I was going to write about the perfect weather I had for my ride today, but decided to jump on the band wagon instead.

Cheating.

As Dave Stoller found out; everybody cheats.
You do (admit it) and I do.

It might seem harmless, but never the less, there is something you do that someone considers cheating.

As an example:  The geriatric who buzzes you in her Mercedes with Florida plates is a cheater.  She registers her car in Florida because taxes are lower, although her primary residence is Connecticut.  She is cheating her town and state out of funds needed for operations, maintenance and repair.

Harmless?  She pays enough taxes as it is?

Think about her next time you hit a pot hole.

But as a wise sage once said (Woody from Cheers).

"That's between him (or this case her) and Satan"

Live your life.  Do good.  Don't worry about shit you can't change.  You can think something is wrong and disagree with it without letting it occupy your existence.

At the shop we've been chipping away at building the tractor trailer full of bikes we just received.  The high school kids will make bike shaped objects and we'll run through them to make sure they are right.

Lots of kids bikes.

Friday I finished up one, a little green and black mountain bike.
Noting the components, and size, I put it on a stand with some other juvenile bikes.

But it was a small adult size bike.

I've gotten so used to 29" wheels, 26" just look like what the were intended for.

Kids bikes.

If you look over there----------------------------------------------------------------------------------->
You'll see I've stopped tracking the dollars saved commuting.

"Why, oh why" you say.

Because elements of the commuting paradigm have changed.

I have a new job not located in the center of all insanity.
I have a new hand me down car which gets better mileage and is used differently than my old vehicle.

Having inherited my new ride from Mrs. CB2 it was on fumes.  I put $50 in the tank.
Today, 2.5 weeks later I filled it with $45 (it still had about 1/3 tank).

I used to spend almost twice as much a week driving my beloved truck to my old job and the commute is about the same distance.

There isn't the delivery aspect anymore, and the Volvo gets about 4 mpg better than the truck ever did, but still.  If I can keep this up, I'll only need a tankful a month which would be pretty sweet.

Not everyone's job is conducive to commuting.  I am grateful to have employers who are so supportive of the idea.   So much so they even have an outdoor shower (is there anything better than an outdoor shower?)!   The health, both physical and mental, environmental, and economical benefits far outweigh any inconvenience.

If it is possible to leave the car at home and take the bike I highly recommend it.
(but you already knew that)

Can't We All Just Get Along? (maybe)

On the ride home this evening, coming up to a light, the last light on my way home, I extended my left arm to signal my turn...and I'm buzzed by a BMW X3.

Seeing as it is a BMW, I'm assuming the guy must be a prick, I mean what kind of arrogant fook would drive a Bimmer?

But it turns red and he's stuck at the light.  Since I'm turning left I roll up next to him and give him the WTF DOOD shrug.

He rolls down his window and says "You need to signal earlier, by the time you stuck your arm out I was already on top of you".

Now I could have said "Maybe if you were driving the speed limit, you'd have time to react!!!"

Instead, I said "You need to be more aware of cyclists and I'll try and signal earlier".

We both nodded and agreed and wished each other a pleasant evening.

In parting I remarked "almost home from work".

"Work!?"  He exclaimed.  "You're riding home from work?!"

"Yes" I replied.

"Well you definitely do have a good evening then!!!"

I think I will.

Training Experiment

Since I may or may not have two races left this year this might be totally irrelevant but...

There is a theory that doing two workouts a day may reap greater benefits than one long one with the same intensity.  The key is recovery.

You want do your workout, refuel, and rest.  So you'll be doing the same "work" but getting a greater amount of recovery.

On Tuesday at work, in my haste to enter a work order into the computer I neglected to do a couple simple tasks to make the repair complete.  Not wanting to leave this to my coworkers I decided to ride into work to take care of it first thing on Wednesday (my day off).  But I had a mtb ride planned with James for the afternoon.

Perfect opportunity to test the theory.

How'd it go?

Great!

I got to ride my bike twice in one day and have an excuse to lay around napping and watching Olympic Beach Volleyball all afternoon while I waited for ride number 2.

Will I see significant gains from this.

No.

For one, neither workout had much intensity, and two, you'd need to do this type of workout consistently, ie more than once before you could measure any gains or losses (duh).
I did feel pretty good on the ride home from work last night.

But there was the napping; ah, the napping...

Work on Sunday

Benidorm Bikes is open from 12 PM to 4 PM on Sundays.
This shift seems somewhat ideal to me in that it gives you plenty of time to get in a morning ride before work.
But then there is the conundrum of not wanting to drive to work.

Oh sure, I could go for a long road ride ending at the shop, but what if I want to do a mtb ride?

I heard of this wonderful new bicycle innovation called the derailleur...

I geared up Blu.2 as a HT 1x8 (I'm really starting to dig suspension forks!) and headed out on a TdT.

5 miles in a fly flew into my ear and bit me.

Mothra Fooker!

It's in there squirming around, I can't get my gloved finger in there to get it out, finally resorting to flooding my ear canal with my water bottle (good thing I wasn't drinking  sports drink).

The rest of the ride was uneventful other than a stop at Rosedale Farm to get a cookie and some water.

I got to work almost an hour early, so maybe next time I'll cross the river or hit more stuff at the res on my way out?

View more videos at: http://nbcconnecticut.com.

Darren's forecast had me optimistic for the ride home.

But I guess the storm was in a hurry.  Spotty downpours came through in waves as the afternoon progressed.
As Doug was closing out the register, and the rest of the staff had left the rain poured down harder and harder.  I tried to convince myself it would let up any second.

Finally I braced myself for the inevitability that I was in for a soaking and began the ride home.

Then the lightning started.

I pulled in under a drive-through overhang to wait it out.
It seemed as the lightning was now East of me so I started my trek home again.

It began raining harder.
Was I catching the storm?

On the bike path and Avon Old Farms Rd It was raining so hard it hurt.

Miraculously, as I turned onto Waterville Rd it all but stopped.

Wet, but in one piece.

At The Shop

I started working at Benidorm Bikes last week.  I love it.  I've been mostly doing repairs, but I believe I'll be spending more time upstairs.  I want to be whatever is needed.

A couple interesting things happened yesterday.  First a customer brought us all coffee.  Starbuck's coffee.  Timing was perfect and everyone was psyched.

The second interesting thing was a bike Colin worked on. It was a Kestrel Airfoil.  The customer claimed it was ten years old.  It looked older.  She dropped it off about 3 PM.

The rear brake wasn't working.

After replacing the internally routed housing and cable, Colin discovered the problem was the mounting was all corroded.  The frame might be covered under some warranty replacement or Colin cold try and fabricate/modify to get the bike ready for her upcoming race.  After the upstairs staff explained this to her, she came down to hear it from Colin.  He then heard her fiscal life story plus the trials and tribulations of being a triathlete.

She went upstairs...and started crying.

Colin was told to do whatever he could to get her up and running.  He did.  The repair was solid, and invisible.

She came back downstairs to get Colin's gold seal of approval that the bike was safe.  He was honest.  The frame was safe for the moment, but he couldn't give her any kind of guarantee and said it would need to be replaced sometime probably sooner than later.

When I left for the evening at 6:15 PM She was upstairs explaining to Doug the efforts one puts forth when racing.

Cycle therapy?