Monday-Checked the Schedule f0r the trucks the evening bef0re to find out monday morning I was free and was presented with an opportunity to get a ride in an aut0mobile with some fairly fast mountain bikers to some out of the way woods rather than working on the latest from the BBW lab, my own personal mountain bike. I figured that some saddle time on technical trails could serve the project better than putting my tubes to the (literal) grindstone would. The ride being a pre-work affair for some of the wrenches at Ace Wheelworks was gauranteed get back soon enough to allow me to chase down some of the assets lost in my latest debacle with the man.
Good choice, still itching at some of the Mosquito bites but the trails at Harold Parker state park in andover were well worth it. Loamy off camber 180 degree turns to fast, rocky sections force you to forget all else for at least a few moments of actually being in the present (if I’d re-capped last week you’d know that a lot of eastern philosophy mombo jumbo was foisted upo me while “epically” sweating and in a very manipulable state during a promotional free week of Baptise Hot RoomYoga, GROSS & OUch but sort of felt good after in equal measure)
Tuesday-Office Job, chasing down events to attend with The Gentle Giant Challenge (coming to you at something somewhere soon from the good folks that employ me at the gentle giant moving company)
Evening dinner with my honey and hitting the sack early because tomorrow means Man Work.
Wednesday-Pedal to the warehouse to meet up and find out where we’ll go and meet the person whose lives we’ll relocate that day. Days spent as a mover are wonderful for the fact that the job you start that day is generally completed that day or at least the end of it is in site, soon enough you will see the back of the truck again and you will be done & it will be someone else moving something else somewhere else tomorrow. Unless tomorrow you are scheduled to drive the Speed Stairs.
Thursday– Print my wide load permit and map my trip to bring the Gentle Giant Challenge to some local events. Its hard to explain what running the Speed Stairs is all about but everyone I meet through it seems to love it, they have fun and Gentle Giant Moving’s ethos of better work being performed by people who enjoy a physical challenge gets promoted.
I am pretty sure near terminal velocity was reached by some of the youngsters that took a friction free trip down a two story fiberglass slide as the rain started to come down in earnest at the Marathon Sports five miler.
Got suited up in the leaky rain gear to ride out and meet up with my old college roommate for a too late night of catching up before he heads to the far east to feed at the globalization teet. I may have scored a digitally controlled deep fryer from his move.
Hydro Planed much of the ride home in a deluge on #13.
Friday-The day couldn’t have started better than to be told its important that I don’t let the 2 pies left in the fridge rot. Solving someones problem by having delicious home made pie and coffee for breakfast is pretty hard to beat.
It started to head down hill though when I tried to emulate Uncle Buck’s improvised clothes drying technique of using the microwave. Luckily I got the smoldering shirt out before it was necessary to evacuate.
Today I mapped and rode the hardest working man in local racing, Craig Roth’s, GG permit route, saw a lot of my defacto home town and got to hammer around the streets like the old times, ShEEEEE-IT.
Stopped off to feed the out of town GF’s cat & heading home couldn’t resist spending some time playing bike polo. Its been since last april and my knee surgery that I’d played, still haven’t made myself a mallet but it might be about time. Having to ride the hoods of a race positioned drop bar is not ideal for polo by the way.
Tomorrow more speedstairs,
Soon, hopefully. I’ll be getting some torch time to get BBW23 on the trails. Not that I don’t appreciate the loaner Santa Cruz and its ultra performance FOX fork but I think the 25″TT 18″ sT, 6’9″er with an igleheart sectional fork will be a little more, well, MINE. Its pretty much all mitered up.
Saturday A.M.-Gentle Giant Challenge event cancelled due to the weeks heavy rain saturating a field in NH, print up and post some permits than the day is wide open. I need to resist the compelling temptation to slide back in to bed because my plan is to make sure I am damn tired at the end of the day to force me to sleep early and make my 4am Sunday start time to get The Gentle Giant Challenge to the DANSKIN Womens Triathlon tomorrow.
Couldn’t have had a better finish to the days paid labor than cutting through int’l bikes while choking down a clif bar to find the entire shop fixated on the TV playing the last 15 minutes or so of today’s tour stage up ventoux live. Got to wonder if lance will man up & enter some more races this season, I’ve loved watching the guy do his thing in the tour and admit his returning added quite a bit to the race and had me tuning in regularly for the first time in years but I think its time he won the Americans their first Vuelta d’ Espania or reclaimed the World Championshis he clinched when he was just 20yrs old on a litespeed painted to look like a caloi.
Tibetan Buffet for $10 bucks might be the most satisfying way to stuff yourself without feeling like you will need to pass out for a week to digest it. Lunch out alone was pretty alright.
Now it’s down to the mortuary to bring a bike to life where so many bodies were laid out to rest, I like to joke that the nice chilly basement has AC provided by the cold dead spirits. I never got too wigged out by the room’s former purpose but my Girlfriend prefers not to go down there unattended. House noises have managed to nearly topple my rationality on occasion when I am working late at night and I will sometimes run up the stairs with the same utter conviction that something will surely grab me if I slow down or slip up as when I was 9 and something was under my bed but all in all it’s a good work space.
