Back in the Sunshine

The long wet stretch of weather we'd been having finally broke on Thursday. I'd almost forgotten how much nicer it was to ride in the sunshine on dry streets. Even so, it's still cold and quite windy, and if the morning ride turnout is any indication, a lot of people are making do with indoor trainers or wishful thinking.  I myself skipped two days, Monday when the streets were wet and I just wasn't up to another wet ride, and Wednesday when it was actually raining.  In-between was a ride on the rain bike during which I was surprised to meet up with a couple of other guys.  That was on the one hand a good thing, since I'd have otherwise been riding quite a bit slower, and on the other hand a bad thing because I ended up pretty wet and gritty from wheel spray, and struggled on the long headwind stretches.  I guess an extra six or seven pounds and full fenders makes a bike harder to pedal. I did make it to a 70 minute Spin class during the week, so I guess that counts for something.

We are finally about done with the mock-up for the 2013-14 NOBC team kits.  The color scheme was selected to compliment Apolline Restaurant's (our major sponsor) logo colors of teal and grey. It still needs to go to the graphic folks at Voler, but at least it should be very close to what we have thus far.  Naturally the whole process has taken far longer than the uninitiated would have ever imagined.  For those of us who have been down this road before, however, it's really not a big surprise that we won't have them until the end of March at best.

I started using Strava back on January 28 of last year, after many years of not tracking my riding at all other than the cumulative mileage numbers on my trusty Campi computer.  It seems like my annual mileage always works out to a bit over 11k, and this year is no exception.  Strava is showing 11,055 mi. right now with a week or so to go in January.  If nothing else, at least I'm consistent.  This year I'll be experimenting for the first time with a heart rate monitor that goes with my new Garmin.  I'm not sure how useful it will prove to be. We'll see.  It's looking like the weather will be decent for the Saturday Giro, which will be a nice change, and I guess that a fair group will be "going long" out to Slidell. I'll probably throw a Powerbar in my pocket and join them if nothing comes up in the meantime. This morning I got a late start and met up with some of the Tulane riders, although I had to turn back early and trudge back home fighting a crosswind and headwind most of the way.

That little derailleur clamp that  had gotten lost in the mail finally showed up the other day in an envelope stamped with "Not Tulane."  I had sent an inquiry to USPS about it and amazingly I got a phone call from the local post office explaining that it had gotten mixed in with Tulane's mail and they had just gotten it back. My guess is that it arrived there over the holidays and sat around for a couple of weeks until the mail room got going again and decided to give it back to the post office. Meanwhile, I think there's another one in transit, so I'll wait until it arrives and keep the one that looks best!  I also finally got the replacement 3T stem from Great Britain and will be selling that one to one of the guys in the club (at a big discount) since he was looking for one that size. So it's all kind of working out.  The only remaining question is whether to change the headset top cover to lower the stem and finally cut it to fit.  I have no sense of urgency on that, however.

The kitchen work is moving along more slowly now, mostly waiting for the ridiculously expensive countertops to arrive toward the end of next week. At the moment they're rebuilding the back door frame to accommodate the door I refinished a while back.  Considering how remarkably out of square that door opening is, it will be interesting to see how they manage that.  I also ordered a tandem brake cable and some cable stops to see if I can rig up the antique exhaust fan since the original pull chain won't work due to the new cabinet that is now underneath it.  I expect that the final contrivance that I devise for this would make Rube Goldberg proud.