Apr 3 - interesting

No, I haven't left yet ... but was sitting at the counter eating lunch and reading through the results book from last year's brevets -- 75 pages of results of people across the country listing brevets that they completed. Permanents, such as my last couple of individual rides, are grouped together so if someone has completed, say, 5 Permanents, it's just listed as 5 with the total mileage. Brevets, the organized events like tomorrow's, are listed with completion times.

It's easy to pick out the 1200's -- they are in the far right column which is basically for "other" and the times of course are high ... except for one case -- one fellow completed the Boulder Colorado 1200 km brevet in 49:58. That's amazing, given the amount of climbing involved. Did he sleep ? That's averaging 24km per hour including stop time at Controls and everything. Yikes.

Anyway, what I was looking for was the number of people who in 2008 completed, within the time limit, 2 or more 1200's. There were five, yes 5 people. Two of whom I know -- Tim Bol, the Central Florida RBA who I'll be seeing at 4 am tomorrow ... and another -- Judith -- who I'll also be seeing at 4am tomorrow. I guess that I'm in pretty good company -- no, I take that back -- they're an inspiration, since, of course, I have not completed anything yet !

I've got my bike in the car, everything else packed, but need to double check. It's hot out -- I did a run over to Michael's, the crafts store, on Speedway Blvd to pick up some beeswax. Apparently that is a good way to waterproof electrical connections for the GPS charger. It's a hard block now. I'll cut off a chunk and see if it softens with body warmth.

I also stopped by Pep Boys to drop off some used oil. Do you need the container back ? Nope. Ok, thanks. -- that's it. In PA you have to actually sign for it, name and address etc. and are restricted as to how much you can drop off per day -- some state rules for some reason. Must be tied to the fact that you can only purchase beer in 24's ? Nawww.

While I was at it I stopped at Boaters World. That location is going out of business so they have a huge sale going. I don't think that the company itself is going out of business, but who knows. Anyway, I browsed around and bought a 12 volt oil changer. Basically it's a little pump with a cigarette lighter connector (now known as an accessory outlet since no-one smokes) and two hoses -- one in and one out. You dunk the "in" hose into the oil level check hole and the other into your old oil can. It's for changing oil in lawnmowers, generators etc. rather than having to tip them up, lift them up and put something under them, etc. It's perfect for the cottage where I have a number of things that are due for oil changes. The generator, in particular, is hard to change since it's in the back of the woodshed blocked by a bunch of stuff. It's overdue for an oil change.

Interestingly enough, a manual version that has a pump and then operates by siphoning the oil, was more expensive than the electric version. Siphoning is ok if the appliance is higher than the outlet, but in the case of a lawnmower I would have to lift it up, which would also be the case with the generator -- not very practical.

That's it.