señor taco’s travels

Over the summer I obtained two wool cycling jerseys, the first as my Team Luxo jersey for AIDS/LifeCycle and the second an ALC edition jersey I bought on the ride. The Team Luxo is from Swobo and it’s fantastic. We were highly complemented on the sharpness of our team this year. The ALC jersey is from Woolistic and it too is great. Last night Keeth (the evil one) showed me a jersey from Earth, Wind & Rider, I’m going to order a couple from them real soon now.

I’m going to slowly convert my cycling jerseys over to all wool. I’ll still have a few synthetics around, but the wool is the way to go. They are more comfortable, breath naturally, and actually don’t stink when you’re done riding or after a few days in the clothes hamper.

Swobo is also making a polo and t-shirt from the same high-quality New Zealand wool. I can’t wait to try them out. The wool gear will be more spendy for sure, but I think it will be more worth it in the long run. I can carry fewer jerseys on the ALC next year if they’re all wool. I’ll just have to be careful getting near my mom with any of this wool gear as she’s allergic to wool, sadly.

Somewhere along the way on the AIDS/LifeCycle I broke one of the retaining pads on my left cleat¹. It would have been great had I not been a dum-dum and left my spare, still in the wrapper, cleats at home. As it was it wasn’t so bad, I just had trouble pulling up on the pedal on my left side. I’ve ridden a few times since then, but tonight I finally replaced my cleats with the spanking new ones. The reason? I intend to be up early tomorrow morning to ride. I’m actually looking forward to it.

1. you can see it on the left side in the picture above↩

I am now the proud owner of a very sleek single speed bike¹. I was going to convert an old 26er MTB that we have, but the cost of the new parts for it were nearly the cost of the entire bike. The other benefit is that the bike is a road bike so it’s more similar to my other bikes than the 26er would have been.

I’m using it to commute to and from work mostly, but now that I’ve bought a lock that can’t be picked by a cheap plastic tube I’ll start running errands with it too (I made sure to get a lock that’s going to be able to lock up any bike I want, thus it’s heavier, but I don’t care).

It’s been fun so far. There are occasions where I will still need my car, but for the most part I won’t have to drive or wait on the bus, I’m on my own schedule. I just need to get some fenders before it starts raining (that’s a while off) and I’ll be good to go.

1. Not a fixie, although it does have a flip-flop hub so I could make it a fixed gear if I were nuts. It’s made by Fuji via it’s brand SE bikes. It’s not a high-end bike at all, but it’s solid.↩

A few weeks ago, right after the AIDS/LifeCycle, I ordered a wool cycling cap from Walzcaps.

Photo Copyright Walzcaps © 2006

I started wearing a cap shortly before the ride and ended up wearing the cap more than the skullcaps I had been wearing before (under my helmet mostly). Right now I’m using the Walzcap going to and from work. I haven’t worn it on a longer ride, but I probably will soon. I love it because it’s comfortable and I really want to order some more. The wool cap fits awesomely and I talked to James and we might try to get them for Team Luxo next year.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a bike shop and got fit for a new
bike. Since I bent Keeth’s loaner in my
href=”http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2005/12/07″>crash I needed a
new one so I could keep riding. I was planning on getting a new bike
in 2006 anyway so I just had to move that up a little bit.

It turns out a 54cm bike is the right size frame for me (yeah, I’ve
got short legs). I rode a couple of bikes before it started to rain
and they just felt right. I then went home and listed on Craigslist
was a
href=”http://www.trekbikes.com/bikes/2002/road/5200.html”>2002 Trek
5200 at 54cm. The 5200 is an all carbon fiber frame and it’s the
same model used by the USPS team (now Team Discovery) in the 2002 Tour
de France.

src=”/SenorTaco/images/trek5200.jpg” />I made arrangements with the seller and went out to Alameda to test
ride the bike. After going about ten blocks I was in love with the
bike so I bought it. I got it for a steal so I’m happy. It needs a
little work as it sat for over a year, but that’s to be expected.
I’ll replace the tires and probably swap out the stem and seat post
(both need to be a little longer) and get some new pedals. Even
without those changes my ride on Saturday was excellent. I can’t wait
to fully dial in everything and get back to training.

Several weeks ago I fatally snapped the arm off of my sunglasses that
I’d had for about eight years. They weren’t fancy or flashy or name
branded, but they did fit me and had polarized lenses. Sure, the
metal was oxidizing on parts that had skin contact, but even then they
worked great.

So, I started looking around at different optics makers and trying to
figure out what I wanted. If I could I would order something online,
but as it is I surely wouldn’t feel comfortable because, frankly, many
of the styles that exist today are brutally ugly. In the stop gap I
got some $15 glasses that happen to be polarized. They worked great
until the arm that had the nose pads snapped off. Great, that’s why I
don’t get cheap sunglasses.

Now I’m in hunt again for sunglasses. I guess I’ll take a little
while this weekend and go try some on and see if any don’t look
asstacular. There are a few I could see getting, but the big thing is
they have to be polarized (for all you naysayers that will poo-poo
polarized lenses, don’t bother. you won’t change my mind). I’m
currently leaning more toward the plastic or composite type of frames,
but metal frames are fine too. I’m probably going to avoid Oakley
since they’re styles are mostly not what I’m looking for (not to
mention they seem more expensive than similar products). If anyone
has any suggestions just post below.

Well, I’ve finally gone and joined the modern age. Last night I hooked up my
newly arrived Tivo. It came pre-modded with 280 hours of recording space
(dependent on the quality level of course). Setup was so simple, and that’s
why I’m not doing the get a PC and a video capture card and put some PVR
software on it. I just want it to work. Yes, I am a gear head, but I
don’t want to futz with it, I’ll spend my futzing time on other cooler
projects.

Last night was spent setting up a few
Season Passes (the first being the Simpsons of course) and getting the hang
of recording and using it with live TV. There is still more to setup, but so
far I’m very happy with it. The fact that I don’t have to get Comcast’s sucky
digital cable interface (slow and too much button pushing) to get on-screen
guides now makes it so worth it.

By far the coolest thing was being able to hook the Tivo up through the house
broadband connection. Initially I had to use the POTS line to do the first
download and configuration. After that was running I just plugged in the
USB to wired Ethernet adapter and the Tivo switched over to the Ethernet for
connecting to the Tivo service. There was even a new message telling me it
happened. Overall I’d say it’s a great piece of technology. Well rounded
and fairly complete, this will get much love at my house.

So i broke down and got a new phone. With it comes new service (Cingular versus Sprint) and a new contract, but thems the breaks. I move from CDMA to GSM and I get one heck of a good phone (and at a good price too, I end up paying $50 for the phone after a rebate).

I ended up selecting the Siemens S56 for several reasons. First, it is GSM. While CDMA is a fine system I decided that down the road it’d be easier to switch providers with a GSM system (but that’s a while off), however, when traveling I can get a pre-paid GSM SIM card and just put that in my phone and off I go. The S56 also has BlueTooth so that I can connect it to my computer and keep my address book and calendar in sync between the two (not to mention it’s a good way to keep it backed up). I also like the fact that I now have SMS text messaging, now my friend KP and I can send retarded messages back and forth across the country.

I have to admit, this phone is so much lighter than my old phone (it’s about 3 ounces, eep!) I’m actually scared to lose it. It will all be fine, I just have to get used to it. Now I just have to transfer all the phone numbers around and I’ll be good to go.

Many thanks to KP for pointers in the right direction, advice, and opinions.