So it finally happened... only took two years of riding the two wheeler to work and home four days a week:

Cruising home on the big bike, aka Big Dummy, I had the pleasure of meeting some high-school students, presumably from one of our local public high schools. I was on Washington Pike, so were they... we traveled in the same direction. In our brief exchange of pleasantries, one of the front seat passengers offered me their cold cola. It was awfully nice of him and all, considering it was so hot. It was a little disappointing that he tossed it all over me, and I didn't get a chance to savor it. We parted ways, and I gave him a good ole' hearty "Fuck you Bitches" while showing him I too agreed the Vols are Number One!

This just proves I'm a fucking idiot, but this weekend I finally finished my brevet series and I've officially achieved my Super Randonneur.

Here is the info on the Middle TN 600k ride that completed it for me. That's 382 miles in under 40 hours. In fact we finished with just 28 minutes to spare. Nothing like riding a bike to the top of the Cherohala Skyway at 2am!

This is a ride report I posted on Bikeforums from my 200k ride this weekend. It's long, and written for cyclists. It's sad, so I'm warning you in advance...

There must be something therapeutic about sharing experiences after your first major long distance accomplishment. Here's mine:

After a few long tandem rally rides and MS 150s with my wife, I got the bug to try long distance riding solo. I finished my first supported century this summer with the club and set my sights on the next distance goal. I like the idea of riding unsupported and so decided to sign up for the last 200k Brevet event in my area, the Turkey Trot 200k Brevet out of Brentwood TN. I figured it would be a good training experience and give me an idea of if I would be able to handle the full spring brevet series next year.

Tennessee Code has some pretty high expectations of bike cops:

55-8-173 (a): A person propelling a bicycle shall not ride other than upon or astride a permanent and regular seat attached thereto, except for a certified police cyclist who is performing duties that require riding in a side dismounting position.

There's something I'd like to see, a bike cop tackling someone at speed! I think I saw that on TV once. But I guess it's too much to ask of police today, since tasing is so much more convenient. Of course, such optimism by our legislature is counterbalanced by the complete lack of confidence in regular cyclists:

55-8-176 (a): No person operating a bicycle shall carry any package, bundle or article which prevents the driver from keeping at least one (1) hand upon the handlebars.

What?! Not even if I let the car in front of me do the driving?

55-8-174 (a): No person riding upon any bicycle, roller skates, sled or toy vehicle shall attach such bicycle, roller skates, sled or toy vehicle, or such person's own body, to any streetcar or vehicle upon a roadway.

Those fascists!

It actually looks like we have fairly reasonable bike laws in Tennessee, at least compared to some places. In the UK cyclists have been fighting new traffic code updates that would basically classify them as second class citizens on the road.

I'm positive the Tour has been captivating you all, with the exclusive coverage on Versus, and some of the "best commentators known to sports broadcasting."

Anyway, recently the Tour's leader was pulled from the race, fired by his team, and the entire team went home... why... because the dumbass skipped a couple out of competition drug tests by telling officials he was in Mexico with his wife. We learn a valuable lesson in all this: If you say you are in Mexico, it's probably not a good idea to be out riding your bike training in the Italian Dolomites...

FWIW, Rasmussen had been wearing the yellow for the last 9 stages and was pretty much the favorite at this point with his time lead to win the Tour.

Google Maps just added a couple of new features to their interface, the most impressive being the ability to dynamically alter a route to include waypoints via drag-n-drop. Way cool.

But in reading about this, I came across a link to a third-party Google Maps application called Map My Ride, which lets you plot and save bike rides (or, really any route.. it's just tailored toward bike rides). This is typically done manually, but if you got one of them fancy GPS things, you can import recorded route data. In addition to the obvious distance calculation, the application can display a pretty dang accurate (by my estimation) view of elevation changes along the way, plus it has a calculator for calories consumed. To top all this off, you can also search for routes in a given area that other users have saved and marked "public". Super sweet.

No word yet whether it works on iPhone, though.

Today is World Naked Bike Ride Day, at least in the northern hemisphere. Alas, it seems no one organized a Knoxville ride, but unsurprisingly Asheville riders are taking part. (um, warning? the asheville link might expose you to boobies and weiners)

Giro couldn't have asked for better PR:

A white paneled delivery truck ran over a UW-Madison graduate student's head on Division Street Friday afternoon and, except for a concussion, he wasn't hurt.
...
"I didn't see it coming, but I sure felt it roll over my head. It feels really strange to have a truck run over your head."

I tend to agree with commenters on the linked page that a bike helmet wouldn't really do that much to protect a head from a direct rollover, and that this guy may have had it strapped on too loose, allowing his head to be squeezed out (maybe that's what really saved him), but at least it kept his skull from cracking on the pavement. And damn! that's a gnarly sight.