mack_turtle

now the question is: what trail should we just nickname "Air Fryer" now? I don't think I am capable of creating enough "air flow" to make a different. maybe that's why road rides feel slightly less horrible, especially if you avoid the hilly routes that involve slowly grinding up the climbs.

in case it was not plain enough to me that heat + humidity was a bad combination: https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/humans-cant-endure-temperatures-and-humidities-high-previously-thought/ it gets worse with age.

Yesterday I left around 11 a.m., (seemed like the perfect time when the humidity wears off and the heat has not hit full strength yet) I rode from my door out through Sunset Valley to the VCT entrance on Ben White, down the switchbacks to ride Sweet 16 to the Travis Country pumptrack. by the time I got there, I didn't even have the energy to do a lap around the pump track, I just limped home. I was hoping that riding under the BCGB canopy would make things less awful. Everything down there smells like the ashe junipers are about to burst into flame. good riddance! I'm trying to figure out if the heat got to me, or it was a combo of the heat + riding some of the most challenging, technical trail segments I know. total ride was barely 11 miles. that's my shortest BCGB ride yet. I'll experiment with some r**d riding today to see if that's somehow better. less shade but more movement and less effort spent wrangling the bike over ledges and stuff.

I'm always messing with my bike, so I probably moved my stem on my fork and didn't have the headset snugged down completely when I started riding. It usually takes a few blocks of pedaling before I notice a knock in my headset and stop to fix it. new part is on its way. if that doesn't make the noise go away, it's probably my fork CSU flexing again.

Annoying creak coming from the front of my bike today. I tore the headset apart to see if the handlebar or fork was compromised. Found this crack in the headset compression ring instead. (At the top, right next to the split). That might be causing it. That part costs $6, so I'm just going to replace it to rule that out

https://www.instagram.com/p/CfMgYJ_upMT/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Donald Glover's show Atlanta is pretty weird, but you can just watch episode 6 of season 2, "Teddy Perkins." Totally freaked me out.

The wife and I spent last weekend planning the same thing. Roadtrip to Knoxville, Asheville, Raleigh-Durham, maybe some little north GA towns.

I stopped in Academy Sports last night to look for light, long-sleeved shirts and found this "running hoodie" for $5 on the clearance rack! I'm going to go back and try to find another one in that size. went on a ride this morning and it felt fine. the hood seemed to help a bit when I was out the open with the Saturday morning sun beating down on me.

I'm on a quest to buy some loose fitting long-sleeve summer riding shirts now. I don't think much exists in cycling-specific clothing that fits the bill. I draw the line at those awful dorktastic Columbia "fishing" shirts, but I might have to do that.

You must be one of those Lizard People that Alex Jones has been warning us about! I don't want to find out the hard way, but I'm pretty sure I would find myself in the ER if I tried that. I keep my thermostat set at 78 at home and spending the latter half of my life in Texas does not seem to help. Maybe that internal thermostat gets set earlier in life.

I know a few people who can ride for hours in blazing heat. I don't know how they do that. Must be genetic or many hours of intensional training to allow the body to do that. Until I can get out of this hellhole, I think the only answer is to keep my rides under 90 minutes. I wear a 3L pack and two 24 ounce water bottles on these hot days, one of the bottles is filled with one of the many electrolyte mixes I have tried. I "camel up" the day before by drinking as much water as I can stand, combined with supplements. after 90 minutes, my water is totally depleted and I start to get a headache. this has been going on for a decade with no relief. I asked my doctor and he said "drink some Gatorade."

$$ My approach: i feel beeter spending my money first on a reliable bike that isn't a plastic Rube Goldberg mess of bearings and tiny bones that will be unserviceable in three years. Spend some time riding one gear and you'll find you can hang with people who have all the advantages that money can buy without spending your own.

I've got at least another decade in these bones, in that case. might as well enjoy it while I can, because I can't keep up with the cost of maintaining a bouncy bike. I know several 50+ riders on rigid bikes who can ride circles around me in Barton Creek.

good luck finding a demo ride for any bike I'd want to own. (hardtail, no silly derailers, preferably without a sissy fork.) I'm currently considering a frame that is not tiny and has something steeper than the current 71.5° STA that I have now, but I have no frame of reference to know if I'm going to like it enough to put down $1000-2000 for such a thing.