87 Cents

I picked up my wheel from Mad Cat Bikes on Monday. The bill for fixing, and truing my crashed rear wheel? A whopping 87 cents! :-O  Are these guys the greatest, or what?!

I have been talking to Eddy about Mad Cat starting an in-house wheel building service. The only thing better than having custom built wheels, is having them built by a local builder. You can see, and feel the materials before choosing them, make sure the builder knows your requirements, weight, size, riding style.

When things go wrong, there's no slow and expensive shipping getting in the way of your riding schedule either. Mad Cat offered to fix my wheel while I waited!

With a good build, and builder, wheels are forever. New spokes as needed, new rims when worn, but hubs last forever, so the wheel goes on. Besides, you can get cool builds like my 14/15 drive side, 14/17 non-drive side, or this cross-wind shrugging 2-forward, 2-back lacing! Factory wheels suck. You can do so much better having your wheels custom made.

See the 4 open voids cross-winds slip through?

Raining cats and dogs, a few small sheep, and a goat or two right now. Kind of goes with the 45 mph wind gusts that woke me up as they made my apt building moan. Man, that brought some old memories to life, living in Minn where the NW winds howled night and day, sliced right through our farm grove, and the side of our first farm house. To this day I love thick socks, because the floor was always so cold when I was a toddler.

Of course, it'll be great skiing weather for President's Day, if the wind dies down enough for them to reopen the lifts - as is forecast. There should be some epic Blue Powder days on tap this weekend. Dry powder too!

I'm half-way healed up from my collar bone break, and starting to get itchy. The shoulder sure is a complex matrix of bones, cartilage and tendons. When the thickness and shape of the collar bone changes, lots, and lots of things have to make adjustments. I'm hopeful I will make a full recovery, but suspect I will have rotator cuff problems on strenuous days. As long as the pain is tolerable, which I expect it will be, I'll take it in stride.

To cope with sitting on my butt for 3 months, I shut off all the feeds from my bike clubs. It's just too frustrating for me otherwise. I decided to check in the other night though, and saw that a friend did Solvang, and another is doing the El Camino Double this weekend. That might turn into a swim meet if the weather forecast doesn't change, but that's part of the challenge, isn't it?

One of our members was hit from behind by a car and is in bad shape. Coma, may be paralyzed below the waist - most of the Gabby Giffords issues. Matt was one of those guys that rides everywhere, all the time, and leads or rides the very toughest club rides. Lit up like a Christmas tree and in the bike lane, but clocked by a driver who drifted over a little paint on the road. Paint ain't enough. Cyclists need physical barriers to be safe.

What cycling needs, more than any other thing though, is a legal defense fund to try high-profile cases, and change the legal environment until we have the legal protections we deserve when we ride. MALDEF is a good example of one that works. The current environment is just intolerable, and that negatively impacts every aspect of cycling. Anyone know if Lady Gaga rides? This issue needs an advocate.

Although largely sedentary to date, I am hitting the books pretty hard these days as my fatigue has finally started to dissipate. As much as I hated having to lose a molar that was too far gone to save, not having the chronic infection is a huge boost to my energy level. I guess that's why they make implants these days. Looking forward to hitting the Elliptical Machine, and maybe the treadmill. Back to the books for now....