In case of rain ...

Wear a jacket. Unless the heavens are torn open and riding would be utterly stupid, I'm still planning on tomorrow morning. And if we have to hang out at Caribou for an hour or so, well ... you gotta do what you gotta do.

Shabbos +1 - the glorious return

It's really only been, what, two weeks since we rode on Shabbos +1? That's two weeks too long, friends.

time: 8 a.m., leave at 8:15 (got it, Munson?)
place: Caribou on 72nd and Pacific
destination: unknown, though I haven't been to Fort Calhoun in about five or six weeks.
speed: quick social, because Mike can't hammer
burritos: optional, though they can be exchanged for components or whole bikes, depending on the size and ingredients of the burrito

I am thoroughly convinced that wool is the way to go for layering. I have a single Smartwool longsleeved base layer that is versatile enough for the entire winter. It has a tall collar with a zipper to allow me to adjust for temp. I can wear this layer up till about 65 degrees. After mid 60's it get's a little warm though. Then I start looking like Fred when he wears a wool jersey on an 80 degree day. Not pretty.






Here is a review of this base-layer. This morning, since I needed to wash my Smartwool shirt after wearing it a few days, I used my old cool weather layering ensemble from last year; a Craft sleeveless baselayer, arm warmers and my jersey. It was amazing how much colder the Craft shirt/jersey was compared to the long sleeved wool base-layer with a jersey. So now I have all these Craft sleeveless under shirts that I'd rather trade for Smartwool lightweight/midweight Zip-Ts (the official name of this garment - if you want to do a search). Anyone want to buy some Craft under shirts?

Could I have been more lazy??

For some reason, I didn't touch the bike this weekend. Jonny and I had planned on riding both days, but he didn't call me and I didn't call him, so somehow, no plans were made.

I did a lot of sitting. I was on call Saturday am till noon so I have that as a little bit of an excuse. Then I went over to my parents house and helped out around the house. Then on Sunday I got up around 7-ish, but kinda moped around after fixing/eating omelets. I didn't have my cell phone on, (unbeknownst to me) until 11 am so all kinds of people could have called to go on bike rides. But instead, I just hung out, watched some tv, surfed the net. Then the woman and I headed out to see "Resident Evil: Extinction." It was ok, but could have been better. You know how the 2nd Lord Of the Rings was a big filler and you really wanted to see the next movie right away, well this movie was kind of like that. The end of it left 2 major plot developments for the next movie. I'll probably watch the next one just to continue the story.

So anyway, I'm hoping I don't have too many more of these lazy weekends because I don't like man-boobs. And that's what I get when I gain weight. Ugh.

This just in from Shim ...

Mike, for those Sabbos guys that read this web page/blog we will be doing the Wed night ride route as a part of the Sat a.m. ride from Trek store at 10 on Saturday.

Ok, enough of the emo stuff...

Fred directed me to the information being passed between him and Brady on his blog. You should all be aware of their dialogue and consider it important information.

I got the TSIDS.

TV Show Induced Depression. There's this great website. It has all kinds of shows, movies, etc that you can watch for free. Some of the stuff doesn't really work since it's too new or too old, but if you want to catch up on various weekly shows, movies, or whatever, you can watch them commercial free on this sight (with a high speed i-net connection, of course). There's a tv-show called, "Dead Like Me" that I saw a couple times when Cox had a month of free Showtime on cable. It was funny and different. Basically the plot is, the main character was an angsty 18 year-old who died when a toilet seat came falling down to earth from a space station. She became a grim reaper. So now she gets post-its with a name and ETD, estimated time of death. As a grim reaper, she has to pop the soul out from the person who is about to die in some sort of accident. That way their soul doesn't have to experience the death, and can pass onto their version of "heaven" peacefully. Different premise and some great comedy in this show.

So I've been watching the episodes on this website pretty consistently. Now I'm in a state of apathy/depression. Way too much dwelling on death and the meaning of life, etc, etc. I just don't feel like riding the bike even though it's been great weather recently. Not sure why, I just don't feel the need to ride around with no goal. So I'm going to start watching a different show. Maybe Arrested Development? There's tons to choose from, so I will try to find the most funny, cheery, happy-inducing show to help me get out of this funk.

Enjoy the link and don't watch too much.

Monday excursion.

I haven't been riding much recently with my moving and wedding trip and such. So Monday was the first time in a couple months I actually rode for a couple hours after work. And since I got to work at 6:30am I was on my commuter with my seizure inducing lights. This bike has to weigh 25-28 lbs. It's a pig. The front wheel has a generator hub so it's as heavy as a normal rear wheel. It has my heavy duty touring rack for when I need to slap on panniers to haul clothes or food to/from work. I adjusted the stem to allow for a very upright riding position so yesterdays ride into the 20mph headwind was especially fun. The other problem with a heavy bike is, for some reason, a strong tailwind really doesn't push you along as much.

I did the downtown, bellevue blvd, Hayworth park, to the trail loop. Since I was pretty slow going up hills and such, this ride which would normally take me just under a couple hours took almost 2.5 hrs. I forgot my cycling gloves so my palms were pretty sore afterward.

So now that I know I can ride a bit of a distance on my heavy bike, should we make this Sundays Shabbos +1 ride the official first of many heavy bike trudges? Carribou at 8am for a couple, may 3 hrs? Anyone, anyone? Fred, still got your old Lemond to dust off?

Call it early planning

Sunday is the annual Bike Masters fall century. It usually takes a good portion of the day. I don't want to ride for a good portion of the day.

The ride will go through north Omaha, downtown and then into Bellevue and then Glenwood and some other places. I don't want to go to Iowa. Normally, yes. Not Sunday. No time. So I'm going to start at the shop at 8 a.m. with the group, and then turn around when they get to the Bellevue bridge. From there, I'll probably take the most direct route home -- whatever that might be.

So ... let's start Shabbos +1 from Bike Masters. Or my house. Whatever. I'll even have coffee if you manage to get to my house by 7:30. Maybe free breakfast if you change a diaper.