Today is the last day of November.  That means December is tomorrow.  I think of December as the real start of winter, even though it isn’t official for three more weeks.

I like the 4 seasons.  I like the different temperatures.  I like the trees growing leaves and growing them.  I like the leaves falling off and the wind blowing them around the neighborhood.

I’m not too big on it getting dark around 5.  And I’m not too big on the traffic.  Seems like everyone is just drives a car in the winter, no matter if it is a nice day out.

It hasn’t been too cold in Topeka yet.  The lows have been in the 30’s and high now are in the 50’s.  We haven’t even turned on our furnace yet.  Seems like our house is staying in the upper 60’s without any help.   I’m not sure what that is all about. Maybe all the pets?  Or cooking?  I don’t have any other explanations.

I won’t be able to ride outdoors at all this winter.  At least where there is any snow or a situation where I might fall and whack my head.  I would like to ride my bike outside as soon as I can.  It is sort of up to me now.  I guess it always was.  I’ve been reading a bunch about this TBI thing and the risk/reward deal.  And I’m going to be cautious, which isn’t my normal style.

I’ve been riding the ergometer inside for a while now.  I got my bike back from the Walberg’s house a couple days ago.  I have no idea what happened to it.  The rear wheels is bent over like I’ve never done before.   Luckily, for a Lemond trainer, you don’t need a rear wheel.

The Lemond trainer is super smooth and having wattage, like exact wattage is nice.  I feel okay ride, nothing special.  I have to sometimes not ride much because of headaches, dizziness and such.

Today I’m heading to do a balance test at the ENT place.  It takes a couple hours and they put goggles on me and measure my eye movements.  I’ve heard they put warm water in my ears. I’m not sure what that is about, but I’m interested in the results.

I’m pretty sure the majority of my dizziness, being off-balance, is ear related.  And that is fixable. I’ve tried  a couple times, with pretty good results, but I’m not 100% cured.  I think that I can get that fixed in the next week or so.  At least I hope so.

Okay, I haven’t been able to have any caffeine the last couple days.  That really isn’t a big deal.  I haven’t been having much recently anyway.

I have to be done eating in the next 10 minutes, so I’d better do finish up and eat something.

My bike was fairly unscathed in the crash. I’m not sure what happened to this wheel. Even though I was riding with 4 other guys, no one really saw what happened.

I can’t remember bending a wheel like this before. Especially from just flipping over the bars.

One thing that has really changed in my lifetime is the cost and speediness of shipping stuff.  And I don’t really understand it very well.

I remember one of the first times I was in Europe, I sent a lot of letters to friends and family.  My grandmother got the letter more than a month after I was home.  I shipped a box of extra stuff home from an Italian post office.  It took something like 3 months.

Then a couple years ago, I bought some VIttoria tubular tires from eBay.   They were from Italy. I emailed the seller and he said it would be $50 to ship them to me.  There were 25 tires and they were super cheap, so I figured $2 a tire was okay.  That was on a Monday, late.  Wednesday morning there was a box sitting on my front porch with the tires.   The tires got there nearly faster than I could have gotten home.

Now, if you buy a bike part from one of those British bike shops, the shipping is free and the stuff gets to your house super fast, like less than a week.  I have no idea how much it would cost me to ship a box to England, but I’d think it would seem like a lot.  And they include free shipping on bike parts that are less than 50% the cost here in the US.  Strange.

Getting you bike around is crazy now too.  For the first 15 years I raced, bike flew free, just counted as luggage.  Then they went up to $25.  Now, it is nuts.  Some airlines charge $200 each way.  I try to fly Southwest as often as possible because it is “only” $75 each way.  That, and that you can cancel your flight and still have use of the money you paid to fly later.

I’d heard a ton of good things about BikeFlights.  I just used it a couple days ago, but not for a bike.  I shipped a box of stuff to LA.  It was super reasonable and really easy to navigate.   I think a bike usually costs less than $40, at least that is what I’ve heard.  Pretty good deal if you’re flying on one of those airlines that make you bend over if you happen to be travelling with a bike.  They use FedEx.

So, stuff costs a lot to ship around the country.  I say that, but online shopping is at an all time record.  Two day shipping with Amazon is “free” if you belong to Prime.  But, Amazon Prime costs $99 a year,  so you have to add that in.

It seems like businesses and people that ship a ton get a better deal than us that just take our stuff to UPS or the post office.  I remember Keith Walberg used to be able to ship a bike from where he worked for about 1/2 the price than what it would cost me to take it directly to UPS.

What got me thinking about this is yesterday I received a ton of boxes from Amazon.  I’d ordered some Nite Ize dog lights and they were back ordered or something.  They were on sale for $1.56 when they normally are $5-8.  Yesterday, something like 8 boxes showed up. Each one, other than one, had one light in it.  These lights are miniature and weigh nothing. I didn’t get it.  They all came from the same place and all were shipped at the same time.  It had to have cost more for the boxes and shipping than it did for the lights.

And the batteries for the lights.  I can order them on eBay from China for $5 for 100 when they cost $3.95 each here.  That includes shipping, which is sometimes pretty quick.  I don’t understand how they can even ship them here for that price?

Maybe I just need to learn more about the cost to ship packages.  I use USPS, UPS and Fed Ex. Like I said above, BikeFlights ships all size packages.  RIght now, I might just use them a few more times and compare costs.

Each box had one light ,except one, with 6. Weird.

A pile of Nite Ize lights. The pink ones were the cheapest, but they really aren’t that pink. Tucker can somehow chew them off his collar when he is bored. He goes through a lot of them if I am forgetful and don’t take them off after he walks.