cycling .

So I recently acquired a road bike and all the fixings with hard earned money (so hard to see it leave the account in such a rush though...) and today I went on the third or fourth ever ride on it. A couple of things I've noticed pertain to the fact that road biking is absolutely nothing like mountain biking.


First off, it's so much easier. A higher PSI on the tires, smaller tires, better aerodynamics, no suspension, carbon forks, and it's just plain lighter. All pluses. The unfortunate side to all that stiffness? Your butt has the pleasure of feeling every single bump in the road. You also travel fast -- alot faster than I ride on a mountain bike. If you hit the right trail in the woods, sometimes you can blast down it, though it probably feels a lot faster since you're closed in on dirt singletrack avoiding trees, stumps, rocks, roots, and the like. It's a rush, but road biking feels really good as well.

To be honest, I've already sorta fallen in love with it and have been riding every single day. I increased my mileage to 21/22 miles today in an hour or so. That's not great, but I'll take it. By the end of the summer I'd like to be riding twice that in an 1:30 or 1:45. We'll see though. It's been a rush, literally. The bike just responds so well -- and on that note? Clipless pedals are the shit. I can't believe I didn't get into that sooner. I'm definitely considering getting a set for my mountain bike. Not only would that give me more clearance off the ground, but I could hop things a lot easier. However, at the moment I don't really want to spend more money that the bare minimums. Saving for a big deal trip is not easy! But it will all be worth it in the end.

On another note, sort of on the same terms with traveling, turns out my brother's travel leader is keeping up with a photo blog of sorts while they are traveling. My parents gave me the link today, and it's so crazy to think he's already blown through 2 days of his adventure. 3 weeks may sound like an awful long time to be on vacation, but I remember everything flying by on mine because you literally don't stop. There is shopping time and hangout time in the hotels, but you're always traveling, and you're moving at such an insane speed that it's almost hard to take it all in! I kinda wish I could be over there with him. It'd be a neat thing to travel the world as brothers. I'm even jealous of the places he's going -- Austria, Switzerland, Germany... wow. Heritage city, for our family at least. I'll be honest, he's been in my mind a lot. It's just not the same being at home as the only kid in the house.

And thus, I will do my best to keep myself preoccupied with work and such, in addition to biking and lifting in my free hours, along with a good book and maybe get back into some production of music -- it's truly been too long. I got some more miscellaneous things to talk about, but perhaps I'll leave that as my extremely on-purpose foreshadowing of tomorrow's musings and ponderings. What fun would it be if I spilled it all now?