Winter's Here

And about darn time, sez I.

After a leisurely breakfast, I rode over to the Union Project for I Made It. Of course, being an utter doofus, I neglected to bring the key for my U-lock, so ended up sharing a chain with a gentleman named Rob. Convenient? No, but far better than relying on the combination-locked cable I keep in my bag for emergency locking purposes; said cable lock could probably be cut with a set of nail clippers in a minute flat, much less real tools.

Anyway, my theft-prophylaxis maunderings aside, it was grey, cold, windy, and flurrying snow all afternoon. I loved it. Aside from slightly chilled toes (road spray soaked through the shoes), I pretty much nailed the wardrobe requirements for comfort on and off the bike; never got too hot, or too cold, even if some of the combinations were of dubious quality, vis-a-vis that whole fashion thing.

I'm still rolling on the Vittoria Randonneurs; they did fine in this weather, but I'm starting to think it may be time to break out the 'cross tires, if not bite the bullet and go right to the studs. I also really need to put a darn mudflap on the front fender, to cut back the tire spray on my feet. Note that I've been planning to do that mudflap since I got the Bianchi; I'm starting to feel like the proverbial deep-woods Appalachian denizen with a hole in his roof: "When it ain't rainin', the roof don' leak; when it's rainin', I cain't fix it nohow."

Upcoming plans for the winter: I need to tear down and rebuild the P-38, as it's in pretty sad shape after a hard season of rando abuse. The old Rocket needs to be componentized , cleaned, and stored, until I get around to rebuilding it as some form of urban assault 'bent. I need to start thinking about some form of half-arsed training plan(should work with Mayhew), as I still intend to take a serious crack at a 12-hour race next spring. Oh, yeah, and I need to nail down routes for the Pittsburgh Randonneurs brevet series. And get around to some long-overdue WPW website work. And...