If some pain is good........

then more pain is better! Right?

I had the day off yesterday to take my little sister (well she's 27 but she'll always be my little sister) to the airport. She had to fly back to California to find a job for the summer since her winter gig is almost up. She hated to go since mom is still not out of the woods yet but she didn't have much choice.
Speaking of mom, she is out of ICU and has most of the crap that she was hooked up to gone. She is getting stronger by the day and really improving nicely. She has most of her memory intact but her coordination and some of her motor skills are a little off. Still not bad for someone who just a week ago wasn't supposed to live.
A big thank you to all of you who have called, emailed, prayed and or otherwise supported us during this time. It means alot.

The pain part I was referring to is I took some time yesterday afternoon to catch up on some work around the house. One of the things I did was change the gearing on my road bike from 42X16 to 43X16. I did this in hopes of helping me a little on the flats and rolling hills without killing me to much on the big climbs. On a singlespeed there is no perfect gear for every situation, that's part of the game but, you can get one that works most of the time.
I took it out for a ride and threw in some hills to test it out. On the flats, my speed has gone from 21-23 mph to 25-26 mph at about 120rpm. Not great but a definite improvement.
On the climbs, it is a bit tougher but not impossible. one of the hills I went up is at Miller Perry School. It is about 1/2 mile long and steep enough to hurt you. It wasn't that much harder than normal. Besides, it's gotta make me stronger right?

So it's all good.
Having said that, I may switch it back before I go into the big mountains again. We'll see.

I am planning on a long ride off-road this weekend to shakedown my Optimus before the Cohutta 100 next week.

Peace.