4/10/09 Easter Hill Country Tour Day 1

Sometimes on a ride, no matter which direction you ride, the wind is in your face.  Today was one of those days.  No matter which way the road went, there was a headwind.  I think this happens because the direction of the wind and the direction of the roads conspire against you.  This was bound to happen, since I've had the opposite luck on the last few long rides, where the wind is at your back no matter which way you go.  Luckily, it wasn't blowing very hard, so it was just a very minor annoyance.

Otherwise, the ride was great.  The rest stops were well stocked and frequent, so I felt like I was getting something for my money.  There were also a lot of nice people on the ride and I had groups to ride with for the whole ride.  All in all, it was a great day.  Year in and year out, the Easter rides are good ones.

4/8/09 Mission Trail

My nipples really got rubbed wrong tonight.  I'm looking at them right now, and they aren't chaffed or raw, but they definitely bothered me on the ride.  I have this problem occasionally, but I can never pinpoint an issue.  The bib shorts I had on I have worn probably a hundred times, with no memorable problems.  The jersey I had on has no particular history of pain.  I don't understand why, on occasion, they just get rubbed wrong.  I've considered keeping some bandaids around, but it's so inconsistent, and my chest is so hairy, that that's not really an option.  I tried to move around the suspenders and the jersey, but that didn't help.  I think that the next time I have this problem, I'm going to stop, pull off my jersey, re-adjust my shorts, and put everything back on carefully.  It works when my socks are rubbing my toes wrong, so I guess it's worth a shot here.

Just in case this happens again any time soon, I was wearing the black Castelli KISS shorts and my jersey from work.  I'll keep track of that in case I can find a pattern.

4/8/09 To Work

When you ride bicycles, you spend a lot of time staring intently at streets.  Streets that look pristine from a car can look like a Swiss cheese moonscape when you're trying to navigate through them and not pop a tire or get beaten to death.  Actually, there are very few streets that are really smooth and not full of holes.  Even when they re-pave a street, someone else comes along and digs a hole in it almost immediately.  And when they patch the hole, the patch never lasts very well.  They should make street repair engineers¹ ride around on bicycles.  Then they'd have more appreciation for their work.



¹I mean the people who come up with the guidelines for how to repair streets, not the ones that do the actual work.

4/5/09 McAllister Park

Today I did a dumb thing.  While I was getting ready to ride, I left my GPS sitting on top of the car so it could sync with the satelites and be ready for the ride.  In my haste to get going, I forgot and left it there, on top of the car, for the entire ride.  Luckily, when I got back it was still there.  That's a miracle. 

I cannot believe that I left my GPS sitting on top of my car for over an hour and a half and no-one took it.  That almost restores my faith in humanity.

4/4/09 Pedal Power Wildflower Ride

There aren't many wildflowers out this year, thanks to the drought (I think).  I saw a few on the Willow City loop, and a couple on the median of 281 as I was driving south out of Johnson City, but that was about it.  I was kind of bummed by that, because I really like looking at the flowers this time of year.  Still, it was a great day to ride a bicycle.  It was sunny and warm, without being hot, the wind didn't end-up being a factor, and my legs felt good.  I need more days like that.

4/1/09 Mission Trail

There is no way that there are fish in the creak they call a river down by the missions (also known as the San Antonio river).  No way.  The water levels go up and down, it sits stagnant for long stretches of time, and there's no telling what kind of wastes run into it from the surrounding areas.  Yet, every time I ride by it, there are people there fishing.  Sometimes not a small number of them, either.  I have never seen anyone pulling a fish out.  If by some miracle someone DID catch a fish, I hope they'd have the good sense to throw it back or incinerate it, NOT eat it.  Ugh.

4/1/09 To Work

Well, no matter what I try, I can't get rid of the creaking in the headset area of my bike.  I think the next thing I'll try is to put a different stem/handlebar set on there and wrestle it around to see if it still creaks.  That'll at least eliminate one more potential problem.  So far, I'm pretty sure it's not the fork, headset, spacers, compression cap, or handlebars.  The stem is the only thing left.  If that doesn't do it...