It was a good bike day overall, and ended well, but the ride home had a frustrating and near-disasterous start.

Sunny and 48F with minimal breezes when I left for work. Just shorts and a windbreaker, but long fingered gloves. I kept thinking of the phrase Smaug1 offered up a while ago "Be bold, dress cold!". However it warmed to 54F by the time I reached the office.

And what a ride in! I took the 20" Dahon Boardwalk folder and my light commute bag. The steering tube clamp and handlebar clamp tend to "drift" over time and I felt the bull-bars weren't straight and definitely were tilted down forward. So within the first couple of blocks I realigned and re-adjusted everything and tried to tighten everything just a little bit more. The bike is slightly lighter than my main commuter and just a bit heavier than my '84 NIshiki 12-speed but the Boardwalk's rolling resistance feels less than either. The bull bars let me stretch forward and down like I'm on the hoods of my other bikes and the higher gearing I installed makes the bike very fast. I took the trails and snuck around the gates of the first underpass as it has dried out from the last round of rain, so just the one traffic light for the 8-mile run.

I looked forward to the ride home. Sunny and 68F but breezy, but as it turned out, coming from the east so the first half of the ride was quick, but the start was frustrating. First, I laid the Boardwalk on its side on the sensor for the gate, but it wouldn't trigger it, which it almost always does. So I had to walk it through the office. Then there were cars cutting across the sidewalk to get to the car wash and the Arby's. But then I was on the trail. The first underpass was mostly blocked by urban campers, the second underpass was blocked. But I shrugged it off. I turned north and was making a good pace when a motor scooter came slaloming up the trail at me at at least 30mph. I had to slow and pull right as far as I could. Then as soon as I build up my pace again I went under a wide underpass where there's never a problem and a small lap dog darted out from the right. I squeezed the brakes on the dry, sandy pavement. Not that the dog wouold bite or maul, but hitting it would not be good, and locking up the smaller 20" wheels on dry sand gave me a shot of adrenaline I didn't want or need.

But from then on it was a fast ride with lots of smiles and waves until I turned east into the wind where it seemed a little tougher than it should be, but not enough to dampen the fun. At the one traffic light I checked my wheels to see if the brakes were dragging and the rear V-brakes performed a slight momentary ******. Probably from when I squeezed the heck outta them because of the dog. I did a quick adjustment, and they no longer touched the rim unbidden.

At the next intersection the gates to the underpass wrere now open.

Soon after that I hopped off the trail and turned south and prepared to suffer up a 2-block hill, but now the wind was in my favor, the bike was rolling easy, and the low gear I installed all made it a cake walk. I passed a woman pulling a weed from an otherwise immaculate front lawn. I complimented her on the lawn and her face just beamed!.

I'll have to review the video of the dog. The last time a dog lunged at me the helmet cam video showed the dog to be smaller and farther away from the bike than I remembered