Weekly stats

The stats (weekly plus a day)
TM: 10:25
AVS: 15.6
MXS: 40.2
DST: 163.15
ODO: 299

So much to do, so little to say.

A busy work schedule makes for lousy blogging material...
Just a quick update on the weekly stats (as of Sunday). Note the max speed. Yeah, it was awesome. I drafted a box truck on my from job 2 to job 1. I made great time!
TM: 5:53
AVS: 14.4
MXS: 40.7
DST: 85
ODO: 135

But in other news I've just been working a lot. I've got Brazil 2014 in my sights and I'm going to make it happen!

Also, this past Sunday Cyclovia happened!

Lots of interesting things to look at!

The Bullcycle's feet even moved!!!

I came to Cyclovia as a representative of Bizanteen Bikes (my AmeriCorps program) and that kept me busy through the morning. Several folks came by our little booth area. Some were expressed interest in buying our refurbished bikes, others appreciated the sidewalk chalk we had available. 

By noon though I had to buzz off to job 2 which kept me busy till around 7:30. 

So, I'm afraid thats about it. This coming week I hope to get some more exciting things happening. I have off from Job 2 (Performance) T, Th, F, so maybe cool stuff will happen one of those days. Keep your eyes peeled for new and exciting updates!

APRIL FOOLS!

Hey everybody! April fools is awesome and I pulled some super sweet pranks!

The New Newest

I also got  a new bike. as of last Wednesday  the 27th. I'm sorry I've been so slow with the news but I'm sure no one will notice anyway. except that I just pointed it out... But yeah, 100 bucks for that slick piece of machinery! I'm pretty happy with it.
Regardless though, I've been having a blast. I'm able to just fly on my way to work and since I have atleast a 20 mile bike ride every day that I work at Performance (generally just M, Th, F; Weekends have a different mile count) I'm very glad to have that extra zip. It also really helps my options for drafting busses and vans and SUVs. quite a thrill, I must say.
In addition to the New Newest I also had bought a bike computer. Here are some of the stats from the past week:
TM: 4:23
AVS: 11.3
MXS: 34.3
DST: 50.14
ODO: 50.14

In addition to the New Newest and the bike computer I also just got some climbing shoes in the mail! Katie Jantzen is the coolest and when she heard of potential deal she remembered me! Luckily they fit just great, and I can't wait to use them. Unluckily I left them at the YAV's and so I'll have to get a photo with them in the next edition.

In addition to the New Newest and the bike computer and the climbing shoes I'm also about to get a new place to live! Good ol' Zander saves the day. Luckily he was able to work it out with his current landlord/ sometimes-roommate and its cool for me to stay! Honestly its a rather funny situation. Brian the Roomie works in Phoenix and lives there most of the week. He then comes back on the weekends and lives in his apartment for a night or two. I'm not sure how space is going to work on those nights, but I'm sure we'll figure it out.

In addition to the New Newest, the bike computer and the climbing shoes and the new place, I'm about to go to bed! Goodnight y'all.

Zander in the wild.

This past Wednesday I helped to introduce Zander to Mountain biking:

It was exhilarating!

He was what you might call a champ. Although biking was admittedly very new for our fearless adventurer, (not to mention mountain biking!!!) Zander took on the new challenge with gusto. After listening carefully to pointers about shifting and braking and how to take on the gnarly descents of Fantasy Island, he realized that it just made more sense to take a crash course at the school of hard knocks. Despite the gash on his knee and blood trickling down his shin Zander the Champ kept on keeping on. 

The old clunker of a bike was no match for Zander's perseverance.

Not the actual bike he rode. Just a good picture.

Nor was the sandy terrain:

If only Westley had a bike.

In the end, we made it out alive and all the better for it. 

Employee Discounts and Motorcycles

Employee discounts and motorcycles are exciting things, but it seems that are somewhat at odds in so far as the former is beginning to make me reconsider the latter. Motorcycles are great! loads of fun to ride, generally really good on gas, the chicks dig it and so do I!  But you can't live in them. In fact you can only put one bike on it at a time! and thats only if you figure out how!!!
And this brings me to the 'former'. I am going to quickly compile soooo much bike stuff!

That and I like to travel so I'm realizing that I should maybe start to think about how I might manage to do both the traveling and bike stuff collecting. I think the answer is something like this, or this:

Although, obviously some of the details are drastically out of place.

But hey, I'll figure that crazyness on my own time. Right now there is more important things to discuss. Last Saturday's bike ride! Even though Derek and I had a blast and that could be considered good enough  I really do need to share it:   "After all, that's the whole point of riding a bike.  Whether you ride alone or with others, it's crucial that everyone have access to details about your  inspirational life-changing recreational pursuits, because of course while plenty of people have bicycles, nobody rides them as interestingly as you do. "

Saturday morning Derek gassed on over here to pick me up and we drove up towards Mt. Lemmon. It was a nice enough drive. It took a small while to figure out where we wanted to be, but we got it worked out and then started leg spinning on up for about four miles of road. Finding Bug Spring we were pretty happy. There were actually TREES!!!

But then HaBing started. It was rough.

It somehow doesn't seem as steep as it was in real life. maybe the camera angle was bad.

But my-omy! the scenery, the trees! the cool air and broad views. It was just ohsogreat.

 And I thought that was cool. Little did I know the best was yet to come. Starting down, the trail quickly demonstrated how great of ride it would be. It was reasonably technical.

 But really allowed for some good speeds too. Nothing like that slow and tricky Tucson Mtn Park trails.

We got to the bottom a bit quicker than I would've liked. Luckily, when I commented on this to Derek he was right there with me. well, at least in so far as he was paying attention. Kindly he offered, and I accepted, to drive me up to the trail head. Which meant all I had to do was a short hike and then just crush on down the mountain the whole way home! Nailing the Bug Spring on round two was even better than the first. I pushed the limits and they pushed back, sending me down for a relatively gentle close up view of the ground. The ensuing road ride home afterwards though was simply tiring. Not fast enough to be invigorating, and not near technical enough to keep me interested. I think I just need to keep the trail bike on the trails.

When doors are open...

                                                                                                                              and up!
                                                                                                                and up
When doors are open, see where they go! In this particular case it led up
and kept going up the U of A stadium. It was great fun to go biking up the big empty switch back ramps. Finally I got to the top level and realized that there was some construction happening at the far end so I simply had to go over to it, jump the fence and see what was what. It was pretty cool stuff. Regular old construction site stuff, but still cool. the best part being some scaffolding that was great to climb and led to a pretty cool view. Well I guess the view wasn't all that spectacular. it was just fun being up there.

My little trespassing adventure happened earlier this week while I was waiting for a call from someone who I was interested in buying a motorcycle from. He never got back to me.  :-(  

But, speaking of going in open doors. It was the night after, I was just hanging out on U of A campus again waiting for this motorcycle guy to call me, (because he said he would, but never did!) and a random dude named Alex comes up to me and tells me that I'm invited to a prayer meeting/ worship time in modern languages. And so I say; "hm, sounds interesting.. what kind of 'modern languages'?" Alex then points down the sidewalk with a slightly confused look and says "it takes place in the auditorium of the Modern Languages building. Its just right down there." 

So, after realizing that the motorcycle guy was standing me up I decided to check it out! It was interesting. One thing I learned is that prayer is way more powerful if it has some background beats. And honestly, I'm not being entirely factious here (only mostly); it kinda felt like in the movies where we can tell the couple is about fall in love or that things are just going to somehow work out. It really can't be denied that the guitar strings really can tug at the heart strings. its powerful stuff. and so is prayer. but somehow, despite its affect on me I also couldn't help but think about the vastly different levels of power music and prayer are on. And if that wasn't enough to dwell on for a bit, after the worship time it was time for the group to hear what God was saying through the members there about things that were going on for others in the room. Quite a long line grew. Many people reported that "God was saying through them that in the room that evening someone was having knee issues, specifically with their right knee and that God wanted to heal that knee tonight!" Several others heard God saying that there was someone who had had a troubled relationship with their father as a child and that God wanted to show them that God the father was better than that. 

It was quite the experience and it made me quite curious. I simply didn't know what to think. Certainly many or at several of those people were just saying something to say something, but I also believe that there were likely many who felt convicted about what they had to say. I'm generally pretty cynical about this stuff, but I'm also very curious and I wish I'd been able to really ask people about it and somehow simply receive straight forward, honest answers. But alas, until then I'll just consider it 'interesting'.

In other news, here is a beautiful sunset:

The Imgur Edition

My whole day today was about bikes and lots of biking. First I biked ~8 miles to work where I started my new job today!!!! Then I learned about selling bikes, and the mission statements and values of Performance Bikes. Then I built a bike for them. Then I realized I was late for my other bike job because I got carried away having too much fun at my new bike job! So I biked very very fast across town (~10 miles) and at one point even drafted off a school bus. It was grand! Then I made it back to my bike padawan and we worked on adjusting hubs and truing wheels. Sometimes I think I'm a bad teacher, but comparison helps.