have only 2 more days of riding left, after which I'll probably make a Post-Ride post, but the blogging is almost over!

Previous -- Next

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 20: Ann Arbor to Grand Ledge

Distance Covered: 86.22 miles

Total Time (including rests): 8:20 (7:57am-4:17pm)

Time spent riding: 7:12

Average Speed: 12.0 mph

Apples Eaten: 3 (honeycrisp - 7/10, fuji - 7.5/10, fuji - 6/10)

Today's post is probably gonna be on the shorter side, as I don't have much time to write.

Ride was a slow one, but still nice. I traveled on a mix of roads and bike trails. Most of the ride was on paved side roads, but parts were on bike trails, both paved and unpaved. I also spent a bit of time on gravel roads, which wasn't that pleasant, but it wasn't as bad as some of the gravel paths on previous days.

The ride was hilly-er than the several days spent riding through Ohio, but not by much. What was really annoying was not the hills, but rather the headwind. I had a heavy North wind, and about 1/2 of this ride was me heading north, and I always slowed to a crawl when I had to go north for a long period of time. Luckily, some amount of that northward-bound riding was on bike trails, and so the speed loss was made up for by a better road.

I stopped 3 times, twice along bike trails, and once by a cemetery, for snack/lunch breaks. The stops were mostly evenly spaced, and were part of the reason I considered today a "slow ride". The last bit of the ride biking through Lansing and Grand Ledge was the best of the ride not on trails, and I wish all road riding could be like that.

The only truly notable thing that happened during the ride was at the very beginning: while on the Border-to-Border trail heading out of Ann Arbor, I had to stop at a stop sign to let a person carrying a rowing scull to pass me, carrying their boat out to a dock just in the other side of the trail.

Pavement Notes

I did a whole terminological deep dive into roads at the beginning of this trip. Now, I'd like to return to that topic (sort of), by talking about pavement of roads. When in a car, there's only a few different types of pavement you tend to notice. However, on a bike, you're much more sensitive to the road beneath you, so you notice more types of pavement.

First of all, there are the unpaved roads:

Packed dirt - fine to ride on, as long as it's not muddy. Be careful for potholes and divots in the road.

Light gravel - the nicest unpaved roads, this is a packed earth road with a light layer of gravel above it. The gravel doesn't interfere with the riding, and so the feeling is nice.

Medium gravel - like above, but gravel may be larger or more plentiful in parts. Not too bad if you're only on it for a short while, but you have to be paying constant attention ahead of you, and it can get uncomfortable at times, so better in small doses.

Rocky gravel - bad, terrible, don't really even want to talk about it. On these roads, you usually have to bike extremely carefully, and sometimes it feels like it would be better to stop your bike and walk.

I also have some different types of paved roads which I was going to write about, but I'm getting rather tired, and don't really have the mental capacity to describe them well. I might write about them another day, or I might just forget about it.

Math Notes

Rather than Design Notes today, I have a theoretical/simulation math problem I've been thinking about.

When I map out my route, it gives a certain mileage. However, that mileage is only correct if you make perfect turns and stay on the center of every road. That got me thinking, how much can you increase the distance you bike on a route of a certain length, given that you are constantly following the route given to you. This turns into an equation dependent on the minimum and maximum speed of your bike, how fast and to what degree it can turn, and most importantly, how wide the road is. This is because the way to maximize distance is to weave back and forth on the road, while still biking forwards. That's as far as I really thought about it, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out.

That's it for today. I'm not camping today, as I'm staying with family, and tomorrow I'll be heading out to Kalamazoo. Only 3 days of riding left!

Previous -- Today's Pics -- Next