The Single Life

For some reason I haven't quite figured out, I decided to remove about 70 years of cycling innovation from my bike (except the hydraulic disc brakes). The gears came off and I've gotten the taste of the single life. It's hard to explain why I did it, why I like it, or why I'm thinking of a dedicated singlespeed bike.

It has taken a lot of the thinking out of biking. Either you pedal or you walk. If the road starts to go up, you pedal harder or you push. Somebody more clever than me described riding a singlespeed as "99% rider, 1% bike and 100% more fun". I never "got it" until I tried it. I'm looking forward to trying it on dedicated singletrack trails.

Anyway, here is how it went (the abbreviated version):

First, start with adequate beverages...

and hydrate.

Have the tools ready

Don't forget the drill (long story)

Thank the gears that have served you well,

and bid them farewell.

Take that off,

and put this on.

Sit back and enjoy your handiwork

First ride report coming up.

JRA

Scott S.

Moving

Labor Day weekend '08 at Carlos State Park

We're moving. We've been looking to move to another place for awhile now. We had been looking at a lake place, but it turned out to be cost-prohibitive. We then told ourselves that we wouldn't look for another place until at least the end of summer. Of course, we kept looking and found a nice place in a great neighborhood that just happens to be close to my frequent biking partner, Big D.

We decided to go for it. We made an offer, put our house on the market and unbelievably, it sold in 6 days. We are moving from our place on July 3rd and move into the new place on the 10th.

Only 6 days!

What's that you ask? There is a week between the two dates? I can't believe we overlooked that. Oh wait, isn't that what the two "professionals" that were hired to get this thing put together would handle? I guess not. What it means is that we are staying in a local hotel (on the realtor's tab) for 5 nights between closing dates. M will love it since it has a pool and our friends are helping a ton by having us over for dinner a couple of nights to get us out of the hotel. Rant over, lessons learned and once we're into our new house, all will be good.

We are busy packing and so the riding has been limited. Fortunately, I was able to get out today for some gravel. New gravel was ridden and some new possibilities for our tentative Fall gravel race/ride Big D and I are thinking of organizing. Details to follow.

Part of the race/ride route

JRA

Scott S.

PS: I've decided to start including random photos on this blog. Why? Because I want to, that's why and often I have pics that don't fit with the post otherwise but I want to share them. Here's one that would have fit yesterday's post better:

The swimmers in the family

Swimming Lessons

M had her first taste of swimming lessons the last two weeks.

The warm-up

She loved it. She is very much like her Mother, and so not like her Father when it comes to swimming and enjoying the water. Wife was born and raised in Rock County MN, a county with no natural lakes. From this she loves the water and swimming, was a lifeguard at the local pool, and taught swimming lessons. I was born and raised in Becker County, MN a county with several hundred lakes (135 square miles of water, 9.32% of the total). From this, I learned to swim but more on the order of survival and not enjoyment, would rather look at the water than be in it, and I drive the boat rather than be pulled by it.

Meredith is sitting here on my lap and wants to tell you what she liked about swimming lessons:

• Noodle choochoo train with the other kids
• The girl teachers and the other kids
• Playing at swimming lessons
• Dancing
• Bake a pizza in the water, and the cupcake and a cookie in the water
• Blowing bubbles
• Sweeping and ice cream scooping

Some of the above things I have no idea what they are, but she was excited to tell me about them.

The "girl teachers and the other kids"

She ended up passing the class and already is talking about next time she will get to go swimming. It will be soon with our uncoming 5 day stay in a local hotel. That story will be told later.

I'm glad she likes swimming so much and needless to say her Mom is very proud.

Graduation night

JRA

Scott S.

Upcoming Attractions

Cheq Fat Tire 9/07

Yes, I'm still here.

It's been a busy month and I've had great intention to get some blog posts up but haven't taken the time. So here's the deal; over the next several days I'll post up some of these posts I've had in mind the last several weeks. I figure by announcing them, then I'll have to since all six of you readers would be disappointed if I didn't...I think.

Anyway, here's some of the upcoming posts:

M's swimming lessons
We're moving
The Big Conversion
The first ride as a Convert
A state park visit

Till then.

JRA

Scott S.