As it’s been a while since I’ve updated the blog, I thought I would put together a simple post that summarizes a few of the recent activities of note.
It's getting hard to find new views of the bike when all picts are taken while I'm in motion
I have been riding – although too infrequently to be proud of my performance. Most of the time on the bike lately is spent suffering, as it seems that my mind is thinking I would be able to perform at a much higher level than my body is able to produce. Thus, I power over hills in a way that only ends up slowing me down due to fatigue in the later stages of the ride. What is typically the pure enjoyment of a ride turns into a level of disappointment that sours the experience – at least a little.
Rides of recent include:
- An afterwork 40 mile loop into Downtown Minneapolis on the Old Steed™ that felt like it was going to take forever to get back home.
- A simple loop around the 6 mile Baker Park Reserve loop along the western edge of Medina. This was a shared outing with my daughter, so it wasn’t performance based and only generated about 7 miles worth of ride data (all done on my Rocky Mountain Blizzard bike).
- An early Saturday morning Medina loop with Brigham from AMS. This follows a new trend I’ve had of regular, low intensity rides in a small group setting. The goals are minimal, but offer a nice excuse to turn the pedals around and enjoy some simple conversation.
- A 31 mile base builder on a warm, summer’s evening. I’ll offer some additional details below.
Tuesday was the return to regular work hours, after an extended weekend due to some PTO time on my part and July 4th holiday officially being recognized on Monday July 5th by my company. The weather over the later stages of the weekend wasn’t too friendly for cycling, so I spent the days in the house, performing various tasks to get the house in order. Earlier on Saturday, I had my two brother’s families over for a lunch and a dip in The Damn Pool™, so there was some minor recovery needed around the house.
Getting back home from work on Tuesday, my body was screaming to get some time in the saddle, so I bundled up and hit the road. I wasn’t sure my official plan of attack, but I knew that I needed well over an hour to satisfy the urge.
A solid 30 mile ride does a good job at clearing out the aches within your legs and the cobwebs within your mind
It wasn’t the most comfortable of conditions to be on the bike, as the temps were in the mid-80s and the humidity was hanging at about the same value. It was hot and sticky. In my haste to hit the road, I donned a jersey that was probably a little too heavy for the situation and spent most of the ride with it unzipped down to my belly button.
As a kid riding my bike, I would rarely ride with a shirt under these similar condition and would prefer to go bare (with no sunscreen to speak of). But, today’s engineered fabrics are amazing at transferring moisture away from the skin and are probably more effective at cooling in the warm conditions than bare skin alone. Yet, force of habit had me unzipping my jersey to expose some skin – even if it led to little improvement in comfort.
The more I ride it, the more I truly appreciate the quality and technology that is built into the Specialized Tarmac bike
Over the past few weeks, I had truly been considering a computer-related purchase and finally pulled the trigger on Tuesday evening after the ride. Although I was considering a Macbook Pro laptop – I ended up buying a Mac Mini computer. The Mac Mini is the cheapest way to get into the Mac OS and is a nifty little box that is a fully-contained PC with all the functionality of a larger system. Instead of setting this up as a typical computer scenario, I chose to connect this to the large 46″ flat screen HDTV that I purchased earlier in the year (in order to watch the last season of LOST in HD).
I’m typing this update right now on the new computer and watching it on the big screen. I have a cool little wireless keyboard and a simple mouse to be able to navigate directly from my lounge chair. This setup is idea for how I use a computer, as I’ve found that much of my entertainment comes from navigating through the internet. This finally sets up the scenario where I get some dedicated use of the big screen TV – as past weeks have gone by where I haven’t turned the TV on for many days. Now that it can act as a monster-sized computer monitor, I will likely utilize it in the way it was meant to be experienced.
I’m still getting familiar with the details to the Macintosh operating system – as it has some unique and “neat” functions that are not replicated within Windows systems. The Mac Mini was amazingly easy to setup and was fully functional (including internet connectivity) within a few short minutes of unboxing. I’m glad to make the switch – as this is likely a precursor to my move into the iPhone 4 platform, which I plan to take once the “new launch” chaos has settled down.
Let’s hope that it translates into me paying a little more attention to the blog and providing a few more frequent updates. Although sitting in front of the computer is in direct competition with the time on the bike – it’s a good problem to have.
