Changing Gears

Last Friday Kevin was kind enough to host Seth and I at his house, in order to make the drive to Fort Collins a bit more bearable for our race start of 7.30am. Plus, I offered up my services to build his shiny new bike up. Seth and I hit up a ride, ate some pasta, and then they pulled out the chairs to hang out and watch me build. It was a pretty easy build, though it still pissed me off, because when it was complete, Kevin's bike was ridiculously light, and very shiny - I was jealous. I shouldn't complain too much; my bike is shiny. But man, 14lbs. of bike for Kevin - you stomp the pedals on that thing, and it's gone!

7.30am start time means watching the sun come up from the car;

There are a lot of times when you race bikes, that you hit the first effort of the day, and you know straight away that it's not going to be a fun day. I had that sensation on Saturday. To rub the point home, the first effort of the day came all of about 500 meters into the race. I rode, it hurt, I sucked, game over.

After that debacle, it was time to change gears and to focus solely on wedding stuff. Sunday was spent doing lots of cleaning around the house, driving around Boulder to various craft stores searching for wedding stuff, and trying to take care of tying up loose ends on the wedding front.

Monday Jessica and I got up and went down to the County Records office to pick up our shiny and official wedding license. We both thought at the same time, how funny it was that they ask you point-blank, "Are the two of you brother and sister, or related on other terms?" I had to stop myself from asking, "How often do you have people ask, 'just how "related" are we allowed to be'?" It was also funny that we had to "swear an oath" that we weren't related, or already married to another. It was hard not to laugh, since again, I was wondering which demon would get our souls if we lied.

People start showing up for the wedding in a mere week... so I'm running around like madman, trying to prepare (and Jessica too!). This week is busy... but next week should make it seem like a vacation. But I will try not to complain, because it should be a blast at the same time!

Today was Bike to Work Day here in Colorado. I try to ride to work somewhat regularly, but definitely try to ride on Bike To Work Day - even though the bike paths are 10x more dangerous than normal! I used to like BTWD when I was Greeley, it was a lot of fun. Even then, not that many people would ride, but I would get up early with some friends, and take the extended way to work, hitting up several of the breakfast stations, and chatting with many of the sponsoring business owners that I knew. More than once, I even had my favorite coffee shop owner, bring a special Americano just for me, rather than the drip coffee everyone else was getting. On the other hand in Boulder, there are literally 50 breakfast stops in town, and they all seem to have long lines, and you have people that don't work, and may or may not be bums, also in line.

I always hope that getting people out for BTWD will make people realize how great the weather typically is here in Colorado, and that it really isn't that much work to commute on your bike. But they quickly forget, and go back to the car. Me, well I'm planning on taking the long way home today, since I have the cross bike, and that means I'll get to hit up some singletrack along the way.