essiemyra

A very pleasant Friday morning commute, a nice ending to the work week.

Tuesday on my way home from work it was not uneventful. I was coming down a hill at a pretty good clip when I felt something hit my bottom lip. I closed my mouth so it would not go in. I put my hand to my mouth and pulled off a bee. My lip and mouth both hurt. I decided at that point not to extend my ride but go straight home. When I got home I looked in the mirror and there was a small spot on my bottom lip. I pulled out the stinger. That is what must have hurt the whole ride home. It swelled up a little but now is fine.

Darth Lefty 

I had a weird couple of people yesterday.

Riding about 10:30 to a dentist appointment there was a guy in a bike lane who was beckoning across the street. I looked; there was no one. He was next to a light rail track and across from a car dealership. He had a bag of laundry, with a hole and some falling out. As I rode around him he said "Can you call me a taxi?" Running late, I was unable to avail him.

On the way back from the dentist I was crossing the light rail track in a different place and I heard "Train's coming!' There was a guy hiding behind the crossing gate and yelling that at people and cars who passed through.

Later on the ride home I passed the laundry guy's spot. The laundry was there but the bag was gone.

essiemyra

A very pleasant commute in this am to start the work week.

groovestew

To avoid the construction on my main route, I took a secondary route that had me riding into the blinding sun for a couple of stretches. In a residential area with the sun straight ahead, I heard a jogger's footsteps on the road coming toward me before I saw him, and by then, he was right next to me. Not sure why he was so far out on the road.

Later on, I was bumping along some very rough pavement, and thinking, this really needs to be re-paved! And then suddenly, I was in a construction zone, where the road had been ground out for resurfacing. So I guess I'm getting my wish granted, but now both my primary and secondary routes have construction. I'm running out of options. The third and last option has a lot of gravel, and all my bikes have road tires. I might just drive the rest of the week.

Quite chilly this morning at about 3C/37F. Still managed to work up a sweat under my windbreaker.

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1274;

It was pouring rain this morning. I tried to wait it out as long as I could hoping the rain would stop, but I finally had to leave in the middle of the storm in order to get to the client's office on time. Nine hour later, my riding clothes are still wet even though they've been hanging all day.

I think the worst part about riding in the rain is the moisture running into your eyes and causing blinding pain. Had to keep pulling over because it was physically impossible to keep my eyes open when they would start stinging.

Have a bicycle committee meeting now after work. The rain has stopped and I should have a tailwind for the ride home.

essiemyra

I rode in this morning with the full harvest moon. Unfortunately most of the way it was behind me. Though it was a pleasant commute with the temp at 49f degrees when I left the house.

Darth Lefty 

It's a weird time in my life right now. Some things seem so stable and some are so hard. It's a big help to tune out and pedal and just not think about anything consequential. This morning I had a soft rear tire which made me think about pedal bob in suspension but a rigid bike with soft tires does it too and has no mitigation... you need tires because they conform to the surface, but as a portion of suspension they are basically springs that are too high frequency with no damping... Peter Verdone pointed out a while ago that the Pinkbke slo-mo videos of "huck to flat" show the suspension stalling... the tire is bouncing up when the bike lands... this is probably not important for a bike that remains on the surface but it illustrates how it's a spring that's fighting the design intent of suspension... bla bla bla and none of this matters to my stresses and it's fun to think about while I crank away until I get to the office and it's back to stress.

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1276:

Fall is here, both literally and seasonally. 41F this morning. Not quite cool enough for long pants, but I did put on a sweatshirt, gloves and ear covering. Thankfully the wind was calm.

Had a train come to a stop as it was crossing the MUP in front of me. I was wondering how long to sit and wait before I turned around and found an alternate route when suddenly it started moving again. It stood still for only about 30 seconds, so not too bad.

Welshboy

I've had to admit defeat and change my route to work as one particular roundabout is just too busy now at rush hour (08.00hrs) with a dual-carriageway leading onto it and a motorway slip-road coming off it - both 70mph roads in the UK. In the Spring and Summer it was OK but there are so many more people back in work now (after lockdown and furlough) that it's just too busy. To be fair, the footbridge and underpass has always been there for this very reason. You're supposed to dismount for the footbridge but I can't ever recall seeing a pedestrian on it and it's an easy inner ring climb. Tested it yesterday and it adds about 90 seconds. Oddly enough, my return journey is unaffected as the early evening rush hour has passed and traffic lights work in my favour.

Darth Lefty 

WFH schedule boogered this week by life events. I was looking at a short lap today, so on the return leg I went the wrong way and all the way up the Hazel Bridge to the Nimbus Dam overlook before heading back to Folsom. A climb of 125 whole feet in under half a mile! I don't think I'm ready to do the Costco hill on my single speed just yet

Darth Lefty 

Right by the dam and bridge I just posted about, there is a fish hatchery. The bridge has nice bike trail underpasses, on both sides, arranged in a way to encourage people to use the west side. I have always avoided it because I could power up the east side of the bridge anyhow, but I sometimes took it to get a little more distance when I wanted. Now it's just full avoid. The hatchery recently put in a fish ladder, and used the same path as the bike underpass for some way. I'm not sure what their plan is, the reservoir has been devoid of salmon for decades. It's not stocked for reasons I thought had to do with keeping fish diseases from spreading, and only has a few catfish and wily old trout. The next dam up is a much bigger obstacle so they are only getting a few miles out of it. But they rearranged the southern underpass to make room for the ladder. It's a lot worse for bikes now. It has ADA compliant flat spots every few dozen feet, a few places it got very steep, and the bends are tighter to make room for the ladder, which blocks the view and presents something to crash into once you have bounced down all the ADA flat spots.

groovestew

Officially, it was 3C in the big city, but the thermometer on my house out in the 'burbs had the needle hovering a hair's breadth above the freezing mark. Definitely around 0C in the valley.

Still lots of construction on my regular routes, so I'm resigned to riding on gravel. It's not a big deal, but I still prefer pavement. Fall colours are starting to come out, making the trail riding quite lovely.

essiemyra

It was a pleasant commute this am. The temp when leaving the house was 52 f degrees. At this point of the year I am riding the direct route to work. The extended rides put me out on dark rural roads. I am not a fan of that this late in the year.

Tundra_Man 

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1279:

Haven't been sleeping well lately. Lots of family stress going on right now that turns my brain on in the middle of the night and prevents me from going back to sleep.

This morning after laying in the dark for quite a while I decided I might as well use my time productively, so I got up and rode to the client's office an hour early. It was completely dark when I left the house, which is the first time I've ridden in full darkness since probably May. Temp wasn't bad in the upper 50s, and the wind hadn't yet started to blow hard. I think I only saw three other people on the MUP, not counting the group sleeping under a bridge.

Getting a new mattress delivered later this morning (oh the irony) so I'm going to take a long lunch to ride back home to meet the delivery men, then ride back to the client's office afterwards. That is if I don't succumb to the temptation of giving the new mattress a test run.

groovestew

Does anyone have a nicer commute than me these days? Probably, but mine is pretty nice. I'm starting to come around to liking my new route, even though it's longer and has a lot of gravel.

Cool and calm, with fog over the river.



PS: can someone remind me how to get full-size photos in posts? I used to know how to do it, but now BF seems to insist on having me upload instead of link to my photo album.

Darth Lefty 

I could have ride as nice as that, the ride along the lake path is hillier/curvier and more scenic than the parallel artery, but usually I'm feeling pressed for time.

Layer of clouds this morning that burned off during the ride. It was... nice

essiemyra

A very pleasant commute this am. I packed to ride last night for this am but was not sure if I was going to find rain in the am. I did not find rain, a big win for me.

Darth Lefty 

On some dredger mine tailings along my commute, someone has built a really impressive cairn. Probably a dozen stones high. I keep meaning to take a photo of it because it can't last. Forgot again today.

essiemyra

A very pleasant commute this morning. Though when I was passing the bank I noticed the temp was only 49 f degrees. So the temps are declining.

Darth Lefty 

I got a photo of the cairn, which survived a windy afternoon. Perspective doesn’t do it justice here, I think it’s about four feet high. I count twenty stones. From further back it mocks the pine and cypress trees behind it, but I’d have to stand in the street for that shot

Joe Bikerider

Interesting. Most people don’t realize where those piles of rounded river rock came from. Let me bore you with a little story. When I was in high school my dad worked for Yuba Engineering in Benicia. They were building valves penstocks and stuff for dams all around California. But they also operated the last gold dredge in the state. It was about to shutdown but before it did, he took me up to check it out near Marysville. It was an amazingly loud and gigantic machine. Floating in a small pond it dug up gravel from the bottom with a bucket dredge, passed it through a wash plant up on deck to separate out the gold and then shot the tailings out the back on a large conveyor. Those tailings formed the piles of river rock still seen around the area today. And in landscapes all over Northern California as decorative pieces. Hope you enjoyed my little story, it made an impression on me that’s for sure. Thanks.

Darth Lefty 

That’s why it’s “gold country” for sure. My employer’s grounds were mined before our factory was built. It’s a superfund site twice over. There was one last dredger going out there into the 1960’s. And both sides of Lake Natoma are completely mined. I heard a gold bug rumor that Mather Field, which was established for WW1 and never got mined, is sitting on a rich vein and the government knows it.

Welshboy

Had some luck this week as, at one point, it looked like all three days (I only work Mon-Wed) would be affected by rain but I only got wet once - so "One out of six ain't bad" as someone once sang. Mind you, it was an absolute soaking but I was able to dry my cycling clothing by the hot air blower in the temporary marquee we use as our welfare room. Noticeably colder now but I'll stick with shorts until winter.

essiemyra

A very pleasant yet chilly ride into work this morning. The temp was 42 f degrees on the bank's thermometer. That fell quick from the beginning of the week.

groovestew

The nice fall weather continues, for now at least. Chilly, but otherwise sunny and calm.

Ask anyone in Edmonton what the best feature of the city is, and 9 out of 10 will answer the river valley. It really is the jewel of the city - over 18,000 acres of continuous natural and developed parkland, one of the largest urban parks in the world. Autumn is really spectacular. @Tundra_Man's avatar sings a song in which he ruefully pines about having never been to Boston in the fall. Well, I've been to Boston in the fall, and it's got nothing on Edmonton. So the other day when I was heading home, I crested a small rise in the trail and was treated to an incredible vista of a portion of the valley, resplendent in autumn colour ("Solomon in all his splendor..." and all that). So I stopped to snap a photo...and it kinda sucked. Life is too short to take pictures with a phone. The uber-wide angle lens squashes the background to nothing, and it really doesn't reflect what I saw with my own eyes. I post it here anyway.



Have a great weekend, everyone.