Riding in the Winter Wonderland

So this weekend it was warm for the first time in two weeks, plus after all the wintry weather we've had, I bet I wasn't the only one out riding and enjoying the bike again. It's amazing how just a few days makes us feel like we haven't been on the bike in ages...

I crashed in Center City on Friday night and ended up not getting back to my house in time for the bike ride for the masses behind the Museum at 9am. I'm happy I missed it as I ended up doing a solo out to VF. While there I passed a dude looking totally screwed on the side of the road. I immediately knew something was up and turned around. It ends up the dude was riding his brand new bike and while shifting going up the hill I was going down, he threw his chain between the frame and the small ring on his crank. He was like "dude, I hope you have a chain braker," I asked him if the chain was Sram or Shimano. He said Shimano. I look and it has a big "S" on it, which means it's a SRAM, aka Sach's Powerchain. I had a quick laugh and told him watch this, and within a minute the chain was fixed and the dude was ready to roll. I love PowerChains, I love em, I love em, I love em. I've never ridden a bad one and on cold days like Saturday they pay off bigtime for something like happened to this guy.

Anyways, it was a perfect stop as I ended up resting for just enough that I was able to hammer for a good long bit afterwards, though I pushed myself into super gimp mode and ended up overworking my left hamstring which meant no real riding on Sunday. I guess I shouldn't have tried doing the split while at Yoga Friday night....

Saturday night was cool. Thea and I walked around downtown taking in the sights before meeting some of her friends at Devil's Alley on Chestnut St. I should have had my camera, as Rittenhouse Square looked sweet from the colored globes which had been hung throughout the park. One thing which was really annoying was that on every street corner was someone asking for money. It was depressing, but got me more mad than anything, as there's a guy who I've seen about a dozen times and he changes his sign daily and always says something really sad. Like my mom just died of breast cancer, and I need money to fly back to California, or I just turned 21 and I don't have anything. The problem is, he changes his age every few days, plus he must have a lot of mothers and fathers as he lost a lot of them by cancer the past few months. I should feel bad for him, but I don't. Heck, I wish I had my birthday at least twice a week and a few dozen mothers and fathers too look out for me. I just wouldn't want to live on the street.