Time for another Soiled Chamois Mega Post, a post in where I post a bunch of photos and attempt to play catch up with my cycling, and non-cycling, life.
The time since the last post has been spent doing many things: riding, picture taking, soccer watching, beer drinking, processing said photos, a hike, husband and dad duties, posting camera gear on eBay, etc., etc.,
I took Friday off the bike due to slack, a noon time appointment, dad duties, and getting B to a Friday evening tournament match.
B’s kickoff wasn’t until 4:45 on Saturday so I was able to get out Saturday morning for a quick gravel ride north of town. It was nice to get out because I knew I would be at the soccer complex from 7:15 AM until about 4 PM on Sunday, come home sun fried and dead tired and in no way wanting to ride anything but a couch.
B-Man doing his thing and apparently now wearing a headband during matches. Whatever works.
Monday I drove to the Chippewa Nature Center to do a short hike and try to salvage some use of the 200-500mm lens that I rented and didn’t use1, for the tournament. I walked the Wet Lands trail, took some OK pics and then packed up the lens to send back.
The rest of the day was spent processing and posting the hundreds of photos I took at the tournament for B’s team.
On Tuesday I was finally able to get back on the bike and headed south of town on the Boone. The ride was fairly short, at just 26.5 miles, but the weather was Michigan fall perfect and a good time was had.
Tuesday afternoon Mr. FedEx Man delivered the Ortlieb Ultimate 6 Classic Handlebar Bag I ordered from Moosejaw. I’ve been searching for a quality bag with room enough to hold my Nikon D500 and at least the 18-200mm lens. The Ultimate 6 proved to be perfect, so once I got B home from practice Tuesday night I installed the mounting system to the Boone.
I’m super stoked with the purchase. I haven’t picked up the padded Ortlieb camera insert yet, so I’ve set it up with some ghetto foam and old camera bag inserts that I had laying around. For now, it works just fine.
Wednesday I got out for 34-ish miles north of town and tested the bag out. It worked great and it was great to be able to roll the Boone and take the D500 with me (other bags proved too small). It performs great and serves its purpose, but I have to say it does sort of make me feel like I’m about a year away from riding with mirrors attached to my helmet or looking at recumbent bikes. I don’t know why, it just does. Knowing the camera is safe and that I have super easy access to it helped me get over it PDQ.
The only real down side to the bag is that I can only use it on the Boone or the Fatterson right now. The PrOcal has a carbon bar, and the Ortlieb mounting system and carbon bars are a no-go. I’ll probably swap to the aluminum bar soon to make the bag universally awesome for Junk Mile picture taking on all three of my beasts.
Here is a big ol’ slide show of photos taken over the past five days or so. Take a look.
I planned on getting a ride in today (Thursday) but there are a few web projects I promised to start for folks and I’m lagging behind. Not to mention that sometimes I just don’t want to go for a ride, today is one of those days. Tomorrow shant.
Later.