Mixed results

So with the bike seemingly in working order I was able to get a nice little ride in on Friday before going into work. It was mostly more trips up and down the hills around my favorite park. Everything went well and I felt pretty good at the end of it. But work called. Back home and showered I was trying to decide what to do for a late lunch. My roommate Fiscus was starting work at the same time as me. She agreed to grab me a sandwich and bottle of water on her way in while I rode to the library and returned Ten Points.

Ten Points is a memoir by the editor of Bicycling magazine about the season he tried to earn 10 points at the weekly bike races in Emmaus, Pa. The book had an excerpt published in the same issue that my profile ran in. The funny thing was it mentioned my step mom's brother as one of the other guys in the weekly races. Crazy! The book was a pretty quick read. Some cool insider type scenes of what it's like to race in a pack and to just be hanging on for dear life. The author also gets into his childhood and abuse at the hands of his father. It's pretty heavy. For cyclists I'd say it's a good read.

So I dropped that off at the library downtown. I really had a lot of fun on that short ride. It was pretty busy and it felt like I was riding through an obstacle course. I'm sure some people much prefer to have nothing in the way and want only to worry about keeping the bike moving. And I like that too. Especially when I'm riding a longer distance. But sometimes it's fun to watch out for car doors or the person about to step off the curb in front of you because they're on the phone and not paying attention, or the guy moving his hot dog stand into the road, etc. I really felt at ease and comfortable on the bike. It really made me think of how different I feel from even a year ago when I was still riding Mr. Fuji. My new bike is 5cm smaller and it makes a world of difference. On the old bike I never really felt balanced. It was hard to stay on the seat and really pedal. And I did 65 miles on it at last year's Booty!

At the end of work I did my best to race Fiscus home. But my chain got all fussy on me. It couldn't decide which gear to stay in and it seemed like it wanted to be somewhere in between. I had to shift to an easy gear and spin like crazy to get going at all. So that was annoying.

Today, after watching the tour (nice work Vino btw) and mowing the lawn, I got Silver up on my car rack. I was messing with the shifters when Steve rode by. He'd just been out for about 2 hours and was sporting his Blazing Saddles jersey. He offered the use of his work stand down at his house. Like most bike problems I've ever had, this one took longer than expected to fix. And the air was soon filled with profanities. I had to head to work and left Steve to figure things out. But luckily things are back in order, which is good, cuz I need to be riding!