Tag: panda portrait

Commitment

There is nothing like a monetary commitment, skin in the game, to keep you focused on the target.  Aside from the myriad  of bureaucratic and general business expenses there are the specific costs, engineering, prototypes, testing etc.  Each new cost is another step to the center of the ring.  Today I signed up for my first Expo, Philly Bike Expo October 27 & 28 to be exact.  The check is in the envelope and on the way, locked in, I need to get busy so I have something to show.

My post office rides seem to always fall on stormy days.  Today is supposed to be a rain day according to the weather man, but it looks like a miss.  I am not sure there is going to be any rain this year, the hills never turned green and things are all brown and crispy before spring has even shown up.  It is going to be an interesting year in the coastal desert, where easy access to fresh water is often taken for granted.

It was good to get outside for a break though, and a quick trip to roll past the ocean.

As a side note, I am loving the new/old pedals.  I need to get a deeper set of half clips fabbed up, but outside of that, they are sublime for riding around town, even in Birkenstocks.

Timing and Surf

I have spent over two-thirds of my life as a surfer, and never thought that life would get to busy to make time to get into the water.  The last few years have proven that wrong in a big way.  Looking back it is hard to figure out exactly what changed.  The biggest thing with surfing is the need to be completely flexible in timing so that when the swell, wind, tide and free time all converge it becomes the obvious choice.  It seems that finding that convergence, or making it happen, is harder than it used to be for some reason, even living about two blocks from the beach.  At least there has been a bit of a replacement with the bike.  I get the glide, and the benefit of transportation, and the convenience of the bike being there when I want.  I still miss getting in the water.

Today the swell was good, really good, but the wind was howling, and the choice of getting out for a bit at lunch fell back to the bike, not a bad thing at all in the big picture.

Radio Silence Ending

It has been a long 10 days or so in the household.  One of the widely known fringe benefits of childcare, the germs, hit hard.  We have been adapting to the low level persisting cold bug over the last couple of months, but this one wiped us all out.  Fevers all around, like  dominoes we all had are turn, I even got my chance twice.  We are all on the upswing now and finally am catching up on last week, getting this week going and working in a few surprise developments.  I wrapped up the day with a trip to the post office,

Then it was off to get the munchikin, who brought the party home and was first to feel better.

We headed off to meet mommy at the beach before heading home.

Really a fantastic way to cap off the day.  We are all looking forward to a more productive week.

Regular posting and bike news to follow.

Another Fantastic Day

To get outside and run some errands by bike

Nothing extraordinary, just more fun than the car, easier too.  One thing of note, is loading up the Wald basket with 20lbs of stuff.  The Wald factory hardware is lacking in so many ways it could and might be its own post someday.  That said, it was actually passable for the ride home.  Nowhere as nice as when mounted to a solid stiff rack, but with a little attention, the handling was still leaps and bounds better than my bikes with high trail front end geometries.  Putting this old Trek together was one of the better ideas I had last year.