Flat Fun...

Note: This all transpired yesterday morning as I was prepping to leave for work.

Having said that. It was a cooler morning so I decided to check the air pressure in my tires before heading out for my morning ride to the transit station. I usually need to leave the house by 4:30 in order to bike to the station, lock up the bike and get in line for the bus. So, at 4:15 I locked the front door and headed into the garage. When I checked the pressure in the front tire, it was as I had suspected, a little low so I pumped her up, checked again and moved to the rear tire. It too was a little low so I pumped it up as well. However, I could NOT remove the pump from the stem to save my life! At first I just thought it was a little stuck (like you can be a little pregnant...right?), anyway, I pulled and pulled, yelled at it to "LET GO!", cursed loudly, watched the time tick by and also, to my dismay, watched a tiny bit of the tube pop through the stem hole. I had pulled too hard. Too much vigor. Too much anger. This is not good, I thought to myself. Then it appeared. A tiny bubble...and it started to grow and within a minute my tire had blown! Shit! Thankfully my car DID start and I was able to drive to the transit station to catch the bus (it's been forever since I've driven my car so I wasn't too sure it would turn over).

(click for biggerness!)

(Scene change....Later in the day after work...)

Let me further explain, I had yet,up until this point, ever fixed my own flat on my own bike. So I thought about this all day at work. I knew I wanted to try and fix it myself, be self sufficient, etc, etc. I also knew that I would need to remove the wheel to do it, further more the real wheel, which meant I would need to deal with the chain and the derailleur. Oooo scary!

After getting home from work I changed out of my clothes and into sweats and headed out to the garage. After a good long look at the rear wheel and replaying in my head everything I had read earlier in the day online about how to remove the wheel, handle the chain and fix a flat, I dug in. Got the wheel off, laid the bike down on it's left side to protect the derailleur and proceeded to remove the tire from the wheel in order to extract the tube. After 20-30 minutes of hand greasy fun I was finished, wheel on, pumped up to 40 lbs (all we could do with our little hand pump). Feeling mighty proud of myself and looking at my WHOLE bike all put back together we find an extra part on the garage floor! Shit! Shit! Well, I don't know where it goes, don't remember it even being on there...but what the hell!...I have David load up the bike onto the back of the car and drive me to the bike shop. There he (aka the bike guy at the shop) looks at my bike, looks at the part and says it doesn't come from a bike at all (later we discover it's part of our garage door...who knew?). The bike guy said I did a great job and pumped up my tire the rest of the way to 80lbs for me and we left on our way. I gave her a test spin when I got home, it held! Again, I am super proud of me!! However...still can't get all the grease off...

Until later...Peace out!

Headwinds!!...and shoulderwinds...legwinds...and hills

Yesterday, instead of packing the steeds up for a ride through St.Paul or Minneapolis, we decided the starting line would be home sweet home. Aaron drove his truck over with trusty bike in back about 9:15 am. We were still getting ready but all in all just about set. After much prepping, water bottle filling, air pressure checking, setting the crock pot full of “after biking chili” to simmer and the ever layering of clothing we were good to go.

We set out about 9:45 and headed out. Made a quick stop a couple miles away at Eriks bike shop for a map and ear warmers...we are heading into our first winter biking and we realized quickly that the ears get cold quickly!

After much window shopping we picked up a map, ear warmers and a mirror for D's bike. We have been wanting a mirror so that he can see me pulling up the rear as we ride since I generally follow last to make sure we don't lose anyone. Oh…and Aaron bought me a pink bell for my bike....thanks Aaron! We MUST spread the zen!

It was a really pretty day and we didn't have a path set in stone, we were just riding. Had a general idea of where we wanted to end up but the getting there was completely random. Matthew had a party to get to at 2:00pm on Palamino drive so we needed to work our way in that direction around the 2pm(ish) time frame so that we could drop him and his bike off there for some good ole' 12 year old boy video gaming fun.

It was a very very windy day and no matter which way we turned it seemed we were riding into the wind. This made hill climbing even more of an adventure…and there were lots and lots of hills. I became a raging bitch about 1:45(ish) as I had hit my wall. We hadn’t taken a significant break all day and had gone about 22 miles. The Raisin Bran I had had about 8:30am in the morning had long since worn off and frankly, I’d crested my last hill as far as I was concerned! After a good 7 minute sulk alone along side of the road, I saddled back up and met the boys further down out front of Falcon Ridge Middle School. We were closing in on our destination, Matthew was getting really jazzed up about making it to his buddy Joes’ party soon and all I could think of was “there is a “Kwik Trip” at the end of Palmino drive…they have HOT DOGS and GAS STATION FOODS!!” I was a woman possessed!

Sweatin'

One hour Sweatin' to the Oldies and I feel great! Really didn't feel like doing it when I got home. Left work shortly after 3pm today (went in this morning at 4:30). David picked me up...WOOT "Princess Parking" for me today! We headed home then took a detour around Cedar to see if we could find the bike bridge that crosses the river. I think we did finally find it but will have to check it out on our bikes this weekend to see if it goes all the way across.

After that we headed to pick Bethany up from school as she stayed late to work with her team on a project they wanted to finish. By the time we got home it was 5pm and my thrill to work out had diminished =) Well, I decided to bite the bullet and do it (it helped that I had a caramel for a quick pre-workout pick me up).

Did one hour with Richard and now I feel great

Well time to destress and relax then eat some dinner, head to bed...then rinse repeat tomorrow =)

Toodle-oo!

Out and About

Parked the car in St. Paul today across the street from the FORD plant, rode to the University of Minnesota, biked around the campus and in to Dinky Town. Then we headed from there down and across the Stone Arch Bridge into Downtown Minneapolis. Continued on in to Midtown and hopped onto the Midtown Greenway for a bit then headed to a little coffee / sandwhich shop called the Birchwood Cafe somewhere around 25th street and 33rd avenue for a bit of lunch (VERY good). After some nourishment we headed to our friends Tammy's house to patronize her garage sale and after spending a few hard earned dollars (and loading down David's bike to the point of almost calling him Jed Clampett) we headed back in the direction of St. Paul.

A gorgeous day of riding...10:00am till roughly 3:30 and saw tons of locals sites. Great company, our buddy Aaron came along and the three of us entertained more than a few folks along the way. Ahhh Aaron...I may not love you anymore...but I don't love you any less =)

We are going again next weekend and this time I will remember to bring the camera. The trees are FABULOUS this time of year...I hear a pictures worth a thousand words but there's a storm coming so you'll have to make do with the measly 225 words so far (I do get extra credit because a few of them are awesome links to fun places you have to see!)

Mega thanks to all the drivers who were courteous and paid attention to us bikers, it sure is nice when we can all share the roads without fearing for our lives!

23 miles of "Me Powered Greatness!
1 less car

It doesn't get any better than this!

Bits and Pieces

I was going through all our vacation photo's and do you know how sometimes you see something while your working and it just makes you laugh out loud? Well, going through these tonight I came across a picture that just made me laugh. We are going to play a little game here. Take a look at this first picture and see if you can figure out what it "is". Yes, Matthew looks like he's in a great deal of pain, but trust me, no one was injured in the making of this vacation. Here it is (Don't scroll down yet):


Can you guess what's going on?? No? Okay...here's the REAL deal =)



Here's how this all came about. We were driving and up ahead down the road out in the middle of nowhere'sville I saw this HUGE Paul Bunyan! We HAD to stop and force pictures! Matthew was not happy at all, he said Paul creeped him out. But when mom begs...she tends to get her way so pictures were taken and all was well with the world.

And, just because I think these are really cute pictures of the kids, here are some of them fishing on the doc behind our cabin:




Here are two of our Cabin, the picture on the left is one of the front of our cabin and the one on the far right is one of the kitchen window. When we first arrived we, for the life of us, could not figure out what this HOOK was doing hanging from the middle of the kitchen ceiling RIGHT at eye level. All of a sudden about 3 hours later it dawned on me, it's to hold the WINDOW open! How ingenious!! The middle picture is proof positive that my children, do indeed, have THE meanest mom in the world. Yes...houston...that is homework they are doing...on vacation!
















Well it's late and I'm tired, I have a busy day tomorrow and I really am longing for bed. Until we meet again.


Keep Riding...