KC Bike Week 2009 - Day 1

I am not ready at all for this years Car-Free Challenge. It starts on a day with a lot of memories and feelings going through my head. My commuter rig is still not finished. There are tons of work to do around the house, painting is still not finished, the event promotion duties never seem to end and I will be a one man show at work next week. But life and the challenge goes on....

The City of Independence has been waiting for my final event proposal for several weeks, so I headed over to scout out Santa Fe Trails park and a new course this morning. There is no easy way to get over to Independence from my Northland location via bicycle. At least I don't know of any. The good thing was the roads were mostly empty because it was Saturday morning. It was a nice morning to ride. After checking out the park and working on the course (like I said the promoter duties never end..) I headed back home to fix breakfast for Christopher and start to work.

Several projects have been going on at the Locke house the past month. Everything from painting the inside to sealing the driveway. Today I needed to finish my driveway project. A trip to Lowe's was up next. I felt o.k. after this mornings ride and figured a little 9 mile trip to the store would be a piece of cake. Well, I forgot how hard it was to climb pulling 40+ pounds of weight. The downhills were fun. Those Dura-Ace brakes sure do work well.

Robbie and Christopher helped finish the sod project which required raising the level of the ground/grass so the water will drain away from the driveway instead of under it :-). After we got that done it was time to work on the backyard and get ready for Christopher's little bonfire party that he decided that he was going to invite all the neighborhood kids to. Before I knew it, I was baby sitting 5 kids, cleaning the house, moving furniture, removing painter tape (that had dried on because it was left on way to long), moping the floor, polishing the cabinets, etc. At the end of the night I was so tired about fell asleep brushing my teeth. To top it all off I still did not get my bike built up. This is going to be one long week..