Screw-Off Saturday

I'm hopin' I can do the Midnight Century. I still don't know if I can make it work with my schedule, but I'm planning for it in case I can. Today was supposed to be Dry Run Saturday. But when I got up it was raining and the weather forecast was calling for a 60% chance of thunderstorms. Didn't take much to talk myself out of riding a course with lots of open areas on Thunderstorm Saturday.

I could have done some other work that needs to be done, but it'll still be there tomorrow, and I decided to screw off instead. First thing I did was sit down and flip on the TV. I hardly ever watch anymore, 'cause I always seem to have stuff to do that's way more interesting than what's on, but as luck would have it on Screw-Off Saturday, I stumbled across "The Birth Of Big Air". It's part of an ESPN series called 30 For 30 and it's about Mat Hoffman, this 38 year-old guy who's the godfather of freestyle BMX. He was friends with the late, great Evel Knievel and he's every bit as banged up. Dude, I was f'ing RIVETED to the screen. You can check the ESPN website to look for the re-run schedule or get it on DVD or download it to your iPod, but you NEED to see this. I have to watch it again myself, 'cause I tuned in late and didn't catch the first part. Anyway, it totally kicks ass, and it made such an impression on me that it has just kind of permeated my whole state of mind all day. Only bad thing is, it probably killed any interest I have in watching any more TV for a long time. It was so well done anad so damn cool that there's just nothing out there that's gonna measure up. So I shut the tube down and headed to the shop for more goofing off.

Even though I wasn't interested in riding the course, I could still do plenty of obsessive thinking and planning. I decided to fix a couple things on the bike.

If I go, I'll be taking my Elephant, naturally. I don't have any decent way to mount a tail light yet. I could do a seatpost or seatstay mount, but I've wanted to do something more to my liking and today seemed like the day. Same thing with the pump mount - I've had it mounted under a water bottle cage and it looks stupid. Here's how I fixed both things . . .











The light is a RADBOT 1000 from Portland Design Works. Just when you thought nothing could possibly ever top the Planet Bike Superflash.
I got it from Larry at OlyBikes. I've had it for a while, but haven't tried it out yet other than to turn it on and stare at it and go temporarily blind for a coupla hours. I was compelled to buy it after reading his post.

So super fun bikey day. Kinda makes me think I should screw off more than I already do.