Confession

I have a confession:

Have a great day:

A New Hip And A Broken Heart: A Race Uphill

What do Pittsburgh and San Francisco have in common?

Well, I've never been to the former steel-making capital, but I'm told that, like the City By The Bay, it has some really good Irish bars.

And hills.

In fact, the City of Bridges claims the steepest hill on a public street in the United States:  Canton Avenue is supposedly even steeper than Lombard Street.

And Denton Dailey plans to scale it, and 13 other hills, on his bicycle.  They're part of a race called the Dirty Dozen.  It's being run today, and it's been a part of every Thanksgiving Saturday since 1983.

Denton Dailey

Over the years, 1657 riders have entered the race.  What sets Dailey apart from the others is not his age, even though he is 60:  Three years ago, then-69-year-old Paul Salipante completed the race.  

He also won't distinguish himself if he scores points on the hills:  last year, 58-year-old John Brockenbrough  did that.

So what make Dailey unique--well, almost-- among Dirty Dozen entrants?  

Only one other rider--Gene Nacey in 2011--entered the race with an artificial hip.  In May 2015, Dailey's a ball-and-socket joint ruined from years of accumulated injuries was replaced with a titanium and ceramic hip.  

Surgeons fixed his body.  But they couldn't do anything about his broken heart:  Not long after, a longtime girlfriend broke up with him.  Dailey says his intense training of the past year has been as much a way to recover from that as well as to acclimate to life with a new hip.

However the race ends, Denton Dailey--who is a professor of, ironically enough, robotics and electronics at a local community college--sounds like a winner to me!

How I--And Arielle--Gave Thanks

I certainly had reason to give thanks yesterday.

Just after I posted, the friends who'd invited me for dinner called to say that the start time was pushed back--from 2 to 5 pm due to an "emergency". Whether it was in the kitchen or elsewhere, nobody said.  Not that it mattered.

I didn't mind.  You see, after I posted, I glanced outside and was treated to a picture-perfect late-fall morning:  The sun, totally unimpeded by clouds, mist or anything else (well, nothing that I could see, anyway!), set the last red, yellow and orange foliage aglow and burnished the brown leaves with a warmth, to the eye anyway, that felt like brick fireplace just starting to spread its heat.  

It was so beautiful, I didn't care about the temperature--which stood exactly at the freezing mark.  How could I not ride on such a morning?

Or afternoon?  Arielle, my Mercian Audax called, and I hopped on.

Well, I felt so good  The brisk air braced my skin and I saw almost no traffic anywhere.  In fact, in this normally-busy shopping area, I saw no traffic at all!

Now, if that picture

or this one

looks familiar, it's because the shopping area and the "Connecticut quarter" tree are, in fact, in Connecticut--Greenwich, to be precise.  I felt as if the town, the hills I climbed on my way in, the roads and the world were mine, all mine.  OK, I shared--with a few other cyclists I saw.  

I don't normally boast (really!).  But I couldn't help but to tell everyone about the ride I took--140 kilometers (about 85 miles) round-trip.  

The food was great.  And I felt absolutely no guilt about how much of it I ate.  I'll be eating some of it today--  there were leftovers for everyone--and I'll get to re-live, for a moment, a fine Thanksgiving Day.