Week in review

Uggh, I suppose it's time to post an update since it seems readership drops greatly when there's nothing new on the blog. Hmm, I wonder if there's a direct correlation?! I finally made it back on the bike. Tuesday I finally had more than I could stand, found myself off at a relatively sane hour and decided it was now or never. I phoned up Brian and we decided to hit a small mountain bike loop over by his place. This actually worked out really well for me since his place just happens to be about 3 miles from my place! Bonus. I jumped on the mountain bike and headed his way. A couple hours later I was worked into a sweaty and only slightly tired heap as I wound my way back home. Sorry, no pictures as the trails we were on are top secret! Actually, they're more unknown than secret. Shoot, I've lived on the south side all my life and only knew about a couple of the pieces we hit.

Work still sucked most of the week and made sure I didn't get out to play again. After putting in somewhere north of 40 hours before the 4th, it was time to play again. I was originally planning to hit my first road century with some friends early on the 4th, but got a last minute invite to grab some gravel goodness with Brian at a later start time and more relaxed pace/distance. We rolled from his place through the top secret trails and headed towards Summerset park in Indianola just to see what kind of shape it was in.
Getting ready to leave:

Sweet level B on the way down

Bridge washed out on the singletrack trail

Shallow water crossing in Summerset Park

Rollin some gravel


The park wasn't in too bad of shape. We hit two spots where water was still across the road. I let Brian take the lead on both just to see how deep they were (my momma didn't raise no fool!) The singletrack lower portion was in relatively good shape with some muddy spots and a few trees across the trail. It looked like a single work day would pretty much get it back in ridable shape beyond the large bridge being washed out which is going to take some heavy equipment to probably put back in place. All in all a great morning for a great ride and ended with a couple brews before noon (shh don't tell the beer police). We ended the day visiting some other friends and taking in the Adventureland fireworks show.

Saturday was pretty much a wash in the morning. Corley wasn't working things out very well so we cancelled out our planned tandem and trailer ride. We also spent a solid hour attempting to clean green juice from an area roughly the size of Rhode Island out of the cream color carpet in our living room. Score: Green juice 1 Carpet 0. We got most of the staining out, but the carpet gave up it's last ghost so it's now slated for replacement in the next year or so.

Around noon we finally went out for a stroll and headed to the motorcycle shop down the street. I had been putting off looking at scooters again until I could take Miranda with me for an opinion and have her also set on one with me for the few times we might both go out on it. I ended up picking the Rattler 110 based on how it fit and felt under me. I actually didn't get to ride it until I'd all ready purchased it, but after riding it a few times, including into work this morning, it's definitely a ton of fun. I'll post more about it later, but here's a pic from it's first day in a new home.


After that we finally made it out for an evening ride. With our tandem mileage severely lacking this year, I picked out the flattest and shortest route available. We loaded up and hit the Summerset bike trail and rode to the park. Even though the park is closed, we still had a good time letting Corley run and play.

Our road train


You can't really tell from the pictures, but the tandem with a trailer added on makes for quite the road train. It's a comfort style tandem (Trek T900), but it's still a lot of fun and makes for a nice relaxing cruiser. Trying to get much of any speed out of it is next to impossible especially with the trailer on, but cruising in the low to mid teens is about perfect. I still need to put a different saddle on though as I'm in such an upright position that I put a ton more weight on my ass. I'm planning on trying out a leather saddle as soon as I can order it.

That took us right up to bedtime and we finished off the night with some relaxation in the hot tub. Corley and I have some bonding time this afternoon with mom working. Too bad we can't get back together with our other friends Squirrel and Kent due to Corley still being on the contagious side so we'll have to go play on our own. I'm thinking another trailer ride with her hooked to the cross bike might be in order. Enjoy the rest of your weekend! I'm stuck at work for another hour or so.