Inducing Laziness

Lazy weekend afternoons are some of my favorite times. But when it’s such a nice day out there, like today, 65 and sunny, it doesn’t feel quite right to lounge in a bubble bath while boiling a pot of beans on the stove and then hit the couch for an after lunch TV nap. However, if you start the day by running for 2.5 hours through the Arroyo and get to say hello to all the other runners out there and all the plants, too, then it seems quite nice. A couple hours of recovery goes a long way. And I’ve still got the late afternoon sunlight to ride around in and enjoy. Maybe I’ll take out the fixie - haven’t ridden it in a while.

The Rivendell Reader

For those of you out there who are interested in the bicycle, I just wanted to spread the word that the most recent issue of the leaflet (first in about a year) is now available from Rivendell. Here is the PDF(!!!) link:
http://www.rivbike.com/assets/payloads/203/original_RR42_200dpi.pdf

Rain Windows

Watching the online weather radar and forecast and (the actual!) sky while simultaneously listening for rumbling thunder in the distance and hoping for more of those beautiful sunbursts, I’ve managed to calculate in a few jaunts out into the world without getting soaked. I don’t particularly mind getting soaked – I kind of like it once there’s nothing to be done about it, but it’s particularly challenging for me to get out the door when it’s wet out there and dry in here. I start having thoughts like:

“Well, I could drive to the grocery store… I don’t know, is it worth driving 2.67 miles (roundtrip) just to get some bread? I probably have enough food for the rest of the day… Yeah, but it’s forecast to rain for the next three days straight. What are you going to eat then? … Who says I have to eat? Maybe I’ll fast until the weekend. Maybe I’ll just eat fallen Sycamore leaves and the earthworms that are drowning in all the puddles outside…”

So, yes, the sunbursts are much appreciated.

wax my chain

If you’re looking for an alternative method for cleaning your bicycle chain and you just happen to have some extra paraffin wax lying around because you’ve been making candles at home, try melting some of that wax and dipping your chain in it. The wax is hot and sticky so it binds to all the old grease and grit particles. The wax starts out clear and ends up black so it must be cleaning something off of the chain. Most of the excess wax drips off the chain when you pull it out of the hot-wax-bath but whatever remains will cool quickly and then it can be worked off by shimmying the chain around or ridden off fairly quickly – within several miles. Don’t forget to re-oil your chain when you’re done.

And while you’ve got your bike disassembled you might as well clean and re-grease you bottom bracket, too. I’d never done this before. It’s pretty fun when your friend has all the right tools.

Totally Eighties is totally clean and happy.

running dream

I went running through the Arroyo yesterday. It’s a nice corridor of naturalized landscape to spend time in, think, hang out with the Sycamores… My subconscious must have liked the run because it brought it back into my dreams last night:

(I was running on a long trail, a “race.” At one point, about halfway through the run it got super windy. I had to lie down on the trail to avoid the gusts. I held on to a small alpine-stunted Ponderosa pine for extra stability. Then some race volunteers came over to me and they were like, “it’s fine, you can get up, it’s not that windy…” So I tried and they were right. I could keep on.)

Interesting, because on the actual run yesterday I was thinking that I don’t really need races. If I want to go run X number of miles somewhere I can just go do it by myself for free. I’m not going to use $40 worth of energy drink and pretzels. But, maybe this dream tells me more about their deeper value. The people at the races, volunteers and runners, are all there to support each other and act, in some sense, like a team – challenging, guiding, allowing, encouraging, helping each other to do well at this one little part of life… and maybe that seeps into other parts as well.