What is this?

Or more importantly, what is it a part of that which will be?
I am thinking about calling it "The Davis" after the person that inspired me to make it and made me one similar using his craft.

Words and Photo by Ray Heinsman

Rider Of The Day #30: #1 Part Deux

Rider of the Day #30 was photographed while I was riding next to him. He may very well be the same rider as my first rider of the day. Compare the photos and decide.

I have been seeing a lot of the same cyclists lately. It has become quite obvious that there are not that many bicycle commuters on my route to work. It is probably because the route is fairly short and there is little variation on what this route can be.....so I will have to start riding to other places to get some new rider of the day action. Everyone likes a little strange.

Words and photos by Ray Heinsman

Rider Of the Day #25 Through #29

On Saturday, July 31st, my wife 2 friends and I went to the Biketastic Art Show. While we were there we also checked out some of the Friends of the W&OD 10K running race. Here are some cyclists we saw while there.

Biketastic Art Show @ The Soundry

On Saturday July 31st, my wife, 2 friends and I went to the Biketastic Art Show at a coffee shop/artists studio called the Soundry in Vienna, VA. The show was in conjunction with a Bikes for the World donation event. If you were feeling artistic, the women of the Syn fit Bicycle racing team were also posing for Dr. Sketchy's DC and a few vendors supporting a variety environmental and social justice causes.

The show had that quaint low key vibe that reminded me of the Art Shows we frequented in Buffalo. The coffee shop had some nice smoothies and pastries as well. Behind the shop were the artists studios where the vendors and auction tables were set up. 

A hall lined with various artists work led into the main gallery which contained a stage and a sketching space.

Here are some examples:

Karen Sulmonetti

Megan Taylor

Brian Joseph Legan

If you happened to catch it drop a note in the comments section to discuss what you thought. If you didn't, I recommend checking it out next year.

New Video

From MC Spandex - a new video - on my topic - Mountain Biking!

Rider Of The Day #24- Seth Godin = Inspiration

My Wife and I went to see Seth Godin. If you have never heard of him, he is a marketing and inspirational genius. Especially in this increasingly global and revolutionary time. His blog is linked to mine on the right colum called "Seth's Blog." Go ahead. Google it! On our way I was able to frame this nice shot in downtown DC.


Here is a blog post of his. This topic was a good chunk of the talk we went to see.

words and photo by Ray Heinsman

Getting unstuck: solving the perfect problem

Blog Post By Seth Godin: July 27 2010

The only problems you have left are the perfect ones. The imperfect ones, the ones with a clearly evident solution, well, if they were important, you've solved them already.
It's the perfect problems that keep us stuck.
Perfect because they have constraints, unbendable constraints, constraints that keep us trapped. I hate my job, I need this job, there's no way to quit, to get a promotion or to get a new boss, no way to move, my family is in town, etc.
We're human, that's what we do--we erect boundaries, constraints we can't ease, and we get trapped.
Or perhaps it's your product or service or brand. Our factory is only organized to make X, but the market doesn't want X as much, or there is regulation, or a new competitor is now offering X at half the price and the board won't do anything, etc.
There's no way to solve the perfect problem because every solution involves breaking an unbreakable constraint.
And there's your solution.
The way to solve the perfect problem is to make it imperfect. Don't just bend one of the constraints, eliminate it. Shut down the factory. Walk away from the job. Change your product completely. Ignore the board.
If the only alternative is slow and painful failure, the way to get unstuck is to blow up a constraint, deal with the pain and then run forward. Fast.

Fitness Week 3 - what happened here?

Well - it has been a while since I have posted - I got a little bummed at some work things that happened last week. This mindset made it hard for me to work at my health or want to share much. Has this ever happened to you?

So here is a synopsis of where I am at.

On Thursday July 15th I was bummed that all this hard work had not resulted in a higher level of riding. As a matter of fact - it was one of my most disappointing rides ever. There are many reasons why this is but they sound like excuses and I am not going to sit here and whine.


On Sunday I made an awesome Salmon Salad with cucumbers, jalepenos and greek yogurt.

I was supper psyched on Monday July 19th that I had lost 2.4lbs. I planned to blog about this, but then I didn't.

The week of July 19-26 was a bad one for exercise - I didn't get up and do any; and I had a few beers each night; I did however eat well and cook some delicious meals from the Farmer John Cookbook. If any of you get a chance to get this, there are wonderful seasonal recipes in here to create awesome side dishes and main courses. I made a beat salad as a side to my swordfish steak and on another night a stir-fry with rice noodles and bok-choy.....all good stuff.

My ride on Thursday July 22, went surprisingly well. We rode for a long time in some intense heat and our group while the slowest, rode the longest.......I wouldn't be surprised if the other groups covered more distance though.

Then the weekend came and I was all set to get back on track. Erica and I went grocery shopping at 1pm on Sunday. At 3pm we got hit with an intense Thunderstorm. It left half a million people in Mont. County without power including us. There are still close to 10,000 without power today. We got power on Monday afternoon but our fridge's perishables had perished and the freezer items that were not yet frozen also didn't make it. I then got food poisoning or a virus on Wednesday from something I should have thrown out but didn't.....booooo

I may have been down - but not out.

Rock On

Ray

words and photos by Ray Heinsman

DC City Ride to Brunch

On Sunday, my wife and I rode to brunch in downtown DC at a restaurant called The Heights. It was a nice 15 mile ride that was similar to the one we did on the 4th of July. We went south on Sligo Creek Bike Path and then rode up Maple Ave through Tacoma Park. After that long uphill it was a nice ride on 3rd Ave to Kansas Ave which is pretty much all bike lane. 14th street also has a bike lane but the church traffic was all parked in the bike lane. On that stretch I took the lane.

After brunch we went to Best Buy and picked up a DVD of Anchorman with Will Farrell. Every time we go to Camden Yards to watch the Orioles play, they have a skit on the big screen where they ask each player which Will Farrell character they like better; Ricky Bobby or Ron Burgandy. I like Ron Burgundy, but I had only seen Anchorman once and it is so often played on a commercial channel with heavy editing.....no way to watch a movie.

I am getting off topic.

After Best buy we Rode home. On that ride she captured some video of me on Sligo Creek with my phone. Enjoy!

Fitness Day 6 - Are we going to be good today?

Well, I should be getting back to eating well, but there is leftover temptation from yesterday evening.

I got up in the morning and went for my run. Because i had some beers the night before and I was feeling a little out of sorts, it was only the same length as my last run on Tuesday. I also did all my shoulder stabilization exercises using dumb-bells.

After my morning routine, I opened up the fridge.

This is where things went a little downhill.
For breakfast I had leftover potato salad and a slice of leftover pizza from Sunday.

For lunch I ate almost all the leftover hotdogs. That would be a whopping quantity of 3! They were delicious and I was overly full.

Then we went grocery shopping and got some good fruits and vegetables. I will be using these to make a combination of wonderful foods over the next week.
Last night we went to the Orioles - Blue Jays game in Baltimore. While there I had some good ole' fashioned BBQ. It was sliced pork on a roll with BBQ sauce and horseradish. I also had two beers while at the game and a piece of my wifes pretzel, one of the best tasting pretzels ever.

So today was more of a day off instead of being a good healthy day. The baseball game was excusable because I want to allow myself to do these things, but I could have done a lot better for the first two meals instead of letting temptations overtake my sensibilities. I am not going to beat myself up over it anymore though and focus on doing better in the days to come.

Fitness Day 5 - Day Off

So how bad was I on my day off?

I did not do any exercise besides my daily ride to work.
I ate a breakfast burrito from Qdoba for Breakfast.
This had egg, potato, queso, chorizo, habanero salsa, and cheese.
For lunch, a cheese steak and fries.
For dinner we had a little grilling action with Salens Beef Hotdogs and Jalepeno Burgers with Cheese. Being that we had a few people over we also served a spinach dip with tostitos scoops.
While we ate our delicious grilled food, I washed it down with a variety of IPA beers from Dogfish Head.

There is nothing here that is considered healthy, but the weekend is here and we went grocery shopping yesterday. Good eating ahead.