March riding
March miles: 206.1
Percentage of monthly goal: 123%
2009 miles: 641
Percentage of annual goal so far: 32%
Well, I’m a quarter of the way through the year and about a third of the way to my goal. Pretty pleasing.
I rode much, much less than I wanted to during March. (I had to go out for a ride on the last night of the month just to crack 200.) There were the (for me) pretty standard mechanical difficulties. I say “standard” and “for me” because I still haven’t gotten over the whole “tinkering with the commuter” thing. This would be tantamount to deciding on Sunday evening to put a puffer on the Civic that you take to work every day. Needless to say, it ends up with the bike in more pieces than it would ideally be on a lot of mornings. There was also a certain amount of work angst that lead to either late nights or martinis, both of which make riding in the morning pretty unappealing. That seems to be clearing up, though, so no more excuses.
Well, except for the whole “while attempting to fix my bike, I’ve pretty well destroyed it” part. A few weeks ago I broke a pedal. In replacing it, I broke the crank arm it was attached to. In replacing that I ruined my bottom bracket. Got a new one in place there, and now the replacement crankset — which, admittedly, is very very cheap — is warped beyond recognition and hitting the chainstay with each and every revolution. So, yeah.
I’m damn, damn close on the Bridgestone restoration I’ve been working on since last year. The frame is out at the powedercoat shop right now and should be done by tomorrow. When I get that back, I’m pretty sure I have all the parts I need to put together a really nice weekend bike, so I can ride that while the commuter is dead. All there is to it is assembling a bike from parts. Which I’ve never done before. But I have a copy of Zinn and Sheldon’s always there on the internets. What could go wrong?
The riding highlight of the month was, without question, a bike camping trip with Fletcher’s scout troop. Glenn Trail Camp is an amazing place to camp. It’s ~6.5 miles up a road where only handicapped fishermen can drive. The camp is huge, usually empty, (on account of having to bike there, which most people for whatever reason won’t do) and immaculate. After we got to camp, the boys did another quick five mile ride up and down the trail (for a requirement for the cycling merit badge) and Stephanie and I got to tool around without our bikes loaded, which was wonderfully relaxing.
I’m really interested in doing some more bike camping. You can get away from civilization quickly, and camping just with your own group in the middle of nowhere is infinitely better than camping next to 30 people’s parked cars. Anybody interested in joining me?
