A Fun Ride

Today's ride home was much more fun than the ride in the alleged blizzard last Tuesday. That ride was simply hard in a few spots. Most notably in the +30mph headwind/crosswind section. I was going as hard as I could and managing 7mph. But I still rolled home in the usual amount of time.

Today was very nice. Just zipping through the snow. All you could hear was the crunch of the wheels moving through it. I love riding like this. The world is quiet and still.

The semi-scary bit was when I departed the Mississippi River bike path onto the streets. I was much more concerned about the cagers and their lack of skills. By the time I got home, I had a pretty nice beard-cicle going. Nowhere as nice as Grand Pa Kim's though.

Important RAGBY Safety Tip

Given the 2008 edition of RAGBY's close proximity to Davenport, if you are a turkey, don't play in traffic. As the QC Times caption writer clearly points out "Wild turkeys have adapted to people -- but not to the extent that they can survive in heavy traffic." God help us if the turkeys mutate so that they can.

Back On The Bike

Well... The commuter bike is back on the road this morning. I can't believe that I've been off the bike (outside) for a week. It was a pretty non eventful ride in and out of work today. Most of the ice and snow was gone. What was there was was eminently ridable. It is looking like we are going to have a high in the morning in the mid 40’s and then back to the single digits with 1” to 2” of snow. Bleah

I did get the bolt for the secondary light clamp cut off so I can get a replacement. The bolt had basically rusted to the nut and I could not get the clamp to tighten. No amount of penetrating oil would get into the threads. So... after yoga tonight, it's a trip to the hardware store for a replacement in stainless steel. I think that I should just replace all of the bolts in stainless... I seem to be doing them one at a time.

Ouch

My legs are finally starting to feel normal again. Evil Heather was putting the hurts to a small group of fellow tortured souls in the Gravity class on the gym Thursday night. Things must be getting better since it took four days for them to be back to normal last week. The weather is starting to break into the 20's here, so I'm hoping to get back into the bike commuting routine on Monday.

The Des Moines Register has a way cool map of the past RAGBRAI towns up. It can be found here. Hopefully they will keep this page alive.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Man... another day of driving the car to work. It's looking like it will be a zero miles into work week, which is not good. It was a balmy 250k this morning when I got up. That sounds much warmer than -9F. I would have scored major league tough guy points for today. But then, the guys in the white coats most likely would have showed up to throw a net over me.

In other cycling news, the RAGBY route is out. The towns from left to right are: Missouri Valley, Harlan, Jefferson, Ames, Tama-Toledo, North Liberty, Tipton, and LeClaire. Having the ending in LeClair will be nice since it simplifies the logistics greatly.

Yet Another Blog

Well... I've gone and done it. A blog... As if I don't have enough stuff to use up my time. Now I have to start thinking up postable inane drivel.