Hippity Hopkins

The ribs are on the mend, but I’m still playing the part of a reluctant dirt roadie. I can’t say it’s been bad. I’m getting in more miles than I usually do, and plenty of easy spinning. I guess that’s a good thing. But moreso, I’m hitting some spots that normally aren’t even on my radar screen.

Like looping the Rillito and Santa Cruz bike “paths” for a 30 mile loop. I counted myself lucky that I only got chased by two dogs from the homeless camps. It has been years since I’ve ridden the sketchy parts of the Santa Cruz. Unfortunately there was no sign of the giant culverts that Chad promised me. Probably just as well for the integrity of my rib cage.

Another good one was leaving my house and trying to arrive at Sabino Canyon as close to 5pm as possible. I had to open it up pretty wide to make it, but I was there at 5pm on the dot. I’ve walked up Sabino to hike, but never ridden a bike to the top. You can’t ride until 5pm, so I joined a large group of cyclists with neon green wind breakers in heading up the canyon at the legal time. It’s a beautiful canyon, and since the last shuttle run is at 4:30, the upper miles were empty. Water crossings were no more than 12″ deep. I rode Finger Rock wash on the way back as the sun set.

Then Lee and Lyin’ Bryan Barr put together a Mt. Hopkins climb – the ultimate dirt roadie ride. It’s mostly dirt, though you could easily ride it on a road bike. Excepting the “short cut” that Lee and I dragged Bryan and Walter on. They walked most of it (Bryan on SS), but had zero complaints when they got to the top.

The start is 4100′ and the telescope sits at 8500′. A healthy climb.

Buena vista. I’ve been working on increasing the detail in 3D mode for TopoFusion, often using the RATS gpx file for testing. So I’ve been looking at views much like this one. I suppose the real thing is a tiny bit more interesting, especially when you earned the view not by a few mouse clicks but a few thousand pedal rotations.

Walter, from Germany, spins out the last 25+% grade to the top. He was here to ride 24OP solo, and now doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get back home.

Hang around by the scope long enough and it seems like someone will eventually come out and ask “did you guys ride all the way up here?” Not frequently climbed so it seems. Then we were offered an unexpected tour of the facility. All the times we’ve climbed this mountain, but never been inside the big, white, rotating box.

It was very interesting stuff (I have done some computer science work in astronomy). The ride down was surprisingly cold. Not much snow around, but coasting always has a way of zapping my hands.

Otherwise, it’s been busy. I’ve been pretty motivated to work on TopoFusion, mostly because it’s been fun. But I have mixed feelings about feeling “busy.” I can tolerate it for a time, but it’s just not the way I like to run. Time passes quickly when in this mindset, which I don’t count as a good thing. I’m not waiting for anything.

A guy from BIKE emailed expressing dissatisfaction in Google Earth’s large scale 3D export. I’ve never been that motivated to put work into TF’s 3D capabilities because Google Earth (really Keyhole) does so much and has become the standard. I’d get more excited about GE if it wasn’t owned by a giant corporation. But in any case, this writer for BIKE did a 5 day bike trip (ding!) in the Wasatch (ding!), works for a major magazine (ding!) and needed a 3D view of his entire ride (ding!). I also quite enjoy working with 3D graphics, so I sat down, put my learning cap on and fought with Direct3D a bit. Now you can export big 3D images with pretty darn good detail. Assuming you have a decent video card, the map detail on the 3d model can now also be cranked up.

Meanwhile I’m still developing the wattage stuff, and it’s close to ready for release. But I must say I’m becoming less motivated the further removed from riding with a power meter I get. Not so sure I’ll be acquiring one any time soon, either.

My tracking of Mike continues. He’s nearing the halfway mark on the trip to Nome.

Also, I’m happy to proclaim that there is now 0.15 miles of new singletrack in the world. Paula’s kids and I have been building more trail for their running loop.

This adds to the existing 0.5 miles that I built a few years back. I brought my bike on the day we finished it and it was surprisingly fun to ride.

I don’t recommend grubbing out roots when your ribs are injured.

The kids get pretty excited about it. Paula says they like building trail more than running on it.