Now With Pictures!

Yep, got me a nice raspberry today. Well, that's the motorcycle term for roadrash (pretty sure that's a motorcycle term, too), but am going to delay explaining how exactly I got nice and bloodied for as long as possible, because it's just that lame a story. In the meantime, revel in my gory glory!

I ended my day with some spicy eggdrop soup, which I made myself (I'm trying to brag here, ya mind?). Turned out to be perfect for ending a night of riding around in shorts and tee-shirt at about thirty or forty degrees. The saltiness of the broth and the protein in the eggs was darn near perfect, but what really did the job was when I added the Sriracha! For those of you who don't know what pure delicious fire tastes like, it comes in a bottle and can be found in just about any asian restaurant. And it glows red and for some reason has a rooster and a bunch of Chinese (?) characters on it. The Chinese makes sense; it's the rooster that sticks out as weird. I digress; just know that you should google search "eggdrop soup" and follow the first one that pops up, but add sriracha. Nothin beats breathing fire after freezing to death.

Hey, awesome link: http://blog.thesrirachacookbook.com/post/1535833396/sriracha-food-group-food-pyramid

Side note: I tried adding wasabi and extra ginger, but neither worked like sriracha and soy sauce (thank you fiancee for the soy sauce idea).

I had weaved around rush-hour traffic to get to the only coffee shop in town that is not a Starbucks. I'll rant about Starbucks, but suffice to say: they're evil. Really, it was a chance to use up my punch card's free drink and reestablish my ability to ride a damn bike, after having fallen. I had basically given up for the day, worn out earlier than I was expecting, and discouraged by an unbelievably cold and strong wind. Really, I'm pretty sure I was riding in an outdoor wind-tunnel in Antarctica. Like that image? I do. Took me a while to come up with it, though. Not proud of that. But, long story short, I had to man-up after having wussed out earlier.

...

No way around it; I fell, with one foot still attached to my bike. I misjudged the slope of the parking lot as I was dismounting, and my weight was on the right while my left foot was the one actually detached. Hilarity ensues, and I get up with some nice scrapes to lie about for a week or so.

I fought a bear.

I was jumping off a cliff.

I attempted to fly.

I stopped a robbery.

Anything other than I fell off my bicycle and skinned my knee.

Thank's for Riding

So yeah, It's been a good 2+ months since my last post. This is how blogs go with me; I write a lot, then gradually lose interest of just plain forget about it. Happened to my writing blog. Happened to my other writing blog, and darn near happened to this blog, too. Fortunately I have a fiancee that bugs me into doing stuff that's good for me. Also fortunately, I had a fairly eventful day of cycling.

After having bought my bike, Vigdis (a Surly Cross-Check), I immediately started thinking of what to upgrade first. After having to deal with the weird knobbiness/non-knobbiness of the stock tires that came with the bike (I accept that, being what is effectively a high-end hybrid, Vigdis and her finer points will be exceptional at nothing, but still people!), I upgraded the tires to WTB's CrossWolf tires. So far, they're fantastic on wet grass, which is weird, of all things to excel at, but whatever. I no longer fear taking those sharp, low-angle turns because these new tires have a nice, consistent oh my God is this boring! New topic:

I got clipless pedals today. For those of you who don't know what those are (I didn't until like six months ago, so no judgments here), essentially, you attach your feet to the pedals, such that you cannot accidentally take them out. I rode with a mild fear of turtling (picture two wheels in the air and me upside down on the pavement -- oo! better yet, picture those fainting goats but riding bikes), but luckily i only looked like I had special needs a few times today.

Really, the cool thing is that you can power through on the upstroke when you're pedaling, so yay for efficiency! It's pretty cool dropping into pedaling beast-mode at any given moment, completely burning out your (my) legs and rotating which muscles to use and which to rest at any given moment. I'm getting that much closer to cyborg!

It's not exactly a life-goal, but still, it'd be neat to be a cyborg.

I was on my way back from the only coffee shop in town that's not a starbucks, weaving aroung some amazing holiday traffic, surrounded by cars at a stoplight (Conway sucks, that's all there is to it; it's a town with ten times as much traffic as there is to justify it). But, the car next to me, the passenger rolled down his window and said "thanks for biking!"

Merry Christmas, you commuters out there; we are appreciated!