Weekend Warriors

First off, sorry for the delay in communication on this front, things have been a bit hectic preparing for the arrival of a brand new human baby girl. I'll let you know the details when there are details. Also, thank you to all the folks who turned out for the Open Space plan meetings; though we were small in number, we were articulate in our demands.

If you happen to be in the Pittsburgh area and happen to tune into this little corner of internet drivel before10:30 am on Saturday, then by all means head over to Homewood for the Pedal Pale Ale Keg Ride.

2010 image from robjdlc's Flikr photostream

This week has been a whirlwind, but in between buying a bunch of baby crap and doing some "nesting" I did manage to squeak a few rides in. I hope to not let this forum devolve into mind-numbing ride reports, but since we're on the topic, I'll share a little from this evening's ride for you here. I made a break out of the house and jumped into some of this:

And this:

And then I experienced one of the most unpleasant 5 minutes on a bicycle I've ever had.

See the photo above, at the bottom of this little descent, there is a big right hand sweeping turn with that log lying sleepily across the trail? Looks innocuous, right? Well, to hop this little log, I made a quick forward movement of my weight after being over the rear wheel on the previous descent, and in the process, smacked my "crotch-tonsils" right into my seat. I forgot how hard something like this hurts. I think I went blind for a couple seconds; I felt like I had been kicked in the belly by a pack mule. I tried to wrench my intestines from out of my lungs with my bare hands just to get some relief. Thankfully, after a few minutes and a series of focused deep breathing, it passed, and I was back to this:

The rest of the ride was fairly uneventful, by which I mean that it was super fun. Hopefully in the future I'll be able to limit the contact points between me and the bicycle to the traditional three body parts of hands, feet, and seat (my own). And speaking of hands and feet, here is a video of a couple of young guns who have some small ones. If the following three minutes bore you due to the slow pace of the bicycle riding displayed, keep in mind that the featured guns for hire were ages 3 and 7 at the time of filming. Now that coconut sales are up, I am in the market for a new camera, so sometime in the very near future I might have some more video of these two that doesn't take place so far in the very distant past.

Slagheaps July 2010 from rigid bicycles on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend everyone, and to my mother: you are the most caring, loving person I have ever met; I love you more than I know how to write. Thank you for everything. Happy mothers day to all the mothers out there.