Stayed up late to watch the space shuttle launch…

which meant that I rode on the trainer in the wee hours of the morning. The launch wasn’t until 4:30am, so I got some things done.

First I did some more work on our Happy Hiker website. Still adding products to it. Let me say, it takes a long time to get stuff on there!

Then, around 1:30am, I decided to hop on the trainer for a couple of hours.

I got myself wound down for the last hour before launch and went outside five minutes before to see if I might be able to see it. I took my MacBook with me so I could listen to downrange mileage. But, unfortunately we had cloud cover here. I didn’t see anything through the two holes in the clouds.

Well, back to the website grind for awhile. Then I’ll hop on the trainer for a bit.

Later!

What?

Long time no blog!

As the Earth keeps making a trip around the Sun, time slips away too fast. And my life seems a little unexciting.

I continue riding my bike, perfecting my position for comfort and to accomodate my hand aches. But, I just can’t get my self to post about training. Why? I’m boring. But, that’s okay for now.

Work has consumed a bunch of my time, including when I’m home. I’ve been using this time to work on our website. I believe this may be a huge reason time flies by without my notice! If I could just work on the computer while riding my bike on the trainer. Talk about multi-tasking!

Once in awhile I do slip outside in the middle of the night. Why? I’ve been possessed with the idea of the snowdance. But to little avail! This weekend I only managed to conjure up a dusting at higher altitude. Any ideas on this front would be appreciated. Ha!

Back to the bike…I have hit a point where I almost crave spending time riding nowhere. Sick?

Have a lovely night (or day in other lands). Til next time!

It’s warm out and that means garbagacycle time!

Funny, eh?

This paratrooper apparently got caught up in a tree. I don’t know why this amused me. But, I did put it on the strap so I could see it swinging around every time that I put trash in.

I did spend the last two evenings after work until it got dark out picking up trash along the road into our Park. This was Tuesday nights haul. Tonight I had an even more full tub. And it was full of mostly beer bottles. I was kind of surprised, seeing as after New Year’s the trash wasn’t too bad. This picture also represents the “group” of people that come to the ‘burg every year on the past weekend. And next weekend is a smaller group. No, I’m not saying who, but I will say that in general they can be some of the rudest people around. Not to mention theft generally goes up at this time in town. Strange?

Well, still riding my bike. Have made some other adjustments to my position to really fine tune it. I’ve now lowered my saddle a smidge.

I’m having some aching in my one hand. This isn’t unusual, as it’s the hand/wrist I injured in a hangar “accident”. But, as I was looking around at other endurance bike set-ups, I came across the Surly Torsion bar and wondered if that might give me a better angle than my current flat bar. I think it a 15 degree bend back. And, it’s a bit wider. Also have some other ideas in my head, but need to do a bit more reading on them for now.

February I am going to stat incorporating some of the Spinervals videos into the training.

All for now! Catch y’all later…

Back at it…

and let’s leave it at I was sick combined with a couple of other things. Anyway, I am back on the bike and getting a kick out of seeing how many miles I’m riding. Or is it that I’m being demoralized at how many I thought I was riding! Ha! But being back on the bike is so nice.

I did shoot a quick, yet blurry, pic of the two headlights finally!!

The yellow blur on the left is my older TurboCat 6W headlight. It does not have any settings. It’s either on or off. And on the right we have the new 2W Planet Bike Headlight. I’m thinking it’s a little more spot than flood, but at the low setting here it will take the place of my TurboCat just fine. At the most, I may have to change the batteries once during the night. That was not an option with my TurboCat. It uses a rechargable block battery. 2.5 hours max. I’m not buying or carrying 3-4 of those to get through the night!

Well, keeping my butt on the bike continues. I’ll keep you posted once my rythm gets back!

I purchased a computer….

and took the advice of Pasta Pete and Antoine.

I found a pink one on sale until the end of the year at Speedgoat, so I went ahead and bought it. I’m going to mess around with it and see if I can rig it to the rear wheel. Worse case, I use it on the front. Hey, I still have to have a computer for Trans Iowa!!

Strada Double Wireless…

I was thinking this computer may satisfy my needs. Looking for cadence and rear mount. And having it easily mount from one bike to another is a plus. It does have 2 bike memories. Seeing as I don’t have a computer on most of my bikes now, this looked good. Any other ideas out there? GPS is not appealing. As I believe it won’t help me on the trainer. You know, that not really moving bit! Correct me if I’m wrong, though.

A restful day…

was had by me. I did absolutely nothing but eat , sketch and be merry with the folks here. My best to y’all!

And I will get a comparison pic soon of my headlamps:)

A quickie…

It’s snowing in Gatlinburg. But, my house has a dusting. And a rather large pool of water in the garage from the slush on my truck melting. Squeegee time!

More fine tuning the Fuel position. Lowered saddle about 1 cm. Again, a huge difference in comfort to my legs and back!

Did a short comparison of my Turbocat Stealth 6 watt light and the Planet Bike 2 watt Superflash. Very similar. Remember, the Turbocat I have is about 10 years old. I’m sure the new ones are brighter and consume less battery power. But it’s my standard for lighting.

All for now…keep riding. I will:)

I was caught like a deer in headlights…

but more about that later.

Seeing as the Oompa Loompas have just released me from a two day chocolate drive in the kitchen, I am now back to the bike for two nights. I have learned a bit from time in the saddle lately.

One…I have been severely riding too short along the top tube. Tonight, I went down to the shed and my extra parts to recover an older Easton stem. It is longer than the two current stems on the Fuel and Pugsley. And I now understand why one should put a longer stem on a bike equipped with a Titec H-Bar. Just do it, don’t ask.

Since I switched out the Pugs stem, the Thomson from it went to the Fuel. It’s 10mm longer. You have no idea how much better I feel now. Well maybe you do? Which brings me to…

Two…my nether region complains. I had switched over to a WTB women’s saddle because it was a bit wider to accommodate my wider sit bones. I originally had been riding the Bontrager FS2000 for about 7-8 years comfortably. Switched to a WTB Rocket, which ended up being too narrow. But hey, it was black with pink! So, I tried the women’s. The complaint I have with it is the nose is padded, but with a soft padding. Too soft. So soft I feel the hardness of the saddle bottom. Ummm, ouch! I put my old tried and true Bontrager back on and it was once again bliss:)

Chocolate? Yes, this time of year my mom and myself restrict ourselves to the kitchen at night. We are closet chocolatiers. Well, I am. She used to do it for a living wayyy back when. In fact, she and a certain famous one from up in Indiana learned their skills from the gal’s parents. And now I am doing this too. Mmmmm….chocolate.

And lastly. Using my last couple of paychecks from working at the bike shop I bought myself a new headlight. A Planet Bike Blaze 2 watt. We’ll see how that works in the coming weeks. I’d like to get it out into the Park at night to compare. When I do, you’ll be the second to know!

Enough for now…I go to sleep soon!

Win a Bicycle from Fatty and Gary Fisher!!!!

So, you could win this bike! Click on it and see (PS…it also comes with orange accents instead of the pink ones I like).  However, being completely selfish, wouldn’t I look cool riding this in Trans Iowa? I think that I would. SO, I’m going over to Fatty’s website to try and make a go of it!

In other news, the BBiP continues. And I have added holiday lights to the Fuel’s toptube for my own giggles.