Not quite yet Rocky Mountain high

If I'm not racing, ride plans are generally formed around family plans. A last minute change in the latter left me wondering what to do with the former. Without the time to plan a trip to the mountains, I considered doing my stupid ride from home to the Whitewater Center, do a loop, ride to Renaissance, do a loop, ride home plan. With the new additions to the WWC, that would be close to 65 miles, so I rethought my plan through.

I called Jim.

Who's Jim?

The guy who forced me into a car with strangers and made me go to the Punk Bike Enduro last year, as well as the actor who played "moonshine guy" in Zac and Dicky Make a Promo.

New plan. Ride to Jim's, hop in his car, do a loop of the WWC, ride to Renni, ride home. Less miles, better company.

The first fifth or so of the plan went well. Jim and I parked outside of the WWC as neither of us likes the $5 parking charge. Take that, The Man. We rode the Green Loop to warm up, headed over to the bike shop looking for a floor pump, went through the parking lot to get to East Main, and ran into Chico and Johnny Nutsack. Together we hit East Main and then headed over to shred the Thread. Jim's prior evening's amusements were dragging him down, so he told me to go on without him.

So now onwards with Chico and Nutsack, we finished out the ride, did a bonus Green Loop lap, and they talked me into bailing on the rest of my plan.

It wasn't hard.

Segue.

Not being Fatty, my complaint about my Giro helmet went unanswered. He would have a stack of helmets and a dozen roses on his front porch within 48 hours of posting "An open letter to Giro"... personally delivered by Levi Leipheimer. Myself, I had to take things in my own hands.

I fixed my Giro problem by buying a Specialized helmet. Leave it to Dandy Don Butler at Bike Source to talk me off the ledge and into my dummy knot.

Double bonus? There was a flat, tucked-away piece of real estate on the new helmet big enough for my Shuffle. Combined with the 15" Short Bud, this is going to be my new race set-up.

Far End Gear recently sent me their new Brite Bud with long reflective cord, but for the most part I've either been using the Short Bud or running the longer corded standard One Good Earbud under my jersey. I could see the Brite Bud being useful if you were a night time runner or if you like to go to raves but the shit the DJ's playing just ain't your bag.

You like to glow stick to the beat of a different drummer.