I forgot to mention it because I've been in a bit of a mood for the last week, but Monday was my very good friend Mark Drake's birthday. He turned 30!

I'll be turning 29 this September, so I can tease him for a whole year.

I announced at the picnic last night that I'm going to move my birthday to March, so that if anybody wants to buy me "bike stuff" - or get me a gift certificate to Mystic Cycle Center - they could do it before the season opens rather than at the tail end.

Didn't go over very well, I think I'm stuck with September.

I felt good going out for today's ride, but it wasn't meant to last. Within three minutes I was thinking that I must be more tired than I thought, and after about fifteen minutes I was having trouble hitting twenty miles per hour down hill.

That's when I realized something was wrong. So, I stopped on the size of the very busy Route 117, and checked the bike over. A broken spoke on the rear wheel was causing the rim to rub against the brakes. It was putting enough pressure on the brake that it wouldn't "coast" past the broken spoke, I could only make it pass by holding the wheel and turning it.

I turned around and followed Route 117 accross 184, all the way to 1, which I followed ot Mystic Cycle. Thirty minutes later they had me all fixed up "on my tab" (I don't carry my wallet on my bike), but my ride was already ruined... I'd ridden 12 miles already with an average speed of about 16 mph.

So, the final stats are 20.09 miles in 69:16, for an average speed of 17.4. This makes the performance graph look awfully weird, since yesterday was so good and today was so very bad.

Hey, at least I had the chance to hang out with "the guys" at M.C.