This is how the star-spangled banner should be sung. (Listen through.)

Xtracycle’s latest offering:

http://yubaride.com/

I want to move to wyoming

I am loving my little string of lights. THey’re justenough bigger than the Walgreen’s dudes. With the little blue spoke light up front that I don’t have to turn on, and my generator light that I usually leave on, I can be pretty danged illuminated with a poke at the back of my helmet and one switch on the saddlebags. Tracking battery life – it’s been two nights with about an hour’s ride each time.

Shaved a squirrel this morning. Glad it *had* registered my existence and was turning around – maybe I shouldn’t grease the chain after all.

Howard, Howard REading the fine print where reading the fine print is due: The list was *sent* to David Letterman in the *hopes* that he would use it and promote pirate day; however, the show was “dark” that week and it didn’t happen. I’d hate to give David Letterman’s writers credit when a mess of pirates deserved it.

I arrived at work loving everybody and thinking that banana the lady was carrying down the hall was a singularly elegant and beautiful expression of life and creation.

The endorphins take a good hour to wear off

We were all told to leave campus around 1:00 after being told not to drink the water and then not to wash or flush. Latest is that we *will*, in fact, have school tomorrow (contrary to the dismissal announcement). Something about misinformation… ah, well, time to get out and ride! It’s 88… gas is about 2.88 a gallon but oil’s going for $82/barrel. I went to Champaign Cycle on the way home so I *could* flush… and Scot tells me they’ll have brightly colored helmet covers coming in so as people who ride in the rain as I did last night will be drier (I suppose if I’d also worn rain gear it might have mattered!) and warmer and even more visible. Hmmm… but will they work with the helmet lights?

Stolen from bj in honor of Talk like a Pirate Day yesterday:

Ten pickup lines for “talk like a pirate” day… hmmm…. I’m feeling the compulsion to compose a few from the other gender perspective… now, there’s something to consider whilst riding (so who says this isn’t cycling related!)

10 . Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?

9. Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?

8. Come on up and see me urchins.

7. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.

6. I’d love to drop anchor in your lagoon.

5. Pardon me, but would ya mind if fired me cannon through your porthole?

4. How’d you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?

3. Ya know, darlin’, I’m 97 percent chum free.

2. Well, blow me down!

And the number one pickup line for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day is:

1. Prepare to be boarded.

Yesterday I went by the bike shop for Tri-LUbe for the Bike Coopwho were having a wheel-building frenzy. Got the chain checked at the same time. Measured fine… but it was a “slow Saturday.” They had that bicycle up on the stand and the adjustmentizers going and the tri-lube going into all these little brakey parts and because it was a slow Saturday Suddenly I had a new noodle and cable and all kinds of unnamed parts were flying around and little tri-lube droplets dribbling everywhere. I didn’t knew mechanickizing was so much fun to watch!

The day before yesterday was also a day of Purchasing New STuff, which I will attemptto put photos up for when I find the little cable. THe new Trek light mounting for their Flare 7 and Flare 10 will snap very nicely around the back of the Vapor helmet (and, I”m sure, whatever the next higher up helmet is). Seemed to my sensitive ears that the telltale “we’re slowing down because we don’t know what that thing up there is” sound was happening at a very nice, comfortably distant distance. The Flare 10 has a couple of LEDs that are sidewards for 360 degrees; I went with that because the “frontward” ones were angled so were good side-angle LEDs (I don’t exactly need for lights to face the back of my head ) . Something wedged in there would improve the angle a bit … I’m thinking a bud vase …

How to ride a bike in a skirt (how to ride like a diva) here

I can’t believe somebody actually *did* this. This blog is aptly named…

Had to hang out at Prospect for oh, 2 or 3 minutes today (2 light cycles). In that time, however, I watched 3 cyclists go through the light up at University, and another 5 0r 6 wait there, and there were three of us that half-block down. Maybe a sample size distortion but we were, not for the first time, a significant percentage of the vehicles on the road.
Supposed to be nippy tomorrow Going to put together my “more weather cycling” web guide…