It’s been a while… so I’ll just jump in.

I haven’t been on a bike in the last couple of weeks and barely at all in the last month or two. My TransIowa training is right on schedule. Last year, I trained (sort of) up until about 2 months before the ride and then, burnt out, tapered in a big bad way for the event barely riding for the 2 months leading up to Iowa. This year, I am attempting to reverse that training regiment. I have been taking it easy but it is about time to get on the bike again.

Speaking of bikes, tonight I finished re-building the gunnar as a single-speed. This was necessary since I am signed up for the single-speed class at Iowa. Big thanks for the build go to Thad, from whom I got an ENO eccentric road hub for the rear and a couple of brake-only road levers. He had the parts around not being used, and I had a need but no parts. So I owe him pretty big. Thanks also to Hennessey for some spacers to get my chainring to mount adequately without it’s bigger brother.

Today was a big Tuesday. It was both Super and Fat. For the former, I got up early this morning to cast my democratic ballot for my preferred candidate. Voting is a funny thing. Regardless of how well prepared I think I am, I always get to the (electronic, damn it) voting machine and see a larger list of candidates than I anticipated and wonder if one of the other candidates I don’t know so well better fits my beliefs and political preferences. I keep on my plan, but always going away wondering if I made the correct decision. I wonder if there has ever been that perfect candidate or a time when the correct answers were all obvious.

So lately my beer consumption has been notably improved in quality over my usual intake. This is partly due to the micro-brew of the (every other) month club my employers signed me up for and partly due to the fact that recently the local selection of beers from other regions has greatly improved (or at least distribution has). Typically, a large percentage of what I drink is admittedly swill due to the low cost and high availability. But while my consumption standards have improved, my tolerance of the swill has lowered. I wonder if this is a good path to be going down. I also wonder if my budget can handle it.

In other beer news, tonight after work, my British motor-pool buddy and I went to Bosco’s (“the Restaurant for beer lovers”) for a couple of pints (American pints, mind you). Everyday, Bosco’s taps a fresh cask of some small batch beer. Today it was Bombay IPA and it was pretty fantastic. If you have a Bosco’s in your neighborhood, I highly recommend making it a regular stop.

Furthermore, about beer, and bikes, this weekend is the Handbuilt Bicycle Show in Portland and Hennessey and I are heading that way extremely early on Friday morning. Friday afternoon we have a brewery tour planned, and we have passes into the show for Saturday and Sunday. The plan is to check out as many cool custom bikes as possible and try as many new beers as possible in the almost 3 days we will be there.

One last thing, I gave myself a haircut...

Cheers.