Yes it is!

I decided to ride yesterday. The rain didn't really get going until several blocks before the GWB. Got two tickets from a cop, got soacked fairly well, had to ride through water several inches deep in Leonia. I'd say it was an eventful ride home. :rolleyes:

60F. Apocalyptic smog from the ashes of British Columbia, triple the particles of Beijing right now.

[MENTION=25132]ptempel[/MENTION], what were the tickets for? I haven't gotten a ticket for anything yet, after many years.

[MENTION=60072]HardyWeinberg[/MENTION], what's going on in BC?

I waited yesterday evening for the rain to abate. The surface was still wet, so I got a little wet and dirty, but it was OK.

There's a chance of rain again today, smaller than yesterday's, so I think I'll be OK. I rode in today for the fourth time this week, which is unusual. I get Fridays off in the summer (YAY!) so four times a week is the maximum for me. The humidity is building day after day, and the air looks steamy.

In the first mile or so on my way in in the mornings, I don't go at full speed, and some racers and racer wannabes often pass me. A young woman came up from behind and looked like she was going to pass me but didn't. (I wear a mirror.) I decided I was warmed up enough so I picked up my speed, and she matched my speed. I don't normally compete with women because it's a dumb display of machismo that doesn't impress them, so that wasn't my motivation. Then after a few minutes, she did pass me at a pace that would have been painful to match, and I didn't bother trying. As she passed me, first she turned to look at me and check me out. I saw that she was not only very fit but also very good looking. Then as she gained distance from me, I saw her checking back several times, expecting me to pursue her, which I didn't do. Eventually, she stopped to rest or turn around or take a drink. As I passed her, we both smiled at each other. I was impressed at her ability. I don't know why she smiled at me. Maybe a guy with a salt and pepper beard is a cute thing? Who knows.

Lots of fires.

And the smoke is filling up Puget Sound.

http://b-townblog.com/wp-content/upl...moke080217.jpg

Running a stop sign and a red light. I made a new thread warning others here:

http://www.bikeforums.net/commuting/...g-tickets.html

Edit: [MENTION=152773]noglider[/MENTION], do you use the Hudson Greenway for your regular commute both ways?

Wow. That fire has been burning for almost a month...

Yes, why? Here are my GPS tracks from Monday. It's a 13 mile route, and I'm lucky that 9 miles are on the Greenway. Sometimes I don't have to stop at all.

Great. Good to be back in the UK, although I do miss the mountains of the USA.

That's nice! The closest I can go for non stop riding is the local rail trail but that too intersects with roads at various places. Otherwise my commute is split across 7 2-mile sections and one 3 miler.

There is an overnight brevet on 8/12 near Boston that I am thinking of taking part in. That will have some nice non stop rides down long lonely moonlit roads. It is full moon too.

But for now, I have to tackle the commute back home. I am going to treat this as though it's the start of a 200 km ride and ride accordingly. I don't think I have enough strength left to ride it any other way either. Is it weekend yet?

I wondered how it was up north. I definitely got smoked on my commute home today down here in Oregon.

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...1&d=1501814659

It's just kind of a general haze down here. I didn't notice any breathing problems, but it was making my eyes sting a bit. I rode at a pretty moderate pace.

The chewy air is really remarkable here. I haven't had breathing problems and I have had lifelong pretty severe asthma. So I've got that going for me. I have felt hungover the last couple days; that could just be insufficient hydration I guess.

Heading to Portland tomorrow to retrieve my son from a summer camp he's been at for a week; well, camp in Sandy, pickup/dropoff in Portland.

I have heard that the smoke is good for ~5 degrees of cooling in daytime so to still hit 106 is something! It's also supposed to be good for ~20 degrees of warming at night so we're only dropping to ~70 instead of usual ~50.

Daycare reroute averted

A good Friday ride to work. Often I'll start out slow and telling myself it's a good day to take it easy, but then find myself trying to stay at higher speeds come the last 3 or 4 miles. Oh well.

The family and I head out of town tomorrow for a family visit in Arkansas. I'm not taking my bike, so will log a zero mileage week. It will hurt my annual goal of 6,000 commuting miles, but I'll just have to rise to the challenge of making it up the rest of the year.

This week has been great for riding to work! Temps are way below normal for Oklahoma. Our usual high pressure system moved out to all you poor souls on the west coast! Today was also the first time I had to get out my $2 Walmart rain poncho since I started riding this year. It was just a heavy sprinkle, but I actually enjoyed it! Of course, we'll see how enjoyable it is if it's pouring this afternoon on the way home! :)

Crashed last night. Wasn't paying attention and hit a rock (a chunk of asphalt really) that sent me going down at about 10mph. Just banged up my knee a bit but worse is my front wheel seems badly out of true--hopefully nothing bent with the rim or hub. Gonna take it to my LBS tomorrow. Sigh... coulda been worse.

Work travel precluded almost a week's worth of riding - today's my only day this week. And what a day to ride - 65F and temps are dropping! Going on vacation so will miss another week - this one's worth it!

Ok, thanks. It's a little out of my way but I sometimes ride it from 154th St entrance to the 104th St exit. It does have the benefit of having less stop lights and stop signs to get in trouble with. ;)

Twas a nice ride in this morning. I just missed the pop up thunder storm that rolled east through the city. So it was only wet roads with good temps. I recall the sky color being more red than usual when I got up at 6am. It made me think of the old addage, "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning." Then I started singing this song to myself:


:)

lots of smoke in Vancouver lately. There are a bunch of forest fires out in the mountains/interior of BC. The smoke usually doesnt drift west towards the coast, but it is doing that right now. As HardyW said, air quality of Beijing. It's kept a bunch of commuters off of the roads, but it hasnt bothered me much at all. I just take it a bit slower, but have still been riding every day. Apocalypse Now sunsets lately.

The smoke in the Portland suburbs didn't seem as bad this morning. I got a late start, and by the time I left the house at 9:30 the temperature was already up to 80º F. Today is supposed to be a bit less scorching hot, though, with a forecast high of only 97.

I rode in on my 1982 Specialized Sequoia. It defies almost every theory I have about what makes a particular bike special, but the ride of the Sequoia never fails to make me smile.

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/630/3...b1e7454b_c.jpg

I was in Victoria Tuesday and Wednesday and Vancouver Thursday; we were to stay Friday but we aborted our trip and headed home early.

Anywho Nanaimo was just warm but Victoria and Vancouver were dark, hazy, calm, and stifling hot due to the smoke. It was erie, I hadn't seen it this bad since I moved to BC in 2003. So we decided that we didn't want to be in Vancouver in this weather since we now have our own gorgeous home on an island o paradise. We got home after a several hour ferry wait to a cooler island and our nicely insulated home. It was nice! The forecast for Friday was near 37°C/98°F, we weren't looking forward to that but the smoke rolled in Friday and Saturday and kept the temperatures much lower, which was appreciated.

I had to go to Vancouver for an appointment with my original plastic surgeon. I've decided that I need to move ahead with the next surgery. It's a skin/muscle flap which would be taken from some place of large muscle mass to replace the hypertrophic and keloid scar tissue on the back of my knee. It's been a big decision over the last 1.7 years; but the rate of recurring infection isn't acceptable and is greatly hindering my quality of life. The surgery is intensive though: two weeks in the burns unit, 1.5 to 2 months immobilized, rehab, and that's if it goes well. If it doesn't go well: they could have to repeat the surgery, but that should be obvious quickly; they could have to do another vascular graft; and the not negligable risk of amputation above the knee. If it comes to the final option I'd feel okay since it's been 2.5 years and I'm stagnate in recovery and I feel very limited.

Anywho the house is amazing, the kids are great, my wife's working too hard (but she's amazing), and my bike repair service is being well utilized on the island. I've been riding regularly since I finally fixed my bike trailer, which has allowed me to stop relying on the golf cart. I do need to walk more, I can feel the health benefit and general improvement from regularly walking. Since the accident I've creeped up to about 210. I've come down about 5-6 pounds in the last month but I need to still drop 25 pounds to be back to fighting weight. Since my accident and related trauma my former resting heart rate of 55 bpm has gone to 85-90 bpm; this has been very noticeable in the heat, which I never cared for. But now it doesn't take much to break a sweat, and not just a few spots. I need to work on my health.

Wasn't sure I would be able to ride to work today! Had a small tornado touch down right along my commute route over the weekend. This morning I got to dodge tree limbs, metal building panels and roofing materials the last 5 miles to work! Rode down 2 streets that were blocked to car traffic due to trees laying on the road. Even had lots of trees blown over at work!

55F pea soup fog

[MENTION=190611]joeyduck[/MENTION] good plan to go for surgery hoping for the best!

Rough morning for me.

This morning my son had the first of three days' worth of tryouts for the school golf team. They were scheduled to tee off at 6:30 AM, which meant he needed to be at the course earlier for warm-ups. My wife is not a morning person at all, so I volunteered to be the one to get up at 5 AM and drive him to the course.

I went to bed last night and was just about to sleep when my son came in the room in a panic telling me he just realized he'd left his golf clubs at the course when he was there practicing earlier that afternoon. My wife had gone to pick him up, and they walked into the pro-shop because there was a hat in there they wanted to buy. When they left, they walked out a different door and got in the car and left without either of them thinking that his clubs were still sitting out by the practice green.

Being 14 years old and in the full throngs of hormonally induced emotions, he was freaking out and sobbing. He'd spent the previous 2 1/2 years scrimping and saving every penny he could earn to buy these golf clubs. The thought of losing $1500 worth of golf clubs was overwhelming to him. Tryouts were first thing in the morning and if he didn't have clubs he couldn't make the team. Golf is one of his passions, so not making the team would have been devastating. He'd tried out and made the high school JV squad the previous two years even though he was still in middle school. This year he's gunning to try to make the varsity squad as a freshman.

So while my wife attempted to calm him down, I hopped out of bed, got dressed and drove over to the golf course. Thankfully, with the help of a flashlight I found his bag and all of his clubs untouched out by the practice green where he'd left them. I threw them into the car and drove back home. When I pulled into the garage my son came out and hugged his bag with tears of joy streaming from his eyes.

With that crisis averted, I returned to bed. By this time it was nearly midnight. Unfortunately all the excitement had really gotten me wound up, and I laid there wide awake for several hours. It was nearly 2 AM when I finally fell asleep. The next three hours were fitful as I kept waking up with weird dreams. The 5 AM alarm came way too early.

After I dropped my son off at the golf course I returned home and tried to sleep for another hour, but didn't do much more than doze. I still managed to ride to work, but I think I was half asleep for a good chunk of the ride. I certainly didn't set any speed records on my way in.

Got close-passed by a guy on a fat bike that likes to show how fast he can go whenever he zips by me, but it's easy to see from the size of his rear hub that he has an e-assist. Given my sleep deprived mood this morning I felt unusually indignant about him, like he was cheating the system versus those of us who have to work for all the speed we attain.

I'm allowing myself an extra cup of coffee this morning.

At my job, we have Fridays off in the summer (YAY!). I rode into work all four days last week, which is unusual for me. I was feeling really strong and enjoyed every ride. Friday, I needed to rent a car, as my wife, who has a car, was out of town. I noticed it costs $90 extra to rent from Manhattan where I live than from anywhere else, so I rode 12 miles to a car rental place in the Bronx. So that ride was an adventure, going through lots of neighborhoods I don't normally go through. I passed by a crime scene just as several police officers were arriving. I suspect it was a personal robbery, as there was an old-ish woman who had called the police. I passed the scene of a fire fight where I had to lift my bike and step over the big fire hose. Life in the big city keeps us busy.

GPS tracks

Today is the first day of not riding in a while. Yesterday I rode extremely vigorously over some big hills, and my legs and butt hurt, in a good way. That doesn't happen to me often, so I take it as a good sign that I rode well. A day of rest seems like a good idea, and combined with today's very rainy weather, it works out well.

That is some drama, [MENTION=175954]Tundra_Man[/MENTION]! I am slowly forgetting my kids' teen years, but I remember them being that dramatic. Do you think something unconscious led your son to forget his clubs? 14 is the most difficult year for many people but it's also a year of deep influence entering the mind.

Good luck with your surgery and recovery, [MENTION=190611]joeyduck[/MENTION]. Keep us abreast.

I think both he and my wife just got distracted in the pro shop. They found the hat he wanted, which my wife and I were going to go "halves" with him on. She then realized she'd left her money in the car, so there was a trip out to the parking lot and back. After they bought the hat they walked out of the door closest to the parking lot, but opposite of the practice green where his clubs were sitting. Both of them got in the car and drove off without even thinking that he hadn't loaded his clubs.

I had been out in the garage earlier that evening and noticed his clubs weren't sitting in their usual spot, but I just assumed they were still in the back of the car ready to go for this morning so I didn't mention it. We're lucky that he remembered when he did, otherwise we would have discovered the missing clubs this morning. He left the clubs at a different course than where tryouts were being held, so by this morning it would have been too late to drive to get them and make it on time. That is, if the clubs would even have still been sitting there after being abandoned for that long.

I remember being 14. I agree, that year sucked big time.