This bike riding thing: it ain't all sunsets and rainbows.

This stormy weather weather in the afternoon thing is beginning to irk me.

20 minutes into my daily bike ride the sky darkened.  at 30 minutes it was drizzling.  at 45 minutes the wind was cranking, the rain was coming down in sheets, and the lightning was firing everywhere.

About 17 miles in a guy passes me up, doing 19mph into a strong crosswind.  His bike looked like a total beater, old steel frame spray painted silver?  But the rider was lean and his form was good, and I saw the shiny flash of nice components and a powertap in his rear wheel.  Must have been his bad weather bike.  I like his style.

The shop that works on my road bike sells the Colgano's,the Cervelo's , the Felt's and all that.  Lots of stuff with 5k+ price tags and I would love to own one.  But the places I like to hang out have funky old stuff that's really cool.  Old steel frame racing bikes, new steel frame road bikes, track bikes which are the cool thing with the kids, that kind of stuff.  I just bought a new bike to keep in my office so I can hop on and ride around when I need to destress for a bit - go exploring and stuff.  It's a Torker kb2.

How cool is that!?!  Clean, spartan look.  Two speed hub w/coaster brake.  Plenty sturdy for hopping curbs and taking shortcuts.  That bike is perfect for urban exploration.  Lunch just got a lot more fun.

Catching up to the beginning

Hello,

I'm not sure what this blog will be; I'll let that sort itself out.  I think the main thing is to as Nike would say, Just do it.

But this isn't really the beginning.  No that was a couple of months ago.

The real beginning was on the 30th of May, 2012.

I had quit smoking for almost exactly a month, thinking that was going to fix my life.  At the time I weighed 244 lbs, smoked about 30 Marlboro lights a day, and drank around 70 units of alcohol a week.  How much is 70 units?  A 1.75 liter bottle of vodka I reckon.

Well, getting rid of the smokes helped.  But after a month of that I still felt like ass.  So, sitting there on the couch with a nasty hangover after a multi-day memorial day bender, I decided that was it.

And that brings us to today, about 77 days later (yeah I count days).  I'm down to 213lbs.  I get a good night's rest, I eat well, and I exercise.  I feel a world better.  I feel like a different person practically if you want to know the truth.

The thing is, I'm sort of rediscovering life.  A lot of things that many people take for granted are a novelty to me.  It makes sense to write about it not just for the novelty factor but because I think it will help me to find my own voice rather than just repeating things I've seen or heard and thinking it's me, which I reckon is quite common.

Lost in daylight, finding my way.