Need to get back on the regular swing of things.

I did race on Sunday. Did better than expected, but still pretty slow. 

Tried to head out and do smackdown but was NOT recovered at all. Felt good/fine/whatever before the start. But Sitting on Graham's wheel until the end of Prospect had me pegged, but redline was 10beats lower than normal (149) and after that I couldn't do shit. Try as I might, low cadence hill climb that should have easily hit that mark... 140... high cadence hill climb and I couldn't even hit 130. BUT HR dropped super quickly. And then eventually my legs started to hurt.

And yeah, that was about it. NOT RECOVERED.

Working on that part now. And because of that, any idea of racing twice this weekend went out the window. Fuck. That. No. Way. Not yet at least. Maybe if things come around.

But right now yeah, just sunday at the Bolton Co fairgrounds for Midnight ride (not at night anymore not) CX. Mostly because donuts. maybe I'll do a bike shop then camera shop drive on Saturday instead of racing.

Took a bunch of photos. Posted them. And one of the first times it has happened, well, a team screenshotted the photo and shared it w/o credit. Little tag icon in the image and everything on IG. I made a some what vague comment on the post to no response. made a more not cool post, no response.

I did confirm the team account was run by our (meaning Solobreak) friend Whitey. Chris should really have known better. All he had to do was ask and I'd have given him the full size photo suitable for printing large enough to cover the wall of SVK. He did apologize and fixed it, but it took a bit and well. yeah, kind of a bummer. No I'm not like the other pros shooting all day and everyone. I kind of get one or two people in the sights and shoot them, find the scene, the light, the rest and then take the photo rather than just get pictures of everyone. It is different but it is the way i'm doing it right now. 

Am thinking of color, the night before the race I realized we had bought a D3500 for K in 2018 (or their grandfather bought it for them). Basic kit lens 18-50. Pretty noisy chip, small, light, inexpensive. Turns out the nice lens on the N6006 Nikon film camera doesn't work on that. Incompatible. That was a bummer but I still was encouraged by the color photos I got. Not as many but still a few. it did a few things. #1 if i'm going to shoot color I need something at least as good as the big K3miii monochrome or I'll just not like it. And I think given the chip and the color and all that, I don't feel like I'll be truly satisfied without a full frame. Meaning K1mii. But how does that work with everything? I keep adding cameras, got one CLAd and only shot one roll with it. One I bought a couple of the annoying batteries and shot two rolls and haven't come back to it. One the old Retina (Type 010) I actually really enjoyed shooting with but haven't gone back to that either. 

Roll after roll in the Pentax 17 though. Lots of photos with the K3miii monochrome obvs, and kind of having fun with the full bells and whistles from 1990 Nikon N6006 film camera, auto everything (focus, wind, exposure) just turn it on and push the button. Only ever gets 36 shots instead of the 38-39 i'm used to loading the SP or the P17, or the one I just had CLA'd. 

I like this film thing. Yeah maybe it is an addiction and it is normal and this will fade but bikes certainly haven't have they. Am I better at bikes than I used to be? Yes and now. Markers of improvement aren't there in form of race results anymore but in other ways they are there.

This quick microblog post that I wrote and then copied and deleted was the catalyst for this post:

I wind up deciding on a film stock I really like. Can't really find it in bulk w/o special order.

Finally feel like I know which color camera I want but only the big 'questionable' retailer has it other than factory direct.

This is my life.

A physical/or self selected outlier

And well for real, that's it. The film i really seem to like, after trying so many. Is not easy to get in bulk. But turns out the Catlabs stuff is based out of Jamaica Plains. Might need to go visit the home store and skip the whole self loading hassle and equipment and support them directly. There is other film out there that I like. And I have a decent catalog in my brain of what works for when but I'm really close to just sticking with the one. Then I can start messing with developers. Specifically the 510 pyro. I'm curious about the staining dev and that stuff is supposed to be really well suited this this film (really diluted D-76 is NOT). And the home store in JP has it. Long shelf life too if I decide to go back and forth between that and XTOL (I think I like XTOL better than D-76).