Thursday, September 11, 2008

Goat's Heads

Bike 2: 322.2; 26.3

And by the way, that's 340 miles now on Bike 2 since I got it August 14--just past the 332 miles I'd covered on Bike 1 in the prior month.

Tire still full. Today I noticed all the star thistles blooming beside the trail, especially out near Willowside. Their thorns (called goat's heads, and I think perhaps occasionally used in the making of a soup) are like children's "jacks," and they scatter from the plant to lie in wait on the roads and trails, to embed themselves in bike tires and eventually break off and work their way through the tire to the tube, where they cause flats. I had so many problems at this time of year with my other bike, I got the Green Slime stuff AND a liner to combat them and STILL got flats from them now and then. So, that's probably the culprit of my recent tubular problems.

Anyway, happy to again pile on some miles. I do feel like maybe I'm ever-so-slightly slimmer around the midsection after all this, and feel kind of obsessive about keeping up the miles (even while trying to climb more hills, which usually means fewer miles in the same span of time). Today I felt sore and slow when starting out, so didn't push the speed too much, and eventually settled into a mindless rhythm--sometimes I completely zone out for long stretches, and don't remember covering those miles, after the fact.

Again, people with dogs off-leash pissing me off. I don't usually say anything, but today a woman was on her cell phone totally ignoring her dog, which as soon as it saw me coming started running as if to give chase. I yelled "Leash" after passing; doubt she even heard me. Sigh.

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