Great ride in, until my tire blew 2 miles from work. WTH? It was less than 300 miles old.

Think of it as the beginning of July in Wisconsin all over again. That means you've got two more months of summer, followed by 5 months of Wisconsin fall (aka NC winter), and then it'll be early spring again! By May you'll be ready for a REAL summer.

(Assuming, of course, you're not up in the mountains. You might have a winter up there.)

Nice ride in at 12C/54F, sunny, and no wind. I think technically I was supposed to drive today so that I could pick up my kid from piano lesson on the way home, but my wife let me off the hook today.

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Up yours, metoprolol

Some big storms rolled through Monday night into Tuesday so I skipped riding. Cool start with some fog to keep things interesting. Running full headlights now. The swans are back in the pond, saw one slide out from the fog this morning. That time of year battling clothing options with the colder mornings and warm afternoons. I don't have the carrying capacity at the moment for stashing extra clothes for the ride home. Need to get my frame bag put back on.

Decent ride in. Overcast with light winds - very edges of Dorian I suspect. We are not supposed have much more than some winds from this I hear. The situation in the Bahamas is insane though. Devastating.

Pretty good ride this morning. Our gym and showers are closed for now ("contract clause issue"*) so I'm back to the ride-slow-try-not-to-sweat morning ride with baby wipes for now. It's not unworkable, it's just a lot more pleasant to wash off after a sweaty ride. And all my rides are sweaty. I break out in a sweat just looking at a bike. :)

*The way this place is run, I suspect the contract clause in question is the one that says "this contract ends August 31 and gym workers won't get paid after that."

Sunny, cool, and calm. Nice ride.

55F degrees this morning - first ride for the season in tights and jacket. Yuck...

Really nice this morning. Dry, cool, no traffic, saw a couple deer standing around.

75 F with about 55% RH at 6:30 AM
Predicted to be 103 F on the way home. Ugh.

Yesterday, as I was about to set out for class, I saw my rear rim is broken. A spoke has been pulling too hard. The rim runs straight, but I will need to replace it. I rode it to class.

There was a threat of rain, but it didn't come.

When I lock up my bike, I take the lock out of my backpack, and I put my seat bag into my backpack. My seat bag contains my tools, and my taillight hangs off it. Yesterday, as I was doing everything, I put the seat bag on the rack of the bike parked next to mine. When I came back out of class, I saw I had left it there, and no one had stolen it, so that was lucky.

My commutes to and from class have been fairly pleasant. I'm refining my routes. I try to avoid the avenues, as traffic there is rough. I can do that by taking the river path, which adds a bit of distance but not much. I still have to cross town on the streets from the river to the east side, but that's not so bad.

Yesterday afternoon at 2 my wife called me to go pick up kiddo at kindergarten because her hair appointment (which started at 10:30) was still going on with no sign of ending. What's a 5 hour hair session cost in bike parts?... Don't ask

I rode right to his school and we walked home from there. He asked me why I didn't bring his bike so we could ride together :-/

Yep...that's pretty much how I'm thinking of it. Bonus summer, though with a bit less daylight!

In the meantime, I discovered a shower at work.

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Welp. Not sure if this cup is scratched because I’m not a real mechanic, but the cone is definitely toast

Left work at 6:45PM, and it was gorgeous. I'd forgotten how big and green the trees are in the South, making it a little bit dark before it's actually dark.

I got a flat tire...a block from home! My lucky day! :):thumb:

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My wife took the five-year-old to SoCal to see her parents and a Kidz Bop concert. So I am single dadding it with the twins. I hatched a plan to dump them at my mother’s house and go do alone things. But as it turned out, I needed to go to work, on Saturday. So I parked the truck with its kids seats at grandma’s house, and rode the roadie bike to work from there. And on the way back, this happened. I just cannot catch a break this week. I went to a bike shop to get a replacement and they charged me $3.22. For one straight gauge spoke. At least they had it.

I am just now noticing in this photo that one of the other spokes has a stamp so it is not original. Hmmm...

Rode for the first time in about three weeks. Had a longer break due to either weather, sickness or events that I needed to drive to work. Anyway, this week should be a nice week to ride. I was surprised how much darker it was out this morning so glad I changed out my headlight. I also have noticed that since school has gone back I am running into more people out on the MUP's than I did all summer. A few dog walkers, some runners and walkers. I still don't understand why people go out at 6am in the dark wearing their best Ninja look with no light or reflective gear. Then they act surprised when people don't see them until the last minute.

I was off work last Friday as I joined a team of 11 other runners for the Blue Ridge Relay. Quite a logistical challenge too as about 175 teams of 12 or so people each drop off their runner and then leap frog to the next exchange zone. 208 miles total. It took our team 28 hours and we placed 33rd overall. We were a mixed masters team (all over 40yo and half women). Fun event. My quads are a bit sore from some long downhill sections.

Back on the bike this morning. Felt fine riding. September so far is not breaking the heat. High of 90 today.

Pretty close to a perfect weather morning - 61F, no wind, 4 stars. Would have been 5 stars but got a few sprinkles!

congrats on the run @mgw4jc. I was able to get 20 miles before work this morning. I am within a couple hundred miles of all the miles I rode in 2018. I am so happy excited about that.

Nice 'n' sweaty commuting today, though I didn't feel like death, so I must be acclimating!

Fun sights on the ride home: a young guy with a brand new road bike, who appeared to be practicing using his brand new clipless pedals; a really crazy looking pickup truck done up with all kinds of gemstones and various junk glued all over the place. Said pickup truck was going very slowly and I got stuck behind it for a while, but with all that crazy, I didn't think that trying to get a draft would be a smart move.

It's fun to be a real commuter again.

A pleasant commute in this am with dark skies and clouds.

My new helmet mirror arrived yesterday. It was nice to have a mirror that stayed in place. I did not have to keep re-adjusting the arm. That was awesome.

Just in time for the equinox.

Dull roadie commute yesterday. Today, Uber to the airport for work travel.

Was all set and ready to ride and then when I went to hop on the bike, rear tire was flat. Looks like I picked up a nail or something and didn't really have time to mess around with it so ended up having to drive in. I carry a patch but didn't have a tube so ordered a couple to have on hand. Guess I got lucky as I must have picked up the puncture on my ride home last night. It was pretty windy and the last mile did feel a little sluggish so guess I was bleeding out some air and just didn't notice due to the headwinds I was riding into.

I drove yesterday because I favored sleep over getting up early enough to ride in. Pure laziness!

Plenty warm these days. August weather has worn out it's welcome. Good ride in though.

Consecutive work bicycle commute number 799: Tornado Edition

First off, everyone here in Sioux Falls is OK. Thankfully no casualties have been reported. Just a lot of property damage.

The storm hit right as I was going to bed last night. Our cable went out right away so we lost the weather reports and the internet. I decided I wasn't going to get any sleep until the storm blew over, so I sat in my living room watching the carnage lit up via lightning.

The wind was fierce. At one point I thought the tree in my front yard was going to blow over, but somehow it stood strong. A huge limb from someone's tree landed in my driveway, and no sooner did I think, "I'm going to have to deal with that in the morning before work," when suddenly it took off and disappeared. I guess someone else is having to deal with it instead.

The tornado sirens never sounded, so I didn't learn that at least two tornadoes touched down until I woke up this morning. The sirens were supposed to sound, but didn't. The mayor did the right thing and immediately took full responsibility for this rather than making excuses.

After the sun came up I could better assess the damage. All thirteen of my trees remained standing, and I really didn't lose as many branches as I thought I would have. My brother's huge tree next door didn't fare so well; it was snapped off at the trunk. Several houses less than a mile from mine have been completely destroyed.

Schools are running two hours late due to roads blocked with trees and power lines. The police issued a "no travel" advisory for the city. As usual I rode my bicycle to work, which gave me the opportunity to stop and take some pictures. A construction worker running a crane to remove downed trees from their area told me I was "hard core" for riding. I think I actually had an easier time than people in cars as I could easily walk/carry my bike around obstacles and flooded areas.

Our office was about 1/4 mile from the path of one of them, but thankfully only lost part of the HVAC system off the roof. Two large hospital buildings near us have significant damage.

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On Sunday, I rode the NYC Century ride. I did "only" 87 miles. I'm slightly sore from it but in a good way. It doesn't affect my bike commuting.

Lately, I've been riding to classes with a backpack. It has my computer, books, lock, and other things. It's heavy. It doesn't bother me much, at least not yet. I think I might not need to carry the computer, at least not every day, and that will save a lot of weight. I've been wearing my mountain bike shoes which slow me down a bit when walking. I might switch to street shoes. There are no lockers at the college and no other place to drop stuff off, so I have to carry everything the whole time I'm at the college. NYC is very tight on space. The college has lockers only for people with medical needs.

Yesterday, for the first time, I rode a few extra miles while commuting. I don't know why I'm reluctant to do it, but it was the perfect day. It was warm, and I had time to kill. I had a music rehearsal at 7 pm, and my class let out at 5:25. I didn't go home. I rode on the Central Park loop road and then to a diner for dinner before rehearsal. I don't ride in Central Park much anymore. I grew up living near it, and it was my primary place to ride back in the day. I was reminded of how it has gentle hills, and I can coast down them. The river path, my current primary place to ride, doesn't have gentle hills. It is totally flat except for the new annoying detour which has short and steeper hills.

The ride home along the river late at night had a stiff headwind. I may have said this already, but I think after a few years of riding into headwinds along the river, I am finally used to it and don't find it terribly difficult. It took me a long time to learn to pace myself in a heavy wind.

Strong south winds and storms expected tonight, might be interesting on the ride home. Seen the biker I usually only see close to home near my work this morning. I always wondered the route he took.. now he's wondering what route I take lol. It's alot shorter.

Crazy tree damage @Tundra_Man. Glad to hear you escaped safely.

Decent morning for a ride. It's quite warm for September, but at least the days are a bit shorter so it isn't hot until a bit later and doesn't last as long in the evening. We need rain too. Looks like a bit of a chance tomorrow.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 800. That's a nice round number.

Crazy ride today. We had more storms last night, which thankfully didn't include more tornados. It did, however, include about 4 inches more rain.

I ran into some flooding blocking the road under a railroad trestle, so I back tracked and carried my bike up over the ridge where the tracks were. Once I made it back down the other side, I looked 100 yards down the road and saw my friend @labrat doing the exact same thing. I started riding towards him and he hollered to get my attention, not immediately recognizing me. He was going to tell me that the MUP was blocked in the direction I was heading due to some downed trees.

Once I got closer he saw who I was and we chatted for a bit about the best alternate route to get to work. We decided to ride the opposite direction up the MUP and take the old railroad bridge across the river, then head up 24th street which is a nice quiet residential route. Before we got to the old railroad bridge, though, we ran into more flooding. So we had to re-evaluate again.

I proposed one route which was a little quieter, but would have added quite a bit of length to our already lengthened commute. Scott decided he was going to head up 26th street, which is one of the busiest arteries on this end of the city. I decided to go with him. Thankfully we only had to go about 1/4 mile on this busy street until we got over the interstate, and then could turn and take side streets. However, because of road construction the busy street was down to one lane in either direction with no shoulder, so we had to ride as fast as we could up the big hill over the overpass. I got pretty winded.

Once we were off the main road things calmed down a bit and we chatted as we rode. About four miles he reached his work, so I bid him farewell and finished riding about 5.5 more miles to our office.

This route took me through an area that had received a direct hit from the tornado. The pictures I took yesterday were nothing compared to the destruction I saw this morning. Entire buildings have been destroyed. That's rotten to think of all the people who lost their businesses and their jobs overnight.

After a little more than an hour I finally made it to the office. Normally it takes me about 35 minutes. Given that 800 commutes is a nice round number I snapped a photo to commemorate the event:
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