Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2218:
As Snoopy would always begin his stories: "It was a dark and stormy night..."
Woke up during the night to see flashes of lighting. I didn't think we were supposed to get rain, but alas it was falling. This morning when I rose, the rain had stopped but the roads were still very wet. I opted to take the road bike simply because I'm going to wind up riding 24 miles today and I really didn't want to do that on my slow hybrid.
The temp was a balmy 63°F, which is crazy warm for a late October morning in South Dakota. The humidity was right at 100%, and there was a light fog. It felt really sticky. The fog would probably been a lot thicker, but there also was a 15 mph wind.
About 1/4 mile from the house I had the closest call with a deer in my riding history, at least so far. It was still quite dark as I was pedaling down a medium sized hill, which allowed me to get some decent speed. There was a "T" intersection through which I was going straight. I had been looking to the left to watch for any cars coming off the side street. When I turned my head back forward, suddenly there was a deer in front of me.
I heard its hooves scraping on the pavement as it tried to get traction to run. I didn't have time to hit the brakes, swerve, or even make much of a yelp. I just mentally braced for impact, as it looked like I would certainly hit it. Somehow, I didn't. My front wheel couldn't have been more than a couple of inches from its rear hooves. That got the heart pumping. I kept riding in a mild state of shock.
I saw two more herds of deer in the next 1/2 mile. Thankfully they stayed well into the front yards of people's houses, and away from me.
Outside of dropping my chain twice when I tried to shift from the small to big ring, the remainder of the ride was pretty uneventful. My front derailleur has been shifting better as of late and rarely dropping a chain. It was working fine the first 3/4 of today's commute, then I guess it decided it had enough and started dropping the chain when I tried to shift. After the second time I gave up and just used the small ring the remainder of the ride.
Arrived at the office with a big old skunk stripe from my lack of fenders.
BobbyG : I have an audition tonight for a theater production. This will be my third show I've done with this particular theater group, so hopefully the audition is mostly a formality and to help the director figure out which role would fit me best. I'm not going to ride my bicycle to their rehearsal space, however. It's in a nearby suburb that's only three miles from our company office, which makes it a very rideable distance. Unfortunately, there are no good paved roads to get there without riding on extremely busy and narrow highways. The remaining routes are unpaved and I don't feel like riding my road bike on gravel, so I'm going to ride home after work and then drive to the audition.