More accidents...

I think I may be atracting these things. Here is a picture of a car that hit a light post and slid about 50 yards off of lake shore drive into a grassy hill. It is pretty banged up. I also saw three more minor accidents between cabs and a chinese couple whose hood flew up. Vivian's graduation was great. A bunch of her Mom's friends came and we all had a good time. I got a good ride in on Saturday morning. I focused on pedal stroke and race starts. By this I mean I would start about 100 yards off the base of the hill in a normal starting gear on my Niner (34x24). I would roll from zero to redline until the top of the hill, turn around and do it again. I am just trying to get used to the feel of a hard race start. I also did some race track repeats, working on cornering form. I would time sprints in an oval around parking lot fixtures five times around. I did five sprints twice for each side (turning left and turning right). This was a good exercise and showed I was fairly balanced. The 2 sets to the left came in at 1:08 & 1:06. The two to the right came in at 1:08 & 1:07. It just means I am even turning left or right, which is good. Now I just have to bring down all times. I also worked on balance. How I do that is riding on a raised curbed taht is about 6 inches wide. This is easier said than done. My tires are 2.1 inches wide so this only leaves 1.95 inches of leeway on either said. How I stay in a straight is done by looking about 15-20 feet in fron of me and holding my weight just in front of the nose of the saddle. I can do this fairly easily now. The real test/skill is to do this while holding a wheelie, so riding the whole thing on just your back wheel. I need to get better at those to pull it off. All this is a cool way to train for MTB races without easy access to trails. I have city parks but no singltrack.

I also got some great shots of the city from Viv's roof top. A funny one of a computer monitor at the bottom of a pond is mixed in there too.