Month: February 2015

The day my husband left for the Arrowhead Ultra 135 race in International Falls, Minnesota, I awoke to find a water fountain in my kitchen. Marc left for his adventure at 2:00 am, and I woke up at about 7:30. I walked into the kitchen and saw a cascade of water spraying across the foyer and across the kitchen floor. I looked up at the ceiling, not really knowing what I was looking for. The ceiling was completely dry, and I stood in the kitchen totally dazed and confused. Then it registered. The 55 gallon fish tank in the foyer between the dining room and kitchen had sprung a leak. What timing! The leak was at the seam, about 3/4 the way down the tank. I called Marc, who called his brother to do a fish rescue, in a mad dash to save the fish. Marc’s brother luckily was home, and made it to my house within 1/2 hour. After the fish were safely in a plastic container and on their way to another tank at Marc’s brother’s house, I proceeded to drain the tank. I had intended to leave the tank for Marc to deal to when he returned home, but the smell was so bad I knew I couldn’t leave the tank unattended for five days. That meant draining the rest of the water, scooping out the rocks and gravel, and taking the tank outside. I was proud of the way I handled the situation, because when Marc got home the fish tank was disposed of and new furniture was in its place. The disaster was handled, and all was well…or so I thought. I pulled some tendons in my lower back in the process, although I had no idea until about three weeks later.

I had been having terrible pelvic pain for weeks, and I was concerned I could have some sort of female issue going on, so I went to the doctor. The doctor did an exam and asked tons of questions and decided I had pulled muscles in my back that support the pelvic floor. He advised me to take two weeks off the bike to see how I felt. Two weeks! I told him I didn’t think that was possible, but I reluctantly agreed to try it. And an amazing thing happened the first two days. My pelvic pain completely stopped, but I had terrible lower back pain, which was confirmation that it was an issue with pulled tendons in my back. The doctor was right!

Today was the first day back on the bike in almost two weeks. I promised myself to ride very slowly and to go only a few miles. I started riding, waiting and anticipating the possible pain that was to come. Then something happened. I started singing along with my iPhone playlist, and I kept going and going….Paul McCartney was singing about the wind in your hair of a thousand laces… Yes! “Climb on the back and we’ll go for a ride in the sky…” Yes! I felt like a heroin junkie who had just shot up for the first time in two weeks! I passed an old abandoned farmhouse with a “Keep out” sign on it, and I had to stop and take a picture. I didn’t want to keep out! Then I rode by the Fatty Forest, a little section of woods with a Boy Scout Eagle project trail through it, and I saw the sign “Stay on the trail”. I didn’t want to stay on the trail!! I just wanted to ride!

I had promised myself to take it easy and just ride 10 miles, but I kept going. I passed an old farm that is a member of the Indiana Historic Homesteads and I stopped to take a picture. I was hoping the goats would be out, but I guess goats don’t like to graze in the snow! Then I passed some grain silos that had snow piled up out front from snow plows. A farmer in a pickup truck watched me as I took a picture.

I kept riding and riding. Then I looked down at my Garmin and saw I had ridden over 20 miles, which I hadn’t planned on. I wanted to keep going, but the sensible part of me knew that I needed to head home.  So I reluctantly headed home, singing “Climb on the back and we’ll go for a ride in the sky…” all the way.

In September 2013 my husband came home from a long weekend with friends in Pennsylvania and announced seemingly out of nowhere that he wanted to go vegan. He had spent four days dining in vegan restaurants and being served vegan meals, and he had been instantly converted by friends who jokingly referred to themselves as “vegangelicals”.

He was so completely excited by the idea, that I reluctantly agreed to Google some vegan recipes and cook vegan dinners. Other than that, I told him, all bets were off. It wasn’t the thought of giving up meat or eggs that bothered me…I couldn’t imagine giving up skim milk or cottage cheese!

When the four boys were little, meat was something that we could never really afford. Ground beef, frozen chicken, and fish sticks was about all the venturing we did into the meat world. Vegetarian meals were much better for the budget! I learned to make fabulous vegetarian stuffed peppers, and we ate a lot of meals like grilled cheese, tomato soup and cheese pizza. I thought altering my vegetarian meals to vegan meals would be simple enough. I was wrong!

My first trip to the grocery store as a vegan was an incredible eye opener. I found that 95% of the items in the store had either milk, eggs, or meat as an ingredient. I must have picked 100 items off the shelf, read the label, then put them back. Who would’ve thought that croutons have milk in them?! Or granola bars? Or bread? I had never realized before that these three items are the staples of the American diet. That first trip I came home with some almond milk and some produce and little else. And I had to forget about altering my vegetarian meals, because they all included cheese as the main ingredient!

Marc was so incredibly excited about how eating vegan had made him feel, and I had promised him vegan dinners, so I made a promise to myself not to give up. As a start, I Googled “easy vegan dinners” in search of recipes. I included “easy” in the search because I knew if it wasn’t easy it wouldn’t happen. I had a full time job and way too much to do to spend any more time in the kitchen. If the recipe had a dozen weird ingredients I had never heard of or a dozen steps, I quickly moved on. I also learned quickly that recipes have to be modified. The creator of the recipe might think, for instance, that black olives taste fabulous in nachos, but I hate black olives! And yes, happily one of the first totally simple, awesome meals I found was vegan nachos!

Vegan Nachos

This meal takes minutes to make. I buy vegan black bean burgers (remember, keep it simple!) and fry and crumble them with an onion and a can of black beans. This gets poured over tortilla chips, then I top with lettuce, tomato or salsa, guacamole, and soy sour cream. Even meat eaters admit this is crazy good!

Finding other simple, quick vegan meal ideas has been quite the journey. I learned early on that I am extremely allergic to nutritional yeast, which is an incredible cheese substitute in vegan meals like macaroni and cheese. I also learned that supermarket vegan cheese is terrible. It melts and looks like the real thing, but has a taste that can’t be described. Rancid? Plastic? I’m not sure, but I am sure that I steer clear of vegan cheese! The one exception I have found is soy cream cheese, which is amazingly like the real thing, although I find it has been easier to completely change my way of thinking and to quit trying to find a “substitute”. For instance, why do nachos or pizza have to have cheese on them?

After 6 months of vegan dinners, I still held on stubbornly to my cottage cheese and tuna for lunch. I discovered long ago that a high protein lunch didn’t leave me sleepy at my desk in the afternoon, and cottage cheese and tuna was so simple! No preparation! What was I going to eat for lunch if I went totally vegan? Peanut butter sandwiches every day? By this time, Marc had been fully vegan for 6 months. He had lost 10 pounds and was constantly talking about how much energy he had. His decades of sinus trouble had also vanished! He assumed dairy had been the culprit all along and he hadn’t known. So after all of those months of Marc being a “vegangelical” I decided to go all in. My first mission was to find easy high protein lunches. I quickly found two of my absolute favorites, vegan “tuna” salad and vegan “chicken” salad.

Almond “Chicken” Salad

Chickpea “Tuna” Salad

And yes, these are pictures of my actual recipes! Vegan “tuna” salad is made from one can of drained chickpeas that are crushed with a fork. I stir in two stalks of chopped celery, two tablespoons of sweet relish, one teaspoon of Dijon mustard, and a few tablespoons of vegan mayonnaise. That’s it! It’s amazing in a wrap with vegetables like carrots, tomato, and lettuce. The almond “chicken” salad is just as easy. A cup of natural almonds are soaked overnight and drained, then put in a blender. I add a few tablespoons of mayo, a teaspoon of lemon juice, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, a stalk of chopped celery and apples, pecans, and red grapes.

So it has now been almost a year since I went “all in” as a vegan. And the verdict? I love it. I just had my annual physical and my protein and calcium are normal, so it is possible to get plenty of calcium and protein with a vegan diet! I feel fabulous, I sleep better, I have more energy, and the absolute best part is that I NEVER count calories or watch portions, or join in on conversations when people at the office are talking about the latest fad diet, or fretting about the weight they gained over the holidays. I just eat! While it may seem to be an extremely restrictive diet, it’s actually very liberating. I read recently that when we are faced with multiple choices we experience stress. For instance, I used to walk into a fast food restaurant and go over the menu in my head. Should I get a hamburger or chicken? Which has more calories? And should I get the fries? Or should I get a salad? Or does the salad with blue cheese have as many calories as the sandwich? Now I never fret over what to eat. If I eat out, which is rarely, my choices are extremely limited. If restaurants have any vegan items on the menu, I usually have only one or two things to choose from. My meals are extremely simple, and nothing is easier than grabbing a piece of fruit or veggies for a snack. My weight is also more stable than it’s ever been, and, as I mentioned above,  I never count calories or watch portions.  I eat if I’m hungry and I stop if I’m full. I also smile when I see commercials for fiber supplements or laxatives. Those two things are NEVER something a vegan needs!

But, because I’ve got two non-vegan boys still at home, I make my vegan meals with them in mind. Potato tacos, made from nothing but vegetables, is my youngest son’s favorite! I also broil potatoes, peppers, onions, squash, mushrooms, or whatever vegetables I have on hand and serve them with a veggie burger, which is one of Marc’s favorite dishes.

Potato Tacos

Broiled Veggies and Veggie Burger

As I sit here writing this, I can tell you honestly that going vegan is a journey I never thought I’d take. I always wondered what the point of living such a restrictive lifestyle was, and why people subjected themselves to such misery. Now I understand that being vegan is actually being free and isn’t restrictive at all. I’m free from the health woes that plague so many people like diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure, and I feel better than I’ve ever felt. And, more importantly, I never have to eat anything that has a face or parents!

In Heaven, where all the roads are smoothly paved, the sun is shining, and it’s always 70 degrees, the Trek Madone 6.2 would be the bike I would want to ride every day. The Madone has a carbon frame and weighs less than 15 pounds. It has Dura Ace pedals, and a 11 speed Ultegra groupset. I changed the stock Bontrager RL wheels to Dura-Ace wheels with Continental GP 4000S tires. I managed 10,000 miles in 2014 without a single flat on those tires! It’s my best friend all summer long.

The Trek Top Fuel 9.9 is a mountain bike I borrowed from a friend for the Barry-Roubaix gravel road race in Hastings, Michigan. This bike is such an incredibly sweet ride that I had to find a way to buy it! It’s a carbon framed bike with an XTR groupset with full suspension, and it tears up gravel and dirt hills. On pavement it is almost as fast as a road bike.

The Niner RLT 9 gravel specific bike is the latest addition to my bike collection. It is as comfortable as a road bike and is my bike of choice when I someday leave for my trek across the country. It’s super fast on the road, but eats up gravel like nobody’s business! The RLT9 is constructed of hydro-formed aluminum and comes equipped with a chunky, carbon fork. Compared to a cross bike, the RLT9 has a taller, slightly slacker head tube and a longer wheelbase, which it gains in the chain stays. This makes for a super stable gravel ride.  Plus, it’s pretty!

My old Trek 7.3 FX is a nice, heavy duty hybrid bike that is suitable for gravel or dirt roads. It’s a 3 X 8 speed that is geared nicely for climbing, but its lack of suspension can make for a bone shaker ride. However, it is a nice, solid ride with the early winter or spring winds, whereas the Trek Madone can get battered by a heavy crosswind.   It weighs close to 23 pounds, and its heavy weight makes for a very speedy ride downhill or with a tailwind.  Surprisingly, I have some of my best speed records on this bike!

Posted on February 12, 2015January 5, 2016Categories Bikes

The forecast for today was a high of 39 degrees and rain all afternoon. With a foot of snow still on the ground, that meant the day was going to be extremely dark, misty, and gloomy. When I woke up at 7:30, the melting snow was already starting to produce a fog that hovered over the ground.

Marc and I decided to take the fat bikes up to the beach in the car, because he had to pick up his commuter bike from a friend’s house in Michigan City that afternoon, and the beach was on the way. It sprinkled all the way there.

When we got to the beach, we parked at the Kemil Beach Visitor Center. It’s about a mile from the visitor center straight to the shore. As we headed onto the shore, we noticed the sand was not very compact and was very difficult to ride on, and the shelf ice was soft, making riding in some areas even more difficult. After about 1/2 mile I was ready to give up. My bike was sinking in the sand and a higher gear made me sink deeper. Shifting to a lower gear didn’t work. Marc stopped and took 8 pounds of pressure out of my tires, and the bike immediately took off. It was amazing the difference it made.

We rode all the way to Porter Beach, where we were to hook up with some fellow fat bike riders. By then the mist and fog was so thick that I could barely see 100 feet in front of me. I could hear the 5 fat bikes coming long before I could see them.

The seven of us continued down the beach, and I was very happy to see that some of the guys had found a very fast moving path along the ice. Some of the guys opted to ride on the ridge of the shelf ice. At one point Eric fell through some ice and soaked his shoes. Melanie and I decided to go to higher ground to some sand. By this time we were all moving pretty fast.

I rode ahead and then turned around to see that the guys had discovered something. It was a cave of sorts in the ice shelf caused by the waves. It was so cool, and was the perfect photo op spot.

After we took pictures, we walked our bikes down off of the ridge and Mike slipped and slid all the way down with his bike. It was an oops moment that Marc captured on video. (Mike wasn’t hurt!)

We all continued back down the beach and turned down Kemil Beach Road to head back to the visitor center. The whir of 14 fat bike tires riding in unison on the pavement was awesome.

Marc and I packed up our bikes and got ready to head to pick up his commuter bike. Eric tried drying his feet, and then the rest of the fat bike group headed home.

Today I woke up and the sun was shining. When I stepped onto my deck outside, it felt like Spring. After temperatures in the low teens for the past week, 30 degrees felt fabulous! I checked the weather report, and high 30’s were predicted for the day. I was so happy that I could go for a ride without my ski helmet and goggles!

Normally I ride either directly south or east of my house. I hate traffic and going into town, so I seldom go north or west. Today I decided not to head south into the open fields and blasting wind. I was in need of an adventure. So I headed northwest.

The main road that I turn onto after my subdivision was completely clear. I could have ridden my skinny tire bike, I thought briefly. Then I turned onto Lockerbie Drive in the Aberdeen subdivision. The road was completely covered in snow, and parts of it were pretty slick and slow going.

I turned north on 600 West, and decided to follow it across Highway 30. That is something I never do. I had never taken the bike that far north on that road, and it had been probably 10 years since I had driven that way in my car. The road was very slushy with melted snow and I was sprayed from head to toe by passing cars as I flew downhill to the highway.

After I crossed the highway, I knew if I kept going I would find myself in Wheeler. After two curves in the road, I rode straight over to County Line Road. The road was very slushy and slick, and luckily there were no cars on the road. I then turned onto County Line Road, and then turned right to go to Deep River County Park.

When the kids were little, the old mill in Deep River was a working mill, and you could buy freshly ground cornmeal there. The mill has long since stopped working, and it is now a museum with old quilts, pictures, and other items inside. There is also an old church that serves as a gift shop. Both buildings were closed for the winter. The park also has a gazebo, which is a popular site for weddings.

The park has a nice walking and horse trail, however, the trail was so packed with snow it was impassable. I rode on the shoveled walkways and took pictures, while memories flowed. I took a picture of the old wagon, which was always a photo stop when the kids were little. I have lots of pictures with the kids at varying ages, posing against that wagon.

I rode around the park and took more photos, then headed home. It had been a long time since I’d driven a car out that way, and I really wasn’t sure which way to go home. I headed east and then took 750 W, which to my surprise, crossed back over Highway 30. I made a promise to myself to find new adventures on roads I don’t normally ride more often.

In the summer months I can average between 250 and 300 miles a week on the bike. When the sun is shining, the days are long, and I have my earbuds in my ears delivering sweet music, it seems that I can ride forever. At the end of every summer I feel invincible.

However, this all changes when the time falls back in northwest Indiana at the end of October. After November 1st, if I want to ride outside, I am riding in the dark five days a week after work. The rides are cold, gloomy, and windy. And then the snow comes.

The past few weeks have been very difficult with massive snow, cold temperatures, and roads just too dangerous to ride at night. As much as I hate trainer rides, I’ve been resorting to the trainer to try and keep as much fitness as possible.

I’m very fortunate that several years ago Marc built a movie theater in our basement so that I can watch Bike-O-Vision videos on the big screen while I pedal on the trainer with a fan blowing. However, I find being planted on the bike seat without actually moving to be extremely painful. My trainer rides are never more than an hour.

This past week I’ve hit a wall that I’ve never hit before. I can’t bear to do the trainer, and I can’t bear the 45 minutes of preparation for a 1 1/2 hour ride after work.

Today when I got home, the sun was shining. I had an extremely busy day at work and I was cold and tired. But I looked at the sky and thought, just maybe, if I hurried, I could get outside before the sun went down. I rushed to get ready, and posed my bike in the driveway before setting out.

In my rush to get out the door, I didn’t check the tires on the bike. I was about a mile from home when I realized my mistake. They were so underinflated that the fastest I could go with a tailwind was 11 mph! About five minutes into my ride, the sun started setting. The bare branches of the trees and the open fields in Indiana make for spectacular sunsets. I am always in awe. I stopped and got out my iPhone and snapped a picture, hoping there was enough light for the picture to turn out.

About nine miles into my ride I became extremely uncomfortable because I had to go to the bathroom. In the summer, the endless cornfields provide for shelter and a bathroom stop anytime you need one. However, once the corn is harvested and there are miles of open fields, there is nowhere to go. By this time it was pitch black outside and I was far away from the nearest house. I stopped and turned off my headlight and blinkie and gazed at the constellation Orion in the night sky. It was breathtaking. I laid down my bike and went to the bathroom in the middle of the road, which was incredibly liberating for a girl! I then made my way home. The ride was only 15 miles but it felt like 50 because every pedal took great effort in the cold darkness with my fat, underinflated tires.

Marc had dinner waiting when I got home. It felt so good to be outside!

The winter of 2014-2015 has been extremely mild for Northwest Indiana. Through the months of November and December there was no recordable snowfall, which is extremely unusual. The previous winter saw more than 70 inches of snow and the ground wasn’t visible between November 1st and March 1st. Today was the first big snow, and this is what we woke up to at 7:00 am. 12 inches!

We had originally planned to ride to Lake Michigan with some friends and ride along the beach, then ride to Michigan City. As we began shoveling the driveway at 9:00 am we shortly came to the realization that we would not be taking the fat bikes in the car up to the beach, because there was no way our cars could get out of our subdivision on unplowed roads. So we set off on our fat bikes, travelling about 6 mph, and trying to stay in the tracks left by cars.

The wind was blowing pretty strong from the Northeast, and visibility sucked, for lack of a better word. Marc quickly ditched his goggles but I was persistent with leaving mine on to avoid a frozen brow bone. I found wiping them from time to time with my mitten cover worked, because even though they were smeared with melted snow, it was just above freezing and I didn’t have to worry about them frosting over. On our way to town I noticed a man sitting at the side of the road in a plow trying to get his phone out of his pocket so he could take a picture of us.

We headed into town and quickly realized the roads in town were even worse that the county roads. Unplowed roads can be easier to ride through than roads with lots of slush and ruts left by cars. Marc crashed when he took a corner on a downhill that had deep snow ruts. We stopped at Franklin House to re-group, and it was then that we decided to eat lunch and head back home. On the way to eat lunch, we passed some kids having a snowball fight. I was pretty sure they were going to use us as target practice, but instead they just stared as we rode by.

We rode through town and rode onto a jogging trail that had been shoveled probably a few hours earlier, and there was about 4-5 inches of newly fallen snow. I find it much easier to ride through freshly fallen snow, than to try and follow someone else’s tracks. If you ride in the rut left by a previous bike you can be thrown off the bike if you veer out of the rut. So I rode next to Marc’s tracks rather than in them. As we drove through the KMart parking lot, I noticed an older looking man stuck in the snow in his car. He managed to rock the car back and forth and get unstuck, but it occurred to me that the fat bike was handling better than cars in the snow!

After we ate lunch, a pickup truck with two guys in it pulled alongside me in town and rolled down their window. The passenger said “Are those snow tires?!” I told him yes, and he smiled and said “You’ve got more traction than our truck!”

The ride home was much speedier than the ride into town, because after we got through the slushy, rutted, messy roads downtown we noticed the plows had been out on the county roads. It snowed the entire ride and we were both covered in snow, but I didn’t care. It was perfect weather to play in the snow because the temperature was just above freezing the entire ride. I found myself thinking about going home and making a snow angel.