Got a flat just as I put my kickstand down in my office. I think this is the first flat I've had at my new job of 3 years.

Big hunk of glass dead center must have been there for a while and worked its way through the Mr. Tuffy tire liners. So the glass embedded in the tire couldn't find the breach in the tire liner but definitely saw it in the inner tube. The tires are fincci sport Lights 26 / 2.125

Dreadful ride home. It was windy and I didn't check beforehand so I took the long route right into the wind 2 extra miles. Also I had chocolate and sugary candy in the afternoon plus coffee... Instead of my yerba mate and NO sugar. So I zonked big time into the wind with extra mileage. My ride time was 46 minutes vs the usual 33. At least I had the comfort of the drop bars on the mountain bike now and the satisfaction that everything worked.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2120:

If you could bottle this morning's weather you could sell it by the gallon. 61°F, low humidity and a 10 mph cross wind. It was a glorious ride to work.

The only frustration was I dropped my chain twice. My road bike has always had a tendency to drop the chain on occasion when shifting the front derailleur from the little to big ring. Lately, however, it happens more often than not. I suspect that having over 6k miles on this chain may be contributing to the problem. I'm due for a chain/cassette replacement.

I used to measure my chain wear religiously and replace it as soon as my tool indicated the chain stretch was beyond tolerance. However, I quickly figured out that I can kill a chain in less than 600 miles. I suspect being a Clydesdale probably contributes to the accelerated wear. That meant I was replacing chains every 6-8 weeks. Plus, often times when replacing my chain the new chain would skip on the old cassette, necessitating that to be replaced as well. I know most people say the rule of thumb is two chains for every one cassette, but I usually was having to replace the cassette with every chain. With an 11 speed drivetrain, it quickly grew very expensive.

I finally decided to start running chains and cassettes until they just won't properly function any longer. I still clean/lube them about every two weeks, but I just quit worrying about wear until it becomes obvious. That increased my chain/cassette replacement intervals to every couple of years. My recent increase of chain dropping frequency probably indicates I've gotten sufficient life out of this set.

I had this happen a month or two back, only it was on a bike ride in a rural area. It was dusk and I was barreling down this hill around a curve and this guy in a truck pulled up to a stop sign exiting the industrial park at 20 mph, no intention to stop, really. He looked left, directly at me with my bright, strobing headlight shining and wearing a fluorescent green jacket, then right, and kept right on going. I had to slam on the brakes to not hit him, and I yelled at the top of my lungs, right next to his door "HEYYY!" He made a sheepish look but avoided eye contact. I hope it registered that he almost took me out.

Tough times, but your kids are still in the fun ages, it sounds like.

I feel sad sometimes too when I don't get to ride as much as I'd like, but I remind myself that these years will be missed later in life. I will have all the time I want to ride, but will not have kids any more. Already, I'm getting a taste of it, as my daughter has just turned 13 and turned into a know-it-all. The best years of her childhood are already gone.

Re. the drop bars on the Rockhopper, have you considered those Surly bars that are meant to simulate drop bars but don't require drop bar-style brakes/brifters? VeloOrange makes some too, I think.

Funny as it sounds, my bike commuting is slowing down for the season because of all my bike club rides in the evenings.

I led the Moderate Monday ride last night, which wound up being a bit more than moderate. It felt so good not to be battling 20+ mph winds, and 5 of us showed up, so we could ride a paceline and take real advantage of the draft. 30-35 miles Mondays. This one's usually 15-16 mph, but was 17.3 yesterday. 18 for most of it, then an easier ride home from the start/finish slowed the average somewhat.

The ride leader for tonight's easy ride quit, as she was doing two per week and felt it was a bit much. I'm filling in for that one here and there starting tonight. 15-20 miles on Tuesdays, when I do it. This one averages about 13 mph.

Wednesdays is our club's second-best attended ride, (after Saturdays) a beginner-friendly one that starts and finishes near a biergarten. It winds up averaging around 15 mph. This one's 20-25 miles, plus another 16 if I ride to & from the start/end point.

If you don't see me for awhile, don't panic. I rode my scooter in to work today; legs are sore from last night. I'll probably take my commuter eBike for tonight's slow ride. A new friend is coming who isn't a cyclist and he has a hybrid bike, so I will likely keep up fine unpowered without wrecking my recovery day, but have some power as a back-up plan if needed.

Today's commutes to and from class were ordinary. We had some funny wind today. It must have been shifty because I couldn't tell which way it was going. I had a few minutes that felt like headwinds but not for long.

Sadly, today was the last day of going into class for the semester. I've been in this two-year program for two years, and most are graduating at the end of the month. I still have a course to take (Practicum) which I'll take in the fall. I'll miss all these folks.

Too late!
These are the bars I had on my previous MTB (a 1997 Nishiki Blazer. The brakes and shifters were still attached and I just had to run new cables. Now it's the "DropHopper".

You need to raise your lock game. I lost a bike to a bum with cable cutters in CO Springs last year. Get a cheap U-lock at the very least, or a heavy chain lock.

Happy bike to work day! A motorcycle is a bike right?
But really, I did bicycle to work this morning to honor bike to work day but had to ride home during lunch to swap out to the motorcycle as I'll be on a bit of a time crunch getting somewhere when I clock out.

Yesterday's commutes were unusual. As I said, classes for me are over for the semester. Yesterday's commutes were to and from a job interview. The interview included time for me to give a demo lesson to a class of students. I've been to several of these already, and until yesterday, I've fumbled the demo lesson. Well now maybe I have enough practice, and I'm getting the hang of it. I think it went great, and as I was leaving the classroom, one kid shouted out "good job" and the entire class applauded. I hope that means I impressed the hiring committee.

I wanted to make sure to be there on time and totally clean so I took the subway. I got off the subway and went to a Citi Bike station for no good reason. I passed a store that had fruits and vegetables on display on the sidewalk, and I would love to work in a neighborhood that has one of those. The Citi Bike station had only e-bikes except for one analog bike. The app told me that the bike I'm trying to check out is too far from me. GPS error? So I went to an e-bike, and the bike gave me the choice of full boost or low boost. With low boost, I don't get charged and the rental is included in my membership. Deal. The boost is just enough to compensate for the extra weight of the bike, and I think I'll be using this more from now on. It's getting hard to find analog bikes lately. This portion of the travel is just 0.4 miles, so there was really no need to cycle it. It helped me arrive early which never hurts.

Going back home, I took a subway line that lets me off a mile from home. I went to Citi Bike again, and this time, it didn't give me the low boost option. I think I get it only when there are no analog bikes available. OK, time for a small treat. It's not expensive, as the ride is short.

In the morning, I walked to the subway through my neighborhood. I saw someone dropped a mango into a tree pit. Ain't no mangoes fallin' off trees in Noo Yawk!



My subway ride was in Queens along a line I rarely take. I shot this looking out of the train. We are looking at the entrance ramp of the Triborough Bridge that spans among Queens, The Bronx, and Manhattan.



Heading home from the subway, here is a commercial ebike station at Astor Place (East 8 S near the Cooper Union). There are dropoff-pickup spots designated for various companies, and there is an area for people waiting to be dispatched. Delivery by bikes has always existed in the City but now it's big business. See the big box on the e-trike? Amazon says these are working very well. They also pull big cargo trailers.

Thanks for taking us along, Tom! Glad you nailed the teaching interview! I bet a big part of it is getting comfortable with the kids and being able to react quickly and well to their unpredictable antics?

I drove yesterday, thinking I had to pick up my daughter after work/school, but I didn't. Lost a commute there.

I took the folder today. There was a wonderful south wind that just blew me right in. I decided to go downtown for lunch today. Again, the south wind was great. It was 83° though, so coming back against that 22-30 mph wind was a sweaty & slow affair. So today, it'll be 4 miles commuting and 5.7 over lunch.

Tomorrow will be the first Saturday bike club ride I can make in awhile, but I need to save my legs for Sunday's Midwest Gravel Championships ride, where I plan to do the metric century (63 miles) on gravel roads in central IL. So I'll charge up an eBike tonight for tomorrow's 50-60 mile ride.

'Might take an eBike Monday night too for the club ride I lead, after burning up my legs Sunday.

Couldn't ride Tue, Wed, Thurs, but rode today. And I took my main commuter, the 2015 Charge Plug...my first commute since replacing the right brifter. It was a Shimano Claris 8-spped...now it's a Microshift 8. Besides the visual mismatch (the Microshift is chrome-plated, the Claris has a silver-gray finish) they operate differently. On the Claris the brake lever rotates to function as the upshift lever; the long plastic 'paddle' acts as the downshifter. On the Microshift the brake lever is just a brake lever and doesn't twist. The long 'paddle' downshifts and shorter 'paddle' upshifts although without seeing it, it feels and functions more like a button.

I tend to actuate the long 'paddles' with my middle finger, pressing inwnrd. And the Microshift's shor 'paddle'/button seems to fall under my index finger which requires just a minor squeeze, in contrast to the long travel of the long 'paddles', and also the pronounced rotation required of the brake levers on the Shimano Claris.

The Shimano Ultegra brifters on my 2006 Felt F65 work/twist in the same way as the Claris components, and my drop-bar Rockhopper setup (from my previous bike) is non-****/twist brake levers because that bike has bar-end shifters now.

While both brifters are convenient, and I'd be habby with both, I think I'd give a slight edge to the Microshift system. The upshifts are faster with less finger movement requires, and the brake levers feel more secure being non-twisters...at least to me.

All in all it was a great ride in. 48F to 51F with an unusually cold breeze. Wore shorts and a windbraker shell, plus longfingered gloves. I felt strong and well for the first time in 4 days. When I put the new brifter on I re-adjusted the brakes and derailler and the bike braked and shifted like new. And the mid-length wheelbase and relaxed geometry makes the bike just so composed, not fussy or twitchy like the other bikes...and fast, despite its slight heft.

The mismatched brifters feel the same while riding and my brain quickly adjusted to the two different shifting styles, although I now plan to replace the left shifter with the Microshift unit as well.

Regarding the mango that fell off somewhere I got a laugh out of that. In about 1975 when I was teaching maths for the Peace Corps in Ghana one of the “lorry parks” that I regularly used to wait for my ride was under a huge mango tree. Really huge. In season there were always a few of the local urchins hanging about hoping for a fresh mango. When one did fall there was a scramble for the prize. Thanks for the thought and best of luck with your new job.

No rides this week. Mon-Weds were a work trip. Weds night flights were late. Weds night ER visit for the chemo kid, who had a fever. We've done this before and expected three or five nights, so SWMBO had made a lot of arrangements in short order, including dropping off the other kids at a friend's for delivery to school Thursday morning. I told the branch head I was taking Thursday off. But the ER discharged us at 3am. Just viral, feed him more Tylenol. So the arrangements needed to be unarranged - which we decided we'd do after we three slept in. All back to normal by school home time. Today is merely my day off.

I'm 64 years old and have lived in NYC most of my life. (Birth to 26 and 52 to now.) And still, pretty much every day there are many things that make you go WHAT? or roll your eyes or burst out laughing. People here are not inhibited from deviating from the norm such that there seem to be few norms at all.

Pleasant ride home except for this:

(Near head-on because of using the wrong side of the roadway)

Yeah we have people who do that. In NYC, anything goes and it's a fairly lawless place. It's usually teenagers or young adults. Some don't know how stupid it is. They're just taking the shortest path for them. I think some are trouble makers who do it to see what happens. I had a gang of teenagers do that to me. Maybe they wanted me to curse them out or something. As I normally do, I just stopped dead because I can't predict their next move. I probably did give an angry stare, but that's all. He made eye contact briefly and then moved on.

The commute in this morning was a slow one, as my legs are tired from the 120 miles I rode this weekend:
How fer did you ride today?!

I took the eBike to rest the legs a bit, which was a good choice as the ride in was into a stiff 14 mph wind again. I'll go home to have lunch with my wife, then lead the club ride tonight (also on an eBike) Probably about 43 miles today then. (8 of them commuting)

Rain all day today; took the cage.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2025:

It rained all day yesterday, and looks like it's going to rain all day today. Not heavy, just a constant drizzle. That's exactly what a drought-riddled region needs, so no complaints here. Better to get the same amount of rain evenly spread over a 48 hour period than have it all come down in 20 minutes. It gives the ground a lot more time to soak up the moisture.

This morning the temp was 48°F. With the rain, I decided to wear my jacket, as it absorbs less water than a sweatshirt would. I still wore shorts though. My knees were pretty chilly by the time I arrived at work, I think because of the rain/wind combination.

The reason I wore shorts is that all my cycling pants reached end of life over the winter (I had to milk them the last month or so as the crotch was completely gone in them.) I haven't purchased replacements yet. I really liked the pants I had, but unfortunately they no longer make them. I'll have to do some research and see if I can find some comparable alternatives before the weather gets cold next fall.

They shut down a section of the MUP for repaving yesterday. The roads around area they shut down do not have a good infrastructure to support pedestrians/cyclists. The city decided because of this lack of infrastructure there was no safe detour around the area of the MUP being repaved, so they just closed the MUP without providing an alternative route.

I knew about the closure, so I designed my own detour. I got off the MUP about a mile before it was shut down. I had to ride about three blocks up a very busy road and through an interstate interchange, during which I exercised extreme care as there are rarely bicycles/pedestrians in this area so drivers aren't expecting to encounter them as they fly on and off the interstate ramps.

Once I made it through that intersection, I got onto a quiet back street and followed that for about a mile. This stretch wasn't bad at all. Then on the other side of that I had to ride another mile down a fairly busy artery until I met back up with the MUP on the other side of the construction. This will probably be my new route for most of the summer while the MUP is closed. It was do-able but I can see why the city wouldn't want to tell inexperienced cyclists, rollerbladers and moms with strollers to use this route while the MUP is shut down.

Got to work a bit wet and chilly, but safe. A co-worker who also normally rides was there at his desk, but his bike wasn't outside on the rack. It turns out he got about a mile from home and broke a chain. He turned around and was walking his bike back, when it occurred to him that his e-bike doesn't know that there wasn't a chain connecting the rear wheel. He got on and just spun the pedals freely, and that told the motor that he was pedaling and gave him enough boost to slowly ride back home. Then he caught a ride from his neighbor who works near our office.

I released my latest bicycle commuting video:

I'm riding the '77 Motobecane this week. Really enjoying it. It's a nice bike. Feeling strong lately. Well, stronger than the last year or so, anyhow.

I have been waking up very early, with the twilight. I don't know why. But I am thinking I can use it to my advantage. In past years we have had our kids at nearly full time summer camp. This year, for the first time, we are thinking they are ok to stay home and find their own entertainment. And we can save some dough. However, we still need to trade off responsibility. If I'm up just after five, I can take off for the office and be in by six something. I'd be matching schedule with my Central time coworkers. If I work thru lunch I can maybe justify not bringing the computer home for WFH. Then I can do something in the afternoon with the kids. That would persist for the flattest part of the sunrise-time curve, June and July.

The last day of school is Thursday, 5/29. The first day of school is August 7th. Also a Thursday, weirdly. My kids get two months plus a week. This sounds terrible but they also have a lot more days off. This year and next year with Easter being so late, they get President's Day turned into a week, which I've heard referred to as "Ski week." Not this year for us, maybe someday. Of course the ski resorts black out all their discounts.

sadly, last commute for a little while as we're off on holiday for a few weeks taking to the family to Maine. We're toying with the idea of passing down through the BosWash corridor to see the American sights as they're American citizens but haven't been much further south than Boston (Philly, NYC, Balt, DC, NOVA, Virgina, etc...) hopefully, the beaches would be a little warmer as well. German partner would also like to see some of the history surrounding the Plantation culture, which would be interesting for the family as well.

so, signing off for a little while last commute in a few hours, then flying out of London.

I remember those long summers when growing up in the states.

Here, we're shorter ... this year it's 3 JUL to 3 SEP ... so booking the school-aged daughter into sailing lessons for those weeks.

First commute in 3 weeks since the wrist injury. I don't have a computer mount on my 'new' road bike and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of segment PRs on the way to work Way back was even harder since I decided to 'chase' a small group, absolutely cooking my legs for 10 minutes before giving up and seeing them ride off into the sunset.

Late to work yesterday, but you all will understand. I took the new-to-me '97 Rockhopper. With the recent mod to drop bars the riding position was almost perfect. But a few blocks from the house I stopped to tweak the seat. In fact it took three such stops and then...darn near perfect.

I took a route home with two very steep hills and the incredibly low gears on this bike make them easy...slow...but easy. The higher gears are still up there with the road bikes.

Also, even though these are the same drop-bars and brake levers from the previous bike, the interrupter/secondary brake levers on the upper bars seem to work better. The old bike was modded to V-brakes, which the 'new' bike has, but I could never get the interrupters to grip as well. Either I got lucky when running new brake cables, or there is a slight difference in the V-brakes or maybe it's the rim. Don't know, but better brakes is a good feeling...and together with the seat adjustment, drop bars, gearing and lighter weight than the old MTB, I am still falling in love with this bike.