I got to thinking about my gloves during a ride this week, largely because my rides give me a bit too much time to think. I own three pair of cycling gloves, a pair of Schwinn gloves, Bell (from Walmart a few years back) and some Bontrager mountain biking gloves my wife bought me for a holiday or birthday when she worked a few miles from the Springfield bike shop.
Typically, I never wear the Bontrager gloves, they feel weird on my hands, and in the winder, they are not much help. If I did mountain biking, which probably would require I have a mountain bike, they might be great. I haven't owned a mountain bike since my Mongoose Transport was stolen off my second floor balcony back in 2003. (That happened to be the same 2 day period of the great Blackout, and my dad's death. That week rather sucked. And yes, the bike was locked, they really wanted that bike, not the 20 other bikes in the complex that weighed much less, and were not locked up.)
(I refuse to acknowledge the Kmart special, a Huffy Howler. I had a few issues with it, but it was all I could afford after the Mongoose was stolen. The deductible on the insurance was 500, so they gave me $100. I would later sell that thing at a garage sale for $5. I'd have happily thrown that thing off of a cliff, if it wouldn't have been considered littering.)
Anyways.... my go-to gloves are the Schwinn ones. I got them at the Troy bike shop when I worked at Wendys, so that would have been in 1996. I had actually looked at them a few days before I bought them, and figured I would come back for them. I was then riding across the overpass for I-75, when I had a gear break on the Huffy Blade I had at the time. (I had crappy bikes after my parents divorced. I probably would have had better bikes had I picked to live with my dad instead...) In the crash that happened, I cut my hand open rather badly. I did get a decent scar from it, and I probably should have gotten stitches, but I didn't. Had I bought the gloves, I would have been a lot better off.
Being that the gloves are now a good 18 years old, and legally old enough to buy their own porn, I really should retire them. Half the time I put them on, my fingers end up coming out of a different hole than the finger hole, but they still work.
A few weeks ago, after my last race, I stopped into the Performance Bike in "Dayton", and saw some nice looking crocheted style gloves. They reminded me of the ones my dad had when I was little, but they didn't have my size. I just find it weird to think of retiring a pair of gloves that I have had, and used, for over half of my life. Like I said, sometimes when I am riding, I have too much time to think.
The other odd thing for me is that I still can't get Glowie to glow when I ride. Not that she hasn't learned a new trick. Last month, I ran a 5k put on by NoxGear, who makes a glowing vest. (Fiber-optic LED) Now, because Glowie is white when not glowing, whatever color the vest is lit up, Glowie reflects. So.... riding at night, the bike is now shifting between various colors, including red, green, and blue. (I forgot what other colors it can do.)
I have my next race Sunday morning, at the Kentucky Speedway. This may well be as close to a Velodrome as I will ever get, so I really need to make it count. I'll pack up for it tomorrow afternoon, after I put oil in my car. (I swear it seems to drink oil sometimes.) I have a busy couple of weeks ahead, with the TT this weekend, the Dayton Dragons 5k next weekend, Dayton Celtic Festival's 10k the weekend after that, and I am planning to do a 5k the weekend after that as well. On top of that, I need to start pushing my longer rides, in preparation for the Double Donut. That won't be on Glowie, I think, but it is going to be a hard ride.
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