shutdown/reboot

after an aggravating defeat in a collegiate road race this weekend (i wasn't paying attention while 8 dudes broke away, then couldn't get around a four-Navy-guy blockade [cue Village People music] and was left to roll around the last 15 miles with a bunch of guys with teammates in the break and absolutely no motivation to chase but were highly motivated to sprint it out down to the 18th place (and to add further insult, i wasn't even listed in the results!)), i needed some solace. and after a run-on sentence like that, we all do.

so i escaped out for a wednesday afternoon beaver dam ride by myself. sometimes solo riding is meditative. especially when you want to ride slow, rather than get pushed by other BCC folks. things started out pretty swell, with nice weather and empty trails. and then i broke a chain. i haven't broken a chain in years, so that was a bummer. fortunately i had a chain tool. unfortunately i did not have extra links. i should have learned my lesson after the last ride when Daniel broke his chain. i thought i could remove the bad link and push forward the rear wheel (the vassago's rocks track-ends) but it was too short. which forced me to dig through the pine needles on the trail, find the broken parts of the chain and smash them back together. okay, problem solved, at least enough to get me back home. just don't crank too hard, right? it's better than a sharp stick in the eye, right? right. so then i got a sharp stick in my eye. some small branch, actually. it somehow jousted past my glasses and somehow hit me. i don't know if it actually hit my eyeball or just my eyelid, but it hurt. i could still see okay, so i didn't think i had done serious, pirate-style damage; however, i felt that this was yet another sign that today was not the day. go home, eat a donut, shake it off, and try again tomorrow.

when i got home, i was pleased to find that no one had stolen all my stuff.