September is rapidly becoming my favorite month of the year. When I was younger the summer months were the unquestioned kings of calendar. No school, few responsibilities and buckets of free time meant that summer was a time to relax and go where the fairest season took me. But now that I’m a working person and no longer tethered to the school schedule myself (my kids are, of course, and it’s amusing to see them experience the same dread I felt as the summer days dwindled), I find myself enjoying September more and more. September temperatures approach the warmth of summer, but aren’t as stifling. There’s a slight hint of autumn in the air, and my neighbor thankfully returns to performing his yard work duties with a shirt on. Yes, September is a magical time.

In fact, I enjoy September so much that I’ve decided that from now on I will take the entire month off from my pretend job of writing about bikes. I can allow myself the luxury to do this, as I am one of the owners/operators of this pixel factory. I have to admit that I enjoyed my first September break immensely, but sadly September is over, and I return to writing about training to be a pretend bike racer.

The biggest news in my pretend bike racing world is that my beloved BH has been returned to me. It has been absent since the fateful day I took it in for a pre-Tour of Battenkill tune-up. In April. It seems that my aged Power Tap rear wheel, in an effort to deny the world access to a steady stream of my mighty wattage data, decided to use its improperly seated threaded axle to gnaw through the carbon drop out on the drive side of my BH—as if trying to commit suicide, while also taking my BH with it. It was a dark time. But two bicycle shops and a loooong internment in a California carbon repair facility behind it, my bicycle has returned. In an effort to not abuse my bicycle further, I have retired my crotchety Power tap wheel to a hook in my basement. This means that there will be no wattage numbers included in my training log for the foreseeable future. I will be relying on Strava data alone to record my mightiness.

I have also not yet configured the format of my shame-based weight control system. Last year I used Val Kilmer as the main metric for my system, but this year I have been negligent in choosing proper iconography for this very important part of my training regime. Feel free to volunteer any infometric suggestions in the comments section below.

My training of the past week has been a combination of hateful trainer rides in my basement mixed with desperate rides in the rain to break up the monotony of spending my days working at home. I spent one lovely day riding in the sun this week, and I shall include it below. I happen to think the route also looks a little like Bo Diddley’s guitar, so that’s a plus.