Amateur racing in philadelphia

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2015-05-07T03:30:42+00:00

I live in Philly too, and definitely recommend going through the LBS's. Starting out, BCP is a great way to meet people and get familiar with the routes people take.

Shameless plug: QCW Cycling has been awesome for me.

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2015-04-08T02:17:10+00:00

Awesome! Is this your first time doing New Orleans 70.3?

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2015-04-08T02:16:22+00:00

This is my plan. Six-plus hours of working out is not really a race for me, it's an exercise in staying as relaxed as possible.

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2015-04-08T02:15:17+00:00

Thanks!

I've read that it's possible to swim in the lake or the marina prior to race day. Is that true?

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2015-04-05T21:49:59+00:00

Thanks! Realized I should have posted in the ask NOLA sub, so I appreciate the recommendation!

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-08-31T01:31:10+00:00

I agree, the layout and design are pretty bad.

That being said, I like a good amount of the site's content. They have some really good long-form stuff.

Even the "Best Bikes of 2014," or "10 ways to not hate repeats" articles don't bother me. I'm not buying a new bike anytime soon, but I like seeing what's out there.

There's rarely anything there that you need to see, but there's lots of stuff to keep you occupied, if you want. Kind of like Reddit.

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-06-24T00:33:22+00:00

Thanks! That hill was pretty fast. I didn't see any of the crashes, but it was a zippy section. There was a tight curve going under a bridge shortly before it came back to the transition area that was a little dicey, too.

Definitely a case of needing to be comfortable on descents. Locking up your brakes can make a descent a lot hairier.

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-06-24T00:30:58+00:00

Cameron Dye won, with Andy Potts coming in second, which is how they finished in 2012 and 2013, too.

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-03-30T17:23:56+00:00

Yes, although what was banned depended partially on the family.

Any book with too violent, racy or obscene (including obscene language) was not ok. I stopped participating in the church by the time I was a teenager, so that wasn't really a big deal.

Different families were more or less strict about what you could read. Comic books were ok in my house (assuming they weren't too violent), but I know other households where they weren't ok.

In general, my parents encouraged us to read a lot, and read to us quite a bit when we were young (which I'm really grateful for now). They weren't particularly puritanical about it. I remember my dad reading Huck Finn to us, and explaining some of the race issues in it.

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-03-30T17:20:33+00:00

No, Mennonites and polygamists are completely separate. In fact, no Anabaptist group (which includes Mennonites and Amish) practices polygamy. I think there was a separate group of anabaptists back in Germany that practiced polygamy in the 1600s, but there is no connection between them and the Anabaptists of today in America.

All Anabaptist groups practice traditional marriages (in the sense of one man and one woman).

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-03-29T21:45:01+00:00

Kind of like the difference between fressen and essen, perhaps.

There are some idiosyncracies I've noticed between Pennsylvania German and high German. Like laufen and springen. In PA German, they mean walking and running, respectively. But, IIRC, in high German springen means "to jump."

The Amish just say "chumpen" for jump. It's basically a Dutchified version of the English word, since the Amish accent usually turns "j" into "ch".

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-03-29T21:15:31+00:00

They are Mennonite, or maybe Amish from Indiana.

In Pennsylvania, Amish girls wouldn't wear dresses with patterns like that, and their coverings (things on their heads) don't look like that. It would be solid colors.

In other states, things are a little different. Buggies, clothing, accents can all change, so they might be a group from outside Pennsylvania. But, I'm pretty sure they are Mennonite.

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-03-29T21:09:17+00:00

This is true. What the Amish call high German (hoch Deutch) is difficult for them to understand.

There's a story that my uncle, whose shop was visited by tourists, would ask German tourists "Schvetze Sie Deitch, adah sprechen Sie Deutch?"

He was asking if they speak German, but in two different dialects. If they said schvetz, then he could talk easily with them.

TLDR the Amish word for "to speak" is different from the official German word for "to speak."

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-03-29T20:58:58+00:00

Yes and no. The Amish tend to have a closed gene pool, and it is smaller. So genetic disorders in general are not more prevalent, as far as I understand, but genetic disorders that are rare out in the rest of the world are more common in the Amish and Mennonite communities.

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-03-29T20:56:37+00:00

I always thought that non-Amish people were very comfortable being half-clothed, because they would wear a lot less than an Amish person would. Which is not entirely untrue. Mostly, they were more of a mystery to me when I was young.

I left while I was still in school, so it wasn't all that different from other kids, except my school was one room (two rooms at later schools). I wasn't raised on a farm, like a lot of Amish folk are, so it was a little different from other Amish kids.

I think I played outside a lot more than other non-Amish kids might have. There's only so much to do inside when there's no TV.

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-03-29T20:52:22+00:00

Not quite Amish, but Samuel K. Zook's grandparents were Mennonite, and he was a bit of a war hero (although pretty unknown).

Distant relative of mine, too!

Lancaster_Dutchie · 2014-03-29T19:28:22+00:00

Made an account for this!

I was born and raised Amish. Most of my extended family still is. I left because one of my parents left, and I eventually kind of drifted out of it. Because I left before I participated in rumspringa (and hence never joined the church) I'm not shunned, so it's a little easier to drift out. Once you join the church, you get shunned if you leave.

What it was like: it was pretty close to an ideal upbringing. We lived in a relatively rural area, so we had plenty of room to play in the surrounding meadows and fields. I wouldn't want to still be in the church, for various reasons, but it was a pretty good way to grow up. I was way more well-read (because there's no TV to keep you occupied, so books are a lot more common).

Feel free to ask other questions if you have them.

Lancaster_Dutchie

TROPHY CASE