The summer is over - finally!

We had a few obscenely hot and humid days recently, which made me double-check the calendar to verify that it's September indeed. It felt more like middle of July to be honest.

But it is September finally, which must worry all kids as they go back to school and most parents when they sit in traffic following yellow buses every morning. I, on the other hand, am not worried at all. I'm excited for the cooler autumn weather to come and traffic doesn't apply to me that much. Another advantage of biking to work every day - September 1st is just another day in the calendar.

I took a break in writing here for some time, as I was enjoying a short vacation with my family. My brother who I haven't seen in 3 years, visited me last month, so it was a good time to finally finish building my Frankenbike. This way we both could move around by bikes. The new/old bike is really a nice machine. I realized that some of its components are 20 years old but they show very little wear and in general the whole thing feels and looks new.

I also decided to bite the bullet and invest a bit in my Poprad. I gave it a complete set of sealed cables and housing (Jagwire) and a new set of brakes - TRP CX9. They definitely deserve a proper review but so far my first impressions are very positive. CX9s are very easy to install and adjust and are extremely powerful compared to my old cantilevers. The only, slight, disadvantage is that it's close to impossible to adjust them for a very short lever travel as that would require keeping the pads super close to rims. In other words, STI brake levers require a longer pull in order to apply full braking power but it isn't really an issue at all.

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Lots of other things happened this summer. A mother from South Carolina got locked up in a jail because she let her 9-year old daughter to play in the playground unsupervised. Apparently, in USA 9-year-olds are babies who can't be left alone for longer than 30 seconds. Yes, we do live our lives in fear.

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Not too long time ago I wrote about the cyclists' perception of stop signs along the Minuteman Bikeway. Because so many drivers yield to bikers and pedestrians in road crossings (A good thing!), cyclists got used to it and now hardly ever stop at stop signs along this popular shared bike path. It may not be a bad thing, as long as they at least slow down and look both ways. By not completely stopping, they may actually be saving waiting drivers some time (And we all know drivers love to save precious seconds of their commutes). But can you be in trouble if you in fact obey the law to the letter? Apparently, yes! Motorists hate us if we run red lights, but when we stop at them, they punch us in the face.

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The problem with the Minuteman Bikeway is obviously much broader than just the stop signs. There are number of "Lance Armstrong wannabes" on Minuteman who think it's a race track. Now that the town of Lexington completed a new paving on their section of the Minuteman and our local Armstrongs and Cipollinis don't have to ride on a bumpy surface anymore, I'm sure we will see more of them.

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And at the end of today's post, a friendly reminder - if you need to kill someone, just roll him/her over with your car. In America, this can be your perfect crime. The chances you will be prosecuted for such "accident" are negligible. You're welcome!