I went for a ride on Sunday afternoon. The first big street by my house has brand new blacktop, and when you're not in the heat of summer it is excellent. It was perfectly smooth and silent so that riding on it was almost like flying. Too bad it won't make it through the winter like that...

The wind was out of the south at 25 miles per hour with gusts up to 40-50. I kept thinking if I could only get down the road how cool it would be to ride back. I did what amounted to a two mile hard sprint at 10mph. My heart rate was probably pushing 200 and my legs felt like I was doing squats. I was going uphill coming up on a house with a dog that likes to chase so I gave up and pulled over.

The cool thing about drop handlebars is that I can lay on them with my chest on top, my head hanging over my front tire, and my arms in the drops. It's much more comfortable to collapse like that than on straight bars. I leaned on the bike that way for a few minutes and sucked all the oxygen I could until I recovered, then I turned around and headed home.

Riding with at 25mph tailwind is a pretty cool experience. It had enough of a cross component that steering was difficult, but keeping pace with the leaves blowing down the road made it all worthwhile.

I put new tape on the Peugeot handlebar. I used the outside-in technique from this NYVC youtube video:
NYVC Bike Basics: Bar Tape

Picture of yellow bar tape

I wonder if negative comments along the lines of "why did you run this story when XYZ is clearly more important" or "the headline has nothing to do with the article" influence news editors. Most of the time these comments apply to non-stories, filler stories, or fake emergency stories, and there are plenty of those on the news sites that do not allow comments.