Like the US Postal Service

I swear, I've gone from "commuting cyclist" to "full on bat!#!@ crazy dude cyclist". This morning we had a thunderstorm, starting around 4am and continuing through the morning hours. My alarm, set to 5:45am was reset for 6:30am because while I'm crazy, I'm not crazy enough to ride 10 miles in the middle of a t-storm. Only 5 miles, thankyouverymuch.

Thankfully my alarm gamble paid off. By the time I made it out the door at 7:15am it looked something like this out:

Drizzly, gloomy, but not imminent death. YES!

Now, there are two things to note about this picture. First, the astute of you will notice that my saddle bag is open. I did not notice this until halfway up the MONSTER HILL OF DEATH, as I forgot to close it after getting my insanely awesome $7 Brooks saddle cover out of it (if you own a Brooks, you need one, 'nuff said). This is par for the course for me, and somewhat of an ongoing joke as last year I went through about 4 multi-tools because of this. Now the multi-tools are in my backpack.

Second, that pickup sitting there, you know you want it. Because, well, I'm not exactly sure why I still own it. I haven't driven it for probably a month or more, and when I do it's because I find an excuse to drive it so I can justify still owning it. That is to say, it's getting put up for sale very, very shortly - as soon as I get around to getting all my electronics un-installed and put it up on craigslist. Great truck and I absolutely love driving it, I just have no real use for it anymore. I had held on to it to "tow the boat with", but then I found out the towing capacity for our new van is more than enough to tow any boat we'd ever want. And it will get 20 mpg towing it. AND I can fit all the kids AND my wife in it while towing it. Lots of ANDs there, suckers.

Oh and third, the Planet Bike Superflash rocks. My cameraphone, however, certainly does not in low-light conditions.

Obviously I survived the ride to work. It was actually even somewhat pleasant! Oh, here's another "what do you see (or not see) here" picture:

That is my handlebar. It is a sexy chrome bar with a sexy chrome stem, and some not-so-sexy but pretty comfy bar tape. What it is completely lacking, if you didn't notice, is some sort of gizmo that tracks speed and mileage. I've got well over 500 miles on the Trucker already, and you know what? I LOVE not having some sort of computer device on it. It's liberating in ways that I can't even summarize, so I won't try. 'nuff said on that subject, am I right?

On a completely different note, today I've begun drinking coffee black with no creamer or sweetener. I began drinking coffee to replace soda, but with creamer/milk and sweetener. About a month ago I weaned off sweetener because nobody can seem to agree if it's good or bad for weight loss. Today I figured "what the hell" and stopped using creamer, because it's got calories in it.

Anyway, that's all I've got. It's Tuesday morning and even with my 5 mile ride in, I'm already at the 50 mile mark for the week. Slowly working up to the 200 mile/week goal for July, so this week I'm shooting for 180 miles. Then the week after I'll do the 200, continuing that number every week through July.

Fun times, ya'll.