I’m a huge pen dork. Not for fountain pens (but I have tried to get into those) but for ball points. I have to write tickets all day at my job so I need a pen that can handle high volume and some rough treatment without wearing out my hand. I love the combo I’m using right now.

It’s a Pilot Hi Tec C Cavalier body with a Pilot G2 .38 refill inside. The refill that came with it was crazy extra-fine, too, but it was shaped in such a way that it was too scratchy on the paper and it seemed to clog too easily. In the .38 G2 refill I get the nice flow of the G2 ink and a super-fine line, like I want.

via: toys r evil, again.

via: Toys Are Evil

And on the custom front, these skeletons designed by Scott Wilkowski are impressive as hell. The bone sculpts are pretty damn slick, and the smoky clear resin adds a lot to the creepy factor.

(both via: Toys Are Evil)

They were custom jobs and $300 for the pair. I saw them in person, though, and they were damn sweeet.

[via Toys R Evil]

The Saturday leg of the ride started at 7:30am from Rockett’s Landing in downtown Richmond. The route sent us out East along the James River along some quiet country roads that I was pretty familiar with. I do a good bit of riding out that way and it was nice to know where I was for the first batch of miles. We hit the first rest stop at the 11-mile mark where we were met by a dozen volunteers who were stocking the station with plenty of drinks and snacks. The weather was going to warm up later in the day so we took every opportunity to hydrate, even though we were only 11 miles in. The next leg of the ride took me off of roads I knew well and into the rolling hills of Charles City County, Virginia.

I had been riding over the Winter and into the Spring with an eye toward riding the century (100-mile) loop on the first day of the MS150. They make the 75-mile ride a 100-mile ride by adding a 25-mile loop after one of the rest stations. Basically, you take a right when everyone else goes left, ride a 24-mile loop back to the same spot, and then continue along the same course as everyone else. This year, the century loop was after mile 26 so my legs felt fresh and I talked myself into it pretty easily. 8 of us took the Century turn and we made easy work of it. A highlight for me was a nice couple of Centruy Loop miles on the in-progress Virginia Capital Trail. It was really impressive and I can’t wait for more of it to be done closer to RVA.

We re-joined the main course and kept a 17-18mph pace into the lunch stop. There were burgers and franks and PB&Js, with lots of chips and drinks and shade for everyone. And again, the volunteers that staff the rest stops provided a terrific lift with the way they cheered us into the stop, chatted us up about how glad they were to help, and then sent us off with more cheers and well wishes. Once I get over 50 miles of riding I tend to talk myself down because I’m tired and getting more uncomfortable. The volunteers make sure I know that they’re behind me and they provide a genuine lift that makes the last 1/3 of the ride feel like something I can close out.

In preparing for this century ride our plan was to approach the day one-third at a time. The first third should feel like relatively easy spinning. You don’t want to go too hard on fresh legs because you won’t have anything in the tank for the end. It’s tricky to temper your enthusiasm and adrenaline to keep a moderate pace at the beginning. The second third is tougher but tolerable and you should start to “feel your muscles” doing work. The easy spinning is over but you don’t feel like you’re killing yourself. The last third is the most difficult and things start to hurt. Riding your bike for 100 miles is an uncomfortable thing. You have to be able to set the discomfort aside and focus on turning the pedals over to get to the finish. Breaking the ride into thirds makes the mental part of a 100-mile ride a lot easier to deal with.

The final third of the ride came after lunch and it was kind of a struggle. The mid-day sun got things pretty warm but we just kept turning the pedals over, super-hydrating at the last 2 rest stops, and focusing on “the goal”. “The goal” was a vague term that took several meanings over the last 20 miles of the ride. The most popular “goals” were: the finish line beer truck, getting a massage, and a big dinner (with pie!) . I am happy to report that, in my case, I was able to achieve each of these “goals” over the course of the evening. It was hard work, but I found a way.

Sunday’s ride back to Richmond was supposed to start at 7am, with a breakfast being served from 5:45-7. I’ve been late to breakfast the last couple of years so I made sure to set a 5:30 alarm so I could get up wth plenty of time to eat and get ready. After Saturday’s 100 I knew I would need plenty of fuel. I woke to my alarm and, what sounded like, the circulating water in my room a/c unit. In reality, it was hard rain on my window that was making the noise and it ended after just a few minutes. I made it downstairs for breakfast before 6am and the skies were cloudy. The forecast had been for late afternoon storms but we would have been long-finished and home by the time they were supposed to hit. Overnight, the situation had changed. There was a large system of severe thunderstorms that had been pounding RVA and were lined up to trail right into Williamsburg all along the proposed bike route. The ride officials decided to delay the start of the ride for an hour to see how things developed. Unfortunately for us, they developed in the worst possible way and the Sunday Ride was canceled at 9am. There were reports of trees down along some roads and the amount of rain and lightning would have made a bike ride through it an exercise in stupidity. I’m not the brightest bulb, but I know enough not to ride a bike through a thunderstorm.

I got a ride back to Richmond from my lovely wife, Michelle, who left a warm bed to drive to Williamsburg to get me first thing in the morning. I was bummed that we didn’t get to ride the second day, but we certainly made up for some of those lost miles by getting the century ride in on Saturday.

Local pro, and all-around cool guy, Craig Dodson is quoted in the article too:

“They could come up with some amazing routes,” says Craig Dodson, a domestic pro who has lived in Richmond since his days racing for Team Nature’s Path. “You’ve got the cityscape with punchy elevation gains from either side of the river. Then you’ve got bucolic landscapes outside the city. Some of what you find is really mind-blowing.”

I’ve been on a couple of the roads they’re talking about. Church Hill is no joke on a bike.

I know, first-hand, that the quality and articulation of 3A toys is top-shelf and I have no doubt that Mongrol will be up to snuff. At $250 shipped, however, this is way out of my price range. It’s still cool to look at.

This goes on sale Monday at bambalandstore.com.

(But now that I look, it seems I didn’t post about those Kaws lightbulbs. Man, I’m a slack blogger.)

[via Prolly Is Not Probably ]