FYBO

This weekend was the Freeze Your Balls Off scooter rally in Durham. This is the third year we've gone, and it's not aptly named for those of us who come from up north. Mid50s and sunny -- perfect for riding. Oddly this is the first year we actually brought scooters for FYBO (we've brought them for the Rumble before). I think there was some discussion of not bringing bikes, but we got the van specifically so we could. And we did, and I am so happy.

I hardly took any pictures, but here's what I did take:

This cool Dodge van was at Fullsteam where breakfast was on Saturday morning. It used to have the Peoples Temple and Pastor Jim Jones painted on it, and you can see where it was. The dude who bought it added the Koolaid picture, but the rest of it was already like it. There apparently were 11 Peoples Temple vans, and this might have been one. It still has the mid-70s inspection sticker on the front windshield, which is why no one has removed it. These are pretty cute vans (I should have taken a picture of the front of the van).

My scooter is the second one from the right, Aaron's is the third. 

I think I take a picture of the bathroom every time I visit the Casbah. There's an entire wall filled with kitty stickers and stuff. I particularly like this bloody lucky cat.

It was a great weekend. I really like Durham, so it's a blast to visit. I can't wait to go back!

Roundup

Let's do a quick weekend roundup before this week gets too out of hand.

Friday night: Aaron and I went to the gym after work. He lifted while I got my own fitness assessment and then walked a little on the treadmill. Secret: I am out of shape and the exercises to test my fitness ended up leaving me sore the next day. We stayed in Friday night because we had an early wakeup call on Saturday.

Saturday: We should have gotten up earlier, but we got up and were ready for our 11-mile run with just enough time before we had to meet someone. That was a fail -- the Towpath wasn't run-able so after 2.4 miles there, we went over to Sand Run for 6ish miles. 8.5 miles instead of 11. My pace was on target at least. We rushed home to get ready for the latest acquisition:

Yep, we bought another car -- a 2002 Jetta. It was a super deal and, obviously, Aaron knows these cars quite well. It's still shocking that we now have two German vehicles. Once Aaron gets it sorted out, it'll be nice to rack up fewer miles on the GTI.

As you can tell from the short sleeves, the weather was awesome on Saturday, so of course that meant for scooter riding! We pulled out the Sprint and the smallie for a quick jaunt to Kent. They're going to Durham this weekend, so it was nice to make sure that they were a-ok.

We couldn't stay too long (hello, Wild Earth Outfitters, where I have spent way too much money) because we had dinner plans with Aaron's dad at Bspot. I won't go into details about it because if you don't like Bspot, people think you're just being difficult. I think the restaurant is just being difficult and is overrated and overpriced. The food was decent (portion sizes were a little small for the cost), the beer list was good (nothing really unusual, but a nice mix... that was a little pricey, go figure) and the service was good (except for stupid rules like not being able to get anything as an appetizer). For my money, there are way better burgers (and I don't need a Michael Symon association to prove it). And the more I think about it, the less I like it. I can't imagine ever returning unless it's for the admittedly very good happy hour specials (that are over at 6 so obviously it's not likely that I'll ever check 'em out).

That reminds me, I should blog about the beer schools that The Rail does. (Their burgers are WAY better, btw.)

Afterward, Aaron and I caught the end of the Broncos-Ravens game <sad face> while having a microbrew at Cornerstone.

Sunday: There was talk of running, but the weather forecast said no. (We should have gone; the forecast was straight-up wrong.) Sleeping in was nice too. Then there was lunch at Earth Fare, followed by coffee, errands and whatnot. We ended the day with dinner at Baxter's (our third time there and it's getting better! AND, AND, AND! They have Hoppin' Frog's BORIS the Crusher ON TAP).

And then beer at Buffalo Wild Wings - Akron ($2 pints!).

NSP, Summed up in four pictures

The last scooter rally for 2012 was in Gettysburg over the weekend.

Googly eyes and beer bungee. Add the smell of two-stroke, dogs running around, more beer and some questionable moonshine, and you've got NSP. (I hardly took any pictures, but here's what I have.)

Weekend of ... not running!

Remember this grand plan for the week?

MONDAY: 5-mile trail run, 30-minute weights session
TUESDAY: yoga, possibly a little extra cardio
WEDNESDAY: 6-mile run with the hill from hell, 30-minute weights session
THURSDAY: run, length TBD based on when I run
FRIDAY: longish run (8-10?), maybe an extra weights session depending on timing
SATURDAY: off
SUNDAY: off

Well, it's ending up like this:

MONDAY: 5-mile trail run, 30-minute weights session
TUESDAY: yoga, 2-mile walk
WEDNESDAY: 6-mile run with the hill from hell + trail, 2-mile trail hike
THURSDAY: 40-minute weights session
FRIDAY: off
SATURDAY: off
SUNDAY: off

Yes, that's 11 miles for the week. 15 if you want to count the walking, which I don't. Oh well. Monday will be a good run day. Today's pre-work run (that wasn't going to be long anyhow) was nixed due to sleepiness. No post-work run because we have to get on the road for... a scooter rally! We didn't go to this one last year, but we went two years ago in the RV. I'm betting we're going to miss the RV this year.

 

There was also Aaron getting in trouble for this:

 

 

Lesson: Burnouts are not acceptable at this facility. Sadly the facility is lacking in two other areas: no showers (which eliminates my dreams of a nice trail run on Saturday) and no fireworks. But burning a Chinese scooter or playing Chinese scooter pinata is acceptable. 

Basically fall.

Oh, little break from blogging. It's not that I have nothing to say, it's that it feels repetitive. I run -- slowly -- and I wish I were faster. I want to ramp up my mileage. Blah, blah, blah.

Anyhow, the last day I posted anything was Sept. 11 (it's weird to post on that day and not post about the day's significance, huh?). Since then...

I ran some, including a fantastic 10-mile run on Saturday. I did a couple of solo 4-mile trail runs, which were awesome but left me with aching calves. I ran 10 miles again on Wednesday so I didn't have to worry about it tonight. It was after work, and I finished the second half faster than the first, the last three miles sub-11-minute pace and the last mile sub-10-minute pace. Good run. I ran with a friend last night.

It seems that I can only run solo on trails, but that's really all in my head, of course.

I also discovered that toe socks are the way to go for me and my left foot's toes. I bought out Dick's supply of size small Injinji, and yesterday I discovered that Injinji makes compression toe socks and ordered a pair of those. And another pair of compression sleeves.

My calves tend to be what hurts the most.

Tonight, instead of heading down to Scoot-a-Que and arriving just before the movie, we are staying in Akron. I'd like to get in 6 miles tonight or tomorrow morning before heading down to C-bus for the rally. The theme is quinceanera -- you know, like a Latina Sweet 15 party -- and I have no idea what I'm wearing. I'm guessing I won't be in theme since I haven't actually planned an outfit.

This might be our last rally of 2012, and it makes me sad. It wasn't supposed to be. In fact, there are two we are supposed to be going to, but because of Aaron's work, we can't. Well, I don't know for sure that we'll miss NSP, but given the fact that it's five hours away and Aaron can't get off work until 5 and we probably wouldn't be able to leave until 7 AND it's a camping rally.

I'm just not seeing it happening, but I'm not going to call it quite yet.

(If we don't go, I might run the Towpath 10k -- not the half-marathon because I swore I was done with long races for 2012. It's $45, though, and I'm not sure it's worth the money -- although I still haven't done a 10k in under an hour and this might be the perfect one.)

In any case, it's Friday and I'm happy about that. I'll just the fall work itself out.

Pittsburgh/Corsette/Band Camp

So much to say, but little desire to write it out and tell the story again. I'll use lots of pictures instead.

Spoiler alert: I was a DNF for the Corsette.

Let's backtrack. Wednesday, Aaron and I got up as early as we could and set out for a six-mile run. After loading up the van - WITH SCOOTERS FOR THE FIRST TIME - we headed to Pittsburgh for the night.

We arrived at Kat's and immediately headed out for dinner and a couple of beers. Luckily we happened upon a free Belgian beer tasting as well. 

And met the cutest, silly dog at a barber shop!

But because she had to work and we had a race to get to, we called it an early night after having a couple of beers on the patio. It got chilly.

We got up early and headed to Seema's for the race. After fueling up the bikes and ourselves, we got ready to tackle 360 miles on smallframe Vespas.

About 40 miles into the race, my bike soft-seized on me. Normally this wouldn't be that big of a deal and I would have tried to finish the race. Unfortunately, the girl who was behind me (to the far right in the above group shot) apparently panicked and ended up locking up the rear tire on her Stella (she was touring the race because her smallie wasn't ready). The bike fishtailed like crazy according to the car behind her. She couldn't catch it, and she went down, hard. 

Long story, short: She was life-flighted to Pittsburgh. Aaron came to get me and my smallie, and we loaded up and headed to Pittsburgh to hopefully get her and take her to the overnight spot during the Corsette. She ended up with three broken ribs, a cracked scapula, a concussion and some road rash and bruising. THANK GOD FOR HELMETS. Her helmet was destroyed and actually cracked. 

They didn't let her go home that night. We stayed with Kat that night - yay for friends who are there to help you out! - and we were able to spring her on Friday and take her to Band Camp. She is amazing - despite how much pain she was in (there's little they can do for her injuries), she had fun at Band Camp. 

As did I. Dancing and hanging out and scootering around the campground. Believe it or not, there was ANOTHER life-flight at Band Camp (dude wiped out and apparently took the headset to the face, ending up with a broken orbit and nose - AWFUL).

I have never used so many all-caps sentences and phrases. OH WELL. 

I also have no pictures from Band Camp since I didn't bring my camera and my phone was off all weekend (there's no cell reception there, so I didn't want to run my battery dead by using my phone for pictures). I have hardly taken any pictures the last 1.5 years (maybe longer?). I should probably get back on that.

Scooter-worthy van

We finally found our van in April.

OSU originally owned the van, which was a 15-passenger van that OSU converted into a cargo van. That's perfect for us - great for hauling, but it has windows. OSU removed all of the seats, but we purposely sought out the extended version so that we could run one row of seats. Aaron found a dude on CL that had tons of seats for Econolines, and now we have an extended van with one row of seats. (That guy converts passenger vans into school vans, which apparently require different seats than the ones that come stock. If my memory serves of school vans, the original seats are probably safer!)

On Sunday, I ran 5 miles in the Lorain County Metro Park while Aaron modified the van to haul the scooters inside. The van already had a plywood floor, so after some brainstorming, he installed the wheel chocks and track, and we're ready to go!

We're hauling out his brother's trailer to Band Camp, so we hooked it up and took it home yesterday. It's small behind the van!

Didn't I say I'm bad at racing?

This is a short week, a really short week. Aaron and I have Wednesday-Friday off work for the Corsette/Band Camp extravaganza! (I also took off next Monday because I'm smart like that.)

Training will take a backseat this week, although a longish run is planned for Wednesday and next Monday. I have dreams of a short run on Friday morning, but that is probably wishful thinking.

To recap, the Corsette is a two-day, 300-mile race for girls on smallframes.

Smallie's first ride in 2012

This is the third year, and it's my second year of "competing." Trust me, quotes are completely appropriate. I can't say that I came in last in 2011, but basically, four of us stuck together on day 2, and we came in WAY later than everyone else.

Reading last year's recap is funny. I had grand plans to be "in it to win it," but that definitely didn't happen. The exhaust broke late last year, and we dragged our feet on fixing it. Luckily that ended up just being a bracket issue, so I'm not dealing with the next exhaust on top of a 300-mile adventure.

What I do need to deal with is setting up my directions. Last year's leg setup isn't going to happen this year, so I need to figure out what I'm going to do.

I have an idea, which I meant to test out this weekend, so I should probably do that after work tonight. I definitely don't feel confident seeing as how I get lost A LOT, so that's probably part of why I'm dragging my feet.

But before I focus on the race and the camping weekend - requires SO MUCH STUFF - I should get to work.

The giant van

Maybe I should say a little more.

We've been looking for a cargo van for quite some time. Everyone says they're inexpensive, easy to find, etc. I call bullshit. If you want a ragged out, windowless van with a gas-guzzling engine, maybe they're easy to fine, but if you're looking for something that was well-cared-for, it's a little harder.

Last Saturday, Aaron said he wanted to check out this van he saw on eBay. It was at a used car dealership about 10 minutes from our house. It was raining, so Aaron looked at it while I played with my iPhone. I can't tell you how many vans he's looked at.

He actually wanted to test-drive this one. I knew chances were good that we'd get it.

This van started life as a passenger van, hence the windows. OSU owned it (silver was probably on purpose) and removed all of the seats, essentially converting it into a cargo van. It's a 2003 with only 44k on the odometer. And - the biggie - no rust!

By Tuesday, it was officially mine. (The fourth four-wheeled vehicle in my name. Pontiac Grand Am, Mercury Topaz, Hyundai Elantra, Ford Econoline.)

We have some stuff to do, but things like tires, brakes, heat, etc., are all good. We need to get a first row of seats (already found some places that sell those for pretty cheap), a spare tire, track for the floor so we can tie down the scoots and a hitch so we can also tow. (Cocoa Beach is gonna be awesome! And I am so happy to be able to haul the scooters in the winter without getting them covered in salt.)

We found it!

It's spring!

First day of spring, first ride to work. Thank you, Speed Four, for being reliable! (Aaron actually had to take the Laminar Lip off the Speed Four last night. On its maiden voyage a couple of weeks ago, it was vibrating pretty badly. It's okay - I'd wanted to try riding it on the highway without it because I think it might be directing air at me instead of over me.)

The smallie still has a broken exhaust, so I can't ride it yet. That's going to have to be fixed soon because the Corsette is quickly approaching!

And last night, I unearthed the Stella from the garage. It started easily, so I took it to the gas station to get air (because I am stupid and couldn't remember how to use our air compressor) and took it for a ride. Until it developed an air leak, which forced me to cut my ride short and head home. Gah!

Oh well. I have the Triumph, and my pollen report says it's definitely spring!

Wrapping Up

This weekend, we went to Durham for Freeze Your Balls Off. For the second year in a row, we went sans scooters. Boo. But it was chilly, and I was glad to not be riding at night! (However, if we'd had scooters, we wouldn't have drank on Friday night and getting up Saturday morning to run would have happened. Lesson learned.)

As I've said before, this month has been a disaster as far as working out goes. I ran 11 miles last week (that's two runs) and did two strength-training sessions. I'm feeling better, and I don't have any trips - so this week should be better!

Monday: run 4 miles, strength-train (check!)
Tuesday: yoga
Wednesday: run 5 miles
Thursday: yoga or strength-train or rest
Friday: run 4 miles (+ strength-train if Thursday is a rest day)
Saturday: rest
Sunday: run 9 miles

Nothing crazy there, so we'll see how that works out. I think about rewarding myself, but any rewards I really want cost money - and I need to be a little more careful with my money. I have a big project in the VBB coming up, and I need to finish up the C70 (but hopefully I can sell that and make a little money on it). Right now I'm having a little battle about my wisdom teeth removal, but that *should* be rectified without issue.

Luckily the Stella, smallie and the Triumph are pretty much dialed in and working okay. The scooters both need a few things, but I've already have those items. Triumph is rock-solid now.

Then there's the smartphone I want to buy (probably a 32GB iPhone 4S) and the added cost of a monthly data plan. See? Lots of money, and we haven't even considered a summer trip to Denver and a winter trip to Phoenix. And tires for the Subaru. And a windshield for the Hyundai. And various house things.

So no vintage motorcycle in 2012. No new/additional motorcycle at all. 2013 might be the year I sell the Stella, although it's not like that would be a huge money-maker.

And I should probably closely evaluate any races or rallies I want to go to. Things are never as inexpensive as you think they'll be. (I'm getting over my "fear of missing out" so that's helpful as I try to stay home and stay in more.)

This is depressing.

Not meant to be.

Well, the trailer wasn't meant to be.

We had the holiday party on Friday night, which was fun (pictures to come... eventually). We stayed the night at the Hyatt at the Arcade, which is a pretty cool building with shops and stuff.

We stayed up late, but still got up shortly after 7 am on Saturday. We were on the road by 8, which was perfect timing. We anticipated a six-hour trip. The dealer closes as 2, but would stay open later for us if necessary. With the time change in Illinois, we figured it wouldn't be necessary, and it wasn't.

We stopped a few times for drinks and food and gas, and we arrived right on time in Morris, IL. Pulling into to the dealership, we saw the trailer and it was perfect.

But it wasn't. This was a brand new trailer, yet the lid was misaligned. And it seemed too flimsy to haul our precious cargo. And just because we spent a bazillion in gas and got up early after partying - well, that wasn't reason enough to buy it. It was kind of depressing to go all that way and come home empty-handed, so we didn't. We headed to Three Floyds!

We did the tour and then a friend came down from Chicago to eat dinner with us. And drink a few beers, of course. I had three at the brewpub: the Rune Priest, a bourbon-barrel-aged stout and...  I'm drawing a blank. I remember considering the Sand Pebbles, but I'm pretty sure I went another way. Maybe the Arctic Panzer Wolf?

The bourbon barrel one was good, but - and this is my fault - it had a really pronounced anise flavor, which was fully disclosed in the description; I just ignored it. The anise scent mixed with the bourbon scent was pretty appealing though. The Panzer Wolf is kind of their classic IPA, and it's pretty good - very clean. The Rune Priest is a Belgian-style pale ale, and it was good, although there was some flavor that I couldn't quite place that made me not buy more.

We also bought some to take home with us, so I had another beer before crashing hard in the hotel. The Gumballhead wheat beer isn't your typical wheat beer. Nice carbonation, although I like my wheat beers a little yeastier.

We should have bought more beer, I think! I really wish we'd brought the Alpha Klaus (holiday porter) home with us. We have a Christmas beer tasting to go to soon, and it would have been nice to bring some of that. We didn't know it was happening until yesterday afternoon. Oh well.

December Ramblings

I can't believe it's already Dec. 8. Doesn't everyone say things like that?

My company's holiday party is tomorrow, and I CANNOT find a dress. I didn't really want to buy anything, but I'm a little between sizes as far as stuff in my closet goes. However, I'm wearing a dress that I wore at Cocoa Beach last year, and that will have to do. At least I like the dress - and it doesn't cost me anything.

Tomorrow night, we're heading up to Cleveland for the party at House of Blues. We're staying the night at the Hyatt and then getting up super-early on Saturday to head to Illinois to buy an enclosed trailer!

Looks like scoots will go to FYBO this year!

The trailer dealer closes at 2 (their time), so that's the reason for the super-early wakeup time on Saturday. Then we're heading back east about an hour so we can tour 3 Floyds Brewery and then eat dinner at the brewpub. Even better, at least one friend is going to meet us there. We'll stay the night out there and head back to Ohio Sunday morning.

And Sunday night, I will see if Dallas can actually respond to the threat of the Giants. Given the inconsistency and the mismanagement and the penalties, I'm not hopeful.

And I can't have a post without info about running, so here it goes: I'm really trying to get my speed up this month (and next) while also reestablishing my running base. Then I'll be good to go when I hit half-marathon training full-steam... although I'm starting to get a little worried that March's Rock-n-Roll race will not be the race I PR in. After reading reviews of the Las Vegas and the Savannah races, I'm concerned about mismanagement, especially as this is the first year that RnR has taken over the DC race.

Oh, and I've already hit two yoga classes and done a few strength-training sessions (and will do another at lunch today). Progress, I hope!

1962 Vespa VBB

When we got to Boston on Thursday night, Nate asked us if we wanted to go to shop night. Why the heck not?
Um, because I might run across something I want.

picture courtesy of Aaron

See, we'd already planned to swing by (haha) NYC to pick up another Stella engine for project to be determined later. I've now determined the project.

On Friday, we woke up to rain and decided to skip the run and just head back to the shop to pay Jason and pick up the VBB. It's like '57 Chevy blue. So obnoxious and awesome.

picture courtesy of Aaron

Of course, we didn't take a trailer out to Boston, so we had to figure out how to get the new bike home. Luckily Nate and Jenn are planning on moving to Ohio, so we were able to work out a plan: We took Nate's trailer and his very cool RD 350 home with us. I think Aaron's actually going to sell the trailer for Nate too, so it worked out.

picture courtesy of Mary

picture courtesy of Mary

picture courtesy of Mary

All loaded up, we headed out early on Sunday. With little traffic, we made it to NY in about 4 hours to pick up the engine. We were there for about an hour - the guy and his wife are the "oddscoot couple" and their place is its own subject. The collection was awesome - so many rare scooters that I've never even heard of. BEAUTIFUL too.

Anyhow, 11 hours after we left Boston, we were home. 30 minutes later, the garage was rearranged to accommodate the additional bikes. It's temporary - both of these will go to Aaron's dad's until Aaron is free enough to get to the VBB. (The RD will stay at Aaron's dad's until Nate and Jenn move to Ohio. Or until Aaron buys it.) Poor Aaron has so many projects right now: the C70 (which will be sold soon-after), the smallie (exhaust repair/replacement), the Stella (recabled) and the P200 (which is likely to be leaving the stable too).

I love that man.

Short Smallie Update

Boo is safely at home now. I'm cautiously optimistic that just the exhaust broke - would explain the air leak (not idling down) and, of course, the loudness. I already have another exhaust, so it may be time to put it back on.

Unfortunately the smallie is out of commission for a couple of weeks. We're out of town this weekend for a wedding, and then Aaron is out of town for training next week. Oh well - at least I have two other bikes to ride!

This Monday should be better.

After running the Towpath Half-Marathon yesterday, today should be better. I ran it in 2:14:09 - 5-ish minutes faster than the first time! I carbed up two to three days beforehand, and it really works. I was pretty consistent and ended up with a 10:14 pace. Compared to my official results from the last one, that's 26 seconds faster (although according to my Garmin, it was 9 seconds faster, I think).

ANYHOW, I'm all riding along all happy-like, if a little stiff, when the smallframe decides to be a whore. I rode it Friday, and all was well.  There was one point where I felt like it didn't idle down quickly enough, but after that, no issues, so I thought it was an anomaly or user error (like the throttle wasn't closed).

I don't think it was an anomaly.

This morning, it did it and it wasn't idling down regardless of blipping the throttle, clutching, etc. So I turned it off and pulled off to the side of the road. I restarted it, and it was idling high and loud. I thought maybe it'd go away so I went about another block - and it just kept getting louder. It sounded kind of like metal-on-metal. I actually checked to make sure the engine door and the exhaust were still on the bike because it was so loud.

I was sitting on the bike, trying to decide who to call first (my ride to work or Aaron) when two guys from the staffing place behind the gas station walked by. The one dude said it sounded like my chain broke. Whatever, but that is kind of what it sounded like. He has a 50-cc scooter and was empathetic to my situation. He said I could park it at his office, and if I needed to park it overnight, he'd lock it up for me. Luckily, Aaron is going to go home at lunch, get the Subaru and trailer, and meet me there so we can take it home.

 

ET3's new basket

ET3's new basket
Originally uploaded by adrienna
I finally got the smallie out today! I went back and forth on it because today was our sales meeting, but in the end, I decided the sales team didn't really give a shit if I wore jeans to the meeting. It's been forever - since Bull City, maybe?

I got the basket a while back and then had it powder-coated because I love powder-coating everything. As much as I liked having the glovebox, I think the basket might be more useful because it can fit more. The glovebox is pretty small. The only downside is where do I put my gloves? I don't really just want to leave them out for the world to see. Today, they went under the seat while I was in my meeting. I felt a little weird leaving the oil exposed, but I'll get used to it. It's not like I ever locked the glovebox (or *could* lock it - no key).

There was a little concern that the basket would get in the way, but not at all. What did get in the way was the loose mirror (you can see it's angled wrong). I didn't have a wrench with me, so I just had to keep physically moving it out of the way.

I love this silly little bike.

Endurance

I've been all about endurance this summer! Let's see...

• I learned to run longer distances.
• I rode the smallframe from DC to Wildwood, NJ via backroads.
• I took two trips on the Triumph.
• I rode the Stella to Columbus via backroads.

How nice that all three of my bikes got to go on longer trips.

But still no marathon or Iron Butts in my future!

The Ride Down...

Oh, Friday, why were you so filled with rain? I got up early with the intention of running 8 to 10 miles. I ended up with 8, thanks to the rain and my lack of willpower. I was slow and cranky - and thinking ahead to the 120-mile ride down to Columbus on the Stella.

I got home where I prepared some chocolate milk and an ice bath (not really necessary for only 8 miles, but I thought it might be helpful since I was going to be stuck on a scooter for 4+ hours). Then I showered, packed my stuff for Aaron transport down, loaded up the scooter. I was probably on the road by 11:45 - unfortunately I got lost in Akron (don't ask) where I wasted a good 20 minutes between getting turned around and dealing with lunchtime traffic.

It was cold and rainy. Close to 2, I made it to Loudonville where I found a McDonald's. I ran my now-white hands under hot water for 10 minutes before they started tingling again. I hadn't eaten since my Balance Bar before my run, so I blissfully ordered some chicken strips (and then a latte to warm up from the inside) and hung out for 20-30 minutes before getting on my way again (in warmer gloves).

BTW, my gear - aside from gloves - is AWESOME. I wore my Alpinestars Stella Lux textile jacket, my Olympia Mustang riding pants and Sidi books and kept completely dry without a rain suit.

Also, I love the Alpinestars jackets so much that I am going to try their gloves. My Olympia gloves are not warm enough (and honestly, they're not that well-made), and my Shift short-cuff, warm weather gloves are falling apart after only one season. My mid-weight Joe Rocket gauntlets are good though - just not warm enough (as evidenced by Friday's white hands).

The route was okay - two detours and a stint on a divided highway around Wooster. I knew about the highway; I just didn't feel like figuring out how to avoid it. I knew it wouldn't be long, so I just went with it. When I rode the Stella to Columbus a few years ago, I ended up on the highway then too (for a shorter time, though), and it was far more nerve-racking then. I'm a way more experienced rider now (though I still make mistakes - keep reading.

Detour one was short and easy, and I quickly ended up in Wooster. I didn't really believe the detour signs for the second detour. I was following Route 3, and the signs were for 36 (should have consulted the map, huh?); they're still  the same road where the bridge was out, so at the last minute, I had to come up with my own detour. I had a map and the GPS, so I wasn't worried. I got to Old Route 3, which hooked up with the current one - only problem is that I didn't know which way was south. Funny how they met perpendicularly. Anyhow, I pulled over to consult the map again. As I was putting the bike in neutral, the back tire slid in in the mud on the side of the road - and I dropped the Stella.

 

SO, SO BUMMED. 20 miles from Caitlin's shop and I f%@& up. Not a huge deal, I know, but still makes me sad.