Well that was a nice change of pace, a day without rain!  I took advantage of the nice weather and went on a group bike ride last night.  I got my bike back Tuesday night, complete with new carbon fiber fork, but hadn’t gotten to ride it yet due to the intermittent monsoons.  I was quite pleased with the new part incidentally;  It’s pretty well used, a little dinged up, but at the price Volker gave me (with installation) I sure ain’t complaining.  Not to mention, it actually fits, unlike the old one.  As a matter of fact, I had enough money left over to get some new brakes too.  My friend Chris (not Martin, a guy I used to work with) came over before the ride last night and put them on for me.  He seemed a bit confused as to why I was replacing my perfectly good (and actually very nice) Ultegra brakes with the new ones.  I pointed out the obvious:  “Because these are black.  I like black components.”  He didn’t say anything, but I’m relatively sure I saw him roll his eyes.  He put them on though, and they look infinitely nicer than the others.  Probably make me faster too.  So, with my super-duper new fork and brakes, we rolled down to Brookside and met up with Munkirs.  Chris is significantly younger than Munkirs and I, and we let him talk us into taking off with the “fast group.”  Turned out to be a good choice;  We didn’t have any problems keeping up and I liked the riding style of this group a lot better.  (I thought they did a much better job of following some basic traffic rules that absolutely drive me nuts when I ride with the “slow group.”)  Chris saved the ride on his nifty GPS, and posted it here so we could see the results.  That Garmin is pretty sweet, I might have to look into one of those.  He noted somewhat sarcastically that maybe if I didn’t spend my money on color-coordinated parts I could get one.  Ahhhh, youthful foolishness, what does he know.