they are here

the first crop of Fuji apples from the orchards that show up to the farmer's market.

I like fuji apples the best. I will say those early season Gala's weren't too bad but the last batch I bought were old soft and starting to get mealy.

Makes me think it isn't about the apple, but how recently it was picked. But I can tell you this, it doesn't really matter if I pulled it off the tree myself, I'm not a fan of Golden Delicious apples. It is about the apple. The firm tart crisp ones are what I like. And any firm tart crisp apple can turn into a soft mealy sweet mush ball. Yuck.

And then walking over there I encountered another problem with my penchant for "under dressing" when riding to work. I wind up here at work without a freaking jacket. A 8 block round trip stroll outside at a windy 46°F with just a long sleeve shirt is actually pretty chilly. But it didn't take long to warm up.

This morning one variable of warmth that I didn't have when towing the trailer is the messenger bag. I'm actually starting to think that carrying that thing around on the commute may be contributing to a bit more back pain in the race. Last year no messenger bag and my crooked spine wasn't as crooked from not carrying my crap on my back. Almost has me thinking about hauling the trailer just to carry stuff. That or I see about getting a seatpost mounted rack and strapping crap to that. But the bag does trap a fair amount of heat, which is good when it gets cold, IF you are generating heat (ala commuting).

In the vein of winter riding, i saw these bar mitts over at Bike Rumor. They look pretty nice. Better than trying to get a set of those Snowmobile bar mits on a road bike. But a bit overkill for around here, and totally impractical with barcons, but who besides me uses those on a winter bike anyway?

The weather is finally cool. But I feel slighted. Why did I have to bring the plants in already? Why is it so damn cold? What happened to cool. Felt like we went from HOT to COLD like a long post race shower.

A Teammate (syl) found this shot from the Jamestown race. One of my many pointless, arguably silly (for a cat 4 race) animating attacks on lap one. I came to that race with a book of matches mostly burnt from two days at Gloucester. I came to the line with a bunch of team mates. I had no delusional thoughts about being able to cross the line first, much less in the top 5-10. No, I had a plan. Attack early, and as often as I could. Animate the race. No sedate plodding first lap. No, we were going to go hard. Pedal our damn bikes and I was going to do my damnest to go until I died with dignity.

Here I am, crooked bars (not sure when they got knock out of true), making someone work to bridge the gap. And I never backed off until someone got on my wheel. No sir. Stupid for a guy in a cat 4 race maybe. But damn was it fun. (photo link)


To wrap it up. A bit of Jonny Cash "I am the Nation"


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