Iron Buddha Bull

Join me for a zendurance ride on some beautiful Texas highways as I wax philosophical about a variety of topics. Great day, great ride, great life.

• The Hornet Juice Contest is coming!


• Zentri Hippy Moment.


• Started growing some bamboo. Pandas are a predator!


• Eat the shoots. Leaves are poisonous.

• RemembertheMilk.com
  


• Aboard the BMC, Schwinn is 500 lbs.


• Angry Corn recipe!

• Kboo - bike evangelist.


• Materialize bikes just like cars.


• Sell you a promise.


• Friend wishes he didn't buy a truck - first occurrence.


• Gas price goes up, lag in living locations.

• Beards are back in. Middle east influence?

• Emily's dad named a bull after me!

• Trail runner mag - a dirty magazine.


• Trail running shoe reviews.


• How to meditate while running.


• Forget everything else, focus on the breathing and footsteps. Mind wanders, bring it back.


• Useful for learning how to focus on tasks.

• Ran home after dropping car off for tires

• Goals - mellow out, bike to work, opportunistic training and racing.


• Run to work, run to pool, surfing, skateboard.

• Zencast - to look at yourself at the human scale is to sentence yourself to death.


• "The wave is enlightened when it realizes it is water."


• Zen is a guiltless practice. no worries, just skillfull and unskillful.

• "Don't let yesterday use up too much of today" -Will Rogers

• "I have flying monkeys and I will use them!"

Shocked that Texas isn’t the Center of the Universe

I guess I've seen a certain t-shirt at the mall too many times.  It has a map of the USA, but Texas is the only state with an outline.  "Texas" is stamped across Texas and "Other" is stamped across the rest.

Imagine my amazement when I found out a webinar meeting I was supposed to attend at 9 AM was actually 9 AM Pacific.

I went back and checked the fine print.  Yes, it said Pacific.  I believe my Texas-vision prevented me from noticing this.

I now see the world with much more humble eyes.  Humble, like Humble, TX.

Vote for TriBoomer!

TriBoomer is needing votes to get elected to the EvoTri team. The Booms and I are good friends and I know he would be an incredible addition to that team. The guy can raise funds for charity like nobody's business AND is super-connected in the online tri world.

All he needs to get the job is a vote from us. Send an email to vote@evotri.com and put "http://triboomer.blogspot.com/" in the subject line. Those emails count as votes. You can only send one per email account, so you can vote multiple times if you have multiple accounts.

You have until Friday to put a Zentri faithful deep into the ranks of this new team. I know Triboomer is very excited about the possibility of making it. Let's get it done!

Tri And Eat It

This podcast is unique in that it is a COOKING SHOW with Emily and I on one end in Texas and Christine and Josh on the other in NYC.  Both couples are cooking the same meal at the exact same time!  We recorded the phone conversation as we made Parmesan chicken, asparagus soup, and some veggies.

This was a ton of fun and the recipes are wholesome and healthy.  Below is the links to the recipes and we hope you cook them yourself.  Nothing took more than half an hour to make.   Listen in and meet Christine and Josh as we have some kitchen fun!

 Parmesan Crusted Oatmeal Chicken

 Creamy Asparagus Soup

Sweet Sensation Veggies

Schwinn Varsity Project Completed!

I spent $103 and turned a donated '73 Schwinn Varsity into a killer commuter bike. I pulled off the drop bars that were quite uncomfortable and replaced them with a flat bar and mtn bike brake levers I had laying around. The next step was dropping it off at my local bike shop for fenders.

I've invested a lot of time building a relationship with my LBS. I often drop buy and don't buy anything, but rather just say "Hi." and chat with the staff. I always send people there and tell them to tell the staff I sent them. The result is Aggieland Cycling treats me really well and takes some ownership in stuff I'm asking them to work on. It has been well worth the effort.

You should have seen the reaction of the two guys who saw the Varsity when I first brought it in. They literally salivated over the near-mint condition of such an old bike. The shop was excited as I'd ever seen them to put their hands on a project bike and given carte blanc to see what they could do.

I told them I wanted fenders and they had discretion over what kind. We also chatted for a while about bar grips and decided using bar tape would be cool. I asked if I could have a bar-mounted bottle cage for sipping coffee while cruising about. I left the Varsity there knowing these guys would do something cool with it.

They had to special order each fender to find ones that would fit. They also custom bent a mounting bracket to attach the rack to the rear brake post instead of to the seat stays, which would have marred the paint. I got some instruction on how to adjust the cones on the bearings in the front wheel to smooth out a roughness issue I noticed. After they finished working on it a few days later, the guys told me it was great to work on such a cool classic ride.

So here it is, with the pimpin'-est chrome fenders on the block. The bars are a little narrow, just like messengers like to ease weaving in and out between cars. The gears still shift great, so I've left them all on for now. Big thanks to Blinky and Aggieland Cycling for helping create an incredibly cool city bike that is both retro and modern at once. You can look at a collection of photos taken during the process here.

They have a Seattle Langster in the shop. I used it as a general target for how I wanted my bike to end up looking. If you're looking for a bitchin' single speed city bike and don't have an old one laying around to convert, I highly recommend the Seattle. The thing is truly gorgeous.