Gecko Bloggle

Sleep: Daily routine of unconsciousness with vivid hallucinations, and possibly followed amnesia about the experience. – XKCD

I had a blow out last week during the ride in, and have been slowly getting everything I needed back together, which has been “fun” (did you know there’s thread count in tires just like for sheets?)  Nilo was kind enough to bring a new tube to our lunch, and so I made it back home that day, but then I realized that the flat had been due to a mis-aligned brake pad that was touching the tire during stopping just enough to cause a small hole and finally to pinch the tube itself.

So now I’ve got a new tube ($Lunch), new tire ($21 @ MEC), installed my “Mr. Tuffy” tire liners (woo, extruded plastic!) which I’ve had for ABOUT three years but hadn’t installed (maybe now’s a good time, AFTER the blowout?)

After pulling apart my bike, Arwen’s bike, and removed Ripley’s training wheels (they were just slowing him down, I think, in the grand scheme of things), I managed to get everything working properly again.  Need to go look up how to finetune my brakes, ’cause right now they’re a little, uhm… let’s say… passive.  I need them to be able to lock up both tires so I can do that cool move where you lay the bike down and slide under the flames-a-burning semi as it hops sideways down the six lanes of traffic and…

Wait, I think that’s something from Matrix, isn’t it?

I’m saying that when you are ready, you won’t need to brake.

I want to be able to hit my brakes hard enough that my bike disappears from underneath me, and I highside into the back of a Smart Car.

Okay, let’s take a look at the numbers, shall we?  Survey SAYS!

• Avg Speed: 17.1
• Distance: 11.5
• Time: 40:30

So, longer than normal by quite a bit, but I was taking it easy after filling up my brand new tubes at the Chevron (no idea what pressure I’m at, so I dunno if I’m a little under, or what, but I didn’t wanna go over and start my day off with a “Rapid Airloss Situation“!).  The new tires have thicker tread than my old ones, so they’re dragging me a little bit.  Have to adjust my back fender ’cause it rubs when I’m standing in the pedals (from a stoplight, etc).  Bandana helped keep sweat from pouring down my forehead.  That’s good. 

No music this ride, so I was OCDing about every little creak the bike made.  Sounded like maybe there’s a bit of plastic in the front fender that’s rubbing once in a while.  Should probably pull those off and re-seat them.

Couldn’t find a water bottle this morning, so I bought some blue POWERADE Olympic Hockey Berry Blitz carbo stuff for $1.50.  Sugar while riding hot is not a good combo.  Bleah.  17% of my daily carbs in a single drink?  Wooftie.

Was very stiff when I started out, but feeling pretty good now.  Am planning to ride home tonight, but will have to remember it’s gonna be hot (28, radio lady said) so I gotta drink lotsa water.

I need to go to bed earlier, and wake up a little earlier, in order to not be stumbling around the house muttering and swearing until 7:15.  Too stressful.  Means I don’t get to see the kids in the morning, and only get to see them a little in the evening.

Figured out we have a channel at home that lets us watch Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson at 10-ish instead of 12:30-ish, which is good.  Now, if we could just watch the Daily Show and Colbert Report at 9-10 instead of 11, we’d be (literally) laughing.