Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Muggy, Rainy, and Fast

I woke up this morning to find the sky overcast. The radar showed scattered storms, but a really strong wind out of the south. I figured it'd be a nice morning to ride all the way in. In the summer, pretty much any morning is a nice morning to ride all the way in. I don't really feel brutally hot until the heat index hits 90 degrees. It's never that warm in the morning around here.

The threat of rain kept my camera tucked away for the trip, but it was a nice, quick ride in with Karen this morning.

I forgot to mention yesterday that Chris hooked me up with a Shimano 105 brake caliper yesterday morning. My cheapo Tiagra front brake has been giving me problems for a few months. I threw it on the bike last night before the Monday Night Ride, and gave it a good shakedown. I put the finishing adjustments on it last night, and this morning it performed flawlessly. This brake is seriously beefy compared to my original calipers, and seems to clamp a lot harder. I may in the future replace my rear caliper with 105 as well. Not to get terribly cheesy, but this was an out-of-the-blue thing that was more or less an answer to prayer. I've been mulling over whether to replace, tweak, bend, or modify my crappy front brake caliper for a month or two now. Then Chris just asks if I want a slightly used brake caliper. Awesome!

I ran the WarCycle 3.0 setup again this morning just for gits and shiggles. It discovered about 1200 networks. WiFi coverage is getting pretty dense these days. Part way through the ride, it started raining, so I threw the rain covers over my panniers. They did their job quite well, but I'm more interested in seeing how well they work in a genuine torrential downpour instead of just a 10-minute-long rain shower. Here's the WarCycle gear all nicely arranged on my desk:


If the wind keeps up all day the way it was this morning, my homeward commute is going to suck pretty badly. I might cave in and use a bus.

Random Tunage:
Red Nex - Cotton Eye Jo
Alanis Morissette - Head Over Feet

2 comments:

dvicci said...

Wind. Yes. Muchly. It was pretty brutal, and I was running late. But fear not, Kansas has a way of swapping that southerly wind for a northerly sometime between noon and early afternoon. You'll get your tailwind, and I'll get my headwind. It's all good. ;)

Sairen said...

dvicci, somehow that wind shifts makes it so I get a headwind both ways! Ah, the joys of riding, eh what?

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