Another rear flat today and because I'm lazy - tried to nurse it along by adding air - ended up late for work. I had to stop to change the tube anyway which is a 10 minute job versus the 20 minutes it took to stop, add air, stop, change tube. Duh!

reminds me of this story from a cpl days ago. motorcycles jump a bridge-out section. there's video of this somewhere
Concrete barriers in place after bikers jump collapsed Caldwell County bridge | Charlotte Observer

It was a rainy morning in the upper 50'sF. The rain wasn't really that bad. What was bad was the traffic jam from the accident on the QBE:

Cross Bronx Expressway crash causes major delays to George Washington Bridge | New York's PIX11 / WPIX-TV

It left a jam for miles past the GWB on the New Jersey side. Anytime this happens, the side roads (like Ft Lee Rd) get jammed up as well. A lot of people think that they are going to use the side road to circumvent the Rt 95 traffic. It usually turns out worse for them since the local police have to block traffic by Overpeck Park in Leonia when it gets that heavy.

My commute was really bad because I didn't ride. I took the subway. Some subway investigation shut the subway down for a few miles, and we all had to improvise with buses, etc. I had to pee really badly, and I was stuck on a bus, desperate to get off and go somewhere. NYC is a hostile place to people needing toilets, and I never know where I'll be turned away for my request. I found a park to hide in. Walked back to the subway which had resumed. Got in hours late. If I had ridden, I probably would not have gotten very wet in today's rain.

The weather could stay like this for a long time and I'd be happy.

Awesome rides lately. I'm approaching 25,000kms commuting since i started approx 5 years ago. My legs are a bit tired due to lots of physical activity and not enough sleep, but it's manageable. Took the kids bike-camping on the weekend: Old norco tandem + trailabike + 3 sets of panniers. Awesome, but tiring.

Finally a commute, after a whole week last week with no bike commuting due to mid-week traveling plus the short week, and other things that required my car. The Saturday night before Memorial day we had a historically bad wind storm here in the Memphis area, with straight-line winds reaching 80-90 MPH I believe, on the leading edge of the storm. It knocked out power to nearly 200,000 customers in Memphis and Shelby County, the 3rd worst recorded outage since Ice Storm '94 and Hurricane Elvis in 2003. 10 days later, even with 100+ outside utility crews working around the clock, power still has not been totally restored. The storm blew down 4 sections of my privacy fence (rotted posts I think), destroyed my metal patio gazebo frame, and did some major damage to my front yard tree.

So anyway, I've been cleaning up and repairing storm damage stuff for nearly a week, and just got the fence finished on Saturday. This week should be nice weather all week, with lower humidity, but that does mean headwinds in the afternoon mostly. This morning was pretty foggy and super humid, temps in the low 70's, so I was drenched when I got to work, even without rain.

More mist and fog. How weird for the Pacific Northwest.

-Shin

Today there was an early morning meeting scheduled with participants from the side of the country who get up earlier. My problem was the star of the show. I was going to take it by cell phone at home and then ride in. When I called, the call-in number had been changed and no one was able to give me the new one so I dumped everything, got in the truck and peeled rubber to work. I spent the whole morning resenting that the only time I felt good all day was being spent rushing up hallways. Then in the early afternoon I discovered the problem which had caused the meeting in the first place was an error I made in 2016 and there was no real problem at all. I feel pretty defeated.

Beautiful morning, 9C/48F, sunny, light breeze, beautiful!

Low humidity for a change at only 65%. Felt great, almost a bit cool at 64F. Today is Global Running Day so I got up early to partake in that before riding in. And now I'm quite hungry!

Cold this morning! WTF, it's supposed to be June, isn't it?

True dat!

I'm not going to complain about how it's been colder and wetter than normal. I consider it to be mercifully cool. We will have plenty of hot days this summer.

It was about 59ºF as I rode in this morning. I almost wore tights but instead wore bike shorts and three layers on my torso. That worked fine.

I made good time, and I felt strong.

I rolled up to a big commotion this morning, a couple of patrol cars flashing lights, traffic cones blocking half the road, several public safety trucks, lots of orange vests bustling around, standing around or directing traffic. Small engine noises up ahead. I feared the worst and was about to take an alternate route but one of the DPS guys said they were cutting up a fallen tree and were almost finished so I stayed and talked for a while. Him curious about bike commuting, me curious about the tree since it's normal for me to port over or around trees after heavy rains. This one was partly in the street, more urgent I guess.

Rode my bicycle to the DMV to renew my driver's license. Just for the record, they don't a bike rack available.

It was about 15C/59F here this morning too, and I wore a light t-shirt and shorts, and was quite comfortable. When I was riding around NYC in early April, I was surprised how many roadies I saw on the greenway with full arm and leg warmers...and it was a balmy 65F!

Anyway, as I rode to work this morning, I was thinking how thankful I am that I'm not allergic to dandelions. This city is covered in them. I heard the city is going to bring in a bunch of goats to try to take care of them. I'm not sure if that was a joke or not. Maybe in a future post I'll have a story of a goat encounter.

For a while I've known that my rear shift cable was too loose on my 9-speed Shimergo setup. I was actually using the 2nd through 10th shifts, and I had the cable adjuster all the way tight. There was no problem with this until I changed the cassette from 12-27 to a much larger 11-34 and a longer chain, then it started ghost shifting. I stopped about halfway through my ride and took out the cable slack at the pinch bolt. Now I'm using 11th thru 3rd and it's much better. Other than that, took it easy.

[MENTION=188444]groovestew[/MENTION], you have to expect some New Yorkers to be less tolerant of cold and cool temperatures than Edmontoners. I notice that in the spring and fall, people wear outfits from shorts-and-t-shirts to full winter-coats-hats-scarves-gloves. I lean towards shorts and t-shirts, but I tend to dress moderately. With cycling clothing, I can regulate my temperature by increasing and reducing my pedaling effort.

I have seasonal pollen allergies that normally present between May 15 and June 15. I'm managing without drugs this year by frequent washing and irrigating my sinuses. It's working well.

Another nice ride in today. Huge difference in traffic from yesterday. Also looking forward to short sleeve weather later on. I met a racer guy, Pablo, in Central Park today. Was surprised that he didn't mind going slower for this older less fit commuter to have a chat. He looks like a cat 1 or 2 racer, but forgot to ask. We talked about my bike which is an almost vintage 2003 Orbea Orca carbon. I had creaky bike again and joked that at least he could hear me coming for a mile.

A very nice uneventful commute in this morning with the temp at 47f degrees and clear blue skies.

Beautiful morning with a clear sky. These days sunrise is only ten minutes after I get on the train, so it's light by the time I get to the station. Something ran across the road in front of me in the twilight, probably a fox.

Perfect morning.. the TV said was cooler this morning but not sure where they got that info. Trying to get in some extra miles playing around. So tempted to get a Apple watch so I can track mileage and time. Still had some extra time and could of did a little more. Maybe a iPhone mount would be cheaper time to research.

High 40s to low 50s with clear skies as I rode in to work today.
Today is my 11th day of commuting to work and I seem to have set my personal best today! Quite pleased with that

Another BEAUtiful morning, sunny, slight breeze, 12C/54F (but it felt warmer in the sun).

Nice longish ride in, 22km/14mi, longest of this year so far as a single ride and decent average speed too, 25.1kph/16mph, I'm happy with that.

Another community ride this evening but it will be nice and slow.

Have a great day!