last night played some poker, and had a terrible night doing so, but afterwards i hopped on my noble steed and that cross-center city ride at late night with no cars is quickly becoming one of my favorite things, fixed me up good (pun intended)

i rode just to pick up some groceries and ended up running into a friend i havent see in years. so it was a great outing in that respect.

A thunderstorm finally rolled into Chicago and it's pouring with gusts of wind. I've opened up my office windows and am watching my cats enjoy the breeze.

Considering that Chicago hasn't had proper rain this summer at all (save for two piss poor days), it's a good reason to celebrate.

Palmers on the west bank has huge shots of Jameson or Bushmills for $3.75. Sat nights - 16-18mph drinking mostly road/paved trail ride until all hours of the night. Meet at the Dinkytown McDonalds 9-9:30pm, try to roll by 10pm. We're all degenerates, well most of us. Lights are a good thing - not enough people have been bringing them lately.

I wonder if that's the same system that woke me up here at 5am?

One of the more recent reasons I like to ride lower Wacker at night.

Uhh...I went bowling, came home, won the Trek contest (Peak Bar!), and when I woke up, found that someone had replied to my Craigslist wanted ad with possibly a perfect bike for my conversion!

I believe it is. It's mellowed out now and cleared. I wish it'd rain all day though. It did bring the temps down from 97 to 78 though. At least for now. I hate post-rain humidity.

Wasnt that rad! My dog loves the rain, so we just took a little stroll. I kinda felt like a child playing in the rain, and anytime I feel like a child I like it.

i shouldn't be surprised that palmers has the tall shots. that's a bar that doesn't mess around.

i've got a little degenerate in me (take that as you will); i'll have to try and make it out there one of these saturday nights.

and i just scored some cheap lights at bikemasters in st. louis park for super cheap, in keeping with the positive nature of this sweet thread.

seems like there's lots of chicagoans on here. i kind of miss living there. the iro will be in full force in east village on friday august 12th, though. looking forward to riding daly's streets once again.

Not last night but tonight.

Got home the usual time, skipped out on the usual Wed. night mtn. bike ride 'cause the rest of the group is rather finicky about weather (Mountain bikers!?), and surely no one was going to venture out in triple-digit temps to suffer in the dirt, and I didn't feel like riding solo.

'Bout 7:30 or so it finally cooled down to within human temperature (i.e. no longer in the triple-digits) so I hopped on the bike and cruised out to grab a burrito and a tall cool horchata. Sat on the bench outside the walk-up burrito stand and listened to some dude's music blasting from a truck parked nearby. Normally that pisses me off, but he was listening to Johnny Cash which is ok by me. Called a friend shortly after finishing my burrito to find out that he was gonna be heading out to check out open mic night at a local bar in a bit with his brother (also a friend). Had an hour or so to kill, f*-all to do, and didn't feel like going back home to suffer in non-air-conditioned home, so I killed time practicing trackstands (wrong-footed, which I'm getting much better at. no handed, which I can do pretty well on smooth, flat ground with the favored foot. not so well with the wrong foot.) and backwards circles (which I still can't pull off.), in a nearby, empty parking lot.

Returned home to shower before heading back out (You know it's hot out when you don't even turn on the "hot" spout and 15 minutes later the shower is still comfortably cool as opposed to too damn cold.), changed into my finest posenger attire (i.e. whatever was clean) and rolled back downtown to check out open mic. Mostly mediocre music, but good company. Couple beers later I'm back at home and surfing the web, waiting for the window a/c unit in my bedroom to cool the room to somewhere near a tolerable sleeping temperature.

-Trevor

Umm (h)orchata and burritos sound good even better with some pie afterwords huh?

Today I strapped a spare wheel on to my bag and rode it to the bike shop to get it respoked. At somepoint I should buy a stand and figure out how to true and build my own wheels, but I haven't had the money (yeah, silly reason) or the time (even worse reason) recently. At the shop I caught more grief, some gear I ordered a month ago was supposed to be, but it's still no there. I can safely say this was the worst part of my day.

After that I rode over to the Robinson hill, the biggest, and only, hill around here and hit it a couple of times. I miss the hills back home and can't wait to be back in school in September.

A few hours ago I took out a bottle of rye whiskey, clipped my blinky to my belt loop and did some loops around the oval, then headed over to my friends house for a beer and some chat. Riding home was good, and I sat in the middle of the street practicing my nohanded trackstands for a while, much to the amuesment of the alley cat.

Right now I'm pretty interested in getting my shower working, but I'm even more interested in fixing my toeclip which was bent when I clipped it on a lane divider while hotdogging through a parking lot.

Yesterday I got up early. I had heard tell that there was a nice '77 Raleigh Grand Prix mixte without a home, and I just wasn't about to stand for that.

Despite the fact that it was humid as a fat man's crack, and neigh on 100F, I hopped on my bike, and rode the 5 miles to the Raleigh's location. I was dripping with sweat, and everyone was looking at me as if to say, "Did he just ride here on that bike? Is he getting another bike? How is he going to get that bike home?!?" After spending 20 minutes in the sun trying to tie the bike to the other bike to tow it, and failing every time, I just grabbed the stem with my left hand, and controlled my bike with my right hand, and ghosted the thing home.

At one point, cruising along at about 15mph I came upon a dead fox in the road. With no space to move myself and the other bike around the fox in either direction, I straddled my weight between the two bikes, canting them both inwards. Then as we approached the fox, I veered the ghost bike left, and my bike right. I was left dangling over the fox's decaying body, my weight split between the bikes, as the contraption flew past the fox, just missing both the head and the tail. On the other side I brought them side by side again, and resumed my normal riding position. Then I lamented about the fact that I felt totally hardcore for having made that manueuver, when everyone watching probably just thought I was drunk and couldn't ride properly.

Then I cleaned it up, took it for a test ride, and nearly passed out from the heat. Then, not to be defeated, I pulled myself together, and cleaned the basement. It was a huge mess, and is now very nice! It took hours and hours. I screwed a bunch of hooks in the ceiling so I could hang up the bikes, and now, with all the extra space (I probably quadrupled the floor space), I'm thinking, "Boy, now I've got room for all KINDS more bikes!" Dangerous thoughts...

Then I spraypainted an art-bike's chain red. No good for efficiency, lots of fun for appearances.

peace,
sam

Last night I was asked by my wife to spend some quality time with my 1 1/2 year old. So I brought him out front and watched him run around. He didn't stay in one place so it became more of a hassle than quality time.
I deceided it was a bad idea and winged him back into the house. My wife let me know that was rude to do and she wasn't happy that I gave up so fast. I reminded her that he was a small nightmare. My reason for living was not to be mentally toutured by this small child. This went over like a ton of bricks.
So everyone was mad at me and left me alone. It was really what I wanted so my evening was enjoyable.

Tony

I rode in to work today. It's about 20-25 hilly miles and it took a little less than an hour and a half, which is only 20 or 30 minutes more than it takes me by car. I have access to a gym with showers at work, and you'd better believe I took advantage of that today. I'd say this is just about the best morning at work ever. Plus there's going to be veggie Mexican food for lunch. Mmm...

I finally picked up a new frame two days ago that I had been talking to a guy for a week about (late 80's pogliaghi with campy headset/bb, galli cranks) so I got a little tipsy two nights ago and switched over most of my components from my conversion to the new frame, spent the rest of the night with my ladyfriend, got an hour of sleep, slept through the alarm and then said **** it i'm gonna go finish this thing. Headed to trackstar, got a gorgeous new stem (its shiny that's all i can say) and sugino chainring, and then took a great ride up to work.

Spent the rest of the night after work just riding around and loving life. Finally figured out how to really skid and made it four car lengths.

Bikes kick ass. Anybody have any suggestions for a second color for a really dark battleship gray frame? I was thinking hunter orange or neon green

i'll be the first to go on record as being officially jealous. Where do you work? (I don't live in your town, so I guess I'm just asking what kind of job it is)

Last night I left work early and headed to me sister's house to see my brother and his wife. She's leaving in a few days for Japan, and is already in Chicago for orientation. They had to leave early, so I left and went out on the trails.

Shortly after the ride started I ran into 20 kids on all kinds of bikes that looked like they were out on a drinking ride. Not a single one had a light Later I finally found one trail I'd wanted to ride for a long time going down into Ft. Snelling, and it turned out to be really dark and bad asphalt. Then I went down some dirt paths and got eaten by mosquitos by the river. After finally finding the place I'd decided would be the turn-around point, I decided to find a better way out.

I went by the visitor's center and startled a family of racoons. Those things can HISS! There was either a super steep trail or a bunch of stairs, so I took the stairs. At the top was a little wood bench/rest area thingy, and a guy in his 50s rolling up little green cigarettes. He'd ridden down there as well. We talked bikes for a bit, then he showed me the nice new trail that isn't on my map with brand new asphalt and lots of light. He was riding really slow and stopping on the uphills, blaming his chain. It sounded pretty loud, so I don't know if he was just making excuses or what.

I got back most of the way to my house, running down a straight road with no cars for about 5 miles after leaving the trails before I realized my helmet was sitting on the bench. I turned around and rode back to it, then rode the nice trail back towards home again. I think it's going to be a new favorite late night trail for me, and I can't wait to find out where it goes after the point where I stopped...

woke up.
watched le Tour from my couch.
biked downtown/campus ann arbor (this major art fair is going on...roads closed off...some cool stuff, like a life-sized bear made of nails. some crazy stuff, like its 22K price tag. lots of nice photography and kitchy lawn ornaments.)
hooked up with some friends and took in the march of the penguins (stunning. those emperor penguins know way more about the ties that bind than i).
housemate and i hosted a hold'em game at our place. good people good times. (i cleaned out said housemate KK v AK and TT v AJ, but we go back and forth. he's better than i, cause he cares more) final two were me and the guy who came on a whim and it was his first home game of holdem. it was awesome--i was kinda hoping he'd win, just for f's sake.
after the game was over, we all got high and talked about molecular biology and brain machine interfaces and trees and fish and rain and canoeing and language and art and toxic waste and resource depletion and then rain some more. (not bikes )
and then i read a while.
stumbled to bed.
read a new email from a beautiful person i haven't seen in a while.
fell asleep happy.

Last night I realised on my ride looking up at the full, orange moon, that I'm younger than People 5 years younger. I am not dead on a couch lit by a TV screen.

Oh and the cutie girl called me back!

I rode into work yesterday, like every day. After work, I rode home, stopped at Recycle a Bicycle for volunteer night and worked on bikes for 2 hours while chatting with other bike-minded folks. Around 9:00pm I left and rode home with another guy - both of us on brakeless Gitane track bikes - we rode together for about 2 miles at a leisurely pace talking about old bikes, New York, etc... It was a great night, not humid, not too much traffic and smooth pavement for the last mile.

I turned off at my street, went home, watched the Tour and ate some dinner before turning in early. Great day.

you guys are great.

last night i cleaned up my track bike from its 200+ mile road ride over the previous weekend. i repacked the headset, which had gotten a little gritty. then i cleaned the chain (the park cyclone is a decent tool but using it on a fixed gear machine is a job), filed out the drive-side track end so the chain tug would work better, removed the front brake and swapped back the other track drops. my baby! my white bike! yes, the velo, we're going to the velo! i imagine my track bike feels the same way about going to the velodrome as my dog feels about going to the woods.

After a dinner of eggplant parm and a short nap, I rode downtown with 3 lovely ladies (including my wife) for some coffee and ice cream. Wonderfully low humidity for a change! On the way home, I learned to skid with my opposite foot foward. Then read the new Harry Potter until I fell asleep.

Happy Friday morning.

I'm a software guy at a trading company, though I still have one year left of my loooong 5 year degree program before I become an "official" employee.

I'm jealous / in awe of cicadashell. I read the blog about the ride and it sounded like a great (even if difficult) time.

Riding home through some deadlocked rush hour traffic is even more fun than people usually say. I was on the verge of laughing just weaving through all of the stopped cars. Then again, maybe I was a getting a bit delirious due to the heat plus all of the heat coming off of the cars. But I made it home all right and my lady friend came over with all of the ingredients to make a delcious vegan curry recipe provided to me by someone on the forums. I'd say I ate about 8 pounds of curry last night.