It rained all day yesterday, so I didn't ride.

Today, we never have less than a 20% chance of rain and it was raining lightly this morning, but I was about coming out of my skin after not riding yesterday, so I put on my rain jacket and rode the folder in anyway. I see now that it's about 50% chance of rain when I'll be leaving work, let's see how Mother Nature treats me.

I canceled the bike club ride tonight because of the weather, so these will probably be my only miles and it'll be an unwanted recovery day.

Yesterday's commutes were very uneventful, and I see that as a good thing. The ride into class, along the river, was far windier than the weather app indicated. That happens a lot when I ride on the river. I couldn't even tell the wind direction! But I'm not complaining.

acidfast7_2 in the unlikely event you find yourself in NYC or the mid-Hudson Valley, look me up. I can give you and your family a really nice tour.

Yesterday, I had my weather app still set to the place I rode on Sunday, so got the wrong forecast. It showed 20-50% chance of rain all day, but what WE got was 100% rain all day.

I had my rain jacket and was glad to get some kind of ride in. Just 4 miles of commuting on the folder.

No riding today; I have to leave work early to deliver a big, heavy package of samples to one of our vendors 40 miles away. Then, pick up my daughter on the way back, and hopefully get to trivia night at the pub in time to be useful to my team.

On the bright side though, I'm taking the Miata, so that's always fun.

But not as much fun as a Miyata.

I had one of those "What the heck was I thinking?" moments this morning after leaving for work on the 1989 Dahon Getaway 16" folder/project bike. The ride motions are often random and bizarre, but on a good day they are reasonably muted with periods of normalcy when riding straight on smooth pavement.

But this morning the bike motions were extra random and bizarre. In addition to the regular irregular wobbles there was a up and down bouncy motion to the rear. It felt like the rear tire was low, but I had pinch-tested the tires before leaving. Could the spokes be loose again, as they were when I bought the thing of FB Marketplace for $50? Could the frame be coming apart as did the frame on my beloved '97 NIshiki Blazer late last fall?
The longer I puzzled over it the more committed I became to the commute. Finally I just rode on and focused on what felt right: The brakes, the gears and shifter, the seat and the new bottom bracket.

When I reached the office I put the floor pump on the rear tire...40psi...down from 65. The 16 x 1.38 Schwalbe Marathon Racers have a max psi of 85psi (if I remember) but the ancient steel wheels can't hold 'em over 75. I run them at 65 which is firm enough.

I aired them up and on the ride home the ride motions were back to their normal weirdness. I had a strong tailwind for the first half of the paved commute and I carried a lot of speed through corners being careful to not overrsteer. Then opted for a couple miles of gravel.

After rotating through all my "regular bikes" and the 20" folder which rides and feels "normal", the 16" Getaway makes me wonder what was I thinking buying and rehabbing this bizzare lawn gnome of a bike?

It sounds like it might have mistaken steering geometry. There’s nothing magical about steering, after all Razor scooters and choppers both go down the street, but some weird things can happen

Bobby, you should get rid of that thing before it hurts you. Admit that it wasn't your best project and move on.

Also, you've got the seat cranked way forward, which puts a lot of weight on your hands, which then (apparently) requires the use of pipe insulation to keep your hands awake. Strip it for parts and recycle it.

****************

Yesterday: Although I didn't get to bike commute to work, I did get commute downtown on it yesterday evening for Trivia Night at the Public Brewing Co. We felt like we did OK, but we didn't, we got 9th. I think the teeny-boppers were cheating on their phones. Anyway, I "won" the commute; got a solid 9 miles and change on the ZiZZO Forte folder.

Today: I had decision paralysis in the garage this morning. "Do I want to take the Forte again, as I like its upright riding position, or do I get some speed and grab the gravel bike?" I wound up taking the gravel bike, and once again, it is 2 mph faster, on average, than the folder with the same effort. I don't really like its geometry though. Even with a higher stem, it makes my neck hurt no matter what I do. I guess I should get a stem with even more rise, and if that doesn't help, sell the bike. My Domane road bike LOOKS racier, but is somehow more comfortable. It has more stack built into the frame via its sloped top tube.

Dawn patrol today, but for a meeting that did not happen due to tech support issues. Felt pretty salty about it and hope my wife is doing ok getting up the kids

I am thinking again about your Dehon. The brace on the mast gives it a very straight head angle. It almost looks like the contact patch is ahead of the steering axis. That is, negative trail. Or at least very little. Looking at other 16ers they have a normal head tube angle and the handlebar mast is angled above it. Have you ever considered turning the fork around? It's a common joke about Walmart bikes but it works ok because it increases trail. Then it would kind of resemble scooter steering. It might give you too much trail, but it may be better than negative.

Obviously this is crude but you can see what I mean

Five laps for me this week. Last week, none. The week before, five. I think. I need to catch up my mileage thread entry

Darth Lefty The pin you drew through is just the mast lock. The steering axis is through the front yellow head tube.
The weird motions are due in part to the hinges which loosen a little over time and need re-tightening, and the mast hinge, which is the hollow tube below the saddle bag below the water bottle. I have used a tapped a large awl in at both sides which seems to tighten that up for a while as well. The longish bolt and nut I use to fasten the top of the steering mast actually threads into the chrome mast and holds the mast tighter than the original part. Also the slight flexing of the long steel seat mast adds drama, but not as much as the long one-piece aluminum seatpost on my 20" folder. That has a newer one-piece steering mast which has very minimal deflection when properly tightened. You can see my previous posts on the yellow Getaway in the folding bikes section by googling "bikeforums bobbyg getaway"

@Smaug1 I appreciate your concern for my hands, but padding my bars goes back 20 years to my early 40s when I developed tender "crampy" hands. I think some of it had to do with an over-zealous prescription of statins from a former doctor. My hands are a little better now, but still get a little tender now matter which of my six bikes I ride. Occasionally I try to adjust and ride one of the bikes without the padding, but more than 20 minutes is all I can take. Also batting and catching softballs aggravates my hands. I have, however been able to reduce the padding on my seats in the last 7 years.

Also, on this bike I tend to ride with my palms resting on the hinge of the brake levers which are not padded and are very comfortable. (Google "bikeforums BobbyG crampy hands").

I thought so at first but then thought, no way, it has to steer on that bolt. Because with the steering axis here it's so much worse. Fork rake reduces trail but not below zero. How does it work at all with this much negative trail? Can you ride hands off at all or does it swap ends?

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2129:

Went to bed last night with today's forecast stating a 40% chance of rain in the morning. Waffled on the risk of taking the road bike vs the hybrid with fenders, but finally decided to be safe and packed for the hybrid.

When I woke up, that 40% chance of rain had become a 100% chance of rain. I opened the garage door to wheel the bike out right as the rain really started to pour. I decided to go back inside the house and wait a few minutes hoping the rain let up a bit. After about ten minutes the rain had backed off to more reasonable steady amount. And thankfully the wind was light and the temp was 53°F so these elements weren't a major factor on top of the rain.

Started riding down the street and realized I had left my GoPro sitting on the kitchen counter. I had locked all the doors to the house and was too lazy to turn around and get it, so I rode without any video. Then, a couple miles from home I realized I had forgotten to take my morning heart meds. I hate it when I do that. Messing up my med schedule tends to throw my digestive system all out of whack for a couple of days. I think the weather was consuming my thoughts this morning and threw my routine out of whack.

The MUP closure means a little before the halfway point to work I have to leave the MUP and ride on the roads the rest of the way. There are a few spots where I have no option but to ride on busy streets. In today's rain drivers must have felt sympathy for me because they seemed to offer me a lot more grace than normal.

Got to work pretty wet and a bit chilly, but safe. Then they brought in huge pans full of cinnamon rolls to celebrate the first day of the summer interns, so once I showered and dried off I could enjoy a treat.

I keep a stash of meds in my laptop bag so I always have a backup for rides or work trips if I forget. Not a lot, half a dozen tops. Over the years since Camzyos started I have built up more than a month backlog from days I forgot. Camzyos is a new boutique med that costs a lot and requires frequent echoes. If you are taking basic heart pills that don't need such a fuss from insurance and doctors, you can probably just ask for an extra bottle. Metoprolol used to be one of the $4 scrips at Walmart. No heart pills plus rich extra food would be an awful afternoon for me...

Balky rear wheel on the c-3po bike again this morning. This time looks like maybe the brake piston is sticking but I didn't fully investigate yet. I so rarely have trouble with brakes I kind of forget to think of them when troubleshooting

Yeah, keeping an extra dose or two of my morning meds at my desk would probably be a good idea. I think I'm going to take your suggestion.

My morning meds are pretty mild as far as heart meds go: metoprolol and amlodipine. When I first went on them my innards revolted for a while until my body figured out how to handle them. Now if I miss a dose my body revolts in the same way for a day or two.

Anticipated a rainy ride home yesterday, so I wanted to take one of my fendered bikes. There was a possibility I'd have to rendez Vous with my wife and drive her home so it would be one of the two folding bikes I had just spent the day before updating the brake levers, shifter and cabling on the 16" Dahon Getaway but decided on the 20" Dahon Boardwalk since it also has a rack.

It was a beautiful, cool crisp almost sunny ride in to the office. I took the shortest route...5.8 miles on smaller streets through downtown.

It began raining after 10am and on through the afternoon. The appointment never materialized and I got ready to leave at 5p. Before changing into my bike clothes I poked my head outside and it was raining. I unpacked my rain poncho/cape, bagged my backpack and phone and headed outside...

,,,it had stopped raining.

I rode halfway home in my rain gear just in case, but then took it off, but kept it outside the backpack for quick access.

But by the time I rolled up my driveway it was sunny with birds chirping.

Yesterday (Wednesday), the weather forecast said rain from 3pm through the night and into morning. It looked like it might be heavy. I took an e-bike from Citi Bike -- I call it Cit-E-Bike) to the college so I could come back on the subway if I chose. I went to attend the the graduation ceremony my cohort were in. I am staying in the program for one more semester because I have one more course to take (Practicum). It was joyous to hear their names and to see them walk across the stage. There were some nice speeches. When we were all let out onto the street, it was raining very lightly. I only found two of my classmates (of about 20) but oh well. I was able to hug them and chat briefly.

I did end up taking the subway back. Maybe it would not have been miserable if I had ridden but what the heck. Actually, I took a subway down to Union Square and shopped a bit at Whole Foods. I took a crosstown bus the rest of the way.

I looked at my GPS tracks from my ride. My heart rate did vary on that ride similarly to how it does on an acoustic bike but with lower highs. Interesting. My travel time was cut short by only a minute or two which doesn't surprise me.

Yesterday's forecast called for rain between 9a and 4p, so to be safe I took my main commuter, the 2015 Charge Plug which has fenders and a back rack. I took my main commute pack which has my rain poncho/cape and pack bag.

The 7:30a ride in was in a cool mist under overcast skies, about 48F.

As predicted it rained from 9 to 4 with sunny skies as I prepared to leave at 5p.

But as soon as I wheeled out the door it became overcast with a cool mist, around 50F. It's dry enough here in Colorado Springs that when there's a light a mist or light drizzle you often stay dry. In fact, I kept my rain gear and wind-breaker in the back pack and even though droplets would occasionally collect on my glasses, I stayed dry-ish. A few minutes from the house, stopped at a long light, the rain gathered heft and began to make my jersey and pants damp. But a couple of minutes later it eased up and I dried out again.

And then two blocks from the house I had an urgent need to relieve my bladder. There are no alleys in my immediate neighborhood, but there was an island in a cul-de-sac with a small alcove of bushes. So there I was ensconced and hidden up to my arm-pits, with my hi-viz orange shoulders and helmet blinkies poking out, with my bike and it's flashers out at the curb. Even though I was in and out in under a minute a home owner poked his head out from the far end of the circle and yelled "Stop it!"as I was already exiting the bushes. I yelled, "Sorry, emergency!" and sped off the last two blocks to the house.

I can relate. I've been seeing a urologist and a nephrologist for my old man problems. I'm actually making progress. The urologist said that counterintuitively, drinking more water can help with the urgency and frequency problems. It took a while to learn to drink more every day, but yes, he's right. I learned I can keep drinking throughout the day by adding some oolong tea to my water. I don't mind that it's very diluted.

Yesterday I went to a seminar at Brooklyn College (BC). BC is fairly far from me. I looked at my options. Going by subway takes about an hour. Riding a bike takes the same. Taking my own bike involved some risk since I don't know the neighborhood (Flatbush) very well. Combining that risk with the forecast for rain, the subway made the best choice for getting there. That went fine.

The seminar ended up being targeted to an audience that I am not part of, and I knew there was that risk. It's OK because I have a bunch of reading and writing to do, and I can do that anywhere, so I visited a local coffee shop and a local library. I got to soak in the culture of that neighborhood.

In the evening, my spouse and I were attending a concert, also in Brooklyn. I decided to get there by Citi Bike, but there are no Citi Bike stations near Brooklyn College! I ended up walking a lot to get to the nearest Citi Bike station. Most of Flatbush appears to be very poor. A sign of that is an abundance of storefront churches.

The Citi Bike station was near Prospect Park, one of NYC's iconic parks well known for many things, including riding bikes. I don't get there often, so I felt lucky. At the end of my journey, the northern end of Prospect Park, is the central Brooklyn Public Library. What an impressive building! We don't make 'em like that anymore.

I met up with my spouse, and following our plan, we met up with some protestors at Grand Army Plaza and held up protest signs for the passers by to see. We got a lot of smiles, waves, and honks, and some stopped to chat or take pictures.

We were in the Park Slope neighborhood, lovely and a bit posh. That's where the concert venue was, a place called Shapeshifter Lab.

We got home by subway, another reason it's good I didn't take my own bike. Bike shares are great because once you dock a bike, you leave it forever. I've taken my bike on the subway to be with the person I'm with, but it's really annoying.

Consecutive bicycle work commutes number 2131 and 2132:

Yesterday was not the day I was planning to have. Our well pump died a while ago. Our house also has city water, so the well water is mostly used for irrigation (lawn and my wife's prized garden.) Earlier this spring I had contacted the well guy to come and replace the pump. He is pretty much the only well guy in this area, so consequently he is very busy. He put me on his list. The weather and higher priority projects kept bumping me further down his list.

I hadn't heard from him in about three weeks until yesterday. I was about to leave the house to ride to a client when he called me at 7 AM. He was available to come fix my well pump, and would be there at 8 AM. Knowing that these projects rarely go as smooth as they should, I realized that I would be unexpectedly working from home for at least part of the day, if not the whole day. However, according to "the rules" that I have set for myself, I can't use working from home as an excuse to get out of a bicycle commute.

By the time I informed my wife of what was going on, I had less than an 45 minutes until the well guy would arrive. So I hopped on my bike and rode the 4.5 miles to the client's office, then turned around and immediately rode back home. Because I wasn't staying, I left my backpack with my work clothes and supplies at home. It had been a while since I had ridden the road bike without wearing a heavy backpack. I probably gained about 1 mph average speed. I felt like a wild man.

The well guy arrived, and par for the course ran into issues. The well pump had been in place for more than 40 years, and in that time the metal cap had solidly rusted to the cast iron pipe. The two pieces were now one. The crane he brought which was capable of lifting 20 tons was unable to budge the well cap. So that meant excavation. He had to bring in a backhoe and dig down 8 feet below the cap and cut through the cast iron pipe to pull the old well pump out, then repair everything he had cut apart. It also came with the consequence of tripling the price of the well pump replacement. Needless to say, I wound up staying at home all day and working between visits out to the work site to monitor progress.





This morning I was scheduled to ride to our company office for the day. The only problem is that on Wednesday evening I had left my laptop in the desk at the client from which I thought I would be working on Thursday. I needed my laptop to work at our office. So, I got up extra early and rode to the client to retrieve my laptop. Then from there I rode to our company office. All said and done, by the time I got to the office I had ridden a little more than 20 miles. That's the most I've ridden in one shot in quite a while. I regularly log days of 20+ miles, but usually the miles are broken up into shorter trips spread throughout the day.

The weather this morning was beautiful. Mostly sunny, light breeze and 52°F. And because of my modified commute I was able to ride a route I hadn't taken in a couple years, so that was nice.

That time a year again! My annual 6 mile trek to drop off yard clippings at Rocky Top Recyclers.

This was the first year with the 1997 Specialized RockHopper Which replaces my 1997 Nishiki Blazer (of blessed memory).

I believe I had 80 pounds of branches and leaves this year...five more than last year. But the RockHopper is 5 pounds lighter than the Blazer so I guess it all evens out. When I first got the RockHopper it was much lighter than the Blazer... but after adding fenders backrack folding baskets lights and big tires it's just 5 pounds. Well it feels a lot lighter, probably because the drive train has been refurbished. Also the brakes were noticeably stronger than the old bike.

The trailer is 30 pounds. The bike is 43 pounds. In my bike clothes with my helmet I am a 192 pounds. Add 80lbs of clippings and I think the total rolling weight was about 350lbs. Of course it was almost 80 pounds later on the way home.

While the Rockhopper is practically identical to the bike it replaces. The distance from the seat to the handlebars is an inch or 2 longer which is perfect... so I was very comfortable. Also the rock hopper has an even lower gear range So pedaling all that weight up some of the hills here in Colorado Springs was even easier than years past.

BobbyG do you know that facebook group called carrypoop olympics except that poop is substituted with the more common and slightly obscener word? I recommend it, and you could enter your pictures there just for fun.

LINK

Just returned to England and it's great weather.

We ended up not traveling outside of northern New England as the weather was stellar and it was beach weather

Tons of stuff for the kiddos on the southern Maine beaches )))))))

Took my main commuter, the befendered and racked Charge Plug in anticipation of a rainy ride home. I rode the longer MUP to MUP route which was fast and relaxing.

There is one "blind" underpass on the new connection section. It's a 20 to 25 foot section with a pair of 45 degree kinks at each end obscuring the small, narrow underpass section with a wall on one side and a fence on the other. Since it runs under a roadway it has become a favorite hangout for the un-housed. When it first opened I began slowing and honking my horn to alert any oncoming cyclists, but now it seems like more often than not I encounter back-packs, lawn chairs, sleeping bags and people sitting, laying or standing on the narrow pavement. I just worry about what will happen when less cautious cyclists, scooter-riders or one-wheel enthusiasts encounter the desperate shelter-seekers who lack the foresight as to why a blind curve makes for a dangerous roost.

It began raining at lunch and was still coming down at 4:45p, so I bagged my backpack and phone and donned my rain cape/poncho. But as soon as I started pedaling the rain began to stop, and once again I stopped halfway home to take off the rain gear. I took a shorter surface street route with little traffic.

But while it was drizzling the cape/poncho kept me dry, and the open bottom kept me cool.

I used to regularly commute from about 2008 to 2016, but in the last 9 years I've only taken my bike for sporadic leisure rides. Back then, I was in my 40's to early 50's and my trip each way was 8-9 miles which I did 3-4 times a week. I took an early retirement from my long-time career employer and found a job with an employer clear on the other side of town, so I figured bike commuting was a thing of the past for this old guy.

Fast forward to my early 60's, about 50 lbs. heavier, and I got this dumb idea in my head to try and bike commute again. I knew that there were a couple of rail trails that linked up and went more or less near both my house and my office, which is about a 26 mile drive in the iron cage. But when I studied the map in detail, I realized that i could ride about 21 miles of suburban rail trail out of a total 25.4 mile bike trip. Just to add a little sugar on top, the trail can be accessed on either end of my commute by some pretty nice local bike paths. So, I threw my bike rack on my wife's car and loaded my old trusty commuter bike onto it and had my wife drive me to work this morning so I could try out the ride home.

Let's just saying I'm feeling it, and not in a good way!