Today our nucleus divided into four parts. Chip, Alex, Tom, and I had a tale of two rides.
If you’re a route leader, know that I will grade your route planning. Once an educator and all. On today’s 40-miler (64 kilometers), Dennis had a “D” after our first 17 miles. The four of us had to choose to bounce on the semi-rough sidewalk/bike path or deal with speeding traffic on the very edge of buttery, but busy roads.
And come on Dennis, you know a headwind is going to completely feck up your grade.
Spirits lifted at mile 17 when we finally found ourselves on rural roads. We took advantage of a tailwind through small village after small village. We exhaled, loosened the shoulders, enjoyed the scenery, and made better time. Lots of cool houses sprinkled throughout the villages. Dennis easily ended up with a passing grade. Even at the University of Michigan.
Fast forward to mile 37 where we were bombing a smooth, tree-lined, truly beautiful but narrow road. That had been lightly traveled. I looked down at my computer and saw 35 mph. When I looked up I saw a giant garbage truck barreling right towards us. Skip dove into the gravel shoulder in front of me. I rode the white line and turned my torso to the right and easily had at least 12 inches. Alex, behind me, said he also opted to stay on the road and had one inch.
The rural roads are trippy. Very lightly traveled, but when you least expect it, all of a sudden a large tractor or a speeding luxury car will be barreling towards you. So people, don’t lose focus and live to ride another day. Like us. Peace out.
What, your pool isn’t as zen?Alex wondering who won the Apple Cup.I can read some of the signs some of the time.Not sure.Cows cliche yet?Rural/urban mix. Dig the funky wind combine.Groovy house #1.Groovy use of stone to hide/protect trash cans. Advanced civilization.Not sure this makes the groovy top 4.Groovy house #2.Groovy house #3.
The inaugural ride from base camp in Barvaux to Huy and back (via different roads) was off the hook.
Props to Dennis for plotting the route. And Belgium for the scenery. So beautiful. We rode through smallish farm after smallish farm and saw very large cows, lots of corn, windmills, groovy modern stone and glass homes topped with solar panels, and luxury German cars. Happy to report that Belgium’s farmers are doing alright.
We stopped a lot to debate whether to turn right or left. Dennis said if we pay for his trip, he’ll come over a month early and pre-ride the routes so we won’t get lost as often. I said I’d contribute.
Mid-ride we lounged for a long time in the center of Huy mostly so that Griffin could get his latte. Shortly after halftime, we split up because only a small subset wanted to do the famous climb. I found myself at the front of the chickenshit subset. I stopped after cresting a longer but less steep climb so that we could regroup. One problem. No one came up from behind. Oops, I missed a turn. My mistake. I had no business being on the front since I couldn’t get the route to upload to my computer.
I descended a wee bit, followed a local through a turn, a total Hail Mary, and looked a kilometer down the road and saw Greg’s flaming yellow jersey. Reunited and it feels so good.
Things broke up on the return. Greg, Skip, Alex, and I rode together. Them boys be strong.
If someone said to me, sorry, you can only ride that loop the rest of the week, I’d say, “Cool, let’s go.” Epic start to the week.
This badass bike belongs to A Young rider named Alex.Shy, not shy.I dig modern, stone, and glass homes.Suck it British AirwaysI know the people wanted a closeup. Kilometers and kilometers of this. Trump is afraid of windmills. LOL.Mid-ride confab.Griffin explaining why Belgian lattes are so small.Literally and figuratively brightening up everything.ScreenshotFor my Belgian readers
So says British Airlines. Dammit BA, what did I ever do to you? I was hoping to have started including you dear reader in my Belgium cycling adventure by now, but major baggage feck ups have delayed that. It started in Seattle when someone apparently sent 85 people’s baggage to arrivals instead of departures.
First world problems of course. I am coming to you from a warm apartment, drinking coffee, and I have quality company, so I will be A-okay. I even have my bike, contact lenses, and a change of clothes since two of my three delayed bags arrived yesterday.
Still missing . . . cycling kits, all bike tools and other accessories, among other things, so I will be the only no show at today’s shakeout ride. The loneliness epidemic.
I do have lots of reading material. Yesterday, I read a long New Yorker article about the kidnapping crisis in Nigeria. Kinda put my British Airway “problem” in perspective. Long story short, it’s mostly in the Northern Muslim part of the country and it’s fueled by economic desperation which is a fancy phrase for poverty. Nigerian police don’t have anywhere near the resources to fight kidnapping and it is working in the sense that most people pay ransoms. Brutal numbers, stories, scenario more generally, with hardly any hope for improvement any time soon.
Meanwhile, I wait for my expensive cycling kits, computer, radar, etc. And you wait to come along for the ride. Boohoo for you, boohoo for me.
Last weekend, I returned to Victoria, British Columbia in Canada. A lot has changed in a third of the year.
Literally, one week after my last sad sack solo visit to Victoria, I went on a dinner date with Lara in Olympia. A week before that date, right before my solo sojourn to Vic, I complained while on a Saturday run with the Inner Circle that it was really a crying shame that I couldn’t leverage my bofo blog readership to maybe find a winning match. You know, put out a call to PressingPausers near and far . . . Knucklehead writer in search of . . .
Why couldn’t I do that? Because my daughters, one who visits here at least semi-regularly, were already very upset me with for having gone on another date well before they ever anticipated that happening. One said she felt abandoned by me. And that I broke her heart.
That’s a huge burden to bear.
We have three family therapy sessions lined up during August. We will repair and restart. We still love one another and the alternative is way too tough to ponder.
Back to the Inner Circle and my mid-March Olympia dinner date. A few hours after whining on that SatRun, I got a text from one of my running bros, who said his partner had a single girlfriend, and they thought we might hit it off. They provided Lara with a link to the humble blog, and against all odds, she liked what she read. Something about me seeming smart and funny. Score.
However, Lara said she (also) thought it was too early for me to start dating. When she told her friend she thought I should wait a year, her friend told her I wouldn’t be single in a year. I dunno, because humble blogging is such an obvy aphrodisiac?
Long story short, they were right, we did hit it off. Bigly. So bigly, Lara didn’t hesitate when I invited her to visit one of my fave places with me.
And so this visit couldn’t have been more different than the last. One contributing factor was idyllic weather. Sunny, not hot, just exquisite. We cruised the coast on the hotel bikes Friday night and Saturday morn. Serendipitously, Vic’s major summer art festival was happening, 50,000 peeps, including us, descending on Moss Street. 20k steps later, we were whipped.
A serious foodie, Lara really took to my ace hole-in-the-wall restaurant, Foo Asian Street Food. It was fun to introduce her to that and my other favorite spots in and around Vic. And I’m happy to report she takes way less bathroom counter space than I do, inadvertently making me feel High Maintenance by comparison.
Saturday, she made sure I took a little time to lift little weights. Sunday morning I went for a run along the coast. Afterwards, while caffeine loading in our room, she insisted I watch some of The Open Championship which she didn’t know existed a week earlier. She read outside while I pretended to be at Royal Birkdale, in Southport, England. Heavenly.
However, it wasn’t as if the much more outdoorsy, active, fun, near perfect trip wasn’t without its crises. Foremost among them, we did not have time for a halibut burger. Even more sad, sometime this spring, the Courtyard Cafe stopped making fruit smoothies. To say I’m hurt they didn’t include me in the decision, is a huge understatement. Is it possible I am not the Hotel Grand Pacific VIP I think I am?
Of course I coulda/shoulda titled this “Dear Europe” or “Dear World”, but it’s you I’m thinking about most today.
I’m sorry. If it’s any comfort, many of us are counting down to January, 2029. Of course that is no consolation for you right now. If the (dis)United States wins, there will always be an asterisk attached. If you win, I will celebrate your overcoming the double whammy of FIFA and DJT corruption.
And if it’s any consolation, I will be in Belgium with my bike and several friends in September. At which time I can apologize in person on behalf of many, many of my fellow citizens.
Guest post of sorts. That will appeal primarily to the small subset of PressingPausers who fancy themselves cycling nerds. Ben Farver is the Founder of Argonaut Cycles, a custom/boutique/ultra bougie bicycle manufacturer based in Bend, OR.
As concise and clear a design philosophy as you’re ever going to read. Ben in Bend for the win.
The Wrong Problem
The industry has been racing toward aerodynamics and stiffness for a decade. Neither one is the most important thing about a bicycle.
Ben Farver, Founder of Argonaut Cycles
Every major bike brand is in a race right now to make the most aerodynamic frame on the market.
I think they’re optimizing for the wrong thing.
That’s not a contrarian position for its own sake. Aerodynamics matter. Weight matters. The gains are real. But the conversation the industry is having about what makes a bicycle better has narrowed to a point where it’s almost entirely about numbers that most riders will never meaningfully feel.
And in that narrowing, the thing that actually determines whether a ride is transcendent or just fast has gotten lost.
Aerodynamic gains only matter if you’re racing. Ride quality matters on every single ride.
Here’s how the industry argument goes. Make the frame slipperier, reduce rolling resistance, optimize the tire interface. Get the rider from point A to point B faster with less effort. That’s the whole conversation.
And I understand it. Going fast on a road bike is one of the closest feelings we get to flying. Thirty miles an hour, two and a half feet above the ground. Faster is better. I’m not arguing otherwise.
But those aerodynamic gains only pay real dividends at the elite level. They matter in a race, where the difference between first and fourth is measured in seconds. They matter when you’re in a peloton, and drafting dynamics actually change what a more slippery frame is worth.
For everyone else, the gains are marginal at best. And most riders aren’t racing. Most riders are out for three hours on a Saturday morning, trying to find what makes cycling worth doing.
That thing has a name. I call it dynamic response.
It’s the feeling of the frame working with you, rather than just under you. The load-and-release quality that makes pedaling feel effortless when it should and explosive when you want it to. The vertical compliance absorbs the road without throwing you off your line. The torsional integrity that holds the bike dead stable at fifty miles an hour on a descent.
These aren’t vague experiential claims. They’re engineering outcomes. Specific, measurable, designable. They just require a different set of questions than the industry currently asks.
The bikes that win the aerodynamic argument all ride the same. That’s not a coincidence. It’s the cost of optimizing for one variable.
The irony is that I’m not ignoring the aerodynamic conversation. The RM4 is in development and will be more aerodynamically efficient than the RM3. Slipperier. Faster. That matters.
But the design intention isn’t to make it faster at the cost of everything else. It’s to make riding faster and more satisfying. To push both ends of the spectrum at the same time.
That’s the argument we get to have that nobody else does. Because we’re not starting from the aerodynamic frame and trying to add ride quality back in. We’re starting from ride quality and building outward.
Most of the industry has it backwards.
The RM3 is like the classic Porsche 911. The RM4 will be the one sitting next to it in the garage that makes you realize how much further the idea could go. The difference is that both are built around how they feel to drive. Not just how quickly they get around a track.
There’s a reason people who get on our bikes for the first time tell me they’re stiffer than the bikes they came from. I know for a fact they’re usually not. The frame they got on isn’t as stiff as their previous bike by any objective measure.
But it has better power transfer. It has that load-and-release quality that people associate with stiffness because it’s the closest sensation they have a word for. What they’re actually feeling is the frame doing its job well.
That’s the problem worth solving.
Not how quickly the frame moves through the air. But how well it moves with the person on it.
The industry will keep improving aerodynamics. Tubes will get more optimized. Drag coefficients will keep dropping. And those bikes will keep winning races.
What they won’t do is give you the feeling that made you fall in love with riding in the first place.
That one is ours to build.
Maybe a better title for this post would’ve been, “How To Think”. And hell yes I want one.
Three weeks after ejecting from my roadbike and skimming across Center Street, I feel somewhere between two-thirds to three-fourths of the way back depending upon how much I’m asking of my bod. I don’t cry when choking on pistachios anymore. And I’m walking a lot, cycling a little, and I ran all of two miles yesterday even though I couldn’t breath very deeply at all. And I’m hoping to get the gills wet Monday at Masters swimming. Thanks to everyone who has checked in. Your texts and calls have meant a lot. They have made me feel a lot less alone.
More importantly, how is my soul five months after Lynn’s passing?
The second hardest adjustment has been the near complete loss of the connectedness to everyone who showed up for Lynn so consistently until the very end. Everyone, of course, quickly returned to their normal lives. I understand that, but it has still been disorienting. The house is so dang quiet.
However, the single hardest adjustment has been the loss of Lynn’s constant love, which as it turns out, I grew more dependent upon than I realized. As an introvert who digs solitude, I always fancied myself as fairly independent and resilient. LOL. In the immediate aftermath of her dying, I felt like the guy in the opening of MadMen.
Despite MSA’s slow motion devastation, I was unprepared for what, at the very end, felt like the pulling of a trap door. Which compelled me, two months ago, to go on a couple of dates which really upset my daughters whose well-being is as important to me as my own. And so now, as a result, I am disconnected from them. So disconnectedness upon disconnectedness.
Within that larger context, there have been what we in the Pacific Northwest call “sunbreaks”. Moments in the week, when the clouds separate just enough for warm, healing light to briefly shine through. When Steve calls during one of his Camino training walks to see how I’m doing. When Kevin calls. When MARN calls. When Lou, from high school, reaches out. When Mark invites me to walk. When Kris reaches out and comes over and listens to me ramble like the wonderful counselor she is. When Lil’ Chris sends a heartfelt card and note and invitation to a community event. When the college roommates write to see how we’re doing. When Marybeth sends this card.
Damn, that’s what everyone said, “I’m so happy I met Lynn.” I miss the KChrises, the roommates, Marybeth. Lynn’s people.
More sunshine than a sunbreak, I am not dating anymore because I’ve met someone special. Someone incredibly sensitive to my grieving and the family’s. Someone who watched Lynn’s memorial service on YouTube and said, “I wish I had known her.” Someone who gives me confidence that I will be alright. Especially when my daughters can accept my free falling self and we reconnect.
Sunday, Mother’s Day will be especially hard for A and J. Here’s what I want them to know. I turned on Lynn’s phone recently and there were 99 text messages. One dated 12/16/25, the day after she died, was piercing. Lisa, her boxing coach texted, “I love you Lynn. No more pain. Rest in peace.” Followed by a purple heart and strong arm emoji.
I want them to find solace in their mom’s legacy. So many people loved her. So deeply. We were very fortunate to be among them for as long as we were.
Who often reminds me, as only a loving big sissy can, “It’s not all about you, Ron.” But this post might be. 😜
A subset of humble blog readers, who also happen to be personal friends, have reached out to see how I’m doing post bike accident. Which I’ve greatly appreciated. Here’s more than they, and you, prob wanna know. If my sissy has read this far, she’s rolling her eyes.
Five of us were enjoying a truly beautiful spring day, sunny, 50’s, meaning built-in air conditioning. In a pace-line, we were two hours into a two hour and twenty minute ride, baring down on Tumwater High School at 20-22mph thanks to a slight tailwind.
I was fifth of five. The lead rider, who has been relegated to Witness Protection, did not point out a small, but deep divot in the road. Remember sports fans, whenever you’re on the front, your main responsibility is to the be the eyes for the whole train. Rider number four hit the devilish divit head on, and as a result, slowed quite a bit. I was sitting my customary three feet behind him and didn’t have enough time to avoid riding into his back wheel. At the last fraction of a second, I turned my wheel to avoid his, but all that did was create an angle that launched me dead left into and across the center of the road. Picture a rock skimming across a glassy pond.
My skimming across the pavement happened right in front of a kind and caring woman on the way to work. Had she left for work 20-30 seconds earlier she very well could’ve ran over me. She checked on me and called it in while my friends looped back to provide additional/wonderful support. Soon, a bevy of young male firefighters began asking me questions and poking and prodding me. If I was gay, I would’ve immediately started feeling better. They asked me who the President was, and I said, “Oh man, I feel badly enough already.”
My friends studied my helmet and saw that there were no scratches and so everyone knew my compromised cognition was just my normal state of being. While I was sliding across the road, I was sure I’d broken my collar bone or hip or both. When I came to a stop and was able to sit up and eventually get to the side of the road, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that apart from road rash on my right shoulder, elbow, and knee, all the damage was confined to my right rib cage. Which hurt like a motherfecker.
The fire boys recommended I go to the hospital for a more thorough eval, but they have to say that, right? One also stated with a wink what all my cycling friends and I already know from experience, there’s absolutely nothing they can do for broken ribs.
Meanwhile my friends were putting my chain back on and checking out CanRon, the name of my newish whip, which remarkably, was almost entirely unscathed, maybe because it first bounced off me instead of the road.
Then, I somehow rode it home chapperoned by the team until we got to Deschutes Falls Park and then BC rode with me all the way into the garage atop the Fifth Street Bridge. There’s only two explanations for how I made it home under my own power. Stupidity and adrenaline.
The first night was scary. I had help at dinner, but afterwards, when alone, I was unable to move. I could hear my ribs rattling when breathing, which was even painful. My doc cycling friend who fancies himself a comedian, advised, “Just don’t move or breath.” Eventually, I tried to get into bed, but ended up half on the edge of the mattress and half off. Then, I couldn’t get off the edge of the bed. There may have been a lot of moaning and even tears. Masculinity is overrated.
Eventually, I had a good idea, which like the aurora borealis, happens on occasion. The recliner for the win. Somehow, I slept as well in it as in bed. And that continues to be the case.
I read it takes twelve weeks to recover, but my doc cycling comedian friend texted this yesterday, “You can do activities as tolerated. It should start getting better about 2 weeks after the injury. It will be mostly gone by 6 to 8 weeks.”
The good news is I am way, way better already, six days in. Yesterday, I walked 1.25 miles to the gym, cycled for 30 minutes, and walked home. Just don’t ask me what kind of watts I was pushing. It’s amazing to be able to go from sitting to standing without feeling like someone is jamming a huge butcher knife right into my side. Now, it’s more of a butter knife.
So, my goal is to be back running, cycling, and lastly swimming, closer to six weeks than eight. I mean I need to be ready for the start of the Tour de France in early July. And time is wasting.
Unlike me, the white Oakley frames did not survive the crash. And for the unusually observant, energy gel in cheek, not chewing tabacco.
Sometime in the middle of my recent California cycling adventure, I wondered, what are we even doing, turning the pedals, for hours, every day?
The only thing I could come up with was extending our childhoods. We were men and women consciously choosing to be boys and girls of old.
Then, my peabrain shifted to my earliest memories of cycling in Louisville, KY in the late 1960s. When first learning to ride a bike, I remember someone, guessing an older sib, holding the seat and running alongside me until they weren’t. And then I remember swerving bigly, a few times right into metal mailboxes that dotted the edge of the road. Like Louisville’s own Cassius Clay, down goes Ron! Eventually, I swerved less and less.
My earliest, most vivid, fullblown cycling memory, was a year or two later, when I was dominating the kickball field at Zachary Taylor Elementary. It was this exact time of year, April, and Little League baseball tryouts were right around the corner.
Six or seven years old, my pals and I knew we needed a few hours of spring training before tryouts, so we laced our gloves onto some Louisville sluggers and laid them across our handlebars which we balanced precariously with balls bulging from our pockets. And then headed to a very nice, very large park, about a mile or two from our dented mailboxes.
Once we got to the park, we noticed the tennis courts sat under about 10 inches of water that had, until recently, been snow and ice covered. Maybe, we thought, as we took off our shoes and socks, we should splash around the courts a bit before officially starting spring training.
Within a few minutes, I sliced the bottom of my foot by stepping on a metal twist off beer top. The water turned red and I grew faint-headed. Someone hurriedly called my mom who lit into me. Since I’m the youngest of four, she was DONE with emergency rooms. On the way to get ten stiches, she got all up in my grill and said, “IF YOU EVER TAKE YOUR SHOES AND SOCKS OFF AND CUT YOUR FOOT AGAIN, DON’T CALL ME!” Which is pretty damn funny now, given how kind and caring she normally was. Everyone has a breaking point.
I think this was a Thursday and tryouts were all day Saturday. Even though Spring Training was cancelled on account of blood, I rallied, and showed up at tryouts on crutches. Shagging fly balls like a young Ken Griffey and even chucking the crutches and hobbling into the batters box to take some ferocious cuts like a young Andy Pages. A legend in both Louisville Little League history and my own mind.
Needless to say, the coaches were impressed with my pluck. I vaguely remember a bidding war breaking out. I told the coach that finally landed me that I didn’t want a bag, but if he could do something nice for my mom, like maybe comp her snow cones for the season, I’d greatly appreciate it.
The legend, with a scar on the bottom of his foot, fourth from the left.
Pressing Pause 