Rode the road

At long last, a bicycle of mine has been ridden somewhere other than back and forth to work.

It had become increasingly apparent to me that birdwatching, nature studies, and the fruitless quest to bench press my own body weight were not going to help me reduce my lap times and/or do additional circuits at next year's 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo. To that end, I got up yesterday morning, mowed down the month's growth of hair on my legs and, after replacing yet another rim-side punctured tube (damned Salsa rim strips scoot about, exposing the sharp edges of the spoke holes), I went for a little spin.

I took a short, close-to-home route with some gradual climbs and rolling hills. It was wonderful. When I got back home, the cyclocomputer read 14.14 miles; I made it 14.15 by riding through the garage into the backyard. We can't have numeric alliteration in the mileage log. Maybe next time I'll work on riding some real terrain and/or doing some real distance.

During the ride, I found a little wow in my 12-tooth rear cog. Bent cassette cogs are but one of the many laments of the Clydesdale cyclist. In fact, drivetrain meltdowns are a large part of what drove me to singlespeeding on the mountain side of things. But since I still like to employ a range of gear ratios on the road, I had to work something out. A quick trip to Fairwheel, some dial caliper comparisons by the shop wrench (seeing if a Shimano cog could be added to my SRAM stack; the upper jockey wheel's lateral float should take care of the 0.1 millimeter difference), and all was right again. Or at least it'll be right until the next time I get my fat ass out of the saddle for a hard effort. And, apologies to my stated LBS of record, A.B.E., for having strayed, but like your sign says "Sunday We Ride". Monday, too, yes?

The key will now be sticking with the riding. The inferno of Tucson's summer is just around the corner. I've been keeping up with the bike commuting in order to build up a bit of heat tolerance, but June is when things start to get ugly. And while the distraction of the desert being full of migrating birds has largely passed, I expect I'll start itching to spend time in the locations to which those birds migrated. And come to think of it, I'd kinda' like to go fishing at some point this summer. So many other things to do... Focus, dammit!