...is a good day.
Yesterday morning Gwenda and I met up with our friends Nathalie the actress and Bill the conductor for the Bike Lexington event I mentioned a couple of days ago. We rode our hybrid Treks, while they were on their very sweet tandem that even the local hammerheads and bike shop guys were drooling over. It was a good ride, a lot of fun for everyone except that we eventually discovered that the reason that Gwenda couldn't really get going was that her rear brake was engaged and dragging for the first five or six miles. "Hey, that's just like what happened to Lance Armstrong on the Col du Telegraphe/Col du Galibier double climb in Stage Eight of the 2003 Tour," you say. Which is funny, reader, because that's exactly what I said.
It was all made up for, though, by the fact that in the raffle after the ride, Gwenda won a new bike! Actually, they just gave her a coupon, which worked out great since the sponsor of that particular giveaway was the other very cool Local Bike Shop we frequent, and Wendy (one of the owners) told us to just come out to the shop and Gwenda could pick the color and style herself (I refrain here from pointing out that it did not turn out to be me who made this a six bike household, or that I still think we need mountain bikes). Oh, and Nathalie won a pair of cool cycling sunglasses--pretty good luck for our group given that there were several hundred people there.
Then we rode around the corner for brunch at Alfalfa's, then Bill and Nathalie wanted to check out the sales at Pedal Power, then we went to our main LBS, Scheller's, so they could fix Gwenda's brake, then we went to a tasting at Wines on Vine, then finally we rode home. After I mowed the lawn, we went out to Pedal the Planet to pick up G's new cruiser, a Phat Sea Breeze in aqua that I'm sure she'll post pix of later, then home to watch yesterday's epic Giro d'Italia stage.
After all that, I spent a few hours laying out a special limited edition chapbook for Gwenda, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier and Ysabeau Wilce. They're going to be giving away one copy of it at their reading next weekend at WisCon, and since we're only producing six, that'll be a rare prize indeed. It contains a short story by Ysabeau and the first chapters of upcoming novels by G, Scott and Justine. The swank cover for "Pretty Magic Butlers of Roanoke" is by the same mad and madly skilled rock goddess that did the cover for the latest issue of Say...
Speaking of WisCon readings, I suppose I should now write something for the one I'm doing. Any ideas?
