Mea Culpa Disney

This is to Mike Brooks and Bruce Bennett--I now have a Mickey Mouse watch.  It's tasteful, with understated mouseheads etched in orange, and a black band.  But it's been a very different trip with Chris this year than last year.  First, always see Disney with one you love, especially if it's someone who has a good history with Disney.  Yes, the shuttles are still a little slow, and yes, you still can't get anything but Disney coffee within five miles.  But--props to Bruce--you can still get that $14.95 mug that you can keep refilling.  With two (who actually drink from each other's cups), that's even better.

Now, a little Orwell Disney--as we entered the Magic Kingdom yesterday, they had a fingerprint machine on the turnstile (right forefinger only, in the interests of fairness).  Uncle Walt is watching you!

But I now understand the attraction better.  None of the rides were actually cheesy at the Magic Kingdom, and there's a real idealism about the characters that Disney has created.  It's an interesting (and megalomaniacal) goal to create a new and better reality, but the Disney parks really do a good job.  The irony involved in most of the exhibits created a pleasing po-mo feel most of the time.  The only irony-free show was the Hall of Presidents, and the Carousel of Progress was a nostalgic look back to Disney's (relatively) irony-free take on progress (interesting idea, that you could chart the progress of the 20th century through household technology), circa the 1965 New York World's Fair.

Bicycle Telemetry

Got a Garmin Edge 500 for Christmas (thanks, Beth and Steve)!  Now, I've had bicycle computers before, but the level of telemetry associated with this one is exhilarating:  speed (of course), as well as average and max speeds, a record of the route, calories burned, cadence [yes, I got the accessory], heart rate [yes, again].  But that isn't the full picture.  The computer (which is surprisingly well-designed for multiple bikes) also allows one to save workouts and courses, which it then lets you replay to do specific interval/cadence/fitness workouts whenever you need to, or check your performance on saved courses against a standard.

So, what's the issue?  None at all, except that I get entranced and obsessed with the record-keeping side.  I ride early in the morning, when it's still dark, and constantly checking my data threatens to involve me in a crash when I attempt to shift between screens on the computer, or turn on the backlight.  I've become aware that my obsession has some negative elements.

It did take a while to set up the machine--learning how to connect the accessories, configuring the information screens, setting up bicycle profiles, and so on.  But there's more; I personally am constantly tempted to check all my data at any given moment.  One morning, I was so obsessively trying to get all to work right (worrying about my low heart rate alarm, checking my cadence) that I literally did not remember the first mile of my ride.  And this ride crossed a major intersection with a stoplight that has sensor problems, so I'm sometimes forced to cross it against the signal.

One of the reasons I ride early is to reset myself mentally and physically for my day.  I love the routes and views as the light begins to grow in the morning.  I remind myself of what is really important:  experiences in which I am completely present, experiences that enhance my personal discipline and health, experiences of natural beauty, time for spiritual contemplation.  So, I have needed to put my telemetry into perspective as well.  This perspective was helped by the fact that I had inadvertently left my computer at our Mexican beach cabin (where I was using it to map my running workouts--did I mention that the routes can be pictured on Google Earth? See--waaaaay too fun!).  Anyhow, when I got it back (thanks, David and Debbie!), I decided to be more disciplined in my use.  That's another strength of the device; I can turn it on and forget it until the end of the ride.  Now I do that, and analyze my workout later.  If I need to know my speed or my cadence, I glance when the streetlight's on the computer.  But I still need to turn off the audible low heart rate alarm.

Mesa Canals 8: Roosevelt Canal and Maricopa Floodway, University to Baseline

It should have been a lot more fun than this. In Mesa Canals 5 and 6, I rode the Roosevelt Canal to where it meets the Southern Canal. I remember looking southeast from where I stopped at University Avenue, and thinking that the floodway park and canal looked like ideal places to ride. Well . . . here's the approximately 4 1/2 miles from University to Baseline that I rode on Sunday, February 12, 2012. The first half-mile, from University to Main, was still very nice. The path through the floodway is macadamized (the small pebbles are stuck together with tar, making a light road-like surface), and the entrances from the major roads are narrow. I was riding my mountain bike, and always unclipped a foot from the pedals to have a bit more stability as I inched my way between the pipes. I guess that's fine, in that it slows the bicycle traffic and keeps motorized vehicles out. The canal and floodway, however, cross Main Street exactly at its intersection with Higley Road; it takes some looking around to see where the floodway trail goes. A rider or walker has to cross two main streets to get to the side of the road where the trail continues.

It actually crosses behind a U-Mart (see the picture on the right), to continue. The pathway is still well-paved, and some prefabricated senior dwellings actually have yards that front the canal, with no fencing. This must be nice for the older person who wants to walk his or her small dog straight out the door. And there are plenty of older people and dogs, most of them small (the dogs, that is) walking and running through the grass of the spillway. When one gets to the Broadway intersection, however, the true geriatric fun starts. It seems that S . . . I mean, Leisure World has blocked off access to the floodway because they built a golf course in it. I mean, OK, so they were here first, and they basically cordoned off a four square mile stretch of property (so that no public mile road goes through the area, and there's no freeway entrance), but to cut off access to the canal and the floodway? Here's how it is: the golf course cuts off the floodway, so I took to the east bank of the canal. At Southern, the east bank dead-ends at a floodway junction, and the east bank of the floodway is fenced up to the very edge(again, by S . . . I mean, Leisure World), so I cross the floodway junction to the canal access, where the east bank of the canal continues until it is cut off by a fence that stretches across the flat. One can swing around the edge of the fence over the steep part of the bank relatively easily if one is a walker. With a bicycle, it is just a little dicey, though it can be done. So, a tip. Take the west bank of the canal past the Broadway junction, and you'll get along fine until Southern Avenue. (By the way, enlarging the Google Earth picture at the top will give a sense of all the casting about I did, trying to find a route through the floodway. It will also show where I had to cross the canal south of the freeway).

In fairness, I do have to mention that at the golf course fence on Broadway, there is a retention pond of some kind for the course, which contains a flock of white cranes (see the picture at the left). A big flock, and a beautiful sight. Past Southern, I originally went out the west bank of the canal, because the entrance was clearer. It's kind of fun to go under the huge superhighway that the U.S. 60 has become. There's an SRP equipment yard just north of the freeway, and a fenced pump and lock unit just south of the underpass. The West bank of the canal is closed at this point. Thankfully, the lock is not blocked off, so it is possible (again, with difficulty) to walk one's bike across to the east bank. I continued down the east bank of the canal to Baseline Road, where I stopped, seeing new construction of yet another golf course in the floodway.

So, the way to get through most efficiently: Take the floodway to Broadway, then take the west bank of the canal to Southern (there is better bicycle access around fences on the western bank [see below]), then switch to the east bank to get down to Baseline. Really, though, the bottom line is that it was a beautiful day, and I explored several more miles of the canal system.