the big thing is the weather. where i live it’s the first month of spring and there’s a real summer feel. normally spring is cold and teases and seems to actively try and keep summer at bay. but this year it looks like skipping itself and going straight to a blissful summer. i’m happy about it. i was so over winter. it was unnaturally cold, at least in the mornings. and commuting mostly with a small bike bag means i am sans jacket. so all day i’m just a little bit cold. i could rectify this i guess, go back to a backpack (which i did for a few rides this season) but i think i’m sold on the bike-bag business now. part of growing old gracefully. anyway, it’s a relief that this weird spring-summer is here. and today’s spin was great. i snoozed with b and the dogs after getting back from town and then went out for a dusk ride that used to take an hour. it took an hour ten, but what of it. it was great. spinning down near dark hills. just breathing the warm fragances. what i did still crave though was a freewheel. having decided i wanted one, that imaginary taste of freedom is almost too much to bear. of course, i could ride the geared bike. but sometimes that’s too much freedom. i just want a little bit more. not the whole hog. so, it was almost perfect. good enough for the moment, and a super memory. still, next week has gotta be freewheel week. maybe i’ll get one put on tuesday. ready for the 31 degree day they’re forecasting on wednesday!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

i have this trend of getting burnt out. running, tae kwon do, tennis. i’m full of beans for a while, for years even, and then, well, it suddenly all just seems too much. i have this fear that i might be turning off cycling in this way. today, i was just sick of everything about going fast. the pressure to keep up, to spin faster and faster, to belt away from the lights, to get in front, to take the non-existent commuter prize. i have gone through this before, a lot actually, but this afternoon i had just absolutely had enough. i rode the best i could, while fantasising about a nice platform pedalled bike, a sprung brooks saddle and a front basket. and i would ride this bike slowly to work, stopping for coffee on the way. and on the way home, i’d be chill too. it’d be as fun as ‘riding a bike’, plain and simple, which i forget to do. more and more. the only thing that worries me about ‘letting go’ is getting fat. i have tendency to soften very quickly. i do all this pushing, straining, not really to win anything but to ward off the expansion. it’s a trap. i don’t know what to do. do i go slow and wide, or fast and thin? i wish it wasn’t a choice, because i will probably choose vanity over happiness anyday. damn. oh, i’m sorry if i’ve all this before. it’s probably a bind i am going over and over and over. i get like that sometimes. a lot actually. damn. i’ll probably buck up.

Garter, Koenji

Eastern Europe

yeah, so this was a while ago. It was during the tour actually. while it was on tv and i was going to work and watching it at nights and falling asleep too soon because my eyes can’t/couldn’t take watching the movement of riders on the screen for more than about half an hour. so this was a while ago while i was riding home after work and a storm picked up and it got super strong and blew at me and caught my bike and flung me about and so i put my head down ’cause i thought i was gonna be blown off and just hung on when i hit a shopping trolley! it blew into me. i fell off, seemed to hover over my bike, and i don’t remember hitting the ground but i had bruises on both sides. i entered my experience on a bike chat site thingy and i think people made wizard of oz references which were pretty apt and witty too. anyways because it was tour time and cadel had fallen and lance too and got up and rode so did i. i rode in the rain and wind, no big deal, with some bruises, no big deal, but a couple of weeks later i noticed that the wobble was actually a bend in the frame, the fork too, and i had toe overlap like i didn’t before which is all a bummer cause it was a new bike. and well that’s that. okay. no moral. i mean watch out (and that was a moral i put in my bike chat site thingy comment/post), but no larger moral. hitting stuff is hitting stuff. that’s all. impact means nothing. there’s no wisdom to it. we fall off, we get up or don’t. we finish our ride or we go home. either way is either way. i mean unless you’re getting paid for it. but i guess what i am trying to say is that no one is watching. no one is judging. i have learnt that. i’m not sure how. i do know it’s not a moral.

Dolce & Gabbana oversized knitted wool sweater FdeC20122