January is notoriously the hardest month for me to get through, especially here in Michigan; it’s long, cold, snowy, icy, and as of late it’s been foggy. Snow and ice on the ground, followed by rain and warmer temperatures meant that a heavy fog rolled into the Mt. Pleazy area on Friday night and it stuck around well into Saturday morning afternoon. Not ideal conditions for getting out for a road ride, but with the rains predicted to changeover to snow Saturday night, I wanted to get a few (emphasis on few) miles in.
Tag Archives | Fuji x100s
Blowing & Sucking
Wednesday night after I helped Wifey out with her strength training, I hung around in the Stankment™ to search through piles of bike crap for a saddle to put on my road bike, a bike which these days stays affixed to my trainer all year round and has been missing a saddle for the past eight months. Knowing that crap weather was fast approaching I searched, cussed, found and installed the saddle in preparation for another day hunkered down avoiding high winds and rain.
Dirt Road Pac-Man
After windy, crap ride on Saturday and a Sunday-Sloth Day, it was nice to start off the week with a ride on the dirt roads and not feel like I wanted to take a freaking hostage or lie down in the dirt and wait for a ten ton tractor to run me over.
Photo Practice
A month or so ago I took delivery of a used Fuji X100S camera that I bought off of eBay for less than half the cost of a new one. I had read a ton of good stuff about Fuji X Series and the X100S. So far, to me, it’s lived up to the hype. I love the size and styling of the camera, the ease of operation and of course the image quality. It’s smaller than my entry-level DSLR and for the most part allows me to produce better photos.
I Guess Fall’s Here
Not sure when it happened, but it seems over the past few days fall arrived. Technically it’s been fall for a while now, but today was the first second ride that I’ve done that it actually felt like fall: leaves changing, cool gusting winds, crisp air, knee warmers, jacket, cap, etc., etc.,
Fall usually depresses me more than I already am, and this year is no different. Well, it’s a little different as I am putting my complete faith and belief in weather.com which says that the current El Niño will have Michiganderburgh dryer than usual this winter. You would think that someone who owns a fat bike would have hopes for snow, snow, snow and more snow. In my case you would be wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong again. I have no problem with not seeing another snow flake the rest of my life.
Dumping Gear
The winds were pretty fierce on Sunday so I aborted a planned, post soccer match dirt road ride with a couple of friends. They were still riding, choosing to head into the woods to ride singletrack, but I really had no desire to beat my myself into submission and embarrass myself trying to stay on their wheels all afternoon. Instead I opted to skulk around the house, have some beers and inventory all the gear that I want to sell [including the Velocity Blunt SL Comp wheels seen above].
Back To The South
Thursday I grabbed the fatty and headed south on dirt and gravel roads again. It was a good day to be out rambling around and taking pics. There wasn’t much excitement, just a fine fall ride in rural Michigan, so I will just let some of the pics I took speak for fat 30 rolled.
A Ride With The Worms
Today was another cool, damp misty day here in Michigan. I can deal with mist and cool temps over the recent gusting winds and heavy rain any day, so I headed out on the fatty fatterson to log some miles, take some pics, and roll some worms.
New To Me
In recent weeks I became increasingly unhappy with the performance of my trusty Canon s95 point and shoot digital camera. I’ve been using an s95 for years now and it was perfect for riding: small enough to fit in a jersey pocket, easy enough to operate one-handed in most cases, and used ones could be found cheaply on eBay. But since I started to do rides using my Nikon DSLR I found the quality lacking to what I had become used to, but the problem with a DSLR is that even though the DSLR Slinger from Porcelain Rocket makes transporting one on a mountain bike easier, you are STILL hauling around a heavy DSLR (often on an already heavy fat bike).
So I started looking into a new camera that is smaller than my D3200 but better than my Canon s95. In my research for a new everyday camera–for both on and off the bike–I kept coming back to a couple of different cameras: The Sony RX100 and the Fuji x100t. Sadly both where WAY out of my price range.