Number nine. Number nine.

There are nine days left before I go a'riding. I need $195 more dollars, which, divided by nine, is
$21.67. Also, from Wikipedia:

• Nine is the highest single-digit number in the decimal system.
• In the NATO phonetic alphabet, the digit 9 is called "niner".
• Nine is the number of musicians in a nonet.
• Nine babies born into a single birth are called nonuplets, although not one baby born into a set of nonuplets has ever survived infancy.
• A novena lasts for nine days.
• Nine judges sit on the United States Supreme Court.
• There are nine members of The Fellowship of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings saga, to balance and combat the nine Nazgûl, or Ringwraiths.
• The ordinal adjective is nonary.
• In Greek mythology there are nine Muses.
• In Egyptian mythology, there are nine major gods and goddesses (see also Ennead).
• There are nine basic personality types represented on the enneagram.
• In astrology, Sagittarius is the 9th astrological sign of the Zodiac.
• Joel Garreau identified nine different "nations" of North America.
• Nine months is approximately the gestation period for humans.
• A standard work day of 9 to 5 begins at 9 a.m.
• Stanines are measured on a scale of 1 to 9.
• The name of the area called Kowloon in Hong Kong literally means: nine dragons.
• Someone dressed "to the nines" is dressed up as much as they can be.
• Number of Provinces in South Africa.
• There are 9 planets in the Solar System.
• Nine, as the highest single-digit number, symbolizes completeness in the Bahá'í Faith. A simple nine-pointed star is a Bahá'í symbol.
• Nine Lives Cat Food got its name from the legend that a cat has nine lives.

Ten gears a’ slipping

Today was day two of Operation: Bicycle Fit. I wouldn't call it a failure so much as a not-working-out-so-well-as-I'd-like kinda-thing.

To begin with, cycling requires the wearing of clothes that fit the sport, which is to say, FORM FITTING clothes. I am not a fan of said clothes, but around mile 7, you stop caring and start thanking GAWD that you aren't sweltering.

You wouldn't believe how easy it is to swelter in 50 degree weather.

My personal outfit starts with heavily padded chonies that make my arse appear about 4 times larger than normal. (YES, it is the chonies; just go with it.) The top is also form fitting, which is neither padded, nor has the same enhancing side-effect.

The result is that I feel like a Weeble Wobble, and unlike that fun-lovin' 80s toy, I occasionally do fall down.

So there I am, day two in the bike shop, in less clothing than a common hooker while a two men stare at my body and try to figure out why I'm functionally so flippin' odd. Ironically, it would be the first time I felt like a complete object, which is to say, like a defective clock or maybe a broken lamp or something.

After new components, adjusted shoes, queries about my torso length, moving my seat up, down, forward, backward, sideways, much discussion about the biologically shorter arm length in women in general, and voilà! Still no flippin' answers to my questions... but we're closer.

A wee bit closer.

And that's okay for now.

On the upside, my slipping gears are no more, as Blue, she has received quite a tuning. Little by little, day by day, I inch closer to being ready for this monumental ride... sorta.

This one goes to eleven…

Eleven days out. I took my bike over to be properly fitted, and it's not just me. The guy at the shop was GENIUNELY STUMPED by the oddity that is my body. To wit:

If my knees are in line, my arse is uncomfortable.

If my arse is in line, my toes go numb.

If my arse is comfortable, my shoulder is outta whack.

FIVE HUNDRED EIGHTY-FIVE MILES TO GO!

I'm only a little bit nervous.

It's the anxiety that's killing me.

12 days and counting….

I had one of those disheartening moments last night, as I went to the gym and learned I weigh a lot a lot more than I thought I did. I mean, like I was 12 pounds off from my guesstimation. Horrendous.

That tops my list of craptacular items for the day.

On the plus side, only 12 more days to the ride!!! AAANNND a friend sent this hilarious item. Happy Tuesday. Laugh.

A riding I shall go

Lucky number 13. In just 13 days, I will be off, riding across this great state.

From Wikipedia:

"Thirteen is the 6th smallest prime number; the next is seventeen. 13 is the second Wilson prime. 13 is the fifth Mersenne prime exponent, yielding 8191. 13 is also the third lucky prime.

13 is the second star number and the seventh Fibonacci number. As it is an odd-indexed Fibonacci number, it is a Markov number, appearing in solutions to the Markov Diophantine equation: (1, 5, 13), (1, 13, 34), (5, 13, 194), ...

There are 13 Archimedean solids.

13 goes into 999,999 exactly 76,923 times, so vulgar fractions with 13 in the denominator have six digit repeating sequences in their decimal expansions.

At 13, the Mertens function sets a new low of -3, subseded later at 31 with a value of -4.

13 is the only positive integer that is the fourth root of the sum of the squares of two successive positive integers (119 and 120).

The 13th root is the most famous integer root calculation record, because 13 is the first prime number over 10 such as the last digit of a 13th integer power is the same as the last digit of its 13th root.

In base 10, the smallest prime with a composite sum of digits is 13.

• The atomic number of aluminium
• The number of dimensions in some theories of relativity

• Messier object M13, a magnitude 7.0 globular cluster in the constellation Hercules, also known as the Hercules cluster. It is one of the brightest and best-known of the globular clusters.

• The New General Catalogue object NGC 13, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Andromeda

• The Saros number of the solar eclipse series which began on -2561 September 12 and ended on -1046 March 9. The duration of Saros series 13 was 1514.5 years, and it contained 85 solar eclipses.

• The Saros number of the lunar eclipse series which began on -2313 May 20 and ended on -1015 July 6. The duration of Saros series 13 was 1298.1 years, and it contained 73 lunar eclipses.

• The 13th moon of Jupiter is Elara.

• The known universe is currently thought to be about 13.7 billion years old, with an error of about one percent.

• There are 13 zodiac constellations, which consist of the 12 signs in the astrological zodiac and Ophiuchus.

• he original number of members of The Thirteen Club.
• The number of loaves in a "baker's dozen".
• The number of Popes named Innocent, for which an honor society containing 13 members at the University of Nebraska is named ("The Society of Innocents")
• The number of cards in a single suit of a standard deck of playing cards.
• The ASCII and Unicode value for carriage return.
• "Unlucky for some", according to bingo callers.
• The number of players in a rugby league team.
• The number of original colonies the United States was founded from. The original flag had thirteen stars, one for each state. New stars have since been added whenever a new state joins the union, but the idea of adding stripes for new states was soon dropped, so the American flag to this day has thirteen horizontal stripes, six white ones and seven red ones.
• A U.S. 1 Dollar note has:
  • 13 levels of the truncated pyramid,
  • 13 letters in "E Pluribus Unum", which appears in the banner running through the eagle's beak on the right side of the bill's reverse.
  • 13 letters in the phrase "Annuit Coeptis", which appears over the pyramid on the left side of the bill's reverse.
  • 13 stars above the Eagle,
  • 13 leaves on the olive branch,
  • 13 olives on the olive branch,
  • 13 arrows held by the Eagle, and
  • 13 bars on the shield.
• The number of guns in a gun salute to U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps Major Generals, and Navy and Coast Guard Rear Admirals Upper Half.
• The number of Plutonium slugs in Fat Man, the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
• The number on a Hell's Angel's patch or tattoo that refers to the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, M, for "marijuana".
• 13, or "X3", is the number of the Mexican street gang Sureños. It refers to the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, M, for Mexico.
• In rugby union one of the centres, most often but not always the outside centre, wears the 13 shirt.
• Historical years: A.D. 13, 13 B.C., or 1913.
• Israel Naval covert unit - Shayetet 13
• Former professional wrestler Tazz used the number 13 in his ring gear, merchandise, and Titantron video, signifying the 13 years he wrestled in the independent circuit and ECW before being signed by WWE.
• A card game very similar to Tien len.
• The ancient card game 'Boumpha' has 13 different cards"