Nate1991

Pretty nice weather recently. Makes for enjoyable rides. Missed yesterday due to appointments, bummed about it since it was a gorgeous day morning and afternoon. Tomorrow they are talking heavy rain/storms so probably going to skip that. Today was first ride with the new helmet, didn't have one before mainly because lazy and didn't pick one up. Bought a Bell Stratus for cheap through a friends discount, pretty lightweight and comfortable can hardly feel I'm wearing it.

noglider 

I didn't ride yesterday, and I'm fairly happy about that, because we got quite some deluges. I think I even saw hail for a while. Leaving work, I had to walk a bit in the rain, but I missed the worst of it.

Why does someone lock up a Citi Bike bike? If the ride exceeds 45 minutes, you incur steep charges.



I met family for dinner in Hoboken. I caught the ferry in Manhattan. Man, what a great ride the Hoboken ferry is! I grew up on the Hudson River, and I've been along it many times, but I had never ridden right in the river across from Midtown Manhattan. It was thrilling. The water was rough, so the ride was, too, which added to the fun. I stood right at the front edge of the bow, in the high winds. By the then, the rain had pretty much stopped. I later learned that the ferry is a catamaran, which explains why it's so damned fast. I think it takes seven minutes to cross the river which might be a mile and a half wide at that point. (I don't really know.)







This morning, the weather said light winds, but of course, on the river, it's different, and my headwind was fairly heavy, but the temperature was pleasantly low. The sun is out and shining brightly today and promises to keep it up for the next few days.

It was also pretty windy yesterday during the rain storms, enough to knock down this old tree in Riverside Park at 116 St. Well, clearly the tree was ready to go.

pdlamb

Oh! what a beautiful morning!

Makes me glad I rode home last night (so I could ride in this morning). Thunderstorm hit a half hour before quitting time, so I scrutinized the radar, picked a time I thought I'd be wet with sweat instead of rain, and took off a little later. Made it out from under the dark cloud and thought I was home free. Wrong. Half a mile from home, the heavens cut loose -- but it had almost stopped before I got to the house.

Today was the payoff. Clear, 68 F was the coolest it's hit here for a few weeks, calm breezes and traffic (well, mostly). I took the opportunity to do the "long" ride in, which also avoided a couple blocks of road destruction -- I mean construction! Yeah, this is one of the days that reminds me why I like to bike to work.

noglider 

This morning, on the way to work, a guy passed me and then pulled in front of me so close that his slipstream reduced my effort. Well heck, I don't draft people on purpose, but if he wants to be that close, I won't mind. I wish he had sped up, because I'd rather use the position to go faster, not to go at the same speed at reduced effort. But I let him take me all the way to my turn-off. He didn't seem to look back once. Whatever.

noglider 

This evening, on my way home, I saw another bike commuter who had a whole lot of incongruous elements. She was riding a BMX bike with pegs on the rear axle. Already that's fairly unusual. She had a speaker on her handlebar blaring rap music, complete with lots of curse words. She had a heavy chain around her hips. She was well dressed and had a fancy bag over her right shoulder and an expensive haircut and color job. She had a cigarette in her left hand. At first she passed me by running a red light in a way I wouldn't risk my life, but hey, she's used to it. I pulled just slightly ahead of her at the next light which we both had to wait at. I saw from her face that she was at least 45 years old and possibly over 50. Why is a well dressed woman riding a BMX bike aggressively through traffic blaring music? Well, in New York City, it truly takes all kinds, for sure.

mgw4jc

Fun stuff @noglider - photos are great to see.

Just under 70F and a lower dew point this morning made for a nice, much less sweaty ride.

arsprod 

Beautiful morning ride - 63F and low humidity. I hosted a Warmshowers rider last night. Nice young guy who's moving from Vermont to San Francisco and rather than packing his bike he packed his bike and is riding it. Oh man to be young and intentionally unemployed!

kellichou

How are things with all the crazy street closures, @noglider? https://www.9news.com/video/news/nat...nyc/65-8194200

noglider 

There's a disaster happening every day in NYC. That's life here. This one looks crazy, but it affects mostly the immediate neighborhood. I heard on the radio that trains are skipping one subway station. This is on 5th Ave near 19th St, and I don't normally go to that area. I ride along the Hudson River path.

pdlamb

This morning was good and bad. The bad: I was out of sync with cross traffic most of the way to work. I won't say I do Idaho rolling stops, since I'm not in Idaho (but an unbiased observer might disagree!), but it seemed like every stop sign had a car or six coming up the cross street. The route I took has a couple places where I can usually turn right on red, then make a left. Not today; there were lines of cars such that I had to wait for a green both places.

The good: 5 degrees cooler makes for a much better ride. Clouds were high and scattered, just a breeze, it was a great day for a bike ride. And the last few miles, after I got past most of the stop signs and traffic lights, the cars and pickups were driven by responsible, skilled, and polite drivers. The jerks stayed home!

HardyWeinberg

59F, gray. First ride since cheek-fracturing face-plant 10 days ago. Went nicely. 15 mile route. Could not remount tubeless tire in time available to me, so rode the tubular front wheel the bike came with. Seemed less distasteful than cleaning out the latex sealant from the tubeless tire/rim so that I could insert a tube.

surak

57F steady, what a nice surprise when two days ago it was 75F by the time I got into work. Been messing around with saddle height and cleat location, still trying to figure out a comfortable position for my left leg, but at least there was a slight tailwind today and I made good time.

kellichou

Oh good, glad you are ok and not affected by the closures. Makes sense that, in one of the world's largest cities, that there's always crazy stuff happening!

Tundra_Man 

Was riding across town to a client location when I saw my recently licensed teenage son driving on an overpass above me. That was pretty weird, from a fatherly perspective. Not yet used to seeing that.

kellichou

Bless you, @Tundra_Man. As the parent of a toddler, I know that the day my kid drives is nigh. It's gonna be weird.

pdlamb

Gotta share this. Youngest daughter was on her ready-to-graduate-from-Dad's-driving-school drive, and went through the worst intersection in town. Naturally I was white-knuckled as she flawlessly negotiated the merge, curve, merge sequence. As I relaxed, she commented, "You know, this is just like bumper cars - only different."

Today's commute was warm and sticky. Early evening (after I got home) shower cooled things last night, but they warmed up and the humidity was back to 80-90%. Come on, fall!

Tundra_Man 

On my way to the office this morning I passed a young teen on a bike with my usual friendly "passing" warning. As I went by I suddenly heard, "Hey coach!" I turned around and it was a boy who had been on my baseball team in previous years, most recently last season.

I slowed down and we road together and talked for a bit. He told me who was on his team again this year and how they repeated winning the championship tournament. I was impressed with what a nice, polite young man he has become. After too short of time our routes forked and we wished each other well.

I miss coaching baseball.

Darth Lefty 

My route from my new house is proving to be easy enough to do as a straight replacement for driving. It's short and there are no pronounced climbs. It's definitely less interesting, though. Both the road and trails are old stomping grounds. The MUP is paralleled by a bike-legal path but it's maintained for events so there's very little challenge and an offroad commute is characterized by the crackle of DG under the tires.

The mango Salsa is also working out great. I can't come up with any good reasons to ride anything else. I maybe want a more swept handlebar. But maybe not.

I feel like I've had a bad couple of months with my HOCM. I'm not sure why. I definitely get symptoms on every ride and it's worse in the afternoon.

Amitoj

Went to bed last night looking at the forecast saying thunderstorms all day today. Woke up at 4:30AM today anyway and looked at the forecast before I got out of bed. It said thunderstorms possible at 8:15AM. That gave me enough time to ride to work. Got ready and looked outside and it was pouring. I continued getting ready and was happy to note that the rain had stopped by the time I was ready to hit the road. Got on my bike and was able to cover 17 miles with no rain. Then it started raining with 1.5 miles to go. At that point it didnt matter because I was wet anyway. All my work clothes were nicely protected from rain so I didnt have that to worry about.
Overall, I am glad I didn't chicken out looking at the weather. I have a bike with fenders, lights strong enough to be visible and waterproof work clothes. So, no reason to be afraid of a little rain!

mgw4jc

A decent ride this morning. Humid but only 65F. I left early and went to the gym for a bit on the way to work. It was dark enough - and overcast and foggy - that I put the headlight back on my handlebars. Luckily it still had enough of a charge for the first part of the ride.

We're looking at rain today too, but not until after lunch. Possible thunderstorms around the commute time though, so we'll see how that goes. Worst case is my wife picks me up.

Tundra_Man 

When I looked last night there was a 10% chance of rain today, so I gambled and packed my backpack so I could take the road bike. When I got up, it had just stopped raining and radar said there were some more storms coming this morning before it cleared up for the rest of the day. I decided the wet roads warranted the hybrid with fenders, but the lack of active rain coming down meant I could stay in my work clothes. I moved my supplies out of my backpack and into my panniers, and made it to work before the second wave of storms hit.

Ride was a little slow due to a headwind, and very, very humid. The temp was in the low 70s but I wound up sweating a lot more than I expected due to the humidity.

kellichou

Oh man, I hope things get better for you. Do you have an ICD? And I'm super-jealous of your Salsa!

noglider 

It was raining this morning, and we're due for rain for the rest of the week. I thought, how bad could it be, and I headed out in it. It wasn't bad at all, and the river path was quite empty compared with how it usually is. I wore my rain jacket and left it as open as possible. Since I knew it would make me sweat, I pedaled as gently as possible, and the ride was pleasant.

Darth Lefty 

Darth Lefty