Sometime soon I’m going to have to show some bike love to Blue, because 2 rides in a row I have had to ride in the rain. It was no big deal for me aside from having rain on my glasses slightly obscuring my vision, as my rain gear is now tested and modified to prevent unwanted moisture from touching my skin or garments other than my face and most of that which would would touch my face is deflected by my helmet visor.
I’m still bummed about not being able to do Bike MS again this year, because I really miss doing group rides with big groups, I haven’t had a big ride since I SAGed out of the HHH 2007 because of health problems (I was passed by a little girl on a BSO climbing a false flat before the first rest stop). But the economics of the situation just would not work out. I can’t even come up with the $25 to get into the ride, much less the $300 needed to be able to do the ride again. Heck I’m having trouble coming up with enough $ to have yogurt for the week and also be able to take the bus one day that week. As Mrs. the Poet puts it we used to be “po’ ” too impoverished to afford the last 2 letters in the word “poor”, now we are “p’ “, we can’t even buy a vowel.
Other things that are bothering me is I have all these bikes I want to build because they solve problems I’m having with Blue, either because he doesn’t fit on the rack on the bus, or because he doesn’t have the cargo capacity to get all the groceries home without resorting to putting the light things in my ruck, or because Blue has the aerodynamics of a Dutch city bike making riding with other bikes a problem. Blue is a good bike that can do a lot of different things, but he just can’t do any one thing well. What I would really need to replace Blue would be 3 bikes, a smaller bike that would fit the racks on the buses and trains, a dedicated cargo bike with an SUV of volume to carry groceries, and an aero bike for riding long distances with groups or on my own. And I have plans and bits to make all 3 of those bikes, just not all the stuff I need to actually make those bikes at the moment.
And that is the state of the blogger this week.
PSA, Opus
Witch on a Bicycle 