8×10Gallery.com

Archive for May 31st, 2009

The weekend wasn’t just about hot pink bikes and going really fast, I also kept at my project of updating my machine after my hard drive swap of last week. I think the process is basically done with the essential apps all installed and the machine still running at a pretty quick pace.

And then the BestBuy mailer came in. I got an email announcing laptops were on sale. By a crazy, random happenstance I had been looking to replace the battery and more ram to my current legacy laptop. But when I checked out the prices of these new rigs it seems that getting a whole new machine would be cheaper and quicker than trying yet another upgrade. So, Donna and I went down “just to look”.

That didn’t last long and soon I was walking out of the store with a Dell Inspiron in each hand. It was 3GB, dual core goodness all around. Donna jumped right in with a wild grin on her face. I still haven’t unboxed mine; I’ve been too busy looking cool on my pink bike to work with it. I’ll probably go and start the process of ripping out all the trialware in a few minutes.

One thing is funny though, they certainly gave me the hard sell of paying an extra $150 to have them “optimize” the laptop, which I took to mean, we’ll remove all the crap programs we just put on there and give you a clean install of Windows. Not to worry, I can field strip this baby myself and have it up and running in no time. Funny thing is, MaximumPC just wrote an article about a cool little app that can remove all this trailware on its own. It’s destiny I tell you.

Or maybe I’m just the highly suggestible type and a victim of advertising…

There is no doubt that this new bike of mine is going to turn some heads. It’s blazing pink color cannot be ignored.

Donna’s friend Craig had this on his list and being ever diligent she managed to grab yet another bargain. She got this Specialized earlier in the week and we just got it back from the bike shop this weekend where they put on new tires, pedals, wrapped the handle bars in matching pink tape and even had a pink seat to complete the ensemble. And here it is in all it’s kickass pinkness! And no, it’s not maroon, that is all pink. Just so you know, jealousy is an ugly thing.

Donna and I took it out this weekend to put some miles on it and get some wear on the tires. Let me tell you this bike is all speed. In the lower gears this thing just keeps getting faster and faster. I was easily able to hit speeds of 25-30 mph and keep it there. You can really put some miles behind you while at the helm of this one. Of course all that speed means much lower gearing so when you hit the hills you there isn’t an easy gear to escape to. You have to work to get up the hills, but it feels solid and stable so it’s not too bad.

I am not used to the extended handlebars at all. I gave it a try and thought I was going to crash headlong into the ground, or the bushes or some renegade animal as I began weaving wildly, not used to steering a bike with my elbows. I abandoned that silly idea and rode it the regular way or at least the regular way I ride a bicycle.

I was doing some laps in the neighborhood this afternoon and I could see people checking me out as I sped down the road. Hopefully they were admiring the robust colors of my bike and not staring at my combination of yellow biking shirt and Corona board shorts. It’s a true fashion statement when you see it all together. I even think someone took my picture as I waiting for the cars at an intersection. Can’t wait to see what terrible caption that photo gets when it hits the web.

Here is the other bike we have, a yellow Giant which is also an excellent ride. I’ve put a couple hundred miles on this one in the trainer. I have to say that riding it on the street is vastly different. The 15 mile run we did this weekend felt pretty easy going the whole way. But the main thing is, I look cool riding either one and that’s what’s really important.