What's Wrong With This Picture?

OK, _these_ pictures

Yup, This was todays "lunchtime" ride. This is one of the hazards of riding this time of year: Things are constantly falling out of the trees. Branches up to two inches in diameter can easily be concealed by a deep covering of freshly dropped deciduous leaves. It's on of these that I found today. Some of the trails that I ride in the weir hill/half-mile hill/osgood hill conservation areas in north andover don't get alot of use, and so are sometimes heavily covered. This damage was the result of a one-inch twig that twisted up inside the chain circle, caught one of the spokes, then spun the derailleur up and around the seat stay. The reason I didn't rip off the dropout is that it's Titanium. To quote an advertisement from Merlin several years ago, (talking about their dropouts) "No one hes ever broken one of our dropouts. Not one. Ever." I know, I'm not riding a Merlin, I'm riding an Independent Fabrication, but IF is what Merlin was before they were spirited away by Litespeed, and anyone who has any knowledge of the bicycle industry in Boston will tell you that any IF is as good as - if not better than - any Merlin in the same category.

I'm not too disappointed though. This setup has served me quite well for 6 years now (Sram 9.0 ESP). Trust me, that isn't because I don't' ride this thing like a ten dollar prostitute. My philosophy is, if you didn't crash, you aren't riding hard enough. For example, check out the dent in the chainstay. Remember, this is titanium, not the most delicate material on the planet. Also look here.

I may actually have a spare crappy derailleur I can use that I bought for parts and never used. I seem to remember buying a lightly used one at a bike swap that I snagged the jokey wheels off of. If I'm lucky, it will be the 1:1 actuation ratio typ that I need.

In any case, I already ordered a new ('07, actually) Sram X.9. It will be here monday.

the end of something is the start of something else

Back from a somewhat relaxing vacation, I'm greeted with all the things I still need to get done, as well as new things that need to get done.

At least while I was away I managed some decent riding, two 60 mile rides and one 40 mile ride. Easy paces, no big hills, taking in the lovely scenery of the southern end of the white mtns. At least from that aspect, plus copious amounts of alcohol, I _did_ manage to relax.

Probably the most disconcerting of the new issues was the Blue Screen Of Death on my work laptop. I took on the trip with me because it has the polar software, plays DVDs, and had about 15 Gb of music on it. Fortunately, the failure was a known problem on that model of Dell, so my boss was rather non-nonchalant about it. Also, the big project I'm on right now uses a stand-alone network with alpha-level application-specific server software. IT won't let us hook that up to the corporate network, I can't say as I blame them.

I took the MTB to work today and rode the trails at the Osgood Hill and Weir Hill reservations after work. It isn't too tough, but fun and varied. Weir hill is a 200'hill with two trails aver the top of it. If I start at the osgood trailhead then zigzag the trails at Weir hill in both directions, I get about 12 miles, with 4 trips up the main hill. Each trip up the hill takes about three minutes at AT.

I've decided to concentrate on MTB riding for the rest of the year, just because I can, but I'll still commute on the road bike whenever possible. A ten mile road ride home, then hop on the MTB for a 15 mile ride through the trails at winnekenni should suffice.

Running is OFF for the foreseeable future. I still can't walk for extended periods without heel pain developing. Otherwise, I'd be working in running races and duathlons.

that trip to georgia was one of the most stupid things I've ever done.