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Photo: I'm back to riding my Xootr Swift on the regular. Hooray!

Ahhhhhh! So good to be back in good health and riding the bicycle again. After a miserable bout with pneumonia, followed by extreme hectic craziness at work (when you do a lot of education law, this time of year can be busy), I'm finally riding my beloved Xootr Swift again. What a difference it makes in my mood to be getting some quality time on the bike: I am absolutely more jolly.

And the Xootr Swift, which was provided to me free of charge by the good folks at Xootr for testing and publicity purposes, is holding up like Oussama Mellouli. (Who is that, you ask? Only the first Tunisian every to medal in an olympic swimming event, which he did in fine fashion by taking gold in the men's 1500 meters, all of which you probably missed because Michael Phelps is a superhuman water cyborg with funny ears, and NBC spent exactly two seconds on Mellouli before turning back to coverage of Americans). So let me regale you, dear friends, with further details of recent rides and of the stellar performance of my bike. But, you know, after the jump.

I have the good fortune to have some friends, Lisa and Chauncey, who have some parents (well, they're Lisa's parents, Chauncey's in-laws) named John and Joan, who own a house in the Berkshires. John and Joan, lovely people both, were kind enough to take a trip to Egypt that left their Berkshires house unoccupied, allowing Lisa, Chauncey, my dear wife Anna, our respective kids (two for them, two for us), and I to step into the breach and enjoy a country Labor Day on John and Joan's behalf.

So I carried the Swift up to Great Barrington for the long weekend, and Chauncey, who loves fancy stuff with fancy names, carried his Pegoretti Palisanto. You should hear him say this - he does it with tremendous gusto and a funny, spicy, quasi-Italian accent entiring disconnected from his bland, Woodstock, Connecticut upbringing. Also, Chauncey's bike, shoes, helmet, socks, shorts, and water bottle are all color-coordinated. What does this tell us about Chauncey? I am not going to say. He is a good friend.

Anyway, as you might expect of someone who takes the time to color-coordinate his socks and his bicycle, Chauncey is a fairly strong rider - stronger than me, anyway - and his Italian-accented bike is definitely faster than the Xootr Swift (but doesn't fold!). So when Chauncey proposed a hilly 35-mile loop in the environs of West Stockbridge, I was concerned I would be a drag. But I also really wanted to have a nice ride, and I like scenery and stuff, so I said OK, with the warning to Chauncey that I might not bring as much Alps-stage ruckus as he does. As mentioned, Chauncey is a good friend and assured me it would be no problem. Also, I think he was just excited to be out in public in his well-coordinated yellow and red cycling kit.

In the end, the ride was scenic (see photos farther down the page) and the Xootr performed like a champ, to the point where I didn't even have the sense that I was too much of a brake on Chauncey's Breaking Away-style truck racing. I replaced the stock saddle, which was kinda spongy, in an all-purpose comfort sorta way, with a rather hard old saddle from a ten speed, and it was remarkably more comfortable, even without padded bike shorts (which are too expensive for me to purchase in good conscience). And my touring bar setup is butter for long rides. And luckily, in the middle of the ride we stopped at the West Stockbridge General Store for a snack break. That is where I deployed my secret biking-energy weapon:

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Fanta Orange + Donuts = Folding Bike POWER.

Here are some other pictures from the ride:

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Chauncey on the Pegoretti Palisanto.

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Scenery x 3.

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Back home (sigh).

Actually, I shouldn't sigh about being back home. Yesterday I got to ride to a hearing in (Hard Hittin') New Britain, which was nice because it provided me with a longer ride (about 18 miles in total) than going straight to work, and it gave me the chance to see New Britain's lovely scenery:
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And today, I had a hearing in East Hartford, which again provided me with a nice, longer ride. (Sorry, I didn't take any pictures this time, but I can report that the view of downtown Hartford from the Charter Oak Bridge was top notch, and I was reminded once again of how much nicer it is to cross a river by bike than by car.)

So, in closing, life is good.