demanding recovery ride, and tew makes a purchase

After yesterday's Lake Nockamixon Century, Ken told me he was going to do a recovery ride with only one big hill: Lindbergh Rd. You can see that hill at this link to the ride data (on the elevation graph, it starts about halfway though), but you can also see it was far from the only hill... and Ken's idea of a flat ride evidently includes anything with less than 3000 feet of climbing in 50 miles.

That said, it was a great ride on a glorious day. None of the ills of yesterday's ride were apparent today. Bruce and Bob joined us; we went down to the Washington crossing, and up the river for a bit (and passed a car being taken over by the weeds):

 then up to Ringoes and to Peacock's at the foot of Lindbergh... where (wouldn't you know it) Ken ran into a woman he knows.

It's becoming a running piece of comedy business; no matter where I see him, he runs into people he knows.Here's Ken, probably trying to explain how it's just a coincidence:

More pictures at Peacock's:

That above is Bruce, who is going to be whippin' me up the hills by the end of the season.

Pics at Lindbergh & Ridge Road. Here's Bruce:

and Ken & Bob.

Good ride, despite my complaining. And at the end, there were cookies! How often does a ride leader bring goodies along to share?

...but wait; there's more.

Thursday night, The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I went to Hart's Cyclery for her to do the Guru fit. I initially pooh-poohed the idea, but the more I thought about it, the better I liked it; Regina would be much more confident on a bike that fit her, and it would be much more likely to be fun for her. So off we went, where she sat on this neo-torture device.

You can see a saddle and handlebars, and a rack of other saddles & bars on the wall (I have pics of TEW actually ON the device, but they are on my phone, and the technology to get the off the phone onto someplace useful has eluded me). The spiffy thing of the Guru fit machine is that you can set it close to the perfect fit, and then, with whirring and humming, you can adjust the fit while you are actually spinning pedals. You can swap positions back and forth and see which is more comfortable. And you can do it "on the fly" so that you don't have to remember what something felt like before you got off and changed position.

Then, when the fit is "dialed in", the machine checks the database, and spits out a list of bikes, with saddle heights, spacers, saddle-nose-to-center-of-steering-tube distances, and whatnot, getting you to within a millimeter or two of the perfect fit. I was impressed, and TEW was so taken with the fit system, and with the estimable Ross Hart of Hart's Cyclery, that she called to see if he was going to be around so she might buy a bike this weekend.

He was, and when she got there, he had one made up and set to go. We took it out for a spin; she loves it.

There's TEW, with the blue-and-white Cannondale behind (assembled here in the US, doncha know!). It's a great bike for her. I'll put on a computer and make a few other tweaks... but it's really just about perfect for her.

Well done, Ross.