Sunday, Monday - Happy Days

Ben and I decided to go out for a Sunday morning ride. After Mother Nature called right as I was about to head out, as it seems to be the case all too often as I'm wanting to leave, I met up with Ben at 27th and Hwy 2 at 7:10 AM. I was quite chilly when I first left my house, so much so that I was thinking of clever ways to excuse myself from the morning ride without losing too much face. Fortunately for me, I got comfortably warm during the 10 minute ride to our rendezvous point.

We said our greetings and quickly headed south on the rock island. The headwind made it quite a chore to remain upbeat at times, but the conversation was great. Once we got on the limestone at 14th and a bit south of Pine Lake Rd, we came across a field that had 11 deer feeding, including several families (?) of deer with their young ones. As soon as they heard us approaching most of the deer hightailed it across the bike path in front of us back into Wilderness Park.

Experiencing nature first hand is one of the biggest thrills I get when riding my bike. Being a part of it, where you're traveling with a mindset so different than when driving a car. You smell your surroundings and feel the changes in the wind and temperature, all the while going at a pace where you can actually take in everything going on around you.

One of the topics of discussion as we're riding south is the comic strip Yehuda Moon and the Kickstand Cyclery and the bike Yehuda rides. I told Ben I was thinking of modifying the Volpe or maybe appropriating a new Cross Check frame and building up a commuter bike based on Yehuda's. The new Cross Check color is quite sexy.

At any rate, a good clip into the ride I start feeling slow. I figured it was due to my feet being cold and achy and kept riding for a few miles until I looked back and discovered my rear wheel was extremely low and doing its best to resist rolling. This was just outside of Princeton and by the time I removed the big piece of metal which looked like a massive staple, I had stopped long enough for both Ben and I to get uncomfortably cold. We went on to Princeton before it was decided that the prospect of going the remaining distance to Cortland didn't sound nearly as good as it did the previous night when we were warm in front of our computers. So we turned around and headed downhill, with a tailwind, back to Lincoln.

Monday morning saw me dropping off my road bike that I've gotten no where on and didn't have much desire to work on lately. Thankfully the guys at MWC are top notch and I'm sure they'll have it done in the time it took me to install the headset. I can't wait to see it once it's all done and get out for some nice road rides this spring and summer.