jimmuller 

Hmph! I rode to work Tuesday and Wednesday. This evening it snowed. Since I had non-bike errands to run I didn't bike today.

gaucho777 

@obrentharris, nice pics & what a handsome PX10! I look forward to hearing more about this new addition. By the way, what is this “snow” thing they keep mentioning?

Prowler 

Woooooheeee did we get a taste of April here in Philly on Wednesday! Clear skies and 80 degF. I rolled the Voyageur along the SRT from Oaks to Manayunk then turned onto the recently resorted Pencoyd bridge. It officially opened a year ago but I was too clueless to notice. Stooopid. Anyway I now have yet another variant for my long rides. The Pencoyd enables me to cross the river to the west side then wander up thru the West Laurel Hill cemetery then link back to the Cynwd Heritage trail. Lincoln Ryme says "Don't worry about the dead people. Worry about what made em dead." OK, no worries then. On the Cynwd trail I chose a warm bench in the bright sun for my picnic lunch. WOW what great weather, great ride, great bicycle, great day. In February!

Clockled roughly 46.357 miles for the day (close enough Jim?). The guy I track at Accuweather says that he has increasing confidence that we've seen the worst of the cold for this winter. I'll drink to that!

Slightspeed

I got the old Raleigh out for 32 miles with the Channel Islands Club. We did a ride from Saticoy, CA, east of Ventura, up and back two canyons, and out to Santa Paula and back. My first time out there since the massive Ventura fires of December. Pretty devastating, but the green is coming back. I thought since it was a good day to ride vintage, I dug out old water bottles from the first charity ride I ever did back in March 2000. I washed it the night before, and it all seemed OK. When I filled it with water in the morning, my thumb went right thru the brittle vintage plastic, spraying water all over the kitchen. I was trying to hurry to get out to photograph the Spacex rocket launch, which I almost missed. I did get a few grab shots, though. Later on the ride, my other yellow plastic bottle from the same ride, broke right after I took the picture of my bike in front of some burned out woods. Lesson: vintage bikes GOOD, vintage bottles NOT SO GOOD. Cold, windy, great ride though!

gaucho777 

I got out for a nice 20 miles around Berkeley and up the hill into Tilden park and back--a beautiful, crisp afternoon on one of my garage queens, a '73 Speedwell Titalite.



More redwoods, this time the smaller east bay variety.



Past the botanical garden



To the lookout at Inspiration Point



And some time to mess around with action shots.

thinktubes 

^^^^^^^^^^
Nice bike - love the attention to detail!

Ballenxj

I agree. Nice scenery too.

Peugeotlover

Nice bike is right!
That air pump location is a new one to me; makes sense if it doesn't fall off.
Daffodils is February, HA.

Vonruden

Nice morning ride up to Asbury Park. I took out the rain bike and it worked in keeping the rain away.

obrentharris 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who operates that way. I wore my rain jacket and managed to keep the rain away!

I love your off-season photos and early morning photos of the empty (of people) beaches and amusement parks.
Brent

Vonruden

Thanks Brent! Btw, love the new PX10, looks like a fun bike to ride.

ButchA

I went on a nice 17.30 mile ride this afternoon around 2:00pm. No more chest ache, breathing issues, Flu symptoms, etc... I felt great! Yay!!

The batteries were dead in my old Garmin GPS (mounts on handlebars), so I brought along an old beat up part of a wrist watch and used that as a stopwatch/timer. I stopped it at the out 'n back point in the ride, and decided to quickly make a video showing my C&V '85 Fuji and the beautiful, unseasonably warm, 73°F temp outside.

17.30 miles in 1 hr, 5 min, 35 sec.... For an avg speed of 15.8 mph.

jimmuller 

Here's a hint:


I see some of you are up to your usual tricks, ridin' them 2-wheel contraptions off to interesting places and takin' nice photographs.

My sweetie and I took the tandem out today, 40 miles on the nose. The ride started ominously 'cuz the bike had developed a flat rear tire while sitting in the basement. Pulling the rear wheel off is a pain so I was hoping I could patch the leak while the wheel was still mounted. Here's what I found. I guess doing wheelies on a tandem isn't such a good idea.



It isn't the first rear tire we've worn out. I had no other tire wide enough to support bofusonabike so I dashed off to a LBS, found what we needed, rushed home, patched the small leak in the tube, installed the new tire and away we went! Got .9 miles up the road and discovered the FD wouldn't shift 'cuz the cable was stuck in a short housing section. Turned around, rode home, threw some oil at it, did some mechanical manipulation (i.e. pulled at it a bit and cussed), did some French Bike Adoration, and lo! it freed up.



Finally we took off for good, bright sunny weather, seemingly warm and downright vernal.

By the time we got to a good picnic spot the sun had disappeared making the 50deg weather feel like 40. Still, it was a nice picnic!



A bad day on the bike is better than a good day at work, and this day turned out pretty good after all.

eom 

Went to the post office to mail some parts between showers. Then I road into the kitchen.
Blackberry & Pecan.

[IMG]image by lebagman, on Flickr[/IMG]

camjr

I've posted about my '74 Motobecane Grand Touring reclamation project on a separate C&V thread, but I did my initial shakedown ride today. I threw a Camelback Mule on my back with all the wrenches, pliers, small pump, and hex keys I thought I might need (tube and tire levers in the saddlebag off of my Fuji hybrid) and started off. A mile in, I stopped to adjust the pitch of the bars slightly, and when re-tightening, sheared the original bolt. That made for an interesting mile back to the house (at least the loose bars just pitched up and down in the stem rather than the stem moving side to side! Back to the house, locate a new carriage bolt, lock washer, and nut, and back on the road. I was planning on a 10 mile initial ride, but ended up doing 20 on a beautiful North Texas day after about 10" of rain the last 5 days. The bike rides very smoothly, is very responsive, and is much easier to put easy miles on than my hybrid. I needed to stop at about 10 miles to adjust the rear brake cable tension, but that was it once I repaired the bar bolt. A great success!

smontanaro 

The weather today was much better than the forecast suggested ("gale force winds"), so Billy, John Paul and I had a nice ride to Hyde Park for snack/brunch/whatever at Bonjour Cafe. We made a quick stop at Promontory Point so I could snap a (bad) picture. Left-to-right, John Paul's Performance, Billy's Holdsworth, and my PX-10.

scratchpaddy

The weekend before last, I cleaned up my car and put it on Craigslist. By Thursday, it was gone. I'm going to try doing without one for a while. Even if I did still have a car, I probably wouldn't have used it last weekend, but it was my first weekend without that choice.

On Sunday, I took my not-really-C&V Smoothie up to the Arizona Canal again, but headed west into Phoenix instead of east into Scottsdale this time. I guess the northeast stole our nice weather for a bit, leaving us with mornings in the 30's. It was cold! For me, at least. I had to wear gloves and long sleeves. Outrageous!



The Arizona canal path is pretty nice: occasionally paved, and with tunnels under many of the major roads. Anything underground is rare around here. The dirt is like cement; very expensive to dig.

I turned south at 12th street, then headed back towards Tempe on the Grand Canal, which wasn't quite as nice. Mostly paved, but all broken up. There was trash all over, and birds with no fear of people. I stopped for a break under the 143 next to the airport when the pigeons moved in for the kill.



I thought the light coming down between the north and south stretches of highway was pretty cool. While I was framing the shot, the pigeons kept rustling around in the litter, letting me know that I really should have shared that Clif Bar with them.



It was a good 40-mile ride. Later that day, I was invited to the movies, so I hopped on my Fuji and rode another 10 miles to the mall. I'm still not used to riding so far. After 60 miles yesterday, I was not eager to get up for work this morning.

qcpmsame 

Nice pictures and narrative, very well done. Love the Soma, they are one frame-set that seems right in the C&V setting already, yours is nicely set up.

Be careful, I understand those pigeons have a great system for getting out the word on folks that didn't share their Clif Bars, probably on Beakbook.

Bill

rumrunn6

how do you like smugmug for image hosting? what's their deal?

obrentharris 

I've been using smugmug for 7 years now. I pay them about $50 a year. No ads. No shenanigans. Very easy to use and to share photos.
Brent

ccinnz

This weekend I rode in the Waitakere Ranges in West Auckland... I feel very privileged to have this on my doorstep...

obrentharris 

Nice!
More pictures from your part of the world please.
Brent

scratchpaddy

Thanks, Bill! After a long frenzy of buying bikes on Craigslist, the Smoothie is the bike that rides so nice, it makes me feel like I don't need any others. I'll hang on to a few others anyway, though.

If I fed those pigeons, I bet they'd be hanging out on my balcony right now. Oops, they're doing it anyway.

I use Smugmug too, and couldn't be happier. They let you easily sort your pictures the way you want, with no ads, no forced layout changes, and no nonsense.

I agree with Brent, I'd love to see more from your part of the world. Not many Kiwis posting here.

rumrunn6

I'll 2nd that request!

obrentharris 

A beautiful, clear, cool day for the inaugural ride on my second French restoration project for this winter. Lejeune Campionat du Monde.




Where's Waldo?



Brent