In case anyone cares about this sort of thing, I've uploaded a pic of my new TREK 7300 and the 3 Wood that Dan (one of the club builders in the golf forum) made for me. It's in the Padre personal album at the ragingolf.com forum.

I've just returned from a 12.2-mile ride in the hills (bringing me up to a 51-mile total for the bike, which isn't bad for one week's riding, particularly since I haven't been able to ride every single day) and figured this would be as good a time as any to take a pic of the bike before the hurricane hits. (I hope y'all who are down in the real thick of the hurricane are doing OK!)

Yesterday I snapped the chain, and while I had it in for repair I snatched up a rear rack for load bearing as I take increasingly longer rides, leading up to day- and weekend-long touring rides when the weather cools a bit in the autumn. Before I start touring, I'll be adding greater amounts of load to increase my conditioning and get a feel for what all will be really needed for those trips.

Since I plan to transport the 7300 on or in my Sentra for these trips, I should have no trouble carrying along a complete set of clubs, so I should do at least some weekends consisting of both bike touring and golfing. This will allow me to visit a few of my semi-local fellow forum participants, like some of the Florida contingent.

As temperatures cool, and particularly as I migrate over the next weeks from 1.5 jobs to only 1 job, I should be able to tick off more mileage. Now that I'm on a properly-fitting bike, I'm venturing farther from the neighborhood and doing more exploring, which makes the whole process much more enjoyable.

With this oncoming hurricane, I think I may continue riding for another day or two before I take a recovery day, because I presently expect the weather to dictate one or two for me soon enough. Let's face it, even on a bike with brakes that work well under damp conditions, I'm not interested in excessively risking injury from flying/falling debris.

Exertion good. Injury bad.