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ornoth_cyclingSpring came late this year, but the cycling season has finally begun.
Last weekend was my first long ride and my first Quad ride of the season. Naturally, I overdid it, doing 65 miles, which left me with a splitting headache and strained ligaments behind my right knee. On the other hand, this was the second year in a row when I led the first group of the year over the big “Dinosaur” hill.
I’ve also commuted to the new job in Quincy a couple times, and it seems okay, despite riding along two huge main arteries and through a couple highway interchanges. I’ve been making some tweaks to my route that have helped somewhat. The traffic in the morning is a lot lighter than it is coming home, too. It’s fine for now, but I don’t think I’d like to do the return commute in the dark.
And I’ve been delighted with the huge amount of maintenance I did on the bike this spring, which included lowering the stem, a complete overhaul, new chain and cassette, cables and housing, bar tape, plus new gloves, bib shorts, and helmet. After all that, the Plastic Bullet feels like a brand new bike again, despite having over 16,000 miles on it. Around Memorial Day it is going to surpass the old hybrid and become the bike I’ve ridden the farthest.
And on top of all those other things, the new Garmin Edge 800 GPS cyclocomputer warrants a paragraph of its own. The amount of information it provides is wonderful, although I face a challenge compiling it into the weekly log that I’ve maintained since October 2000. There are certainly kinks to work out, but I am definitely going to get a lot of value out of that particular upgrade.
Other than that, I’m about to kick off a ten-part series of posts about my Pan-Mass Challenge lessons learned, which I hope will be of value to other riders. And I need to start work on this year’s PMC fundraising video, and also send this year’s ride calendar out to my buddies.
Finally, things are happening, both on the road and here in the cycling blog.
