Blahs

A bad landing with the Karate Monkey at Summerset, poor packing/delivery on my Paramount, and some parts procurement issues have given me two damaged bikes to deal with and a case of the "fuck it"s this week.

The Karate Monkey will rise from the ashes once I get a second set of Midge bars next week. They don't take direct, high-velocity contact with the ground well. On a related front, Shimano has decided that they neither need to make nor stock inner chainrings for the nice used set of XTR cranks I just picked up. 5-bolt 24 tooth chainrings must not help the bottom line. I'll find one, hopefully soon, so I can USE the crank rather than just looking at it.

The Paramount has me a bit more concerned. The bike was packed up and shipped back to me in a different box than I shipped it down in. This appears to have let something lightly, but repeatedly tap against the point of my set tube lug, and deform it so that the seat post no longer fits. I'm still working through the claim process with UPS, but I'm not holding out hope. This means that I don't get to race at Kent Park on Sunday, and any other fast road races/rides are out for me as well.

It's now slightly over a month before TransIowa and I still haven't ridden a gravel metric, let alone a full century or longer. I'm getting more concerned with my chances of finishing, not only due to lack of riding, but due to attitude. The only thing that's keeping me going right now is the commitment that I made to the organizers by signing up. I owe it to them, and to someone whose spot I'm occupying to go and finish. We'll see how it goes. At this rate, I'd be just as happy cruising around the rest of the summer on the Long Haul Trucker all bagged out as I would be racing.