Tour de Fat was lovely this year, one of the most fun I’ve had.

As always, the costumes were amazing. Special shout-out to Brett and Lindsay, whose “Up” outfit was the belle of the ball. As we rode down the street, everyone was yelling and pointing at them in awe. Not a bad way to spend your one-year anniversary!

You can check out all my photos here: Tour de Fat 2010 on Flickr.

And here are Brett’s photos.

Here’s a link to other photos tagged with Tour de Fat.

The local rag’s Tour de Fat article.

And what the twitterverse is saying about Tour de Fat.

Decided to ride my roadie to work yesterday and I flatted on the way home.

No problem; one tends to be prepared for these things on a roadie. Opened my saddle bag to grab the spare tube (check), compressed air (check), and tire lever (whaaa?). Oh drat, I took the lever out the other day to fix a different flat and forgot to put it back. Sigh.

But hey, I just finished reading Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee and my large Cro-magnon brain realizes that I can use my bottle opener keychain for something productive (rather than for its normal purpose, i.e. gaining access to Cro-magnon brain-killing chemicals).

Alex: 1, Bike: 0.

[nb, my spare tube was ripped at the valve stem so I ended up needing to call Mikey Brown for a ride home. Guess I need to stick a patch kit in there too.]

Alex: 1, Bike: 1, Planet Earth: 0

Not a bad ride today. 1:20, 18.5mph moving average.

137 miles in a day. 10,000 feet of climbing.

In the end, the anticipation was killer; the ride was not.

I spent the leading week riding a few mellow rides, just getting miles into my legs, and eating a lot of yams, but other than that, nothing special.

I really only felt bad once, while climbing out of Buena Vista (pronounced “byoona viss-tah” by the locals) on our way to Trout Pass. The sun roasted us while we pushed the pace slightly, and I overheated quickly. Luckily, I am wily and I managed to recover by controlling the pace with extra long pulls at a slower speed. Whew.

Everyone did great, and our biggest problem as a group was our collectively sore junk-al regions. Ouch.

Overall, we were able to maintain a 14.3 mph moving average for a total of about 9 hours, 30 minutes of riding time and something like 12 hours from car to car.

• Mike’s pictures

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On the other hand, simply throwing them into the washing machine just about guarantees they’re gonna get lost. And being a dude means I don’t own a linen bag for my “delicates”. What to do?

The solution is simple — throw the pads into a jersey that has a zipper pocket, zip the pocket closed, and then throw the jersey in with the rest of the wash. Done.

Brooks B66 saddle for my newest project — a 1972 Raleigh Sports. The paint job on this guy is a little rusty, but I’m gonna keep the original, and perhaps just refinish the fenders. Also on the TODO list: adding wire baskets, finding some nice lights, oh, and perhaps rebuilding the hub to get rid of the little bit of skippage in there. Ho hum.

As always, Sheldon knows the answer:

• Servicing English Three Speeds
• Older Raleigh Bicycles