Author: splicer

In pri­vate cor­re­spon­dence, some­one I used to trust wrote the following:

some­times it’s eas­i­er to just be bitter

This is sur­pris­ing­ly true. It is eas­i­er just being bit­ter. I don’t know where I’d be with­out my bit­ter­ness. It is the fuel that keeps me mov­ing and which makes me strong. Bit­ter, I can look my reflec­tion in the eye. Bit­ter, I show up at the gym. Bit­ter, I can keep oth­ers at bay. Bit­ter, I don’t have to hurt. Bit­ter … Read the rest

I’ve had the excite­ment of my first bouts of explo­ration, lat­er brought to new heights as I learned to do things I’d nev­er done before. Still lat­er I fell in mad­ly in love with lean, beau­ti­ful, fast, and expen­sive. Today my needs are for more prac­ti­cal­i­ty, I don’t need a tro­phy; I just need reli­able and maybe a lit­tle fun along the way.

I went out this morn­ing and rode for a cou­ple hours. End­ed up doing only about 14 miles; … Read the rest

The new bike has STI shifters. Every road bike made these days has those (or ErgoPow­er in the case of Cam­pag­no­lo-equipped bikes) but this is the first time I’ve got­ten to ride with brake-lever shifters. My first reac­tion, not hav­ing rid­den this bike more than a mile (I took it home on the bus since it was after dark and I had­n’t put any lights on it) is to run right into retro-grouch mode and bad­mouth them. the brake levers … Read the rest

Set­ting up the new bike, and I’m real curi­ous to see how it rides.

It’s a big­ger frame than I’m used to—a 55cm frame, where my rac­ing bike is a 53cm frame. Hope­ful­ly I won’t have to make any rapid dis­mounts (!!!!). The fel­low who set up the bike rec­om­mend­ed the 55cm, as he said “most peo­ple ride frames that are too small.” Interesting.

Well, very very inter­est­ing, actu­al­ly. the frame geom­e­try of this bike is so very … Read the rest

I’ve been look­ing for an entry-lev­el tour­ing bicy­cle for a lit­tle while. My rac­ing bike is total­ly inap­pro­pri­ate for any­thing more than a sin­gle day trip with all sup­plies pur­chased on the road, and real­ly not appro­pri­ate for com­mut­ing either. My hybrid got trashed out at Burn­ing Man and has been retired to the sta­tus of “Playa Bike.”

I’d been think­ing of replac­ing the hybrid with anoth­er hybrid, but I got this oppor­tu­ni­ty to pick up a used rental bike. … Read the rest

Russ­ian Min­ers Emerge From Flood­ed Mine

If I ever com­plain about my job, some­body slap me sil­ly and remind me that there is absolute­ly no chance that an under­ground lake will flood my office, OK?… Read the rest

Noth­ing cor­rects a foul mood in the morn­ing like a ride on the cable­car with Tom Jones cranked up on the iPod. Weather.com says it’s 65 in SF right now, but it feels more like 75. It’s prob­a­bly going to be a scorcher today, but it was just about per­fect rid­ing in to work.

This morn­ing I was feel­ing sor­ry for myself because there’s no one shar­ing my bed. Well, you know what? Peo­ple are hav­ing sex all over the … Read the rest

A bicy­clist rode past the bus shel­ter as I wait­ed for the #43 to come and take me to a meet­ing I’m attend­ing before I go to the office this morn­ing. He stood up on his ped­als as he acceller­at­ed past, strands and cables of mus­cle at taut atten­tion on his lean calves and thighs. As he glid­ed past effi­cient­ly, his eyes scanned the street, tar­get­ing obsta­cles and threats to avoid, then mov­ing to the next as he read … Read the rest

Pro­tein pow­der in my oat­meal is not an exper­i­ment I’ll be try­ing again.… Read the rest