On mountain bikes and cold weather riding

Brian from the BCC was kind enough to give me his old Rocky Mountain on the condition that I never return it. I have been told that if I want to get rid of it I should have it stolen. This invites the curious experiment, if I leave it unlocked at the corner of Bay and Richmond (where my office is) how long until it disappears.

Maybe after the current survey is over I will run a query: how long until a bike gets stolen, 5mins, 10mins, etc., and then see what the correct answer is. Okay, I will not be doing that. It was a very nice thing Brian did and more to the point, much as I dislike mountain bikes, that Rocky Mountain sure beats walking. And yes I am still waiting for my Coppi.

In any case, escaping the cold sure is hard, no matter how many layers I put on, the cold gets to me. Today was minus seven or eight but with the wind I am sure the nitrogen was condensing on my leading edges.

In other news I have been sending my resume out, in a quest for part time work. I printed a picture of the Specialized Transition I want and now every time I look at the picture of Lesley by my monitor there is that Transition. I am a bad influence on myself. At one point I got so depressed that I actually Googled "work from home" holy smokes are all those scams legal? I mean, sheesh, if you apply for a job you should be paid, you should not have to pay to get started.

I decided to sell all my old skate stuff, lets face what is now a pretty obvious fact, I am not a skater, never really was. I thought I was, I thought I liked it, truth was I had forgotten how much fun a good bike is. While I can understand that some people really like skating, are even passionate about it, and good for them, that's just not my cup of tea. I wonder why I stopped riding, oh yeah, I met Lesley.

The shame is I should not have stopped riding, I would probably be winning races now if I had stayed on the saddle, oh well, hindsight is 20/20.

At least I can do one thing, starting in April there will be a Beaches Cycle Club Saturday morning ride. I will be running the ride, I volunteered some time ago. It was my intention to run just a introduction to road riding, but me being as in love with cycling as I am, I have decided to expand the offering. The beginners will start with a 40 or 50km loop around the city with a 9am start time. Keener's, like me, can come out earlier and do a double loop, i.e. 80 to 100km, 40 to 50 as a hammerfeast and then throttle it back for the beginners. I am going to try to make that second loop a really welcoming environment with lots of constructive feedback. I may not be the next Fausto Coppi, but damn it sure would be cool if I was a coach of the next Coppi.

A final aside for the day, I was trying to get the spelling right for Fausto, so I Googled Coppi, check out the line above, it is this one here too, now that steel frame is old school... duh! (Its from the 1950s!)