I called National Bus Sales and spoke with Ray. He has a school bus which is coming off lease in a week for $8k in Oklahoma with 130k miles. 30 day warranties come once you’re paying over $14k. Driver AC only. Maybe since kids don’t tip, AC is not installed except on shuttle busses? He basically said rust is the main event with price and that even the insides are commonly destroyed from the kid’s shoes carrying in the salty snow.

National, so I was told, generally is the middleman between districts for larger busses; Tesco Bus Sales has the smaller ones we want. I’m looking forward to a call back from them.

Smaller busses on eBay are more like $3000-ish; no one needs to be told that’s less than $8000. Then there’s the cost in getting the thing if it’s not local.

This got us talking about straight up leasing for The Tour. Less money involved and maybe roadside assistance too. However, what about the pleasantries of a roof and a bit more room for us after all is said and done? Maybe lease to see if we like it and then take advantage of the option to buy if we like?

I worked on turns using the driveway roundabout. There is a bit of a slope which means it is easy to get enough speed for me. “Why’d he crash?” said the first guy. “Ran outta talent midway through the turn” was the reply.

To be precise, the corners in the trails yesterday are often super tight and only rarely burmed and to have it be as fun as possible I have to be on it. Plus, it’d be great to carry more of the speed I get going downhill into the uphill; I’m just not turning well enough to be able to lay off the brakes.

Some things that helped: bending my outside leg more; looking through the turn; noticing and correcting some a tendency to take my shoulders out of a good position when I’m passing out of my comfort zone. As usual, once I improved some some muscle promptly signaled its previously unneeded usefulness. Strength gains, for where I am now, continue to be about body position.

I also practiced track stands, like for real with no brakes because there was a perfect slope to do those mini moves, and a couple of half hearted bunny hops.

Later on I stocked up on chocolate at the TJs and other stuff too like kim chi of which we’re eating some of now with carrots after the first kambucha in a while.