Weather And The Weekend

I can't take it. Temperatures are in the sixties during the day; misty, cold, useless rain abounds and does no good. All it is good for is to make the air suck, and get you wet and cold. Not to mention it makes the joints feel like... well, you get the point, it just sucks. So Friday I did manage to get a nice ride in. It was still in the seventies Friday, the sun was going down but sunset around here is about 8:00 now. Yeah, that sucks too. It was nice though. Roads were calm as people were heading off to pre high school football game dinner, and than off to the high school to watch the game. The leaves just barely changing. A good portion of the bugs are starting to die off for the autumn. It was just cool, no pun intended, which is good.
Why, you may ask, was that good? Because the rest of the weekend kind of sucked. Saturday and Sunday rain. When it did clear Sunday it was kind of nice for about two hours, and then the cold temps rolled in. Suddenly it hit me; this is all going to change, and quick, really soon. No more getting thirty or so miles, pouring sweat and just feeling exhilarated beyond belief. I don't know what it is about the summer, I just love riding in the heat. I may have to get out to Phoenix or something for the winter. Anyway, I'm sub 185 now, can't wait to weigh and measure tomorrow to see how that goes.
As far as riding, I did get in a Saturday run, even though it was raining. It made it cold as hell, but it was kind of fun. I've been riding the hard tail mountain bike quite a bit more than the road bike. I don't know why, really, but I think it might be something to do with less work than having to get all of my gear on to go for a ride. I usually don't go all crazy suiting up, just Lycra, shorts and a shirt or free-ride jersey. I ride flat pedals so I don't need cleated shoes (I think I just made up that word). You know, laziness and comfort. Anyway, I tried an experiment riding the whole day in big ring and five, for those of you who either are not paying attention, or more likely are not geeks, that would be 42x17. The reason for this is I figure it is pretty darn close to what a lot of stock single speeds are set at (best I could find a 42x16 avg). Some of you can tell where this is going, for those of you not as geeked as I am; I'm itching to buy (or try to acquire parts) for a single speed. I know, I just bought two bikes in the last year, and the wife's, and I still have to rebuild the old school Dyno BMX but I've been riding more now than anytime in the last fifteen or so years. Seriously, I really want to try a single speed. Like this sweet Soma I saw a messenger rocking the other day in Downtown Cleveland: So I guess the bottom line is I have to start rummaging Craigslist, ebay, the Spin cheep parts bin, friends, relatives, and anyone else I can to find parts, and build up a single on the cheep. Who knows, this could be fun. By the way, Bluenoser, I'm holding you partially responsible for this due to your Gary Fisher build up in your 09/02/2008 post. Just saying. The rest of the blame to the messenger, dang it.