I'm too cold to think of a title

We didn't make it to WABA's Vasa Ride yesterday. Scott wasn't up to a thirty mile ride and I didn't want to go without him. I wasn't too keen on the super early hour we'd have to be out of the door to make it, either. Instead, Scott planned to ride to the gym, swim, and ride home. Before leaving, though, he worked on attaching some bar-end handle thingies to his bike, but couldn't get the handle over the stem of his rear view mirror. The stem of the rear view mirrors we both have are slightly too big for the inner diameter of his handlebar tube so Adam shaved the stem down just a bit and mashed it into the handlebar. The bar attachment thingie Scott wanted to put on couldn't open wide enough for him to slip it over the mirror end and he wasn't able to pry the mirror off his handlebar. I suggested we take his bike to the local bike shop and get Adam to work his magic. This ride would also  give me a chance to put more miles on Circe.

The Weather Channel promised a little bit of wind in our neck of the woods, but I would call that "little bit of wind" downright blustery. We took turns acting as windbreaks for each other and that worked out pretty well. I was amused to feel the difference in exertion depending upon which one of us was in front and in rear.

We made it to the shop without issue; although Scott was fairly wiped out from the seven mile ride. He had plenty of time to recover, though, since Sunday is apparently the day when everybody comes in for maintenance. I was sad that the usual gang wasn't on staff, but I guess they need a day off every now and then. While we waited for Scott's turn, I purchased a couple of bottle cages for Circe because the pair I had were too loose and made my bottle rattle the. entire. ride. over. As I swapped out old cages for new, a couple of the salesguy came over to ask if I wanted assistance. I laughed that it was just bottle cages and I was good. One of the guys praised my self-sufficiency. I told him I could even change a tire and had taken my friend's cruiser apart and put it back together. They said I should watch out or they might hire me. I joked back that I wouldn't mind the employee discount. That banter carried over to Scott's perusal of cyclocross bikes where he asked if it was possible to change out the nubby tires for slicks and vice versa. Salesguy said yes and that I could show Scott how to do that. Heh.

The ride home was MUCH easier now that we had a tailwind and I was really able to open Circe up. I was able to get her to just over 26 mph on a flat section and sailed up a hill at 24. I then coasted for a couple of minutes to let Scott catch up. It was fun showing off and passing him on hills especially on the route 28 overpass. I hit that sucker at 14 mph and crested at just under 13. All in all, it was a fun outing and I'm enjoying getting used to the new bike.