Only in fucking Las Vegas (or maybe Tempe, right Dan?) can I sustain a cycling injury like this:

I was on a 14 mile ride (which is my longest outside of a poker ride) and the outside temperature was 108. I stop at an intersection and lean on stop light pole with my right arm. A split second later I realize it’s hotter than fuck and instinctively jerk away. When I did that, part of my skin had melted to the pole, and it separated when I pulled away, it’s the bloody spot in the photo. If you look close you can see a little bit of the skin flap on the bottom. There’s definitely a clear red box from the contact area.

Lesson learned. Outdoor things in Vegas can burn you…badly.

I’ve been pondering the idea of selling my car and relying solely on public tranport and my ever-growing collection of bicycles to get me where I need to be.

Why I should do it:
The savings would be staggering. My monthly expenses for my car are my loan payment $310, insurance $217, and Gas $50. Quarterly expenses include oil changes which I do myself but still cost $30 in materials, and occasionally I wash the thing which runs about $20 when I do it right. So over the course of a year I would save myself $7,124, or $593 a month! That’s like getting a 13% raise! Not to mention the whole ‘it’s cool to be green’ thing and using less gas.

Why it won’t work:
It’s fucking hot here! So riding my bike to the corner grocery store would entail sweating like a mother-fucker and when the outside air temp is 115, it’s closer to 140 on the pavement. When I returned from the grocery store I would promptly have to shower and do laundry. Plus, if I rode my bike to a social function, I’d be sweaty and disgusting the entire time. As far as public transport is concerned, it’s amazing how slow it is. When driving from my house to the airport (which is the primary function of my car and my job) it takes me about 15 minutes with traffic, it’s 7.6 miles away. To do this same stretch using CAT (Citizen’s Area Transit) takes an amazingly long 1 hour 35 minutes, which includes walking 2.4 miles often times while carrying 3 bags of luggage.

That just won’t work, for a 6 am flight, I need to be at the aiport no later than 4:45am, which means I would have to get on the bus 3:10am! That sucks balls! In the future, the city is planning on rolling out “ACE” Rapid Transit, which is similar to ABQ’s Rapid Ride. I have no idea what the ‘ACE’ acronym means, or when they plan on having it unveiled, but the proposed route they have only travels the strip to downtown, nowhere near my house or the airport.

If we only had a train system like DC or the Bay Area, but we don’t, so I’ll spend $7k this year instead. Unless there’s something I haven’t considered…

Back in the day, the Man Whore gave me a bike he found in his backyard. It was an old schwinn, had been outside in the sun for a long long time, and was rusted virtually beyond repair. I opted to get a different bike, but my brother Sheldon took that one over as his personal project. Check out the before pictures:

And now check, out the fantastic after pictures:

All and all, I’d say a damn good job, I love those blue wheels!!!

Link to the entire collection of photos.

I have these lofty aspirations to run 7 marathons on 7 continents and to do a triathlon in November, however given my constant knee pain and probable need for surgery soon, I’m not sure it’s going to happen. Despite all that, I keep going to the gym to ‘train’ for these upcoming crazy things I’d like to do and I noted this in front of the bike rack at the gym:

That’s pretty cool. Although, Las Vegas is a horrible city to bike in, people drive like goddamn maniacs here, ABQ was way more bike friendly. However, I did just find a bike path behind my apartment complex the other day, it’s a measly 2.14 miles long, but most of it is uphill and it makes a good morning warmup.

I = need to get a helmet before road biking in LV…