looking over overlooks

I didn't get to backpack at all during June, so I was already behind in my goal of taking a trip each month this year (starting in April).  I had new gear to test, and I was itching to get out, even if only for a couple days, so I contacted someone who I knew had easy access to a substantial portion of the AT and suggested we go for a hike.  Later, I found out that he was so excited at the prospect of a backpacking trip that he blew off a shorter hike with someone else.  Sorry, Other Hiker.

Friday night we pulled in to an Italian restaurant to get a pre-hike dinner, only to discover that the storm that cropped up just after my arrival killed their power.  "We can still make pizza, though," they assured us.  "The oven's gas."  We had pizza, and got dropped off on VA620.  The rain had stopped, and the trail here was dry, as though the rain hadn't made it that far.  We joked about how--despite the forecasts--the wettest we would get was the run across the parking lot to dinner. (cue foreboding music)

Unofficial caretaker of Pickle Branch Shelter

We spent our first night at Pickle Branch.  My cohort had just hiked the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim, and had grown fond of alpine starts, so we set an alarm for 4:30, with plans to be hiking well before 6.  The next morning offered us a few glimpses of the valleys on either side, and the one to the north flowed with a wide river of fog that never materialized into the rain we expected.

A little before 8, we found Dragon's Tooth, where two large triangles of rock pierce upward from the ridge.  Usually there's a great view of the valley there (I was told), but on that morning we could barely see past the teeth themselves.

Dragons' Tooth.  And a couple packs.

The descent north from Dragon's Tooth is pretty well known; there are two sets of steel rungs placed in the rock to facilitate the climb while wearing packs.  Later, there's a flank of rock that looks like a cliff face from below, but actually has a set of thin ledges to climb.  Having some experience with Asterisk Pass and packs full of climbing gear, I was able to laugh at this obstacle, and had fun scrambling down over it.

Come to think of it, it looks like a cliff from up here, too.

Most of the rest of the morning was spent climbing stiles, walking through fields, and checking almost constantly for ticks (I had one; he had five).  There was also a box turtle sitting just beside the path.

The trail wasn't always marked well, but it was pretty clear anyway.

I got the feeling that the area, like Dad's yard, had gotten lots of recent rain, because the quantity and variety of fungus was stunning.  There were also more Indian pipes than I can remember seeing anywhere, occasionally in groups large enough to form an entire Indian horn section.  (although they are not fungus)

I like that you can see how they forced their way up through the leaf litter.

fungus humongous

these were less than a quarter-inch in diameter, and very plentiful

We finally got to McAfee Knob much later in the day.  We had expected crowds (it is reported to be the most photographed spot on the AT), but thanks to either the humidity or the threat of storms, we had it pretty much to ourselves.  It was easy to see why it's so popular.  A parking lot four miles away makes it a very accessible day hike for locals, and the view is spectacular.  Plus, you can get the obligatory "I'm standing on a big crazy overhang" picture.

This is the overhang everyone loves.  The two ridges in the background are the section of the AT we hiked the next day.

Different overhang, same place.  Still a great view of the valley.

We spent that night at Campbell Shelter, a scant tenth of a mile from the Pig Farm campsite, which shares a water source with the shelter, but was pretty full by the time we arrived.  Our nearest neighbor was Guy, one of the tireless volunteers who maintains the trail and shelters in the area.  Like many of the volunteers I've met, he has hiked only a limited portion of the trail (many, many, many times), proving that the AT is not just a thru-hikers pursuit.  Some of the people who are most dedicated to preserving and maintaining it have only seen a fraction of it.

Sunday sunrise.  The water in the valley is Corvin's Cove.

Two hours after another 5:30 start, we arrived at Tinker Cliffs, visible from McAfee Knob.  The trail here follows the cliff edge for quite a ways before ducking back into the forest.

Seriously.  Right along the edge.

This is also where we met a couple other hikers who had some trouble with their bear canister, but that story's so good I'm saving it for a separate post.

golden morning light near a snack stop

I saw a beautiful boulder begging to be explored and managed to drag myself away without even approaching it.  Later, an even larger slabby boulder overhung the trail, and I decided I could allow myself a brief diversion.  My cohort was happy for the break.  From the top of the slab, I got a great view of the Cove, found a snake, and saw a fence lizard.

Either a milk snake (my guess) or a copperhead.  Either way, a good reason to check all handholds before sticking your fingers in blindly.

fence lizard

More impressive than the reptiles on the rock were the three box turtles we saw that day.  We had seen one the day before in a meadow, near a stream, but each of these were on top of the ridge, a mile or more from any water at all.  I was fascinated by that, but couldn't help but wonder: if we saw that many right on the trail, how many others were nearby and unseen?  The top of that ridge could have been full of turtles.

This was the least gregarious turtle we met.

About 1 PM, we got a little rain.  I put on my pack cover, and we both moved our cameras into plastic bags, but otherwise we didn't bother protecting ourselves at all.  I had a new rainshell and pants in my pack, but it was still far too hot for extra layers, and we knew we were within two hours of the car by then, so we didn't care how wet we got.  The rain cleared shortly anyway, but while crossing under sizzling, buzzing power lines, we looked down into the valley and saw the storm that was still coming our way.

You probably can't see it in the picture, but we could see the rain glistening on the roads below us.

That was about when the thunder got close, and we knew our only option was to forge on to where the trail finally dropped down from the ridge's summit.  It poured on us the whole way down.  We were so wet so fast that I laughed when I realized we were still drying to step on the higher parts of the trail, as though that would somehow keep our already-saturated shoes from getting too wet.  That was about when I gave up and just stuck to the center of the trail for most of the rest of the hike.  There were a couple especially soft portions where I sought firmer ground, but otherwise I had accepted that acting as though I were trying to keep my feet dry was moot.  That was lucky, because Tinker Creek had breached its banks, formed a new, parallel creek, and continued to expand outward until it had swallowed part of our trail.

In the upper left portion of this shot, you can see the blaze that proves we really were still on the trail, even though the trail is nowhere to be seen.

The rain had stopped by then, but its impact was still clear.  I was laughing enough by then to convince my friend that I had lost it.  "Just think," I told him, "next year I'll get to do this for days at a time."  I hope my mood holds as well then, because I had a great time on this trip.

The Sickness

Apologies for the late post.  After scheduling this one to go live, I spent a weekend actually backpacking, including the drive to and from, and realized that the post I had intended was not the post that I had written.  What follows is my second attempt at expressing this consuming compulsive disorder.

On the fourth of July, someone asked me about my hike, and I didn't even bother hiding how excited I was that someone--anyone--wanted to talk about it.  "It's all I think about," I told him.  "Whatever I'm doing, my brain twists it to somehow be applicable to backpacking.  When I go to bed at night, I think about going to bed on the trail, and advantages of the tent over shelters, or shelters over tents.  I think about the bedding I have, and the bedding I'd like to get to replace it, and how much each of them weighs, and how much the new stuff will cost, and then I wonder about whether the pad will be comfortable, and how long it should be, and whether the quilt will be warm enough, and then I remember the leggings I need and still haven't selected."  And it goes on and on.

When I'm on long drives (usually between where we live now and where one or both of us used to live, but sometimes just up and down the east coast for sundry reasons), I'm always on the lookout for where our route crosses the Trail.  If we don't cross the trail, I try to see the ridge the trail follows.  If it's too far away, or if we've already passed out of sight, or aren't in sight of it yet, I see it in my mind.  I may be piloting my beloved Tardis, but in my head I'm hiking somewhere, surrounded by green, enduring whatever weather is actually outside the car.  I think about how I'd handle the current weather if I were backpacking.  I think about the gear I've bought--or still need to buy--to cope with the conditions.  I continually hope it will be sufficient to keep me healthy enough to keep hiking.

As I make dinner in our apartment, I think about dinners on the trail.  Is there any way to increase the caloric density of my pack?  Will butter survive August in food tubes?  I usually make my own trail mix so I can get exactly the blend I want, but without access to a well-stocked bulk section in a grocery, I'll have to buy a lot more than I really need to get me to the next resupply opportunity, which means carrying more weight than necessary.  I've been careful to train myself on foods I'm pretty sure will be available everywhere along the route, rather than limiting myself to very particular menu items, but there may come a time when my only resupply option is a gas station.  Can I get enough out of such a food paucity to get to the next store?  Will I be able to get the stove fuel I need (I did check before buying my stove to see whether the fuel was readily available along the trail, but there's no way to be sure until I'm out there)?  I've had enough practice at this mental acrobatic act to consider all of these things while monitoring the food I'm cooking in the real world, and that alone impresses me to no end, knowing as I do how much of my brain is consumed with these questions.

Every time I pull on a pair of shoes--any shoes--I remind myself that I need to order a few extra pairs of Brooks Adrenaline trail runners and distribute them to the people who have eagerly volunteered to act as my support team.  I also need to investigate sturdier insoles, get a pair, and train my feet to be happy with them.  I'm trying to get in the habit of stretching each night (especially when actually backpacking) to keep my body healthy and limber enough to avoid the surprise muscle pains that crop up when I'm not as diligent in my fitness routines.  I've given serious thought to sleeping without pillows to get my body used to that as well, but this past weekend I learned that my new rain shell, when packed into its own stuff pocket, doubles as a handy camping pillow.

By now you've gotten your own taste of what it's like to live in my brain as I transform from someone who has a general love of doing things outdoors to a person with a singular, obsessive focus in every single aspect of my life.  Perhaps I should apologize; I struggle to not mention backpacking to anyone, because if I talked about it as much as I think about it, everyone I know (and several complete strangers) would be sick of hearing about it months before I hit the trail.  But if they bring it up... well, that's different.  Then they're asking for it.

Eventually, I reached a point where I was no longer surprised at my own ability to link anything I'm doing to backpacking.  Now I'm curious about whether it will ever stop.  Is this an obsession based on one trip, or am I cultivating a new pastime?  Will I forever be doomed to look at a suitcase, coat, or book and first think "way too heavy"?  Will I always be more comfortable slogging through mud in the woods with thirty pounds on my back than I am sipping cocktails with well-dressed bon vivants and discussing the current political situation and fashionable attire?

Man, I hope so.

Backyard safaris

Sometimes, when I am left alone at Dad's house, or The Girl's parent's house, or any other place that affords me some chance to wander outside, I get a chance to aimlessly poke around in the yard, and I'm often impressed at how much I find.  There are the usual--and almost expected--fun surprises, like brightly colored beetles or birds nests, or the much rarer stick insect or tree frog, but I still like the idea that if you let yourself look around, you can find a lot of interesting stuff in very common places.  Several years ago, I had an apartment in a miserable building in Cleveland between a graveyard and a train line.  (I didn't mind the graveyard, and didn't mind the train line, either, but the building was miserable independent of its location.)  One morning, I looked down at the street (separated from the train tracks by a brick wall and a fiteen foot drop) and saw a rabbit nibbling on a six-inch-wide grassy shoulder between the street and the train line's brick wall.  I don't know how it got there (though looking back now, it seems likely that it usually hung out in the graveyard, or came a block or more from the houses with the larger yards on the other side of the tracks), but I was impressed that it had found the only edible expanse in fifty yards.  I was also concerned that he wouldn't find his way back to safety, but I never saw a dead rabbit on our street, so I guess he made it.

During my recent visit home, I met this fellow.

To be honest, I narrowly missed stepping on him, which is hard to believe, because he was about four feet long.

That's a big dose of black rat snake.

Black rat snakes are pretty easily identified once you've seen a few of them (we lost one measuring six feet in the house once, but we found him a couple days later), though I admit that I usually start with where I am; I know they live in Dad's area, because that's where I've seen most of the specimens I've met.  They are constrictors, and harmless to humans, but given the opportunity, they may bite.  A four-footer bit me once--I think he was trying to convince me to put him down and leave him alone, but I took him back to where I had found him first (then I washed the bite mark and marveled at the double row of teeth).  Their most distinguishing feature is nearly impossible to see without picking them up: while most snake bodies are round, rat snakes have flat bellies, like a loaf of bread.  Their coloring can be widely varied, but this is a close-up of the pattern on Dad's new tenant:

Note the darker, separated ovals going down the spine.

Why "tenant," you ask?  Because I kept checking on him over an hour or so, and eventually found him crawling into an invisible burrow in Dad's mulch pile.  Once he had gone all the way inside, I could only find the burrow entrance because I already knew exactly where it was.  Proof that snakes are ninjas.  Very cool!

It's very warm inside mulch piles.  If they're old enough, you can usually find ash inside.

When I found the snake, I went back inside to get my camera (surreptitiously, so as not to arouse suspicions in the dog, who probably would have taken a more disruptive interest in the snake), and ended up walking around some more dark corners of Dad's yard.  The recent week of rain meant that he had lots of neat looking mushrooms all over the yard.  I have no idea what any of them are, and I forgot to steal his fungus book, so if you know any of these species, please let me know.

That's not a bite mark.  I know better than to take bites out of red mushrooms.

These are ridiculously small.  Think pencil-eraser.  They seemed to have little seeds inside, but the number varied from none to three.  I think one of them had four.  They were growing in a spot where an ash tree died several years ago, and we haven't quite finished removing the stump.

These are also very tiny, and grew in a large clump right beside the aforementioned stump.

Growing on the log that used to be the ash tree.  They had a weird, rubbery texture, like uninflated balloons, but thicker.

Base of a tree near the snake's mulch pile.  Two distinct species.

He also has a lot of volunteer flowers (and raspberry bushes).  I think the hostas were planted, but they've spread an awful lot.

These hosta blooms were stacked on tall stalks.

The day lilies have been in the yard as long as I can remember.  When I was a kid, I was fascinated by how they closed up every night, and Mom explained that's how they got their name.

Admittedly, Dad's backyard is not a mountain or remote island, but I've said from the start that this is also about the joy of small adventures, and I'm glad that Dad's yard can still provide those, even if it's just a matter of looking a little closer at common things.

Columbus Zoo

When Jack Hanna (now world-renowned animal guy on TV) took over the Columbus Zoo, it was still under the purview of the city streets and sewer department.  I don't get it, either.  It was, from what I understand, a pretty miserable zoo.  By the time I first visited as a kid, he had completely turned it around and cleaned it up.  We went a lot when I was little, at all times of the year (they have a great Zoo Lights program), and even rode the Zoo Ride bike tour a couple times.  I don't even know whether they still do that.

It was.

After GOBA, I stayed at home for a couple weeks to help Dad with some chores and small projects.  While Dad was at work one day, my brother invited me to join him and my nephew (who will be two this fall, and spent a lot of time outside the stroller in energetic attempts to catch sparrows) for a trip to the zoo.  I hadn't been to the Columbus Zoo in so long I couldn't even figure out when my last visit had been, and I admit that they've made so much improvement in that time that I didn't even recognized most of it.  Entire exhibits have moved, the giraffes are gone, there's a manatee tank, dinosaurs line a river I could swear wasn't there before, and they have a large enclosure for polar bears and (adjacent) Alaskan brown bears.

Bison and day lilies.

One of the things I really like about the Columbus Zoo is a very active commitment to conservation.  Recycling bins are next to every trash can, signs by all of the animals explain their endangered/threatened status (and why they might be threatened), and numerous exhibits explain what individuals can do to help.  (For instance, avoid anything with palm oil.  Harvesting it threatens lots of habitat.)  Even the park benches have tiny plaques telling you how long it takes plastic water bottles to decompose, and how many water bottles were recycled to make the bench.

This is a muntjac, one of the world's tiniest deer species (this one was about 20 inches at the shoulder).  It is also known as a Barking Deer, because when frightened, it will start barking.  For up to an hour straight.  Make no sudden moves.

There are also banners acknowledging Hanna's efforts and the fact that he's been tirelessly working for both the zoo and the environment for three decades.  They're calling it his Hannaversary, and include the slogan "Thirty Years of Khaki."

Golden pheasant, native to Asia, and ring-necked pheasant, which I've seen all over the US.  You can probably guess which is which.

My brother has clearly been there several times in the past few years, because he knew his way around, and often told me all about exhibits before I had figured out where they were.  One of them didn't even have animals--it was just a building made to look like a house outside and filled with simulated environments inside (obviously telling kids that something doesn't have to have a roof and a Playstation to be someone's home).  He seemed more interested in crawling through the tunnels inside than his son, but to be fair, it was dark and a little creepy there for a little guy.

I hope I never get stung by a box jellyfish.

Fun facts from the zoo:

• Binturongs are sometimes called bearcats, though they are neither bear nor cat.  More impressive: THEY SMELL LIKE POPCORN.  I was not allowed to sniff the one at the zoo.
• The Humboldt penguin is endangered because it nests by burrowing into enormous piles of guano.  When people realized guano was great fertilizer, they started mining it, and the penguins lost their nesting ground.  One in the zoos exhibit had a tendency to start squawking in long fits; others would come from around the enclosure (including the inside portion) to see why.
• There is very little fat on the apparently corpulent manatee.  There is also very little muscle.  When I asked the nice docent at their tank what filled that massive body, she explained that an all vegetation diet requires a lot of digestion; the manatee's intestine is over 140 feet long.  Essentially, they are huge, floating digestive systems.  Because they have hardly any meat or fat, predators don't bother them, and their only threats are man, machines, and habitat loss.

There's a waterpark adjacent to (and joined with) the zoo.  I suspect it might be sponsored by Kraft.  The pedestal reads: "For your safety, please do not climb on the big noodle sculpture."

We managed to see most of the zoo in an afternoon, even with a toddler whose attention can be held--shortly--only by aquaria and similar large tanks.  He liked the sea room (a few dozen species of fish, turtle, and small sharks all in one big tank), the manatees (who also roomed with a turtle named Stubby and a small school of fish, but mainly stared out the glass while munching Romaine), and the brown bears (one sat in a deep pool of water against the glass and played with his feet, entertaining kids and adults alike), but calmly waited while his dad and uncle gibbered excitedly at various birds, lizards, kangaroos, tiny deer, bats, primates, and bugs.  Then he insisted I tickle him for the entire drive home.

Horticulture

Strictly speaking, this was not an adventure, but I had a good time yesterday, and wanted to tell somebody, even if it's just the vast, faceless interwebs.  Hence the unscheduled post (come back Mondays for regular updates!)

Dad had the day off, and we finally got to work on some of the things I was home to help him do.  We spent a few hours in the yard mulching piles of sticks, and I ran the weedwhacker around some lawnmower obstacles that had been bugging me for the past couple of weeks, but then we got to the fun part.

Last week, Dad and I got a tour of Meadow View Growers (they own the bus we saw on GOBA) on the day that they happened to have fruit trees on sale for half price.  Dad bought eight trees, gave one of the peach trees to my brother (who alerted us to the deal), and the rest have been sitting in pots in his backyard since, getting hose water every night.  Yesterday we finally got a chance to put them in the ground.  Dad now has two Jonagold apple trees, two apricots, two nectarines, and a larger, more mature peach tree in his yard.  I was pretty happy with it when we finished planting them, but this morning Dad looked out his window and realized that as they mature, their arrangement will block the view of the house from the road, and that made him happier.  I spent the morning picking raspberries in the yard, and I stopped to admire our work again.  When I was a kid, we used to call our house Orchard Hill, because the property had several apple trees when Mom and Dad bought it, although almost all of them are gone now.  When we bought the trees, I told Dad that Orchard Hill was coming back.  We both know that there's still a chance some of the trees won't survive, but for now, we get to enjoy the tiny, budding orchard, and it looks good.  It makes me happy to see it.  And Sunday, I'll have more obstacles to mow around.

GOBA 25

Every year, on the third week of June, two to three thousand bikers descend on a circuit of rural Ohio towns like a swarm of spandexed locusts.  GOBAville, our itinerant campsite, claims status as "Ohio's Largest Moving City," and for that one week of the year, its inhabitants live in tents, shower in trucks, crap in Easy Bake Ovens, and wait patiently in lines to eat, shower in trucks, and crap in blue plastic hot-boxes. I've been doing it since I was ten.

Meadow View Growers maintains this Slow Moving Garden, and parked it at one of our food stops on Sunday.

The Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure has a new route every year, which in itself is impressive, considering 2013 was the 25th anniversary of the tour.  There's only so much of Ohio, and we've covered an awful lot of it.  Many towns have been revisited over the years, as food stops, overnight stays, or both.

Would you go here for a shave and a haircut?  Would you believe it's constantly busy? (phone number  has been obscured from picture)

I've written about GOBA before, but maybe you're new here, or maybe you're curious about longer bike tours, so I'll give some more background on what it's all about this time, because it turns out my pictures don't illustrate the whole week.  They do illustrate a lot of the statues in Troy, Ohio this year (they change regularly) depicting normal people doing normal things--normal enough that if you don't notice the circular plates they stand on or the creepy gold skin tone, it's possible to not realize they're statues.  Alternatively, my aunt pointed out a statue that turned out to just be a person, sitting very still on a bench.

If you look really closely, you can see that his watch is on backwards.  But I love kites, so I still like the statue.

Originally, GOBA was a solid seven days of riding.  Fifty (or so) miles a day for a week, with a new town every night.  Now, there are two "layover days," giving you the option of riding your fifty or staying in town and seeing the sights, watching a movie, doing laundry, or taking a bus to a local event, like canoeing or outdoor theater.  One of the loop days has a century option, which means one hundred miles in a day.  I've ridden the century for the last several years, and Dad joined me after the purchase of his much nicer, faster bike.  The trick is to not think of it as a century, but as two fifty mile rides.  The other trick is to get ice cream and other fuel at every possible opportunity.  Last year, Dad, The Girl, and I stopped for ice cream three times along the route.  It's a personal best.

Despite the stunning detail in the texture of his clothes, this is not a real person.

There are three food stops each day, sponsored by the communities along our route.  You grab whatever food you want, and pay for whatever you grab.  After 25 years, GOBA has a pretty good idea of what we need, and they do a great job telling the towns we pass through what (and how much) to provide.  The loop days are not as well supported, but usually those days pass through towns with good local options for food.  At night, there is almost always food available in camp, and local organizations like churches and schools will hold dinners (in addition to whatever restaurants are in the area).  Nobody goes hungry on GOBA.  A lot of people actually gain weight during the week.

I like that he seems to be the model for the sign he's ignoring.

Our tent city springs up each night at a high school, college, park, or fairgrounds--whatever the city has decided will best serve our needs.  Vendors and bike repair shops line up their booths, luggage trucks disgorge our bags, and the shower trucks (I really wasn't kidding about that) connect to water mains.  As riders trickle in to camp, we find our bags, set up tents, shower, and figure out what to eat that night.  There are usually lots of people who bring games and books to keep themselves occupied until it's late enough to go to sleep, but there are often local concerts and other entertainment options.  The next morning, you repack your duffel, collapse your tent, and toss your bag into the back of a luggage truck before you set out riding again.

Our route didn't cross this bridge, but I liked it, so I took a picture anyway.

With a ride this big and this popular, you see a lot of the same people year after year.  My aunt has only missed two years, and there are a lot of people who know it just from seeing her in the past.  On the very first year, my mom stole a bite of sandwich from a guy named Mike, and he still remembers her.  You end up with an ephemeral sense of community, because most of these people you only see for one week of the year, but you end up knowing a lot about them from talking at food stops, along the route, in lines, on shuttles, and in camp.  This year, we met a man named Dennis on the second day.  It was his first GOBA, but by the end of the week we knew about his sons, his recent (and very successful) improvement in health, and his riding club.  Saturday morning, he invited us to his place for dinner.  I thought he was joking until he gave Dad his address.  That's the sort of thing that happens on GOBA every year.  Mom's friend/victim Mike, who barely knows me, invited me to join him on a cross-country ride this fall, and if it weren't for the training I still need to do, I would go.

When you glue pennies all over an Ansonia tiger, it looks like a leopard.

There were a couple small problems this year, but nothing insurmountable.  Both of Dad's tires went mysteriously flat, but he had three spare tubes (on a vehicle with only two wheels--I can't figure this out, but it worked out well for him, so who am I to question his tactics?), so we took care of that.  The route markings were not as good as they had been in the past, and were sometimes located where they were difficult to find, because they were far from where bikes should be (and were) traveling, but with two thousand other people going to the same place as you, you can usually just follow the stream of people.

The Bicycle Museum of America, in New Bremen, let us try their penny farthing in a stationary rig.

We've been riding GOBA as a family (and ever-changing network of friends) since the very first year.  My first year was GOBA's third, and although I missed a few years in the middle, I've been riding it ever since.  Even when I was a little guy, I rode my own bike, under my own power.  Next year, of course, I'll have to skip.  Dad and I have been trying to decide whether to keep riding after that, or try a new ride.  He found out about a bike tour in Maine that's having its inaugural ride this August.  We can't make it this year, but maybe in two years, we can return to Mom's childhood home for a good long ride.  He and I took our bikes to Maine for a little trip a few years ago, just him and me putzing about in the mountains, and we had a great time.  But before we do another serious ride, I need a new bike.  Something light and fast.  Not this thing.

Sure, this seems reasonable.