First frost of the season that I’ve witnessed. Time is passing too slow. To do list is getting shorter thankfully and helping pass the time some.
Tomorrow I will be out of blogging commission until the 5th. Lovely lady, cyclocross race, photos, walks and many late night talks to look forward to. Check back on the 5th. My sanity is coming to visit for a few days so I hope to be a cured from insanity for a short while.
What day is it again? Wednesday. Only two days left in this week. I feel like I’m playing catch up this month, and not every really catching up. Instead piling more on my plate. Some things for work, some things for writing, some things for riding, and in the end I’m giving myself the short end of the stick. Haven’t been running or working out this past few weeks like I should but I know that’s part of the whole work changing over, and my fall “work too much so I don’t get depressed” rut. All of the things I’m piling on are enjoyable, and things I want to do.. but when do you say “STOP.”
I haven’t learned that one yet. Any advice?
Lack of blogging can be answered by the gimping hand. Infected finger, nastiness and thankfully – it’s not going to be cut off. hahah. Good joke right? Its about 80% better from 48 hours ago, so I think I’ll make a speedy recovery.
Picture of the cooking is for my mom. I have my two burners going at once! Crazy thought, the grill cheese and minestrone soup ended up delicious.
There is much I have to rant about, including labeled ketchup packages, cold commutes and such but I have blogging I need to to catch up on. Going to try and wake up early to get some done then too. I have many, many things to catch up on before a gorgeous woman comes to visit me this weekend!
Somewhere, somehow, I got a bit tied up and didn’t post yesterday. A bit of a catch up. I got most of my list from Wednesday. Xtracycle-age , groceries and some light cleaning. I’ve been allowing things to roll off my back of non-importance. Priortizing and such.
The Xtra-sausage went together well with a slighter larger cassette on the rear. The chain is almost maxed out, but won’t lock up so less chain slap. Pacenti Quasi Moto’s went on with a bit beefier wheels. Velocity Blunts 32 hole, laced 3 cross to XT hubs. Wheels that were originally built for the Fast Boy. The front Fast Boy fender had to come off due to the tire size, but boy are the fatties fun to ride!
You can see that groceries were bought. Tons of them too. I think that might of been the largest grocery run, on record, since living by myself. A good amount of those groceries, or forms of those groceries, were for a camping trip this weekend. Trail mix, soup, fruit, etc etc.
Today was an exciting day as I had a meeting with the Bicycle Planner of Charlotte. Ken Tippett is a swell fellow and had some great ideas for the new Trek Store and getting involved with the community. Getting folks on bikes and of course bikes in general. Turns out he’s a bicycle touring freak as well.
This weekend is the MTB Oktoberfest. I’ll be gone to that all weekend long. Rain, and tons of rain, is in the forecast. I’m glad that the shop has a trailer for events like these that I can pitch up in!
The list is long of things to do today and I’m sitting on the couch reading blogs. It’s only noon so I have the whole afternoon to accomplish some things.
First off – is to finish the Xtracycle build with a larger cassette on the back, and to hook up the rear brake as well! I hope to ride it to work (27 miles one way) tomorrow in order to take supplies to the Ingersoll Rand Alternative Transportation Day. How cool would it be to pull up with most of the supplies for our table by bicycle? I think it’s rad, Freeradical actually.
Second – Grocery shopping. This has to happen after the one above as I want to test out the grocery hauling of an Xtracycle. This is also very important as I have little food and keep eating out for breakfast/lunch. That is not good.
Third - Not as important, but cleaning/organizing of paperwork and studio. My days off are limited in the next two weeks due to a MTB festival and then a lovely lady is coming to visit. Also, there is furniture arriving sometime in the next few days, which I need to make room for! The furniture rant is a post in itself!
There’s other tidbits in there of things that need to be done. Laundry, going to the gym, tracking down a drill so I can move bike hooks and the list could keep going if I allowed it. For now I’m working on 1, 2 and 3.
The chill has become rather permantent in the air in Charlotte. Bundled up I got off to the bus a bit late. Sitting at the bus stop I was wishing for a small thermos full of coffee or green tea. Seeing that I only stood there for 3-5 minutes, when my normal standing is 10 minutes… I need something to keep my inner warm on cold mornings. One of these guys from Velo Orange would do the trick.
These totals are rough as one of my bikes doesn’t have a computer and I haven’t been diligent on tracking time/distance. I might be a 5 miles and 15 minutes off over all. I think I will charge up the Edge 305 and start tracking things that way.
Actual Workup Time : 7:18
Bike Distance : 102
Run Distance : 4.5
Puppy watching. Maddie the chocolate lab. People watching out my large bay window from my lovely white couch. I’ll take photos one day. Hot chocolate in one hand and Mac on my laptop. Calming feeling. Thoughts of morning commute and TwinSix shopping on my mind.
It seems like there is a football game in town today as the normal pedicabers are parked out front. Three are sleeping in their van, one is sleeping on a grassy null. The null that my dogs pee on daily. Pedicabs are strapped down to a trailer that the mega-van towed. License plates say Florida. God I hope they didn’t drive all the way up here for that. Granted gas was $2.99 in Charlotte last night.
Time to talk about bikes - Rode the freshly built up Lemond to work yesterday. Rode wonderful. Need a longer steerer fork to raise my hand position up some. Also 700x23c tires are so harsh compared to my 700x37c on the Casseroll. Jeebus my hands hurt. I know, I know, I’ll get used to it again but it still sucked. Tuesday I plan on fixing all the quirks on the Xtracycle and taking it for a 20 mile spin to double check gearing. I fear I’ll have to put a mountain cassette and front derailleur to run it 3×9. The thought of hauling 30-50 lbs of gear at the current gearing is rather scary.
Sorry for the tangents, needed to get them out. Now I’m off to get dressed and pedal my way to work.
