2007 Tour de France and Chase Mastercard, I Want My Time Back!

All the hours I've spent so far watching the 2007 Tour de France now feels like wasted hours of my life. It all seems like a farce after all the doping and synthetic testosterone that's been exposed over the past few days.

But since I can't get those hours back, I shall cease watching the Tour. I've lost track of the Red Sox though, since I haven't really watched many games since the Tour started. Wait, those guys are all jacked up on testosterone too... how about women's golf? Nah, boring. I know, I'll read a book.

The stock market took a steep dive down today so I'm glad I didn't go and buy any more stocks, which I had been planning on doing but got so tied up at work that I didn't have time to think about it. Saved by the Salt Mine. Amazon seems to be doing well and I'm thinking of buying AMZN, I know it and I use it often. I buy all sorts of items, from TVs to MP3 players, books, etc. As a subscriber to their 2nd day free shipping option, I feel like I can always go get what I need and not have to worry about paying for shipping, or waiting for slow shipping. Amazon really knows how to make the user experience completely painless. Not many e-commerce sites can make that claim.

Today I had a terrible experience trying to access my Chase credit card account online. I had forgotten my password, so I began their process of resetting it, which eventually results in them sending a text message to your phone with a code, which you enter into their site and it then allows you to reset your password. However, after going through the painful process of getting to the point where it texted me a reset code, I STILL could not reset my password. I entered my new password, carefully following their character and alpha-numeric requirements, yet after every attempt I was presented with the very same enter new password page. No error message telling me what I may have done wrong, nada. So I broke down and called. Long 10 minute wait for the first operator. I explained to him what was happening. We walked through the whole process. He was stumped. Passed me along to the next level of support. The woman I got of course had no idea why I was calling so I had to start over with her from scratch. Once she understood what was going on, she had a solution! She told me to go back to the very first login screen and enter as my password whatever the last failed password entry was that I'd been trying to enter unsuccessfully. Voila! As it turns out, the password WAS being reset every time I submitted the form, yet it was not telling me that - no, it was acting as though I never even submitted the form. So apparently this is a known bug in their system - their 2nd level customer service reps know about it. My question is - why dont' they fix it??? This seems almost impossible to believe for a company as large as Chase, but there it is. A good hour of my life, lost to their incompetence.

So, to the Tour de France and Chase credit cards: I want my time back!!!!!

Bicycle Parking Ticket

All I have to say about this is, WTF. This is the first bicycle parking ticket I have ever seen. It was, of course, brought home to me by Oscar, who is, by any measure, the World King of Violations. If there is a violation to be had, he's got it - which is why, at age 20, he's banned from driving cars by the state of Massachusetts. He found a way to get a ticket without a car.

I find it extremely amusing that they noted the make: Bridgestone City Limit and the Color: Sky Blue - Sky Blue!!! That's awesome! What kind of bicycle-parking-ticket-giver is creative enought to 1. read the faded name of the bike model off the top tube and 2. note the color with such clarity: (not blue, mind you) "Sky Blue".

This is un "infraccion de estacionamiento" that has brought me entertainment and not grief, (for the first time) so, to whoever wrote this, thank you.>

Coupon for Free Jamster Ringtone!

Climb to the Clouds 2007

This was the scene at the summit of Mt. Wachusett on Sunday during the CRW Climb to the Clouds. I opted for the 62 mile route (wimp!) and it was just fine. There was a bad crash on the descent from the mountain, which I must have passed just after the EMTs arrived. The woman appeared to be passed out and bleeding, sure hope she made it OK.

Overall it was a very nice ride with several well-staffed stops for water and food. The route was very well-marked, and there were cyclists everywhere, outnumbering the cars. Would that it was always that way out on the roads.

Here is my GPS data from the Climb to the Clouds.

Over 5,000 feet of climbing!

I need to figure out if my GPS is set to record data points every second, or if it's set to Smart Recording, which supposedly picks up "key points where you change direction, speed or heart rate". I find that my battery runs out after 2-3 hours, which is no good on these long rides that take longer than that. I still find that I come out low on the number of miles reading, which some have said is due to the fact that the distance is calculated by drawing a straight line between data collection points - yet there are usually curves between data recording points, thus resulting in a lower mileage reading.

For example this ride was supposed to be 62 miles but my GPS shows 60.02 miles. I can't even figure out how to tell if it's using any data from the spoke magnet at all. RTFM, I guess.

Tuesday Night Ride & Map of VT Hill Route

Tonight was a very nice ride, the NEBC Women's ride that is. I came in at 19.7 average speed, which is my fastest time yet on that route. Heart rate average was 153 - last time I did this ride it was 157 and my average was 19.3, so it seems like an improvement, though I am not sure because it was only in the upper 70's tonight whereas that last time it was about 95...

Here is a link to my GPS tracked route of the VT hill ride on Saturday:

South Royalton VT Hill Loop GPS Map

4,133 feet of climbing! That's gotta be good.

A Lucky Day for a VT Ride

Here I am, getting ready to go 55+ miles through the hills and mountains of VT.

It was a great ride with a great group. We saw some of the best scenery and hit some of the longest and most arduous hills along the way. The hills in VT are not like the hills of Massachusetts. They are generally much longer and they tend to have very steep endings.

I wound up riding in the local parade through the small town of Vershire. The ATV participants did not like my presence. It was fun dodging them and hearing them skid to a stop inches from my rear wheel trying to scare me.

My maximum downhill speed was 47 mph - and there was one downhill that went on for 4 miles - I think that's the longest downhill I've experienced, at least for quite a while.

It was 7/7/07 - I did not buy a lottery ticket, but I feel lucky to have made it through the ride dry up until the last 2 miles or so when we were hit with a windswept downpour - and it felt good.

Longest ride yet - 52 miles

Yesterday with the Charles River Wheelmen group that leaves from Nahanton Park was my longest ride this season, 52 miles. I intended to go 42, but we got lost due to the gravel that the lovely town of Dover put down on one of its roads, covering a directional marking that had been spray-painted onto the asphalt just ahead of an intersection. But it turned out fine. I was not about to do the Wells Ave training race today after such a long hard ride the day before - quads are still sore Sunday evening! I don't know why they should be so sore, I'm thinking I'm just super slow at recovering. I've logged over 700 miles during May and June, so you'd think I could bounce back a bit faster.

I also had my fastest Tuesday NEBC Women's ride a few nights ago when the temperature was around 95 degrees. I managed to log my best time yet on that ride - 19.4 mph average. Heart rate was up there at 157 average which is a full 12 bpm higher than when I rode the Thursday night CRW ride of the same distance at 19.9 mpg average - although the temperature was just 56 degrees during the CRW ride! I am thinking that high temps really increase heart rate. Gotta look that one up.