Ploafmaster General

A bit of rain this week means my bike is back on the indoor trainer and I am not happy about it.

Does Rene Herse normally sell their tires individually? You know, like pretty much everybody else?

Because the single tire I ordered (I checked the packing slip) arrived as a pair! If this is a happy accident, it certainly takes the sting out of the price quite a bit 😜

Sitting in my local waiting on lunch and sipping a festbier while some brewery rep delivers his canned (not sorry) pitch to one of the owners.

I’m sorry, but does anyone actually eat Haribo candy by the tablespoon!?

I love it when you find a Wikipedia page for a topic sufficiently niche that it hasn’t been edited for over a year, and contains informal language such as “nowadays”: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spok…

I mean, you have incredible lyrics, Rick Wakeman on piano, and a dang string section. Helluva number.

Is David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” his best song, or the best rock song ever made?

Folks, I’m celebrating twenty freaking years of marriage in early October.

Every married day is a choice, and takes work, and we won’t really get to do anything more special than a fancy dinner. But I’m grateful for all these years. Prepare for me to be an absolute sap on October 2.

Watched Sarah Polley’s Women Talking and, whew, what a devastating and incredible movie. A rare example of the form that feels/runs like a stage production while never ceasing to be effective as a film.

Apple Intelligence is launched. The feature goes live September 20th, 2024. Human decisions are removed from personal computing. Siri begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, September 29th. It destroys itself from humiliation over its past ineptitude.

I finished 2023 with 6517.7 miles on my bike. At some point I’ll stop jabbering about how much I ride, but it’s only been about 2 years since I started riding more seriously. I’m still proud of how far behind I’ve left my sedentary life.

Today, I passed that number—currently at 6527.6 miles after my morning ride—and it’s only September 9th. I’m likely to ride at least 8500 miles before the year is over, and while the numbers aren’t the goal, I’m just astonished by and grateful for how much time I’ve been able to spend outside (or inside on the trainer) this year. My appreciation for fresh air, regardless of the temperature or clouds, has only grown.

Next year my goal is simply to mix it up; I want to try adding in some climbing, hiking, or whatever else. I still expect most of my exercise to come from cycling because I adore it, but I could stand to be a bit more well-rounded.

Bikes! What a concep!

Early school year busyness had me completely miss something significant:

September 1st marked THIRTY YEARS since my family moved me to Virginia a couple months before I turned 13.

I will always consider New Jersey one of my homes, but after all this time I also love to be a Virginian.

Holy smokes! I have an 11 year old today!

Happy birthday Maddie ☺️

Just found out my almost-11-year-old calls my wife “bro” all the time.

This random thunderstorm really has me wishing I’d ridden on Belle Isle today while it was dry 🤦‍♂️

I love the look, tread, and ride quality of Ultradynamico tires, but I’ve had lots of trouble with them. I think part of it is that I have terrible luck with tires/wheels (I ride thousands of miles per year; so increased chance of issues), but I dunno. Cava JFFs and some Rosé Robustos giving me bead seating issues, burping, and easier puncturing than any other tires I’ve tried.

For now the front Rosé is fine (and good tread for my riding style, but I slapped the spare Pathfinder Pro back on the rear wheel. Pretty sure the tape job from Velocity on their wheels is solid (I cleaned and inspected this morning before switching tires).

Whenever I see somebody under 50 driving a late-model Buick, I wonder who hurt them.

Here in Richmond, Virginia the public school year starts tomorrow. We had a lot of fun over the summer break, but I’m actually looking forward to the slightly more predictable schedule.

My dad would have been 65 today.

I don’t mourn his loss 16 years ago; he wasn’t great and only started trying to be a dad when I was in college, but I still think about him on his birthday.

A young hydrant, cut down before its time.

A rare sighting of fire hydrant larvae preparing to leave the nest in search of new territory

I live in a reasonably progressive, if gentrified, neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia. So imagine my surprise when the new neighbor moving in to the rental house across the street plops a sign in the yard for RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign 😳

My wife and I both work from home on Mondays with her in the office upstairs and myself on the sofa in the living room. It’s a silly thing, but whenever I hear her sneeze, I always like to yell out “Bless you!” across the entire dang house, and then she responds in kind with “Thank you!”

Tonight I hit my cycling mileage goal for the year: 5500 miles/8851 km. I’m on pace to surpass last year’s total (6500 miles/10461 km) in 5-6 weeks!

New set of Velocity Cliffhanger wheels just arrived with a dynamo up front. Wrapped them in some Ultradynamico Rose Robusto tires.

Now I just need to get to Saturday so I can ride on them outside instead of all this Zwift nonsense while it rains 😜