I Can Still Walk

The ride went pretty well, I suppose. Colleen and I rode together the entire way, linking up with a 4 or 5 Air Force guys (she knew two of them from when they were formerly stationed at Sheppard AFB) for the last 35 or so miles.

I was an idiot and tried to reset my bike computer the morning of the ride (the display was flashing in a way that supposedly indicates that the head unit's batteries were low..but they were not that old), and ended up completely messing it up, leaving it in a state of failed syncing with the wireless speed/cadence sensor. So, I have no idea what the overall rolling time was. Our best guess is about 5.5 hours. We stopped at more rest stops this year and for longer, and I think that is probably why my lower back hurt, but not to the same level as it has in some previous years.

One thing that was new was a numbness and tingling in my middle, ring, and pinky fingers on both hands. I didn't think much of it at the time, thinking it was just some temporary numbness from so many hours on the road and the amount of vibration from some of the rough roads. Waking up Sunday, though, it was still numb. Today, it's no different -- still numb. I did a bit of searching and found that it looks to be something often called 'cyclist's palsy' or ulnar neuropathy. It's explained in plenty of detail here and here and here, but the summary is that it's an inflammation of the ulnar nerve (it runs down the entire length of the arm to the hand) from overuse -- in this case, all of the hours of constant vibration and gripping of the handlebars.

Nick has run into this before, and found that some vibration damping bar end plugs from Bontrager (the Bzzzkill) work very well.

I Hope I Can Still Walk On Sunday

I'm heading out tomorrow shortly after lunch to drive (actually, for Jen to drive) up to Wichita Falls for this year's Hotter 'N Hell Hundred. This year, the HHH people made both elevation maps, like this:
..as well as a GPS coordinates map, suitable for loading into Google Earth. It's pretty cool -- you can take a virtual tour of the route this way. The map file is here, if anyone wants to try. I'm pretty heavy at the moment, and having been out of the pool for a few weeks...it's not going to be pretty!

Before the ride each year, I usually take my bike to a shop to get tuned up. The past few years, I took it to Nelo's. This year, I decided to try one of Bicycle Sport Shop's more extensive tune ups, their Pro Tune. I think it's basically like the tune ups I've had in the past, but with full disassembly, cleaning, then readjustment of the drivetrain. I haven't had anything more major than the basic tune up done on the bike since getting it, and it already had a bunch of miles when I purchased it used. The previous owner had it for a bit over a year and estimates he put 6-7000 miles on it! He was a sponsored rider of some sort, at least.

Anyway, the day the bike was supposed to be finished, they called and said 'dude, I have some bad news.' It turns out that the hub flange on my rear wheel was cracked, and so I'd need a new wheel ($$$). Apparently, the tech said that the wheels already on my bike (Rolf Sestrieres) were some 'crazy light, climbing/racing focused ones'. He thought that at '180-something' I was likely over the recommended weight limit for my wheels (they aren't made anymore, but he thinks the recommended limit was 155 or 165). Me being a porker probably contributed to the wheel crack. I tried to see what my options were for a comparable caliber replacement. He said he'd get back to me, and came back with 3 options: Mavic Ksyrium SL, Bontrager X-Lite, Mavic Ksyrium Elite. The first two are direct competitors, and the last is a less expensive and heavier version of the first. He used to recommend the Ksyrium SLs, but said that upon finding that Bontrager has a 5 year warranty, that was his pick. Unfortunately, both of those were out of stock. Maybe because they are such a big Trek shop (Trek owns Bontrager), they thought they'd have a much better shot at getting an expedited order of the X-Lites to the shop in time for the ride (he was guessing 7-10 days for the Mavics).

I went ahead with the X-Lites, and thankfully, the expedited order came Thursday. They turned it around that afternoon, and I picked up the bike yesterday evening. They gave me the busted wheel back as well. This is what the crack was:


The new wheel is on the bike and now my ride looks like (with fresh wraps, a new chain, and a replaced rear tire, too):
The downside is that this was definitely the most expensive shop work ($718!) I've ever had. I'd be scared to see how much cheaper these wheels are online. BSS charged $450 just for that single rear wheel...but I've seen used sets on EBay for less than $300. For example, BSS charged $45 for a 9-speed Dura-Ace/XTR chain. Looking on Performance Bike's website? Normally $35, currently on sale or $22!

Even Chad Vader has a Chocolate Rain cover out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6dUCOS1bM0

They've also changed the lyrics to mesh with the happenings of season 1 of Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager!

Dog is Free!

I watched way too much of this show when I was in Detroit all week every week (including the special episode on the whole Andrew Luster pursuit). It looks like Dog doesn't have to worry anymore!

Citizen Moore: An American Maverick

..this I gotta read. It should be hilarious (in a sad way). Some of Moore's stuff is funny, but it's tarnished by having to play so loosely with the facts to pull it off. The author of a coming bio on this well known buffoon has a piece today in the Independent worth a read at this link.

Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature

From a Psychology Today article here.

New gadgets!

I picked up a BlackBerry 8300 ('Curve') a few days after it came out on AT&T. It's my first BB, and also my first PDA sort of phone. I previously had the messaging-oriented Nokia 6822 (never offered on Cingular/AT&T; it was a mild update to the 6820 that was available on Cingular), and the 6800 before that. The 6800 was pretty sweet when I got it, and the 6822 was a worthwhile upgrade..but by this point, it was really long in the tooth. Worth of all, it had pretty crappy reception. The Sony/Ericsson 525A that I briefly had after the 6800 (and concurrent with the 6822; I got it when renewing my contract) had far far better reception. It was the difference between usable cell reception at my house and having to stand in certain rooms to use the phone (and even then, spottily).

The Good:

• Great battery life. I've been going nearly a week between charges.
• Slim enough. Takes up little space in Jen's purse!
• Great reception. I'm getting 3/5 to 4/5 in my study at home. The 6822 would often drop calls in the same spot!
• Pretty snappy UI paired with a great screen.
• The messaging is super easy to use (I suppose this is really a BB-wide feature, though), and the keyboard is easy to use. I think the 'old style' keyboard on the 8300 is probably easier to type on than the sleeker keyboard on the 8800, owing to the 8800's lack of any space between keys.
  

The Bad:

• I always wish it was a bit slimmer. For it to stay this wide, it would have to be thinner yet to be in a pocket and not look dorky.
• I wish it had the GPS that appears in the 8800. I probably wouldn't use this a ton, but when I did use it, I'd probably be quite thankful. It would saved Luie and I on our adventures on the way to Lincoln, RI (we overshot by 40 minutes and had to stop at a Tim Hortons to find out where the hell we were). I just ordered a QSTARZ BT-Q1000 yesterday!
• I don't care so much about lack of WiFi, but 3G data would be nice. It's still not a huge deal (due to the Sprint card I just got, see below), but would make the sluggish EDGE browsing and Google Maps data transfer less painful. Then again, I'm not sure it would be worth the huge hit to battery life.

I also picked this up (picking up a Sprint contract in the process...glad I can expense this!) It's a Sierra Wireless 595U, a USB-based Rev A EVDO card. Having this makes the slow EDGE on the Curve not that big of a deal, as I can now fall back to this when I need to get online from a client site (or the coffee shop). I was getting over 130 KB/second sustained using it last week while at Mozart's, downloading Eclipse 3.3.