jimmuller 

Some spectacular pics, guys!

I just did my commute today. For various reason I didn't leave the office to return home until 6PM so the last half was ridden more or less in the dark. I'd ridden my UO-8 because it has good lights, and expected to use them. It was a pleasant ride. A light mist fogged my glasses a few times so that I had a hard time seeing when traffic headlights were coming toward me. But it wasn't too bad. A nice day.

Chrome Molly

25 miles of mixed pavement and gravel mashing after work. A couple pictures of our Minnesota fall.

gomango

Is this in Woodbury?

joychri

Pics from this Sunday's ride. Fall Has Arrived in Greater Boston.

mrybczyn

Tour de Hans.

Chrome Molly

Between Afton and Prescott.

gomango

Beautiful.

Can't wait to get back on the saddle.

Been off for two weeks and it's killing me.

Been gorgeous here.

FWIW Get your flu shots folks. My horrific case of the flu morphed into a relatively severe case of bronchitis.

The doc has had a dickens of a time handling the bacterial infection and I think I am finally beginning to turn the corner.

Nasty, nasty stuff this flu season.

Chrome Molly

Get well soon G. There's still plenty of fall riding before snow.

JTTDF

I love this thread. Through all of you who take the time to post and share I can watch the seasons change from quiet winter to hopeful spring to full glorious summer and now we are back to the beautiful but slightly melancholy fall. The days grow shorter and I feel the passing of time as another winter approaches. Thank you all.

mountaindave 

That's how my summer went - three colds (beginning, middle and end) and about 5-6 weeks off from cycling made me a stir-crazy cyclist. Now that the weather is changing I'm despairing at each missed opportunity. Get out and ride!

Roger M

I got out for a pretty good ride today. The weather here is changing, so I dug out the fendered bike. I didn't get rained on, but some of the roads were pretty damp. Corn season is winding down here, still I road by plenty of it.



The Skykomish River





At one of my stops, a crowd gathered.



My winter bike, ready for another bout with the crappy upcoming seasons. I owe thanks to rccardr for passing along this Flite to me.

jimmuller 

Another day, another commute in the rain
As Roger M said, the world is changing, turning orange. (Nice pics) There are three new reasons to be careful - piles of wet leaves, piles of acorns, piles of apples!

Today was yet another chapter in the Every Day's an Adventure book. Last night I had a temporary crown on a tooth come off, so I figured I'd stop by the dentist as early as I knew he was in the office this morning. But I really didn't want to drive through Watertown Sq and up Galen St in the rain. That can be a serious clog even in the best of days and after yesterday's aborted drive due to horrendous traffic I was spooked. So I donned my bike rain jacket, hopped on the trusty UO-8 now wearing its new (actually old) 5-spd freewheel, and pedaled off. I found a way to avoid both W-town Sq and Galen St. But by the time I left his office "they" had blocked off yet one more street for construction, so after running around in a circle I ended up having to negotiate W-town Sq anyway. Okay...

I worked my way over to Waverley Sq and eventually picked up my usual route to Woburn. Then heading north on Rt60 toward Arlington the bike felt odd. Lo! a flat on the rear. I stopped in the rain, had a devil of a time finding the small leak because the traffic was making so much noise. I started mounting the spare tube after convincing myself that no glass sliver still lurked in the tire casing. Except my spare tube wouldn't hold air. So I figured I'd patch the new leak in the current tube, which made finding the leak imperative. My patch kit had exactly one patch left.

I finally got the leak patched and the tire on the wheel. (Your hands get really dirty changing a tire in the rain.) Then I discovered my trusty Zefal HP pump wasn't so HP anymore. I might have gotten 50psi in the tire (instead of my usual 105), but at least the patch was holding. I stopped at one of the gas stations en route but had no quarters for the air machine. So the guy used the air hose in the garage. Except I couldn't convince him it needed more air than "That's good." (How to you convince a surly mechanic whose first language obviously isn't English anyway?) Oh well, it was enough to get me to work.

But look, The Bike Stop in Arlington has an air hose by their door to the MM! With a Schrader valve head! And a pressure gauge! I filled it to over 100psi and rejoiced cautiously knowing that I had no tube, no patch, and no functional pump should I get another flat. The rest of the trip to work was uneventful and not too wet.

The ride home was dry and marginally later than usual for work-related reasons. I had resolved to stop by a bike shop on the way home but wasn't keen on buying a new pump if one of my other frame pumps would work. And I was tired. So I took the MM, which I don't normally do on the way home, turned south on Lake St, and eventually arrived at Belmont Wheelworks for tubes and a patch kit but no pump yet. By the time I got home it was nearly dark.

Over the last two days I've ridden slightly under 70 miles commuting, mostly in the rain. I'm tired. Can I go to bed now please?

Shp4man

So I wanted to take a ride on dirt this morning. I live in a place called Bonita, California, sort of an upper middle class area with some lower socioeconomic areas around. There's a nice trail around the golf course that continues past a reservoir about 5 miles away. The Sweetwater Reservoir:

After reaching the dam, the trail continues on with an horrifically steep climb, which I've never followed before. Until today. Were talkin' little ring, low gear stuff. The trail, which is really a nice ride, eventually ends in Spring Valley, CA, right at the Spring Valley swap meet parking lot. (Who Knew?)
So I thought, WTF?- Check it out. Pic of the swap meet:

So the swap meet reminded me of being in Columbia or something- little food booths with exotic (to me) offerings, all Hispanic signs, a bunch of mostly Hispanic people selling used/new/junk/good stuff from little stalls. It was great. So I walked (with the dirt encrusted MTB) Pic:

Through most of the area, like about 8 square miles of stuff. Of course, I was looking for bikes, duh...and found an interesting Cannondale hybrid from about 1992 ($125 )and a really interesting Miyata 210 touring bike with a factory rear rack and cantilever brakes. The dude selling it didn't know what it was, it had the effing factory tires from the '80's still on it, a triple crank, and nice paint. ($100)! But it was a 60CM, way too big for me. I'm not a flipper, so I didn't go home and get my Dodge pickup to haul it home.
Four people wanted to buy the old Performance MTB.
Wrk101, call me an idiot, I don't mind.

northbend 

I drove over early this morning to Ellensburg to meet up with scozim and drillium dude to ride in the Manastash Metric Century.






It never did warm up today but the winds were light and I enjoyed spending time with these guys.

scozim 

I've got the twin of that mtb - bought it for $40 for my kid and need to go through it but it's a surprisingly light and nice ride.

scozim 

As Matt said it was a chilly but not windy ride. 2 years ago with Jeff the wind was horrendous for the first half of the metric century. I dubbed this the ride of the two Frenchies and the Yank - Singer, PX10 and Davidson.

Probably only the 5th ride on the PX10 this year. Matt and I both rode tubulars - he had the nice ones and I rode the cheapies. Lots of fun.



Matt finishing the long climb of the day:



... and Jeff





There was some other vintage "steel" motoring around:







To top it off I stole Jeff's yellow Turbo saddle for my Gitane Sprint

Vonruden

Sweet pics NorthBend, looks like a blast.

Chrome Molly, love the shots of Minnesota.

With the rain this morning and 3 kids doing sports, I could only get out for a quick jaunt. I took the Serotta for a shake down with some "new" old wheels.

jimmuller 

Wow, lots of great rides and great pics. VR, that Serotta really pops in that light. Nice shots from the PNW too (as always).

Sharon and I took the tandem down to Cape Cod to ride the CCRT, the autumn version of the 4th year of the semi-annual gathering us some of us New Englanders who participate in the C&V. We met in trail head at the Dennis with the usual mayhem at the start, including installation of fenders for the possible rain (which didn't happen):


Everyone ready? L to R: Top, me, Scott, Pastor Bob, Dave (otg), Sharon (my sweetie and stoker on the tandem), spiker, Frog (a BF lurker with a great 1955 Raleigh Sport wearing more modern components):


On the trail:


Scott's flat tire, me pumping it back up with our Solibloc vintage pump:


A short stop at Nickerson State Park:


After many miles and lunch, we stopped briefly at Marconi Beach, with a pounding surf behind us:


48.87 miles, one flat, no rain, and a great time.
Of course the crowning event occurred at the end. We were swapping parts and stories at the end, all reluctant to leave, and who should show up but BF member Mr. and Mrs. sherbornpeddler! What a coincidence. He was on his first ride since being off the bike for a while. We gabbed for a while longer and eventually they took off down the trail and we hit the road.

It was a great day!

Vonruden

Nice pics Jim, I may have to travel up for that ride next year, looks like a great ride with a great group.

Early ride - Manasquan river - Manasquan Reservior. Bruce Gordon pic heavy

Peugeotlover

Temps around 50*F and mostly sunny.
Corn is 'bout ready to be chopped down for cattle fodder.
Tree and shrub colors are starting to change over the past week.
Some pretty horses, a row boat crew, some fishermen in a skiff.
Was headed to a photographic destination but only got about 8 miles.
Looked back to see what freewheel gear I was on, and something shiny and bent was flashing.
A spoke broke off the freewheel side at the head/hub.
Rode home slowly.
Pretty clouds and blue sky.

likebike23

I managed to get an hour or so this morning, so I thought I'd check out the newly completed section of the Columbia Greenway. Rode the trail into downtown and caught the gravel river walk trail for a couple of miles. There were lots of wildflowers in bloom and 2 bald eagles were catching some thermal updrafts overhead. It was too bright to see what I was aiming at with my cellphone camera, so no pics of them. Nice day, it's been too long since I got a ride in by myself, it felt good.

vtdougie

I rode from Brattleboro Vt to the Montague Book Mill in Montage MA and back with a good friend. It was a perfect Vermont/MA October Sunday. The Book Mill has a funky little cafe and a used book store and music store. It is an old mill converted into a place to hang out and drink coffee (and beer a few hours later)
and watch people. It was a 52 miler with good rollers. The cross wind managed to be in our face the entire way, but the scenery and weather made up for that. Its a long winter, so we have to be out there riding while we can right?

embankmentlb

Awesome to see folks getting together and venturing out on those old bikes. I enjoy this thread so much!

seedsbelize 

I jumped the *** on the winter riding season, and got in a 4 hour loop in brand new territory. We recently moved from Mérida (1.2 million) to Tixkokob (20,000) about 20 km to the east. When I find the cord for the phone, I'll put a couple pics up. Or not. I look forward to getting some centuries in this season, after a year or two off from the distance riding. Hopefully by this time next week, opening day will have come and gone.

jimmuller 

After yesterday's CCRT ride, my sweetie wanted to go out again. So we did 31.85 on the tandem, nothing special except cool fall air and a great time.

Find the bike in the pizza: