G Algonquin Trips and Other Things: My ass is too small Algonquin canoe and portage trips

Thursday, May 17, 2007

My ass is too small

I went for a ride this morning and I came to the conclusion that my ass is too small to support the weight of my body on the bike seat. Since I can't change the size of my ass (and I don't really want to make it bigger), I had better loose some of the extra weight I've allowed to creep back on.

Okay, that sounded real chick-like... "Hey honey, does this bike make my ass look bigger?"

My day started out good and bad... good that I hauled my lazy ass outta bed and went for a fairly intense 12km ride... bad in so far as I put my bike back in the garage, shut the garage door, walked around to the front door of the house and realized that I had exited the house directly into the garage (which was now locked) so the front door was still locked from the night before.

Damn.

I rang the door bell a few times and knocked on the door but no one was stirring in the house so I just sat on the front porch and listened to the neighbourhood waking up. I knew it wouldn't be long before someone in the house woke up. One of my boys finally woke up and came down and very cautiously unlocked the door for me.

The drive in was... well... the drive in. Nothin' exciting to report on there other than that a car had broken down in the middle lane of the highway and they had abandoned it right where it stopped. I assume they'd gone for help but you'd think that they would have tried to get the right lane to let them push the car to the side or something.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about my neighbour's plumbing adventure. I won't name names but one of my neighbours was trying to replace his broken kitchen faucet but he didn't know anything about what he was doin'. Now I'm one to encourage expanding one's knowledge but I also believe that if you find yourself in unknown territory, you should do a little research or ask some questions.

Now before I deliver the punchline to the story you would know that they just finished their basement (and it looks great). Here's what went down:

neighbour (wife) comes running across to our house: "do you know anything about plumbing?"
me: "umm, a little... why?"
neighbour (wife): "well, tried to fix the kitchen tap and now there's water running everywhere!"
me: "oh my gosh!" and I ran across to their house (okay, maybe I said something else but I don't remember exactly what it was but it was prolly more like "HOLY SHIT!")

I ran into the house, back into the kitchen and I see kneeling in front of the kitchen sink with a fountain torrent of water blasting him in the face and he's yelling "IT'S HOT! IT'S HOT!" So I yell back "Did you turn the water main off?" To which he revealed his lack of plumbing 101 by responding "WHAT WATER MAIN? WHERE'S THAT?"

Nice.

So I turned to his wife, and asked "Where's you water metre?"

She replied "I don't know... maybe it's down here" and she took me down to the hot water heater. I said "No, that's not it... where's the thing that you take your water metre readings from for your water bill?" to which she replied "Oh that thing... it's over in the other closet"

I got the water main turned off, ran up and check with him to make sure the water flow had stopped and then went down to survey the damage. It was bad. Water was streaming out of the pot lights in the basement and I was concerned that it might make over to the *very large* plasma screen at the other end of the basement.

I stayed around for a bit helping clean up and then installed a new faucet for them (the wife went to the hardware store while we cleaned up as best we could). I figure they're gonna have to spend $2000-$3000 dollars fixing the damage but that would have jumped by another $3000 if it had made it over to the plasma.

Hey, how do ya measure for proper bike fit? I'll go google it later today but I thought I'd ask since I know a few of you out there are bikers and know this schtuff.

Well, back to work. Have a great day everyone!

g.

3 comments:

gewilli said...

You aren't going to be spending time in a canoe with this Plumbing expert are you?

Bike Fit?

do you want it to fit now in your largeness? Or in your 'ideal' shape :D

Work on seat height first. If your hips rock back and forth or you knee goes straight at the bottom of the pedal stroke the seat is too high. If you aren't getting almost full leg extension or your knees start hurting then the seat is too short.

The body is pretty adaptable... but it is hard to do over the net bike interaction fit. Have Jimmy take a few shots of you on the bike and *we* can offer some suggestions on the fit and what not...

Suds said...

No, Jim knows home maintenance shit. This was a neighbour in the other direction (across the street from my house)...

Thanks for the feedback on bike fit... it sounds like I'm good... I thought there might be key measurement points that help determine proper fit. The seat angle hint that you gave me before worked well to help reduce fatigue in the arms/hands.

Jim said...

Thanks for the vote of confidence Gewilli.

After hearing this story I retold it to my wife and then asked her if she knew where ours was....she didn't know what it was called, but she knew where it was and what it did.

What was the guy thinking?

Great story G!