Addiction XXXX8
 

Welcome to almost-summer. (For all us northern hemisphere types.)

Of course I could barely tell by todays chilly weather:

1) I had to put back on a fleece sweater that was already put away, and

2) I'm going to have to put the comforter back on the bed this evening.

Yeah, summer is right around the corner.

It was actually pretty nice over here. About 80. but its suppose to rain tomorrow :(

Air conditioning was on today, only about 10 days after we had our heater on :)

Derp

Mrs BD was put away for the summer?

And which corner might that be? The one 50 blocks down the road?

I can poke fun. We had snow down to 1000' today, with cold temps and rain. And I am off work today with a bung foot.

Just got done watching Stage 20 of the Giro. Best day of racing I've seen this year!

#mustseeTV

Gonna wait 'til tomorrow to watch today's stage.

#nospoilers .

Watched the last 50 km, of stage 20 last night, fantastic racing!

45°F and raining, we need the rain here, but a warm rain would have been nicer.
#gohomewinteryourdrunk

The Giro this year has been a revelation. There really can be great racing in a Grand Tour!

One of the highlights was that downhill finish the other day. High speed, changes in the lead, precision riding.

Combined with the other dramas, the Giro has had it all.

Bummer about the foot. Hope it mends quickly.

Rain today but I have to work so not so bad.

Thanks. It will. It started last week while digging fence post holes with a shovel, and worsened walking around a country show we went to on the weekend. Just a bit of swelling around the metatarsals.

Send some of that cool weather down here. We're used to the heat, just need to get out early morning or early evening to avoid the mid-day temps.

I'm at the bike shop today. A jacket will be required for the commute.

And lights.

And a Personal Flotation Device.

It's not that bad. This isn't Texas.

Recovery day...Had a fine Bordeaux with the Bo Luc Lac I made for dinner last night...

https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...e3&oe=55EC07E2

Then I caught Das Boot on the tube... three hours of essentially PTSD that movie...

More MTB stuff:

WTF New Brunswick. Like, seriously.

There's an MTB race coming up in Fredericton that I might do, in a park downtown. I figured I'd better recce out the course before I committed to it, so I swung by on Sat AM.

OK, so the park is on a big-ass hill, so that means we'll probably start out going straight up it, because no MTB race course designer can resist starting out with a monster climb to hurt everybody right away. Up the hill I go. Then I start looking for singletrack sections.

Intially I can't find ****, but when I take another pass I find another example of ****ty New Brunswick trail "building". They lay out a route over the forest floor, cut back the most egrecious bushes, and call it a day. NO surface prep. NO drainnage. NO smoothing out bombholes. NO cutting back of roots, arranging rocks, or doing ANYTHING that could be considered trail "building". I've seen deer paths better maintained.

So there's no flow to it - it's more like trials riding, where you fight for every single metre of forward progress and it's a constant struggle to not dab or bail.

That's the second "trail" (of two sites attempted) here in New Brunswick that is like that. I've never seen the like. I've ridden all over Canada and in South Africa and Tenerife and nobody else calls this crap "trails". Sure, sometimes you'll get a technical section and they can get tricky in spots, but not the entire friggin' trail!

I carved out a 400m loop in my backyard woodlot that is light years better, and I'm hacking out a second trail in the woodlot behind my yard that I have been moaning about slow progress on that even in its roughed-in shape is still better than what they are calling "singletrack".

The event organizer sent me a Strava link to the course, but I haven't cross-referenced it yet. If it includes any of that muddy, rooty trials ****, I ain't doing it.

I'm also trying to get a local road group ride going.

No, that's all-season comforting. :)

You saw the original, in German....Ya? Good film, I saw it when it came out like 30+ years ago. I think I was a teenager in HS back then.

I've watched it many times over the years...Jah. This was the English dubbed version, nevertheless Johan was as bugged out as always.

I need to add it to my Blu-Ray collection...The actual original is a 6 hour miniseries, I think there was a US release in the last decade...

.
...#****

Hey, bright sunshine in Texas today. Just did 20.

We're already celebrating 90+ days here. Summer has gone. Hell weather is shortly coming [but at least it's a dry heat]