Weight

I carry a lot of weight. This time of year is the worst because I start out and it's nippy and I come home and it's nice. So I'm carrying warm clothes and light clothes and two pairs of gloves and work clothes and because I ride a Trek Soho I've got extra tools to get that rear wheel off and a pump and a couple of other things I've convinced myself I always need to have with me. This time of year I use this:

I'm also hauling this 5lb monster:

This time of year it all totals to slightly over 15 lbs.

The Topeak bag slides and snaps in. The problem with the monster is that it's so small I can't get the bag off and on while it's locked to the kind of bike racks at work. So I put it half way on, remove the lock and then push the bag the rest of the way in. 

Today I go through my routine after work and I'm riding home and I'm attacking hills and I'm just frickin flying. I'm thinking, yeah, I still got it. I can hammer. I'm too cool. 

I get home all happy and stuff and lift the bike up to take up the stairs and it's light. It's really light. I look and no bag. I forgot to slide it the rest of the way in.

So I turn around and haul my assless behind back from whence I came. No bag. So I turn around and go home, worn out. 30 miles with 20 of them pushing it after 8 hours of work and 10 in the morning and I'm done. Old.

Crap.

Then it hits me. I'm no longer cool! My iPad was in the bag! Imagine that you've gone decades with coolness being as far away from you as common sense is from a tool riding a fixie and then suddenly you're like all that and more because someone gave you an iPad and then it's gone. 

To hell with the tools, the clothes, the lock, the knick knacks, I want my coolness back!

A couple of hours of crying in my beer and a guy calls and says he has it. Works in the same place I do. He found it on the side of the road. Damn nice guy.

So tomorrow I'll be all cool again. I just have to figure out how to reduce my haul so I can frickin fly some more.