Rode the fixed gear today. I made sure I pumped up my tires nice and hard to avoid the problems I had last time I rode the fixie. I also took some advice from Read-It (BF censors the actual name of the site???) to unscrew the valve core, apply a bit of blue loc-tite and screw the core back in. That should help prevent the core from coming out next time I use a screw-on frame pump. I also know how to depressurize the pump hose before unscrewing it. All this would not be necessary if those stupid cores didn't come out.

I need to learn that if the needle on the thermometer on my house is pointing at a number less than 10C, I should wear long sleeves.

It's been a weird summer. There was an ad on the radio this morning for discount A/C installations due to supposed manufacturer overproduction.

I drove today. Needed gasoline for weekend RV trip.

Uneventful commute this morning on the eBike. I burned my legs up on last night's club ride, (42 miles) so I was glad to have the assistance this morning.

Going to ride home, get in the car and get my daughter 20 miles away, then come back and get on eBikes to come back to work around 5 for the company's big block party. So I'll end up with 8 miles on eBikes just for the 2 mile commute to work today.

Took the trail to trail route to avoid traffic...still encountered some congestion by Colorado College :

That's pretty sweet!

I didn't manage to snag the small 26er I was watching for my 11yo. I'm debating getting him an e-bike. This year is 5th grade and his ride to school is < half a mile - for the last time. Next year the middle school is not half a mile but more like three. He's the one who gripes the most he "has to" ride his bike to school. I might see if he can ride my wife's barely utilized but very good Gazelle e-bike. However it's a Dutch style bike, the total opposite of cool, and he gets hardly any other exercise. For moral and health reasons I'd really rather keep him under his own power.

A bus is available, but the nearest stop picks up at 7:15 and 7:22 for an 8:45 bell. He'd have to leave at 7 for a school day that wouldn't start til 8:45. He could walk the three miles sooner than that and he's not quick! Whoever designed these routes is a nut case, they do loopty loops all over town.

Well, I think you should keep him under his own power. For boys especially, it's important for them to burn off energy, so they can focus in class.

As for "having" to ride to school, he can have the option of the bus, but when he see that takes at least as long and involves a bunch of standing around, he may OPT to ride to school.

Easy one this morning. Gonna be hot in the afternoon.

We tried the 8yo girl on the 11yo's 24" bike and now it's all she can talk about. So they both definitely need to move up. Talked w SWMBO about giving her e-bike to him. She was 100% opposed! I was only about 50% so that's more than enough to swing it. Still, that doesn't mean he's in condition to make the ride next year. Soon as he has whatever new bike, I'm going to have to do some rides with him, to get him accustomed to the 3 mile distance and not thinking it's a grim slog to dread every day. Also going to need to paint the metallic green Cleary some magenta shade, or find another 24" disk frame to move over the components. The green metal flake paint on the Cleary was very attractive but not very good so it's all scuffed up anyhow. Maybe I can find something on Ali

It got down in to the 50s last night; 1st time we had to turn the heat on.

The ride in this morning was on the chilly side, but I wore a T-shirt under my button-up work shirt, so just my hands were a bit cold. No gloves yet.

I rode home for lunch too, so I'll have 8 miles of eBike commuting in before tonight's 35 mile club ride.

High temp here today is 71 °F. Light breeze, sunny. Just a perfect "fake fall" day.

My older commuter eBike (Aventon Level.2) is down waiting for a chain, which I discovered was stretched out yesterday; the .75 spacer fit right in, AFTER I'd cleaned the chain.

Bought new tires for the main commuter (2015 Charge Plug (not an e-bike)). With fenders the biggest that will fit is 700x35 (the tightest point is the rear tire behind the bottom bracket. For years I ran inexpensive but nice Metro STs from Performance Bicycle, buying them online after they closed their bricks-and-mortar stores, stocking up and saving the not-completely-used-up ones when they were no longer available. But finally, I am out.

I like light, smooth road tires with supple casings. I use tire liners for flat protection. I've tried heavier reinforced tires and they are a drudge to ride, dull, heavy and... just dull.

I used to like to go to the bike shops and feel the tires on the racks to find one that appealed to me but nowadays shops stock fewer tires. I bought some Bontrager 700x28s for my old Nishiki 12-speed that I like, and I was going to try to order them in the larger 700x35 size when I was at Walmart on Friday.

Walmart had these foldable 700x35 Blackburn road tires and one of the boxes had been open. I felt the tire. Despite the claim of being "reinforced" the sidewalls were fairly pliable, and the tread was not too stiff either. Although they had more tread than I wanted, there is a smooth center section and the sipes run mostly with the tire and looked like they wouldn't be an issue. And at just $24 each, they were a bargain.

I put them on Saturday and rode them around the block. I was worried because the max recommended pressure is 75, and I had been running the old bikes tires at 85psi for years. But the tires felt somewhat supple and very grippy. Cornering was much better than the tires they replaced, but those were old and worn out, even so, I don't remember them being this grippy when new. There was a pair of Kenda Quest smoothies I bought back in 2016 to replace the original Kenda Small Block 8 tires that had micro knobbies that disintegrated on pavement. The Kwests were grippy at first, but a little stiff and then not so grippy after a few months.

Yesterday I rode the new Blackburns to work and back and they are almost perfect (for me). The tread compound is unusually soft and grippy and the sidewalls softened up just a bit more. And they're quiet.

They just fit the bike with very little clearance, just like their predecessors.

I am very happy with them.

The commute itself was uneventful with both rides falling in between bouts of rain. Oh, and 79% humidity on the way home, in a city that averages 30% with 10 or 12% in the summer.

GTFOH and go away, you should see my power bill! hahaha.

At least this is still riding weather. Still an unusually mild summer for us, around 100 high and a couple of heat waves that approach 110 are typical most years

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2184:

The heat/humidity wave seems to finally have broken. On Friday the high temp was in the mid-70s, where it has remained ever since. The last two mornings the temp has been around 45°F, and I've actually been a little chilly in shorts on my rides to work. In five months that will seem like a beach-day temperature, but I haven't adjusted yet.

On my way across town at lunch I'm probably going to stop by a car dealership. The transmission in my wife's car has been showing signs that it is nearing end of life, so we've begun the process of shopping for a different car for her. I'm not sure it's worth putting a new transmission in a 10-year-old Nissan. At the same time, I loathe the whole decision making/negotiation process involved in buying another car. I wish God would give me a big, giant, flashing neon sign telling me what the right thing to do is.

I've thought about just biting the bullet and fixing her old car, but I'd still have a lot of miles surrounding a new transmission. Plus, even when new the Nissan CVT transmissions are a ticking time bomb. And my wife has gotten a jones about upgrading to a car with AWD. As she's gotten older she's getting more and more gun-shy about driving in snow.

I always find it amusing to come home in the winter and hear her complain about how bad the roads were on her commute, as I'm standing there wearing my cycling gear.

The supposed metrics are, does it cost more per year than payments? or is the price of the repair more than half the value? (The flaw hidden in that theory is, are you doing the labor? If you wouldn't, and someone else would, the car is still worth having - to them.)

The really irritating thing about cars right now is that the head unit gets obsolete too fast. My 2012 truck really can't quite handle Siri correctly and it predates Carplay and the Android equivalent. Unlike an old stereo, there's no real option to update it because it's so integrated. I wonder if this is leveling out, though. Smart phones have gone from ~2 year life to ~5 year life.

Her car is probably worth about $4k in good running condition. A replacement CVT is probably at least that much after installation (I'm not doing the labor.)

The flip side is cars have gotten so insanely expensive the last few years that I could sink a lot more money into her car than it's worth and still come out ahead versus buying a newer vehicle. But, she wouldn't have the AWD that she's really longing for, so I'm probably not going to fix it.

Not sure what to do with it though. I suppose it will have to go to the junkyard, as I can't in good conscious sell it to someone with a failing transmission. Maybe I can find someone in dire need of transportation and just give it to them, with the understanding that it may continue to limp along for quite a while, or it may fail completely tomorrow. It mostly starts to slip at speeds above 60 mph, so it may continue to run around town for a fair amount of time. But I don't know for sure.

It's also a different proposition for you up there in the salted North. Down here you'd be astonished how much older the average cars can get, since they don't rust at all. I'm fighting leaks on my pickup but there's no worry it's just going to break in half one day

We're having unseasonably cool weather in my area right now (midsouth, USA), with some rain that is much needed. Nice commute today.

I joined nearly 4,000 new teachers in the Barclays Stadium in Brooklyn. The NYC school system has something like 1,800 schools and nearly 1,000,000 students. Among the students, there are 200 languages spoken. We had a giant pep talk. I report to my school tomorrow.

The commute today was similar to what my commute will be. The stadium is just a little farther than the school along the same route. I went over the Manhattan Bridge. I also happened to pass the school where I was this summer, in Manhattan's Chinatown, so that was fun.

I wore my backpack and rode my fixie. We each got a big tote bag full of swag, and my backpack didn't have room, so I slung the bag over my handlebar and rode home slowly and gingerly like a Chinese food deliverista.

Here I am as a newly minted teacher.

To stay on-topic, my commute this morning was uneventful. The usual 2 mile eBike commute. HOWEVER, I fully charged the Vektron S10 last night in anticipation of taking it on the club ride I'm leading tonight because I'm going to haul my cordless shop vac on the rack to vacuum up some broken glass at one intersection we ride through. It's a miracle that no one has flatted here, with all the auto glass around.
***************
Congrats Tom on the teaching position you've been working so hard for these last several years.
*****************
Tundra Man, re. the AWD thing, I have some recent experience:

• Prior to a couple years ago, I'd had nothing but FWD cars with all season tires. Did OK except for the OEM tires on my '98 Civic, which were super-hard Firestones I was trying to wear out.
• A couple years ago, I bought a Subaru WRX, (AWD) which came on summer tires. I was obligated to either buy all seasons for the winter or for all season, or winter tires. I bought a set of spare tire wheels (cheap stamped steel ones) and a set of winter tires. Oh my goodness was that car a treat to drive in the snow! Having the winter tires mounted on separate wheels meant I could change them at home, and after a couple years, the wheels would pay for themselves in the form of saved cost having the shop swap tires twice a year. The summer tires were better in warmer weather than all seasons, but not as much better as winters are in the winter.
• Due to the really stiff ride and lack of cargo flexibility, I traded the WRX in on my current CR-V (AWD). It came on all seasons and I've been through a winter on them. They're nowhere NEAR as good as winter tires in the snow and cold rain.

The thing most people don't think about AWD until they get it is that it helps a LOT in acceleration in slick conditions, and a little in cornering, but not at all in braking. Since braking & cornering are the safety issues, it makes more sense to go to winter tires on FWD than all seasons with AWD. (if you can only have one)

It sounds like you have the opportunity to get AWD, but a set of winter tires on a cheap 2nd set of wheels will make all the difference for her. The only thing to watch for is that then, she will have the best tires on the road, so may want to be careful with braking, so as not to be rear-ended by The Other Guy! Only brake as hard as she needs to.

Brand-wise, Nissan has been decided 2nd tier in recent years. They used to be very reliable except that they rusted out easily. Stick with the other big Japanese brands: Toyota, Honda, Mazda or Subaru. Since you're buying used, maybe eliminate Subaru, as they tend to get head gasket problems at around 140k miles. Mazda are a bit "nicer" than Toyota and Honda, since they don't have a luxury brand to fall back on for the high end stuff; they have to split the difference with one brand. I test drove a bunch of these in the last couple years. Here's my quick analyses:

• 2024 Honda CR-V: Nice build, lots of space. The base 1.6L turbo engine is wimpy. I spent a bunch more for the hybrid. 2023 is the new model. A road or gravel bike will fit in the back with both wheels on and just a slight turn of the front wheel.
• 2025 Honda HR-V: Nice build, less space. The base 2 L engine is kind of wimpy. My wife bought one a couple months ago to replace her Subaru Crosstrek Sport, which was totaled in a crash. Handles really well. I think 2023 was the new model that is roomier.
• 2022 Subaru Crosstrek Sport: Great car for the 60k miles we had it. The Sport model has a 2.5 L engine which is powerful. Much quicker than my CR-V Sport, but not WRX level. A bit more roomy than the HR-V and a softer ride, but it didn't handle as well. Very reliable. Super-easy oil changes, with the oil filter right on the top. These are big sellers in the north of USA and in Canada, so there are a lot of good winter options: battery heater, oil pan heater.
• 2025 Toyota Corolla Cross: We test drove the conventional one, but wanted a hybrid. You can't really get the hybrids now unless you're willing to grab your ankles, as they have no competition in compact crossovers at the moment. This would've been our #1 choice. Interior is a bit more boring and handling wasn't as good as the HR-V. Nothing wrong with it, it just didn't feel as modern.
• 2025 Mazda CX-50: Not a very good ride, but it's not on account of being sporty, but having torsion beam rear suspension. I really wanted the Turbo version of this, but the far superior fuel economy, better ride and comparable handling on the CR-V Sport won me over.
• 2025 Mazda CX-5: A really nice car. No weaknesses. Starting to feel a bit old. Smaller than the CR-V, bigger than the HR-V. I almost bought the Turbo version of this. But again the CR-V Sport handles just as well, has more room and is much more fuel efficient. (I get 48 mpg around the suburbs in mine)
• 2025 Mazda CX-30: Really nice. My wife almost went with this instead of the HR-V. It's notably quicker, even with the base engine, Tight handling and just a bit "nicer". It's unapologetically small inside though, it's a jacked-up subcompact hatchback. You'd definitely need to take the front wheel off a bike to get it in the back.
• We didn't get to Nissan. Don't trust Mitsubishi; they don't have a great reputation.

Consecutive bicycle work commute number 2185:

When I got out of bed it was raining. That was not expected. I had packed the night before for the road bike. So I snuck back into the bedroom (wife still asleep) and grabbed my pannier so I could take the hybrid with fenders.

By the time I got ready to head out the door, it had stopped raining and the sun was coming out. The roads were still wet, but it appeared that the rest of the day would be rain-free. I really wasn't in the mood to ride the slower hybrid bike. So I left everything in my backpack and took the road bike and just dealt with the spray from the wet pavement.

Outside of the spray, it was a very nice morning. 63°F with a very light breeze. I didn't set any speed records and just leisurely pedaled along, trying to minimize the amount of water kicked up by the tires.

Regarding the saga on my wife's car: She has decided that she wants a Subaru Crosstrek. There is a used one in particular that she drove and really likes, but the car lot won't budge on the price. In our area, other used Crosstreks are in a similar price range unless we move beyond the acceptable mileage/age threshold we have set. Then I noticed that for just $2k more than the used cars are selling for I could get a brand new one. Current model year, full warranty and 2% financing. That's tempting. Plus, out of all the salespeople we've talked to, the guy at the Subaru dealership was by far the most palatable to work with.

No final decisions have been made yet, but it does look like a brand new car is likely in our future. I usually like to buy used due to the depreciation hit once you drive it off the lot, but at least in our area it looks like that depreciation hit is pretty minor for Subarus. We tend to keep cars until they're worn out, so resale value isn't a huge concern anyway.

Cool, still air, but a hot sun. Gonna be a warm one for the commute home (about 33C/91F).

They say every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Or, what goes around comes around. Or, Karma's a *****. This morning, I yelled at a driver who made a late left turn in front of me when I had the right of way and had to slow down. A little down the road, I started changing lanes to right in front of a faster moving vehicle I failed to notice (I swerved back to avoid being hit).

Have a great day, everyone.

Well I put my thoughts on my Subarus in the other recent thread

Repeat of yesterday, except that I forgot something at home that, thankfully, I remembered when I was still fairly close to home, so I turned around to fetch it. Got in a couple extra kilometers, anyway.

My chain fell off on the way home Wednesday afternoon and again yesterday (Thursday) on the way to work. On a fixed gear bike, this is a problem. I've misplaced the wrench I use on the axle nuts so I can't move or remove the wheel. I managed to get the chain back on both times.

In recent years, I've become a weaker rider. I used to pass most people. Now most people pass me. I had to learn to accept this and not be so competitive in my mind. Yesterday I got an ego boost. A very fit looking rider wearing cycling clothes was on a high end road bike. I followed him to learn a clever path onto the Manhattan Bridge, and that was useful since I don't know that neighborhood well yet. At the beginning of the climb of the bridge, I passed him. I saw in my rear view mirror that I was continuously increasing the distance between us. He's young, and I'm old. Now this does not necessarily mean I'm a stronger climber. He could have been at the end of a very vigorous ride and needed to rest. On the other hand, on a fixed gear bike, I can't rest going up hills. I have to ride at a minimum speed or I'll stall. Still, it's nice to know that I have at least some strengths.

My spouse is out of town. After work, I rode up to visit her mother who is in an old folks' facility. That added several miles for me. Mother in law was in a bad state. She kept asking where she was. I kept telling her this is home. "This is home? I live here?" I have to keep a cheerful voice while explaining things to her. And she asks the same questions repeatedly. I had to spoon feed her soup to her, but then I told her to eat the rest of her dinner using her own fork. For me, this is progress because when my mother had dementia (before her death), I was emotionally unable to spoon feed her.

It started raining on the ride home, which I expected and was prepared for...but then the skies opened up in a big way.

I had my backpack and phone covered and my rain cape/poncho at the ready. I had decided to take the shortest route home (5.8 miles) which goes through Colorado College. A mile into my ride I stopped and donned my rain cape as the light drizzle welled into rain. I knew a couple of good covered spaces at the college in case the rain grew into a storm. But at the Mesa Road bridge over fountain Creek there was police tape at both ends including the sidewalk and police cars with their lights on, so I hopped on the Greenway trail. A few hundred yards ahead the trail ducks under Uintah Street. I usually take advantage of the dip and fly under at 25mph, but in the few hundred yards the wind kicked up something fierce and the rain was the heaviest I've biked through in a long time.

There were already a couple of homeless people with their bike trailers and belongings on the generous shoulder under the bridge. The creek was full and racing and roaring louder than I can remember. Then a runner came through, drenched, but not stopping. Then a cyclist in lycra on a fenderless, double-sprung mountain bike with knobbies came blazing down towards us and hit the brakes which squealed and bellowed like an old furniture truck. I saw a couple of more cyclists stop underneath across the creek on the side that's not paved. Then a couple of more double-sprung cyclists in race gear stopped and joined the first one. I saw now they had name placards pinned to their jerseys and one said coach. Then another race clad off-roader shot through the underpass like the Amtrak express through Princeton Junction.

The surprisingly cold wind kicked into overdrive rocking my bike and pressing insistently against my rain poncho. Looking out from under the bridge the rain was coming down in sheets...and then relented. The name-tagged mountain bikers took off into the still considerable rain. One towards where they were headed, two back from where they came. I started off back home, the rain cape keeping me dry, but the rain was quickly dissipating.

There were quite a few places with standing water. On my other routes I could anticipate most of these, but why were all of these flooded areas a surprise? I just realized this morning it's because this portion of the trail has only been paved less than a year, and in the past, if rain was possible I avoided the trail.

The long fenders let me glide through the 'water hazards' and the cape kept me dry until a couple of miles from home when it was no longer needed. Three blocks from the house there were more police lights, and the final long downhill street was closed off. I took the sidewalk. A few of the homes have tall bushes and shrubs that intrude over the edges of the pavement...I felt like a car going through the vertical rollers in a car wash. At the bottom of the hill by the grade school an SUV was being loaded onto a flatbed...the SUV looked as if it had rolled and people were standing around looking upset.

I turned and pedaled up our street to complete my ride home.

It's cooling off finally, so I took a muggle bike into work this morning. I will likely go home for lunch today, so I'll get 8 miles of Zone 2 riding in today on a rest day. That'll be it for my commuting week, but I may get a utility ride in here and there.

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

I have one bike that needs me to carry a wrench for axle nuts. Luckily, this bike came with the right size combo wrench. I cut off the open end and cleaned up the edges and now it just fits in my seat pack. Being an NYC commuter, you probably have some other bag you'd carry it in, but that's my hack for carrying an axle nut wrench.

Yeah, that does feel good. :-) I think you'll find you get a bot stronger again, since your commute just doubled.

I'm about to get into this too. My mom has Alzheimer's and is less functional day by day. My brother (bipolar) lives with her and takes care of her, but also depends on her income. She's ready to move into a senior community, but my brother is obstructing that and trying to get PoA/guardianship. I'm gonna have to spend a bunch of money I don't have to lawyer up and fight him for it. :-(

Here's the vid from yesterday's rainy ride...stayed dry!