"Creme Puff" has arrived

The touring bike finally arrived on Friday. I did not have time to play with it on Friday or Saturday morning as I attended the feeding frenzy bike ride to HuHot on Friday night and the coffee and donut ride on Saturday morning. Both were well attended which was nice to see even though it was kind of crappy outside.

Today I hit SnS to pick up 3 cages, 3 water bottles and some heat activated custom inserts. I also set up an appointment for an install of their high end Polar bike computer for the end of next week. I think I may have trimmed to much off the front of the inserts as the inserts do not cover the whole edges toward the front of the shoe. I am not sure how they will work as they have a lot of arch and I am of the archless breed. I also put on the new Speedplay frogs. It is going to take some getting used to on these. There is so my float that is feels sloppy and they were popping out on me. The ride to Luverne on Monday should be a good test for these. The only thing left is to order the Panniers and trunk bag pictured below.


So,  there you have it. One bike, using 3 bike shops to complete it. This is not my first bike that I've used 3 shops to complete a ride. You know me, I am trying to make everyone happy. Have a happy Memorial day everyone. Peace and Bike Love!

I am trying to spread the LOVE!

BIKE LOVE THAT IS!
The old Raleigh is out on loan for a couple of months. A College dude who works for us part-time and is working on his PHD, hence, (a broke SOB) was asking me if I was doing the Tour. That is the Toure de Kota for you non-locals. I said yes, and come to find out he wants to do it. He said he rides a lot with a $20 MB. I told him I have the perfect bike for him to use and he can use it as long as he wants. I also have one of my rear blinky's out on loan for someone at work who spends his nights at the jail and rides his bike into work everyday.

I don't consider the old Raleigh even my bike. It was a free gift from Bill D. and I may eventually make a fixie out of it. For the time being, I am just trying to spread the bike love. I promise, I won't spread any STD's. it's not that kind of love.

Trying to make my recovery rides count

Sunday I averaged 9 mph for 13 miles and rode in to work to play catch up from being off of on Bike to Work Day. My right knee is acting up so I spun in very easy gears. I popped some Ibuprofen yesterday and today and have been taking Glucosomine for about a week in hopes it will help my rapidly aging body. This morning's ride into work the knee felt a little better. I am putting some Speedplay Frog pedals on as soon as they come in from the LBS. They are supposed to be knee friendly with 20 degrees of float.

I am going to try to make it to the Kernel's recovery ride tonight if I can make it off work in time. The owner is in so I can not plan anything but work for now.

Bunyan's to Bob's ride - I think I had a panic attack on this bridge

I don't know if this is the exact bridge I rode over on the Bunyan's to Bob's ride but it looks like it. I grabbed the picture from Ride Vermillion and he has a nice write up of the ride so I will keep my post specific to my own challenges.

After fighting the hills and crazy wind all day long and turning down the SAG 3 times I crossed this crazy bridge. The railing is so low, like 2 feet tall, a person can see the water as they ride on it and I felt that I could easily topple over the rail and fall to my death. The wind gusts felt like 50+ mph and then a Semi-truck approached me and whizzed my me. That was it. The wind and Semi-truck blew me around enough I had to get off the bike and let more cars whiz by. I was freaking out because I think I am afraid of heights since jumping out of a perfectly good plane about 5 years ago. Matt, the FAB VP, turned around and waited for me at the end of the bridge. I felt so embarrassed at the time but what hell, it's over and done with and I am human after all. 

What's the morale of the story. Don't jump out a perfectly good plane just to get an adrenalin rush. It may screw with your head for the rest of your life.

FOOTNOTE: When ordering a Corona on the post ride the bartender said, "This is Bunyan's, we don't have Corona". Sometimes we all have to adapt, overcome and improvise in life.

Phase 1 = Shared Bike Lanes

After Bike to Work a few of us rolled and some of us rode to Bahnson to check out the new shared bike lanes. Cyclists will share this lane with parked cars. We only ran up on 1 parked car and the lane is wide enough where you do not need to jet out into the cager lane unless you are worried about getting doored. I don't think many cyclists or cagers really know what the white line is for so I hope the City gets some signs up soon to educate the masses. I believe Snakebite is working on posting more of the specifics on what kind of markings are being placed where. This is good start to getting more people to ride their bikes to work, to get groceries, to run errands. Sorry, gotta go ride my bike to another get together. Now - go ride your bike.

Ride of Silence - Faywick Park, May 21st at 7 PM

This Morning's Commute - I Danced

This morning I loaded up the panniers of Wally and filled up the tires with a few more pounds of pressure. A few minutes later when I was ready to move on down the road I noticed the rear tire was flat. "Crap", I thought to myself, because I was running a little behind and I did not have time to change out a tire. No problem, I moved the work clothes to the back pack and grabbed the Old Raleigh from the stable.

So you're asking me, "what does this have to do with the title of your post"? If you would stop interrupting me I will get to the point, thank you very much.

It was a perfect morning for commuting. I felt energized from the start of the 5.5 mile commute. I was pedaling at a good pace and once I got to the prison hill I kept it in the big chain ring for most of the climb. I am usually in my easiest gearing and fighting up the hill at a slower than snail's pace.

Yes, today I had a great ride in to work. I can't tell you how fast because I don't know. I did not have a computer on the bike and I don't really care how fast I was going, what my heart rate was or what cadence I was spinning.

What matters to me is I have more energy than ever, I had no aches or pains in the back or knees. 

I was dancing on the pedals this morning.

-Peace and bike love.

A VERY full week of bike stuff coming up

Monday - State Senator to speak for cyclists rights

Tuesday - FAB Board Meeting

Wednesday - Wandering Wednesdays

Thursday - Mountain Bike Ride @ Newton Hills

Friday - Free pancake breakfast at the bike to work day. Also there is a starlight ride and possible pub crawl.

Saturday - Bunyan's to Bob's ride, MUST ride, Women's only ride, Something for Everything Ride

Check out the FAB Calendar

or the FAB Forum for all your biking needs.

Ride, ride, ride!!

Bicycling in South Dakota - all the bicyclists that have blown down from North Dakota are still trying to pedal back upwind

This post was worthless. I forgot to save my link and already deleted my history so you and I are SOL on the story. Sorry.

The Ghost of the Bike Path

And now for some fun fiction, or is it?

Click on Haunted Sioux Falls

173 mile weekend Ride, 4 hours of riding in the dark = White knuckles

The ride from Mitchell to Chamberlain was a challenge to say the least. I'm glad I did it because I need to get some consecutive long miles in. I wasted about 40 minutes Saturday morning, still in panic mode, because I could not find my prescription riding glasses. When I got home and unpacked, of course they were in my bag, exactly where I put them.

I took off from Sioux Falls around 10:15 and drove interstate until the Spencer exit. I was expecting Snakebite to be in Mitchell and was worried he was going to have to wait for me. I called him and he was in Salem. Yikes, it was slow going with the 20+ mph winds. I waiting for him at Spencer and then drove on to Mitchell. I had some hours to kill so I drove around Mitchell for a while, re-living my childhood days, of dragging main street and partying in the town that is 25 miles North of where I grew up.

We hooked up and rode through Main Street and headed North. We stopped and had lunch at a family diner and then off to the not-so-races. We received bogus directions from the farmer/cook, dude who was very nice but talked too much for a couple of dudes wanting to snarf down the chow. We ended up riding too far North and turned left and rode past the National Guard unit. More memories for me as I used to work on trucks there. It only put us about 4 miles out of the way and gave us the chance to ride around lake Mitchell.

The ride was slow going and I did not anticipate riding that many hours in the dark. I only brought a cheapo helmet light with me and I wish I would have brought my Blackburn. It was really weird riding up and down hills in the dark because you can not see the horizon and you can not tell what was coming ahead. Meeting cars blinded me and sometimes I just stopped. There are a lot of bad rodes without shoulders and I wish there could have been a better choice for the TDK.

We arrived around 1:00 AM and back up at 5:30. I had breakfast and then fell asleep for awhile. It was much better coming back as we had a tailwind. After fighting through some rollers and falling way behind Snakebite I told him to leave me as he had way many more miles to go than me. It was decided through his logical thinking that we would both be hosed if we broke down. I'm glad we rode together as I don't think I would have rode as fast on my own.

I think we are both comfortable as solo riders as there was not much conversation as we were both concentrating on our own things. A lot of our responses were, YUP. I think it would have been difficult to ride with someone who would want to hold a conversation for 10 hours straight. It's not that I don't enjoy conversation, I just don't know if I could do it for 10 hours.

We made it to Mitchell and I was totally wiped from riding and lack of sleep. I had to pull over at the rest area before Salem for 30 minutes to rest my eyes. I arrived home and fell asleep at 5:30 pm. I woke up only once and then was up and feeling refreshed at 4:00 am this morning. I rode into work this morning and although I am sore, I feel great.

BTW - I weighed my bike fully loaded and it weighed in at 50 pounds. I think Snakebite's bike weighed considerably more.

-Peace and bike love