I’ve been trying to get out riding after work this week, and I did make it out 3 days. Two on the mountain bike with the light, and a nice little road ride on the fixie. I’m still thawing out. But at least I won’t be 100% unprepared for the race tomorrow….. Probably just 98% unprepared.

I’ve realized the importance now more than ever of having the right gear to go out in the weather. We still don’t have much of anything in terms of snow here, but it has been freakin cold, and I’ve been making some sort of attempt to stay in shape in preparation for upcoming races. Fortunately I picked up a pair of “gore bike-wear”:http://www.gorebikewear.com gloves earlier this season, and I’ve got some windproof tops and a nice windproof headband that fits pretty well under my helmet. The only thing I’m really lacking is some sort of windproof feet protection. I’ve been wearing some nice thick socks, but it just doesn’t cut it when you’re descending on the mountain bike. I climbed elden one night, and just about froze when I was coming back down the road. I might have to look into some shoe covers and also some windproof tights. If anyone has any suggestions for what they ride clothing-wise in the winter, I’m all ears. I’ve got 3 more weeks until “old pueblo”:http://www.epicrides.com/twofour/24.htm and I need to try and keep riding as much as I can take after work. So far I’ve been all over elden, and there hasn’t been more than 1-2 inches of snow anywhere, so I just blow right through it. Just like my refusal to buy a road bike until I absolutely need to, I’m not going to be riding a trainer in the living room anytime soon either, so don’t hold your breath on that one……

For your other gear-filled pleasure, “Weasel has a nice review of Chrome messeger bags”:http://www.fearlessgearless.com/2006/01/chrome-courier-bag/ up on his site. Nice stuff. Expensive as hell, but nice nonetheless.

In other gear-related news, I’ve started the process of parting out and selling off the tomac. I’m keeping whatever will work with my next singlespeed project, but the rest is going up on ebay, piece at a time. All the stuff is pretty much new except for about a dozen rides. I did some training rides, and then rode 24 hours of payson on it, and it’s been in the garage ever since. (Now time for the shameless ebay plug…..) The first items are:
* “SRAM x.0 rear derailleur”:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7214160591&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1
* “SRAM X.9 trigger shifters”:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7214166507&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1

The cranks, carbon flatbar and whatever else I get motivated enough to take off and take pictures of will probably be going up next monday after this stuff ends. Keep an eye out for anything you might need. Also, if anyone knows somebody who has a chris king disc-specific singlespeed rear hub, and wants to trade for a chris king geared disc-specific rear hub, let me know.

And just so everyone knows, the proceeds from this are going to a good cause….. “My next bike”:http://www.ifbikes.com/frames2/single-offroad.shtml

Finally, in case anyone noticed, I added some nifty “javascript stuff”:http://script.aculo.us to the menus on the right. I wanted to add an archives section, and I’m also going to add running link lists from del.icio.us and digg.com but it takes up a bunch of space. So, now all the categories on the right can be shown/hidden by clicking the title. It keeps things less cluttered, and it’s even nifty and smooth. My geekiness directly pays off for your pleasure of clicking those titles for hours of entertainment….. enjoy.