So, I didn’t ride much in November, and I’m not expecting much for December either. I couldn’t even ride to work today. I had to walk. I tried riding, but even if I could get traction (which I couldn’t) the gearing is way to tall to even try to ride though a foot of snow. And, I don’t really want to sacrifice any of my other bikes to the snow and salt.

Wednesday it was raining, so I rode. Thursday there was freezing rain and sleet, so I rode. The brake housings must have collected water on Wednesday because yesterday the rear froze. At least the front brake mostly works. Anyway, today the usual 5-6 minute ride was a 45 minute walk, each way. Hopefully the snow will be below the bottom bracket on Monday…

November Numbers:
Total distance (November): 69.99 miles
Total distance (Cumulative): 1556.73 miles
Total time (Cumulative): 118 hours, 50 minutes

I recently received a brand-new ’07 Rock Shox SID Race. (Thanks again to all who were involved) This is the first new fork I’ve owned since I bought the Manitou 4 in ’95. The other forks, such as the Mach 5, SX and SID XC were all second hand. The new fork is installed and the warning labels have been removed, but I haven’t had a chance to ride it yet. The old fork it going to Eric for his cracked Trek 8700 frame, along with many other broken parts.

The new sub 3 lb. SID Race is currently set for 80 mm of travel. This raised the front of the bike a little, but I think it should still be okay. The old SID sagged about half of the travel (~1-1.5″), so any new fork would have changed the geometry. Until the last fork died (after five years of hard use), it worked very well and was very stiff considering the weight. The new SID should perform well, and hopefully take a lot of abuse.

The requisite photos:

Some Bridge. Notice that it is painted to match the links on my site.

Lombard Street.

After waking up at 1:00 AM PST on Tuesday, and arriving in Oakland around 11:30 AM, we drove up to San Francisco to see the sights, and get lunch. We went to a really nice vegetarian restaurant, Greens Restaurant in the San Francisco Marina area. After that, we stopped by Lombard Street, and then on to Fisherman’s Wharf.

An Arcade at Fisherman’s Wharf.

A crazy person.

Four bikes in the back of a RAV4. (I think five or six may fit)

Yesterday, we rented some bikes from the Stanford Campus bike shop and rode about 15 miles on the Baylands trail. It was a nice day, much warmer than the rides I’m used to in November, and the trail was not crowded.

And, no matter how much you dislike the holidays, please don’t forget…