I went back to Schaeffer Farms on Saturday. This time is was warm and sunny (as opposed to cold and snowing). The parking lot was almost full, but surprisingly the trails were almost deserted. I got in over an hour of riding, and covered most of the trails in the park.

Feel free to admire my crappy mobile phone camera photos.

Mmmmm, Raspberry GU₂O. (Thanks Eric)

Hopefully the weather will allow more rides soon. In the mean time we have four days of rain forecasted…

I installed some bar-top levers on the Sirrus and learned how to wrap bar tape. Luckily, I didn’t tear the tape and the result was pretty good. I also replaced the brake cables and housings on the Gunnar with Aztek Powerlines, and in the process rewrapped the bars as well. I’ve been apprehensive about rewrapping bars, but it isn’t all that bad.

While unpacking (yes, we’re still unpacking), I found a poorly composed photo of my old ’94 Mongoose Hilltopper. This was my first *real* mountain bike. If I recall, it had an STX/Alivio drivetrain, rigid fork, and a black-chrome finish. It was sold prior to the purchase of my ’95 Specialized M2 FS, which I still ride.

Oh yeah, we got a new car. An ’07 Subaru Impreza Outback Sport SE. The SE (special edition) is a mid-year addition to the Impreza 2.5i sedan and Outback Sport. The package is pretty nice, and no doubt a result of the impending release of the new body style ’08 Imprezas later this year. It has a manual transmission, upgraded sound system with in dash CD changer, satellite radio, iPod input and sub. This model also came with automatic climate control and fog lights. I’ll be installing a receiver hitch for the Yakima rack and a few other accessories. If I don’t have anything else to talk about, or I’m bored, I’ll post all kinds of painful details on the various installations.

After a some time, and a few more miles, I’ll post a full review of the Impreza.

Almost all of my cycling photos have been from my phone camera. I haven’t been too happy with the poor photo quality.

A few years ago I built a video camera mount for autocrossing. I haven’t been autocrossing much, and the prospect of doing so in the near future doesn’t look good. So, I’ve adapted the camera mount for bike duty. While the articulated mount will allow for a wide range of camera positions, it may transmit too much vibration. If this proves to be the case, a simpler mount may be a better solution.

The mount will work with any tripod mountable camera; initially I’ll be testing out the mount with my circa 2001 Sony 1.3 mega pixel camera. More to come soon…