Context – Fixing my bike

Well, less fixing than adding new accessories to.  Should have written “Accessorizing my bike”, which would have been way more accurate.  Too late now, I obviously can’t go back and change it.

I wanted to add a second water bottle rack to the bike for the upcoming trip to Madison, but also just because it’s summer and it gets all kinds of hot here in Chicago.  Most of my riding is at 7:00 AM and then again at 5:00 PM thanks to work, which will keep me out of the worst parts of the day, at least.  But all the same, I want to begin increasing my commute from the 10 miles each day up to the full 30.  Seems like the easiest way to get in shape for the bigger trip, but also saving gas and reducing my carbon footprint and all the other reasons I pretend to care about.

For whatever reason my bike isn’t really set up well for this sort of long distance touring.  The back rack didn’t have the right eyelets, so we needed to use P-Clamp attached to the frame to get it set up for panniers.  There’s also no mounts for water bottle cages, so the one in my frame is attached via another adapter.  Which is a trend that’s growing rather tiresome.

The solution was to mount the second bottle under the seat, which is by all means practical if we ignore the upcoming need to strap a pack to the rack.  That’s future Jason’s problem, though.  We’re gonna let that guy deal with it.

While I was installing this I decided to give the newest Norma Jean a listen.  A friend vouched for the album, which was much needed after The Anti-Mother (I stopped listening to the band after that and prefer to stick to the infinitely better O’ God, the Aftermath and Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child).

This album sounds much more like the Norma Jean of old, but more Redeemer than the aforementioned.  Redeemer isn’t a bad place to be for an album, particularly a Norma Jean album, so I’m calling it a victory.

I love sludgy southern hype metal so much–bands like Norma Jean, Underoath, and Every Time I Die–so I give it a bunch of passes.  This album doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it spins pretty well.