34 miles, 2.5 hours; loom issues

Today I did one of the official AIDS Lifecycle training rides, which is rare for me: I’m not much on group riding and have an absolute horror of getting lost – I can’t read turn sheets while riding and have an uncanny ability to choose the wrong direction every time.  So I tend to try following someone, and then of course I have trouble keeping up, and it’s just an all-around frustrating experience.

But, it was a meet-your-Cycle-Buddy ride, and I wanted to say hi to Jo, my Cycle Buddy, so I came along.  Along the way I discovered that I’m really not that slow anymore; I kept up quite nicely with the people in the first half of the ride, although I had to stretch myself a bit going uphill.  I may do more group rides, haven’t decided yet.

Anyway, I did 34 miles in just about exactly 2.5 hours, giving me a net speed of about 13.5 mph on a mostly-flat course.  That’s pretty slow – I was about 1 mph faster last year – but it’s not a bad starting point, especially since I’ve only been training two weeks.  My back was killing me towards the end of the ride, though – I have got to get that seatpost fixed.  The part should be coming in at Palo Alto Bicycles any day now – Monday, I hope!

My loom has broken again – another cable snapped.  Have I mentioned that I’m not impressed by the cables that came with the loom?  I am in the process of replacing it, but it will probably take another hour or so to fix.  Hopefully it won’t need another trip to the hardware store.

The good news is that this is just about the last of the original cables, so I probably won’t have to go through this again for awhile.

Plans for tomorrow:

• 2.5 hour ride (would do longer but the seat-post issues are killing me)
• dip (in chocolate) another batch of caramels
•  repair loom
• finish (?) weaving the garnet shawl, and/or
• redo the muslin for my peacock-feather AIDS Lifecycle outfit

Mike is away in Paris (for work) this coming week, which means I will be focusing on craft work most of this week.