EW!!!!!!!

Ok, ready for the ride of randomness you are about to embark on??  Probably not, so hold on!!

Yesterday morning temps were PERFECT for the ride into work.  The humidity on the other hand was out of control.  On my hardest days on the road bike I haven't had sweat dripping down my brow like I did on the way to work... great way to start the day eh?  But it was good.  Traffic was pretty much nonexistent which was excellent.

So things to tweak for the next one... already have clothes and whatnot at work so I don't have to carry it.  It wasn't soooo bad with the bag of clothes on my back, but I did have to keep adjusting from time to time, so getting rid of that component would be nice.  For the ride home I did leave everything at work so it was just a nice (hot) ride back.  Traffic had picked up a bit, but was not out of control.  Traffic on the bike path was heavier with kids getting out of school, but still manageable.  In the end, 17.7 miles each way.  Not bad - took me about an hour and 8 minutes to get into work.  I think I'll try to at least ride once a week to school for the remainder of the school year.

Over the weekend I had a battle with ticks on one of my rides.  I have some sort of amazing ability to feel ticks when they are on me, so during the ride I knocked two off of me.  After the ride I killed another crawling up my leg.  Since Sunday the pterodactyl has sat parked, alone, and unused.  This morning on the way into work I felt something on my elbow while driving on the highway.  I looked down and saw something black so I brushed it off figuring it was a beetle of some sort.  It was curious as I didn't see anything flying around after that... oh well.

A little while later as I was hitting the side streets I felt something on my forearm again... this time I look and it's a tick!! 

I flick him and hear him hit the windshield... oh great, now where did he go.  I search the dash and see that he is crawling his way back to me.  I pick up a random battery in the center console and squish the bastard right there on the dash.  How many more are waiting to ambush me on the ride home?

Ok... so not wanting to go on forever, ride recaps will come later.  But I did want to mention bike changes real quick.  When I swapped out the new handlebar on the HiFi I was originally nervous that I would be too stretched out and whatnot.  Well, things have been feeling great with the bars.  So great that I finally started adjusting the height of the stem.  Yeah, I've been riding with spacers since I got the HiFi.  Dropped down one initially, but since haven't made any adjustments.  Since getting out on the road I feel like my posture is getting better - less straight up.  So I decided to take out the spacer and slam it down on the HiFi.  Instant magic!!  I felt great, and the HiFi felt like it was more responsive.  I'm loving it!  So now I just have to get the steer tube cut so I don't have a ridiculous nubbin sticking up at me.

I had been slowly working my way down the spacers on Georgia, so with the success and joy of the bar drop on the HiFi I decided that on my way home from work yesterday I'd drop it all the way and see how it felt.  Again, no discomfort from the new positioning, and in reality, I felt that I had much better posture.  I've got to take Georgia in for it's free tune up (already having some ghost shifting) so hopefully they can lop off the undesired nubbin.  I think I may go out for one more ride though on Georgia to be 100% certain before taking her in to the chop shop.