Bike #1 is out of the shop and it’s fabulous.  The rear wheel had blown the rim and I had the drivetrain upgraded as well:

Mavic Speed City wheels

Shimano Ultegra crankset and bottom braket

Shimano XT cassette

My crappy old deore and tiagra derallieurs look pretty shabby next to the new parts and I’m going to upgrade them as soon as I can but this isn’t the bike I’m taking on tour so it’s going to have to wait.

My new shoes are in and I’m going to run over to REI after work to go get them.  I’m currently using Shimano R151′s with my road pedals and I totally hate them.  Mostly, it’s because the carbon sole doesn’t have any kind of protection at the heel and the carbon has worn off in sheets because of it.  Also, they’re clunky and the wide velcro strips look terrible and are difficult to close properly.  I’m getting Sidi ZETA shoes and I’m really excited about them because they look SO much cuter and everybody I know who has them loves them.  They aren’t carbon but I really don’t care.

March has been a pretty crappy month for me riding my bike.  We had to put our border collie Bubba down after a long illness.  He’d developed doggie dementia and was horribly incontinent towards the end and it was very sad and left me not really wanting to do anything for quite a while.

But I’m riding my bike across the US in less than a month so I had to get back on my bike.  Bike #2, the carbon bike, has had something wrong with the brakes–  they’re hitting the tire and not the rim which is really bad for braking so I haven’t been riding it.

So, I rode a century yesterday on Bike #3.  And a tough century it was.  I rode down the  coast to Half Moon bay and then took highway 84 up to skyline and then took that up over King Mountain down into Woodside.  Then I came back through Crystal Springs canyon up through the bike trails and then took Millbrae ave down to the airport where I watched planes take off for a while and then Camino Alto back into San Francisco.  It was a good hard ride but I felt good all day and I feel good today.  The bike performed really well but It would have taken a lot less time if it had been a little lighter.

I forgot my camera which sucks because it was a beautiful day and I had a great comfortable ride.  I saw a lot of stuff I hadn’t seen before and loved every minute of it.

I’m picking up #2 today and will ride it after work either straight home or a little longer depending on how long the rain holds off.

I’ve got all my travel preparations planned and am pretty much ready to go.  Yesterday’s ride pretty much showed me that I’m in the shape I need to be in but I need to ride really hard until it’s time to go.

I’m still needing many pledges for the lifecycle so here’s the link if you haven’t pledged me already:

http://www.aidslifecycle.org/2976

Thanks again!