Never a dull moment when I'm on my bike

Photo: I took the Oulook and the backpack all the way downtown today.

Let's see, some interesting stuff this morning:

First, the slick, 85PSI tires on this bike are great at a lot of stuff. Navigating lightly rain- or sprinkler-slicked roads is not one of them. Right after leaving my apartment, I rushed to get through a light and mis-judged the corner and my bike's ability to handle it. My front wheel washed out just after the apex of the turn, and then my rear wheel started losing grip as well. Here I am, losing control of my bike in an intersection. The light turned yellow just after I entered, so if I lay it down, northbound quivira traffic will have a green light in less than five seconds. I got up out of the saddle and decided I would try to ride it out and bail if I hit the curb. My wheels nestled neatly into the curb's groove with a pretty harsh impact. I brought the bike back under me, still going about 12 MPH, then took off as if nothing had happened. That was a pretty fun (okay, scary) rush to start the morning with.

I was averaging about 18.7 MPH by the time I got to Mission road. I saw a young woman riding a bicycle on the sidewalk on the wrong side of the road who appeared to be commuting as she was wearing a backpack. Then I noticed a guy pulling a single wheel trailer, hauling serious ass as he merged onto southwest boulevard. I picked up the pace to catch up to him, and talked for a while. He's currently unemployed but doing some labor for a friend of his for a while before heading out to Colorado. It looked like he had tools and clothes on his trailer. We were going a little more than 25 MPH with a brief sprint up to 35. It was a good time.

All in all, the Outlook doesn't really feel any slower than the Trek 1200; My average was boosted to 19.4 MPH by the time I got to the brewery. I'm missing the drop bars and panniers. Wearing a sweaty backpack for anything more than 5 miles kind of sucks. Since I fixed the bottom bracket woes, this bike seems to be pretty nice, actually. The top speed leaves something to be desired, but it's rare that I really wring my road bike out on my commute.

I had coffee and ran into Bob and Lorin this morning. I've seen a few other bike commuters stroll by as well. This is probably the nicest feeling morning we've had this month. Although the humidity is in the 90%s thanks to light rains in the past 24 hours, the temperatures were in the low 70s. All in all, it felt a lot less brutal than usual this morning.

Random Tunage:
Filter - Hey man nice shot
Nine Inch Nails - Head like a hole