This morning started with a longer than normal weekday run of 5 miles, which delayed my departure for work by a few minutes. Then, before I could leave, we had to stop and clean up a mess from a broken water line in our refrigerator.
The net result is that I had to really haul to get to work on time. It’s good to know I still can!
God bless…
TW
After yesterday’s washout, I was pleased to see nothing on radar this morning and 40 degrees on my backyard thermometer. While Pam and lifted this morning, the local weather dudes kept talking about drizzle, but I pretty much discounted their chatter. When I got on the bike, however, I realized that I would probably call it a light rain instead of a drizzle. By the time I got about two blocks away, I was debating turning around and swapping out a pair of pants and jacket for raingear, but decided to just go with it.
In the end, it probably wouldn’t have made much difference either way. My commuting pants and jacket had enough water repellency to keep from soaking through, and I was overdressed enough to be sweating pretty good on the inside anyway.
I kind of like riding in conditions like today. Even though it was gray, foggy, drizzly and just downright fugly, it was relatively calm and peaceful out there. At one point, I was riding along through a residential neighborhood, and I heard this bright and cheery voice calling out, “Good morning!”. It was a young lady who had come out of a house and was walking down the driveway. I gave her a wave and just grinned. It’s interactions like that one that make me appreciate the ability and opportunity to ride…even on fugly mornings like today.
God bless…
TW
Twenty-five years ago, if you had asked me about my favorite hobby, I would have told you it was photography. I had a couple of mid-level SLR cameras, enough lenses to look foolish, and a huge bag to carry it all around in. A dabbled in lighting, did a few paying gigs, and generally annoyed my wife with my obsession. By 1999 or early 2000, most of my equipment was getting pretty dated and tattered (most of it was second or third-hand anyway), so I decided to sell everything I owned and buy one new nice SLR. Well, I sold the stuff, but never could decide which new camera to buy. We went to Hawaii for our 20th anniversary that summer, so before we went, we bought a small point and shoot 35 mm camera to take with us. At that point, digital cameras were pretty rare, so one of those newfangled gadgets wasn’t on my radar yet, but I was hooked on that little camera. No bulky camera bag. It fit in my pocket, and most of all, you could whip it out and snap away without all the fuss and muss of my old SLR’s.
We bought our first digital camera in the fall of 2002. It was a fairly bulky affair, and if I recall, it was a Pentax. It served us well until I left it in a cab in Mexico on our 25th anniversary in 2005. That was not a good day. It had a weeks worth of photos on it, and Pam wasn’t happy. I’ve still not gotten past that little OOPS! We had a wedding to attend about a week later, so we rushed out and bought another Pentax very much like the first (only smaller and sleeker) as soon as we got home.
In January of 2007 , we had a massive ice storm here in Springfield so I ended up working a lot of overtime. By that time, both Pam and I were experiencing the universal truth that smaller things kept getting smaller, and we were both having trouble dealing with the small screen on our Pentax. I took some of my overtime money and paid a what seemed like a fortune for a nice little Sony with a 3-inch screen so we could see it better. The Sony had the distinction of being even smaller and easier to deal with.
For Thanksgiving 2008, Pam and I ran away from home, and to the dismay of our grown children, left them alone to fend for themselves for the holiday while we went on a cruise. The second day out, I jumped into a hot tub with our camera in my pocket. Yep…me, cameras, and vacations just don’t seem to get along. We went down to the ship’s store and paid an outlandish price for another Sony camera in the hopes that the pics on the memory stick could be salvaged. Luckily, they were fine, so at least I was spared the wrath that I had incurred three years earlier.
That little Sony is the one I’ve carried on nearly a daily basis since. I very rarely climb on my bike without stuffing it in my jersey pocket in hopes of snagging a decent picture for this blog. Unfortunately, it’s showing it’s age pretty badly now. The flash is so inconsistently useless that it might as well not be there. The zoom grinds it’s way in and out, and it takes forever to come on these days. I think it’s been sweated on too much, and you can usually see dark circles on the pics from what I think is mildew growing inside the lense. You can easily see them on the picture below.
Well, to make a long story short, we’re planning to go play in the snow next month and I decided it might be nice to have a new camera to take with us. My first insinct was to go find something reasonably priced that I wouldn’t mind hauling around in the pocket of my jersey and sweating on. You know, something in the $90-$120 range. I casually mentioned it to Pam and promptly got the response, “I know exactly what you need! I saw it in your Bicycling magazine!”.
Now, I don’t know about yours, but my sweet wife has expensive taste. It’s so bad that every time we go for ice cream, I can predict exactly what she’s gonna order by browsing for the most expensive item on the menu! When she said that, I cringed….then thought about her logic for a while and decided to just bite the bullet and do it.
My new Nikon CoolPix AW100 arrived today. It’s a “ruggedized” camera that should stand up better to the abuse I dish 0ut. I’m not keen on the built-in GPS, and have never done much with video, so in a lot of ways I feel like I paid for some bells and whistles that will remain silent, but I’m anxious to give it a try. You’ll see some of it’s pictures on here in the next few days!
Now, if I can just keep from leaving it in a cab……
God bless…
TW
Pam and I took Monday morning off this week. She had a dental appointment in the afternoon, but our morning was free, so we decided to go for a longish run. Eight miles before breakfast is a decent enough way to start the week!
I got packed up and loaded up to ride to work by noon, then decided at the last minute to top off my tires. Not the best timing, considering what happened.
Blew the head off my pump and lost all the air in the tire. Aargh! It’s a good thing I’ve got a spare pump, so I pulled it out and moved on. This pump has done this a couple of times, so it may be time to see if I can order a new head.
It was really nice riding to work in the daylight, although the wind was an absolute killer after running earlier. By the time I got to work, I was pretty glad to get there and off the bike.
By the time I left work, the wind had died down a little bit. That was a shame, as I was really looking forward to riding that wind home. “
One thing I want you to notice…the picture above was taken about 5:10 pm. It’s still nice and light! In fact, it was just getting dark enough to call it “dusk” when I got home. I almost had an entire commute in the daylight!
You can tell that I’m pretty easily to please these days, can’t you?
God bless…
TW
When I started commuting to work, I only had a road bike, and it was carbon fiber, with no rack attachments. I started riding with a backpack, but absolutely hated it. Within a few days, I had found a rack modification that allowed me to cobble together a reasonable alternative to the backpack, letting me use a pannier on that bike for the first time.
I commuted that way for a while, then bought a used mountain bike because the road bike seemed to beat me up on the trip across town. I rode the mountain bike for most of a winter, but really didn’t like it because it was so slow and heavy. I put the rack back on the road bike, wrote this post, and continued merrily along my way, not realizing that a lot of other people were searching for a similar solution.
Wayne, over at The Touring Store, should thank me. The link to his site is my most clicked link. I hope he’s got some business because of me!
Editorial Note: The second and third pictures in the post were taken before the second bolt was installed in the rack extension. You would be amazed at how many people felt the need to let me know about that!
So, without further delay, here is my second most popular post:
Adding a rear rack to a carbon fiber road bike
Enjoy, and God bless…
TW
