Monday, June 22, 2009


Oh, I Am Wearing Socks

Friday I said I'd be talking about things I'm doing and things I'm thinking of doing, but all I'm thinking about doing right now is sleeping. No racing this weekend, hardly any riding at all in fact. Instead of making excuses for why I can't write, I'll just tell you what I've been doing and what I will be doing for the next couple days. I'm sure you'll hear more about this later and with more detail (and hopefully with some attempt at humor).

Trek and Fisher have a program where folks can get a credit for up to half the amount they spent on a kids bike toward their next kids bike within two years of the purchase date. Our shop sells a whole lot of kids bikes. We end up with hundreds of kids bikes in our warehouse...it's now my job to figure out what to do with them.

My sister (who is awesome) teaches at a school in Dorchester, a lot of the kids she works with don't have bikes. We worked out a plan to deliver nearly 100 bikes to specific children, fit them to the bikes, and get them outfitted with helmets. The end of the school year is looming so this all had to happen in very short time...very short time.

At one point I figured out that it was nearly mathematically impossible to prep all the bikes in time. Luckily I'm bad at math and worse at sleeping.

We delivered the first 28 bikes Friday, we'll be delivering thirty or so tomorrow, and another forty or so Tuesday. The kids were stoked Friday, I can't wait to get back down there tomorrow.

Picking up IBC Elite MTBer Kevin in the AM to head back to the trenches, more later.

5:30AM Addendum

Wow, that is perhaps the driest most lifeless thing I have ever written.

Signs that I may be on the brink of total collapse:

  1. Waking up this morning to visions of huge chunks of an iceberg breaking off into the ocean, complete with bone-rumbling surround sound.
  2. Bending over quickly to pick up my shoes last night and slamming the center of my forehead directly into the back of a very firm wooden chair, which was completely stationary. The blow was hard enough to knock me backwards onto the floor. It was dark, but the chair was exactly where it has always been, it wasn't the chair that had moved it was my brain cells which had moved...to a dark corner of my brain where they have told me they will be camping out until I get more than five hours of sleep.
  3. Walking into work yesterday and thinking that I had to go buy socks, realizing that I had socks and stating, loud enough for my coworker Bryan to hear "Oh, I am wearing socks".
    In my defense, I often ride into work, get wet on the way in, have to buy dry socks or I drive in wearing flip flops, have to change into my work shoes and realize that I have to buy new socks. Not buying it huh? Oh well.

3 comments:

Raineman said...

Can't think of anything much more worthy of your energy than putting a hundred kids on bikes - 'cept maybe bringing the world peace. Somebody give Thom a medal, a jug of maple syrup, or another carbon bar.
Reeeaally. Drink it in.

The Ghost of Jerry Reed said...

Sounds like a great program you have going. Kids + bikes = unconditional love!

the original big ring said...

That's pretty awesome. If you can't ride bikes, may as well get someone on one.

cheers