Surprises, Near Misses, and New Creations

Yesterday, I was completely prepared for any combination of weather that could be thrown at me.  I finally installed the cargo rack on the Varsity (which took me a whole 5 minutes) so I threw a loaded set of panniers on the back with my tour guide clothes for that evening, my notes, and related paraphernalia.  The Varsity was much heavier and I lost about 3 minutes on my time.  As I pedaled up Twin Oaks, I noticed with a glad heart that the street department had marked the "sink hole" for repair!  I never expected them to do anything about it!  Granted, they may have known about the disturbing sag in the pavement for quite some time and my email and their planned repairs just happened to coincide.  But, as I passed by this morning and saw that it had been repaired, I may have patted myself on the back.

I stayed late at office last night with the plan to just head straight downtown for the tour.  Of course, just when I was planning to leave, an angry thunderstorm showed up.  I haven't ridden in a thunderstorm in a really long time and I was less than enthused about showing up for my tour looking like this:

But, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.  So, off I went, fully prepared to get completely drenched or struck by lightening.  These things are bound to happen when you ride your bike around town.  However, as I hopped on and pedaled out of the parking lot, the sun burst out of the clouds.  Instead of the rain chasing me, I chased the rain all the way to downtown.  It was an Old Testament moment.  I am eternally grateful.

The tour went really well and I was very pleased that we had a good crowd despite the touch and go rain.

We also got started on creating a cargo basket for the dog this week.  Since he's a small dog, we didn't want to get a trailer.  He's not small enough for the baskets on the market; he's just over the weight limit.   So, our solution is to create a custom basket.  We got a shopping basket from Wheel & Wrench and have since added these modifications:

Next step is to add some support strapping and then attach window screen.  Then, Bam! The dog will be able to join us on all our bikey adventures.

Well, the weekend is almost here and with it comes a crazy work schedule, hopefully a night ride, and definitely a ride on Sunday.

I can't wait for Sunday.