groovestew

Wouldn't that be 1 & 1/3rd of a round trip?

Cool breeze from the northwest blowing this morning. Tomorrow is supposed to be hot (well, hot for us northerners), so I'll take the cool morning. Still dripping with sweat when I arrived at the office.

Darth Lefty 

you are right, 1/3 out and 1/3 back

Was intending to take a load of stuff to the dump today before my cardio appointment but work took precedence so the load is still in my truck. Maybe Saturday?

Climate is coming down wonderfully the next week til my next Thursday trip to the in-laws' in Irvine. Great summer riding weather

groovestew

I fixed to ride, and I rode fixed. Three days in a row on the fixie, four days in a row riding so far this week and five consecutive work days. Quite a little streak I've got going! The forecast says that'll come to an end tomorrow. Also, my legs are tired.

I was just about taken out by an industrial lawn mower today. You know those big self-propelled lawn mowers city workers use where they stand on a platform at the back of the mower? One of those was mowing a strip between the MUP and a fence, ahead of me, going the same direction as me, so she was facing away from me. There was a clump of bushes in her way, so naturally, she swerved her lawn mower into the MUP without shoulder checking, right as I was passing by. Thankfully, I anticipated the action and took evasive maneuvers. Still a bit of a close call. No harm, no foul, I just kept going.

macattack71

Nice cool morning, 59F to start. 11.5 miles in, trying to push my knee to see when it barks back at me. Ended up working a little more than a half day, so I beat the traffic home. Slower on the ride home. Someday I will get an electric road bike, and see if I can do the 26.5 miles from home. I have to drive to a trailhead now, and bike the rest of the way, all on the road.

Darth Lefty 

@groovestew that's funny as I put gears on my single speed a couple months ago and my knees thanked me. Friday, I finally found time and got all the right parts to put the rear brake in too.

Darth Lefty 

Hurricane missing us outright here in CA's elbow. It's heading for the Great Basin. Forecast for tomorrow is petering out - winds 13mph and it might rain. Guess we spent our drama budget on the springtime floods

jaxy357

Hi everyone, I was on vacation last week and the bikes in the beach house shed weren't exactly up to the task of running around town. My car got hit in a parking lot the very first day of the trip with the bumper torn almost completely off. 🙃
Rental car is a fancy SUV and I'm paranoid about it getting hit so it's giving me more reason to ride my bike. Speaking of which, the shifting was still not right after being serviced recently by a big bike shop so I decided to volunteer at my bike coop on Saturday and see if any of the volunteer mechanics could help me out. Luckily, it's now riding like a dream and I rode to yoga, produce stand, grocery store 2x, etc. This morning I rode to the train station instead of driving and it was nice. Wore a dress today since I can do so with my step through frame (can't say the same for my other bikes). Quick 3 miles with a wide shoulder where I dodge debris like a champ...jinxing myself here, I know. My arm and ankle are now mostly healed, thank goodness!

groovestew

The thermometer on my house said 8C, which is below 50 American degrees. It's that time of year where I forget how to dress. I just wore a t-shirt and shorts as usual. I've been sitting in the office now for >15 minutes and my arms are still cold to the touch. Otherwise a decent ride on the fixie.

Last week, when I was riding my fixed gear, I noticed the chain was a little floppy. Thursday morning, I took the time to make the necessary adjustment. This is simple, routine maintenance that I have done many times before. I didn't search online how to do it, I didn't mention it to anyone, verbally or in writing (until now). I just did it. On the weekend, I was scrolling though AI-curated articles recommended for me on the Google app, and it showed me an article about the proper way to tension a chain on a fixed gear bike. Freaky! I know our phones are constantly watching and listening, and all of our online interactions are being tracked, but there is no way my phone (which was tucked away in my backpack) nor anyone else could have known I adjusted my chain on Thursday.

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1717:

It's going to be a hot one this week. They're predicting four of the next five days will hit triple digits, with potential highs of 105°F. I'm not going to complain though, because this was the weather I was praying for seven months ago when the temp was (literally) 120 degrees colder.

When I left the house a little after 7 AM it was a comfortable 68°F. The roads were eerily quiet, and I'm not sure why. I had to cross three major streets, where I was coming off of a side street that just had a stop sign (no signal). Normally I have to wait a while at these intersections for a break in traffic. Today when I got to them, not only was it clear to go, but there was hardly a car in sight. All the other roads I took also had less than normal traffic volumes. It was nice, but unexplainable.

Had my annual cardiology appointment right away at 8 AM. It didn't go real well. Came out having new prescriptions, more appointments with a bunch of tests scheduled. The doctor says my artificial heart valve is sounding great, but he's concerned about the remainder of my heart that's not bionic, so he wants to dig in deeper to find out if there is trouble looming. I hadn't noticed any significant problems myself, but then again I was also completely asymptomatic prior to my open heart surgery in 2019 when my heart was 35% compromised.

groovestew

Everyone still hung over from the Jason Aldean concert?

But when your heart is 75% more capable than average cuz of all your cycling, are you going to miss 35% of it?

Tundra_Man 

I didn't even know Jason Aldean played a concert here until you said that, then I had to go back and look it up. Yep, he played at the Premier Center which is our largest arena. Shows you how much attention I pay to country music. lol

He played on Friday night, and I noticed the lack of traffic on Monday morning. That would be one heckuva hangover!

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1718:

80°F and humid this morning when I left the house at 6:30 AM. That's unusually warm for a South Dakota morning, even in the summer. Supposed to top out at 104°F this afternoon. Normally on Tuesdays I do a split commute and ride across town to a client office after my lunch meeting. I think today I'm just going to stay put in the office and work for the client remotely. It's going to be toasty enough just riding home at 5 PM.

groovestew

A little warmer this morning at 15C/59F. Looks like some of that heat from SD will make its way north, but not before a couple more cool and wet days.

Saw this on my commute home yesterday. Just struck me as funny that a mobile tire shop wouldn't readily have a spare tire for their trailer.

groovestew

Ugh, what's my age again? Had no jam this morning, really struggled up the hills. I was feeling pretty good earlier this week.

Smoky and foggy this morning (so, smoggy?). I think there was a lot more fog than smoke because (1) I could hardly smell any smoke, and (2) my brake levers were slick. A little on the cool side so I wore long sleeves.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

groovestew

It's the season of cool mornings and hot afternoons. Looks like a nice week for riding. I'm sure the cold mornings and cool afternoons will be here soon enough. Next week, school starts again, so I'll return to driving my kids to school most days.

Had a close encounter with a vehicle on the way home on Friday. A driver was making a right turn off a side street onto a main road as I was passing in front of her. She had a red light, but truth be told, so did I. She had come to a complete stop, and I didn't. I'm pretty sure that if I'd been hit, it would have been deemed my fault. However, this situation illustrates why I don't really like my current, and currently the only viable, route. A long chunk is on a separate, shared path along a busy road. Sounds nice, but there's lots of side streets feeding into the main road, and when drivers are turning onto or off of the main road, they're not watching for a fast moving cyclist, they're only watching for slow moving pedestrians. There have been many times where I've had to dodge vehicles (or lawn mowers) even when I've had the right of way. One solution would be to ride on the road. That would work better in the morning, because there's less traffic. In the afternoon, traffic is pretty thick, and I'd rather take my chances on the path than face the ire of impatient drivers.

Have a good week everyone. Maybe people are on holidays, but I'm missing seeing others' posts on this thread.

groovestew

A nice uneventful ride in.

On the way home yesterday, I was climbing out of the river valley, when I heard a characteristic humming noise behind me. Quick shoulder check, and yup, a guy on an e-bike with knobby tires went sailing past me like I was standing still. I immediately started thinking disparaging thoughts: "yeah, well, turn off that motor and see how fast you can climb. I bet you think you're getting exercise! My resting heart rate is less than 60, what's yours...90?" Stuff like that.

A few minutes later, I was huffing my way up out of a ravine, when I heard a characteristic "whush whush" noise behind me. Quick shoulder check, and yup, a guy on a carbon-fibre road bike doing a standing climb went sailing past me like I was standing still. This guy had the temerity to look at me as he passed by and give me a smile and a nod. What a jerk. Okay, maybe he was just being friendly, but in the moment, I felt like I was being mocked. I started thinking up excuses: "yeah, well, I'm just about 50 and I'm riding a steel fixie and carrying a 10-pound backpack, and besides it's an off day for me!" Stuff like that.

In all honesty, no, I'm not as fast as I was in my 30's, but even at my peak, with the best possible equipment, I was never that fast, not even close. I don't know why my thoughts go there - it's not at all helpful. Reminds me of that old serenity prayer that most of us have probably seen at our grandma's house: "...grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference...". *sigh*. Serenity now.

Have a good day everyone.

jaxy357

This morning was an epic adventure. I forgot that my campus/beater bike can't shift out of 5th gear currently because of the rear rack setup (a common theme for me, lol). So I was out of commission for about half of the ride to my office. Light rain at that point but extremely humid as I walked the bike the rest of the way to my office. Remembered that the fountain was on so I splashed a bunch of water on my face to cool off. Oh yes and I also managed to spill coffee on my bookbag when the travel mug was in my milk crate (obviously the closure on the cup is crap). It got my laptop a little wet but it's working just fine luckily. Ay ay ay!

pdlamb

jaxy357 , glad the laptop is still working! I don't know whether to recommend spending money on a new coffee mug or getting the rack and derailer adjusted first...

jaxy357

One of our grad students is on the way with tools to fix my rack (mine are in my other bike bag, FAIL). I plan to throw out the coffee mug. Haha!

Darth Lefty 

In the spring we had a big blow that knocked down many of our dead or weak trees. Tree crews spent a month in the park cleaning up the ones that fell over the trails. Last night… we did not. Guess it’s a straggler.

groovestew

Yet another uneventful ride in, a bit warmer this morning.

Yesterday it was hot enough for our national weather service ("Environment and Climate Change Canada") to issue a heat warning for our area. What was this extreme heat? 33C (about 91F). Yeah that's warm for us Northerners, considering most of us don't have air conditioning in our homes, but at this time of year, it cools off nicely at night. I bring it up because a couple of people expressed concern about me riding in such oppressive heat. Good grief. I'm pretty sure most of you south of the 49th parallel are rolling your eyes right about now. I'm happy to report that not only did I have a really nice ride home, I also saw more cyclists out on the trails than I've seen all year.

The heat warning is still in effect for today, with a forecast high of 28C (about 82F). How will I survive the ride home?

Alright, enough of my old man ranting. Have a great day. Nice to see some new posts and pics!

Darth Lefty 

The trick is, we're not wearing anything

groovestew

A wise man once told me, "you can always dress for the cold, but you can never get naked enough for the heat."

macattack71

Nice day to ride in, 69°F, extended the route by 0.5 mi to 12.0 mi by parking at another trail parking lot. Less driving and more riding, perfect. Though it's on the MUP, the rest is on the road. I had been parking at the trailhead. Knee holding up so far. Need to target once a week to commute until mid-October. Then I run out of daylight.

LostinEndicott

It was a little chilly this morning, my hands were frozen by the time I got to the bottom of my hill. The rest of the ride was pretty quiet. I left a little early this morning, so there wasn’t much traffic at all. I successfully avoided, then turned around to pick up a Snap On 12 mm 6 point socket that was in the middle of the bike lane. I wish I could find a 10 mm to fill in the for the ones I lost!