Nature's Wrath

If you haven't heard - we were attacked (literally) by lightening on Tuesday evening during the storms. We have no air, no sprinkler system, no internet, no wireless, no TiVO, no DVD player, no Game Cube, No XBox 360, no charger for our camcorder and no PowerMac desktop. Oh..and we are also missing large portions of two trees and as a result will loose several more during the clean-up process. Anyway - we are staying w/ my parents for the time being so blog updates have been nearly impossible since the availability of internet is scarce. More updates to come soon...until then, please pray for a speedy recovery (or replacement, actually...) of all of our creature comforts. Until then....

The Blog Fairy

Fixed my bike photo on my blog...thanks blog fairy!

Epic Bikes

I wanted to take a moment out of my cup of coffee to do something that I feel few consumers take the time to do: I want to give a shout-out/kudos/mad props (you choose) to everyone at Epic Bikes. I feel it's overdue for me to give a well deserved pat-on-the-back for all of the good that they do for the cycling community, as well as those who know very little but still want a bike (be it hybrid, road, mountain, BMX or even kiddie wheels w/ trainers). I have recently become a cycling enthusiast and and I owe a great deal of my knowledge to the guys (and girl!!) at Epic Bikes. Very rarely do you run across a business willing to help novice riders by educating them - many shops sell you whatever they need to move off the floor (even if it's not the best bike for you!) - and probably chuckle as you pull out of the parking lot.

For example: Yesterday, Heather and I stopped by Epic after our ride along the PATH trail. Heather has a mountain bike that hurts her back, is about two sizes too small, and really isn't equipped for the type of riding that is more prevalent in Georgia (i.e. - a state, for all intents and purposes, that doesn't have real mountains). Heather thinks she wants a road bike so we've been focused on finding her a good starter bike. Although I had a good guess, I knew that we need to have a proper fitting to make sure we were in the ballpark with regards to the size frame that would best suit her physic. I had called ahead to let BikeMike know we'd be stopping by, and upon our arrival to the shop, he dropped everything he was doing to come over, introduce himself and "talk bikes". Now, granted, talking to Mike when you know nothing of bikes is a little like talking to Einstein about the theory of relativity if you've never taken physics. But my point is, many shops would have let us wander aimlessly or allowed us to pick up the "prettiest" bike in the shop. By the time we left, Mike had confirmed what I suspected (Heather needs a 54cm roadbike) and even drawn heather a picture with the corresponding geometry figures that would fit her body as she browsed for a bike. No pressure to buy from them, no giggles when she freaked out over the fact that she can't place her feet flat footed on the ground while sitting on the saddle. Epic knows that everyone has a starting point and they willingly (and without judgment) educate consumers from that point forward.

So kudos to Epic for a job well done, you deserve recognition for all that you do for the cycling community, as well as the superior level of knowledge that flows from your employees.

Hapeville

My Best Friend has a mountain bike and she'd really like to ride to and from work and just keep up with me on hills...LOL. So I met her in Hapeville last night for a neighborhood ride. We had a great time and as I recall, only had the horn blown at us once! That's a feat when you're two reasonably attractive females in spandex - unfortunately, I suspect the vehicle blew their horn under the assumption that I didn't realize they were behind us.

After our ride, I convinced Heather that beer is absolutely the best "after-ride" beverage so we headed up to the local bistro for a beer (or four?). It was there that we crossed paths with Thomas who remembered Heather from her days as a camera salesman..ahem..woman but didn't recognize me despite our several conversations at the LBS. Shame on Thomas. Anywho...he bought our beer so I forgive him for not recognizing me w/ a handkerchief on my head while wearing spandex....


So what I don't know a lot about is tires and Heather needs something versatile for road riding that will fit her mountain bike. Any suggestions? If figure if she can pull off 11 miles on a mountain bike that I might be able to make a roadie out of her afterall!

Need a Bike Shop?

Look what I found while browsing through the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign's website...


View Larger Map

So Portland is the bike-friendliest city....?

Recently, Forbes released the ten top bike-friendly cities.

Am I the only one who read this story? How about this one???

I've always heard that Portland is a great place to bike...perhaps the motorists are feeling the need for some extra attention?!

My plane didn't crash

but our internet did...we've just finally gotten it back up in the last 24 hours...pardon my delay...new posts are coming soon.

This Just In...M.O.M. is on vacation...WOOHOO!

kudos to you if you know whose current post my current post resembles...don't look at the blogs I read - cheater.

M.O.M. doesn't stand for "mom" even though, yes, I am a mom to two glorious children.

Say prayers for me, I'm taking a 5 hour plane ride on Wednesday a.m. w/ my 17 month old...I must have been on crack when I booked my tickets.

More posts when I return...

Possible Routes to Work..

I'm doing this commute by bicycle thing...

What I need from you guys are comments and suggestions. I feel fairly comfortable w/ the Toney and Kelley Lake routes - even the one that follows Candler all the way. My concern is the Indian Creek to "EDC" (that's my office - East Dekalb Campus)along Memorial Drive and the Doraville Station to Pleasantdale Elementary. I know Memorial well and I see bikes - but it's very high traffic. Doraville to Pleasantdale I don't know at all - I literally plugged in the addresses and used Google maps to tell me how to get there. This will be a new location for me this fall so I'm not exactly sure what the traffic patterns are like although my mom works off of Jimmy Carter and used to work off of Pleasantdale which are in that general area. I do know that those are high traffic/very congested areas. I do have one more option for the Pleasantdale Elem. commute - I could ride w/ mom to Jimmy Carter and commute from that direction. Doesn't change much - similar distance, similar traffic. Needles to say - I don't think hubby likes the idea...but I am confident in my ability to ride on the road and I ain't skeered (as the locals would say)...

Any Atlantans out there that wanna comment? I really wanna do this... I will ride all routes before I return to work for the fall (which is..sniff sniff...in about 3 weeks...)

Here are the routes... I would drive (most likely) to the East Point Marta Station - take my bike on the train and then proceed using these routes:

Decatur Station to Toney Elementary



Decatur Station to Toney Elementary option #2



Indian Creek Station to EDC via Memorial Dr.



Decatur Station to Kelley Lake Elementary



Doraville Station to Pleasantdale Elementary

And then there were four...

Okay...so this post is really late - gimme a break - I've been busy! Rewind back to last Wednesday...

After some butt-kickin' from my BFF, I returned to the B group ride tonight although I stayed back and road with TSD, Kristen, Mark and Bentley for "B" group. The ride was awesome and I was able to keep up with no problems. w00t w00t!

So the real "story" comes in as we were enjoying about 17.5mph down South Hampton Rd., about .2mi before hitting Hwy 20. Tim and Kristen were pulling us along with myself and Bently in the middle - Mark was pulling up the rear. All of a sudden I heard a groan, thud, yelp, crashing sound! I swung my head around to see Mark sprawled out along South Hampton Rd. To the side...a brown down was running up the drive to the nearest house. We convinced Mark to lay still a moment until we examined and helped him up. He was lucky - he took the fall to his shoulder and had minor road rash but you could really tell he was hurting-I'm sure he hurt like hell when woke up this morning. Turns out the dog came at him - barking - went for his leg. When the dog was unable to grab hold, he cut in front of Mark's bike and felt the impact of a 230lb man going about 17.5mph on a really nice Bianchi. We made a police report and spoke to the owners - Mark refused an ambulance but we called another rider from an earlier group who was able to drive out and pick up Mark and his bike. The damage hasn't been fully assessed - there was a scratch on the top tube of the frame and he snapped 6 or 8 spokes where he made impact with the dog-hopefully it's only the spokes and not the rim. Here's a photo I was able to get w/ my blackberry:




Poor Mark, poor dog, poor dog's owner. When the officers arrived, it turned out that one was Sergeant Brady - a customer of the LBS. The owner will be ticketed since we have fairly strict leash laws in our county and they'll force the owner to take care of the dog or else... Because of the police report - Mark's damage is covered. Hopefully the dog owner will keep her dog pinned up/leashed up in the future.

After the whole debacle, Bentley rode up beside me and said "now you've got something good for your blog..." Bentley - do you read my blog? How'd you know I have a blog??? :)

As a side note...a dragonfly landed on Phil's head after our ride and it looked pretty cool...I managed to get a photo of that too!

Save as Draft



More later...