I am pretty much digging FtW so far, really surpassed my expectations in many ways.
One area it manages to underachieve in a major way is water quality, and by quality, I mean the ability to palate the tap water.

Now, I have lived in a number of different areas with varying flavors of drinking water, and FtW by far, head and shoulders above the rest, is the worst. Seriously, I feel kind of bad giving it to my dogs.

It was definitely a hate at first sip type of thing. In fact, I knew something was up because I could smell it first. Kind of an earthy odor, which was a fortunate warning and prompted a small test sip, and a quick liquid reversal. Stuff was awful. And it isn't getting better with time. I have resorted to buying the gallon bottles until I get the filter installed on my sink (which is another annoying story in itself I won't even waste bytes on).

I looked into it a bit and didn't find much other than the actual quality is considered decent. I assume by quality they don't actually mean consuming it of course. Nothing in it that will make you sick, just the flavor of a nice mud puddle.

Thats about what it tastes like, all exageration aside. In fact, to get a good idea what it is like, imagine taking some fresh potting soil then filling a dirty gym sock with it. Now filter some regular, generally flavorless, water through it. I suspect the resultant flavor would be comparable. I have been forced to drink it in desperation a few times and it really bothered me, and I am generally not too picky about that type of stuff. Basically, as long as it doesn't make me sick, I am usually good to go. Not so here, guess that image is contradicted. I tried covering it with some powdered gatorade to no avail. Tasted like gatorade mixed in a moldy old cooler.

I hate to rip on FtW's water, but I am just calling it like I taste it. Judging by the quantity of bottle water sold (or lack on store shelves) I venture to guess my fellow compadres also find this stuff offensive.

If by any chance you happen across this and have any idea why this stuff tastes like a mouthful of liquid loam, please leave a comment, I would love to know, almost to the point of a note to the local water company...but then that would take up precious time I have already wasted on another blob of blog. Cheers, and bottoms up!

So it has been a while since posting anything, sorry to both of you who actually read this stuff to see what I have been up to since the move.

Weather has been nice and I have been riding, not writing junk on the internet. That said, time for some writing on the internet.

Today was nice. Front blew through and it rained about 12 drops this morning, then cleared out bringing clear skies and a shift in the wind. Yesterday it was roaring out of the southerly directions, 15-25 mph, with gusts 40+ according to the local weather sites.
Being the smart one I am, I decided to ride in that nonesense. I headed out into the wind down the Trinity River Trail. This slogfest went on for about 10 miles before I decided I would seek some shelter on the roads in the neighborhoods south of TCU, Westcliff, Overton Park etc. This did afford some shelter and I could actually make progress in the southerly direction at times. This area has some nice small climbs rising from the tributary that runs through Overton Park and into the Clear Fork. Nothing more than a couple tenths of a mile, but some steepness nonetheless. So I rode up and down some of these roads for a while...Ranch View, Sarita, Altura...I think I may make a hill repeat type training loop in this area, hit all of these hills in succession and repeat. That could add up over a while and leave the legs nice and heavy no doubt. There is little traffic which is a bonus.
After hitting this for a bit the setting sun prodded me to head back towards the TRT and venture home. Having a decent tailwind now I put my head down and cruised back, at one point almost getting blown over when encountering a ricochet wind off a building next to the path. It was like someone hit me with a 4x8 sheet of plywood. Luckily earth-body contact was avoided and a safe trip was completed.

Today, as stated, was nice. Temps were in the low 70s, maybe upper 60s when I headed out, with the wind coming out of the N/NW at a gentle 10-15 mph. I spent about 90 or so minutes cruising, hit some of the same hills as yesterday as I started to put together a potential training route, and had a generally nice time. The big negative was the major insect hatch in full effect along the Trinity River Trail. Major swarms of something, didn't get a good look which is incredible considering I probably hit about 214,000 of the things, about a third of which stuck to various parts of my body. I felt like a human flypaper. at one point I spent about a half mile trying not to inhale the damn things by attempting to breathe the the gap in my front teeth. This was not very effective. Good thing those things don't bite otherwise there would have been some walkers that were way more miserable than me.

In other random observations, I saw a group of about 20 to 30 riding back along Bellaire, looked pretty casual overall. Nice to see group rides going on, gotta get into a few of those here soon myself. Ok, enough excitement for one night.