Like the others in the Northeast, pleasant weather, mid 70s, nice and dry with a bit of a breeze on the ride in this AM. Unfortunately the ride wasn't without it's difficulties... about 3 pedal strokes from home my chain failed when a link shattered. That chain was probably OEM from the mid 90s and was in rough shape with tight links and some rust. Turned around, walked home, put the bike up on the repair stand and threaded an old chain onto the drivetrain. Got back on the road after about 10 minutes. A couple minutes later, I was accelerating through a fairly busy intersection and a heel strike knocked my pannier (BTW, I hate the Trek grocery panniers, had this issue before) off the read rack. Some of the contents spilled onto the roadway so I pulled over and retrieved the pannier and contents which had been kindly avoided by motorists. I repacked the contents and reattached the pannier, made the intersection crossing as a pedestrian and got back underway. A short time later I was accelerating again and nudged the pannier causing one of the hooks to come off the rack and the backing to rub against the rear wheel. I pulled over and reattached the pannier once again and was off. At this point I felt kinda cursed (full moon?) so I rode slowly and deliberately the rest of the way to work. The panniers will be empty on the way home, so hopefully I'll avoid any more issues.

57F and very sunny. Ahhhh....

Friday's commute home in the 97 degree heat was tough, I felt pretty good until stopping to change the 2nd flat for the week. It is hard to get going again when it is this hot.

Wonderful ride into work today, despite the new shoes. Back in the 90's, when I bought my Specialized Ground Control shoes, there was a mix-up, and I ended up with 2 pairs. So this morning I put the new cleats, that came with the recently installed Wellgo dual sided pedals, on the BRAND NEW 12 year old shoes. They are a little tight around the toe area, but the new cleats work great! My old pedals were Ritcheys, but I never realized how different the cleats were until I compared them.

Anyway, I had temps in the upper 60s, no run-ins with idiot drivers, lots of pretty wildflowers, and got to chat with another cyclist at a stop light.

A great way to start the day!


Nice find! That's the sort of deal I've been keeping eye out for, but no luck yet.

Thanks

Not the strongest endorsement for those panniers. Would you say they should be avoided?

At least the ones I have, they are a couple years old, not really used all that much, but they were the best tool available to me to carry the stuff to work that I wanted to carry on this particular bike with this particular rack. I may try bending the hooks a bit more severely so they are less likeey to jump off, but I'm not sure that would fix them completely.

What a lovely day. Cool, breezy, bright blue skies. Life is good.

I took a new long way home from work for the first time. 8.8 miles instead of 5.1 through some country roads on the outskirts of time. I never realized how badly the city traffic I deal with slowed down my average speed. 17.6 mph (exactly 30 minutes) on the long way vs 13.9 mph (22 min average) the short way.

cool

Another great ride in, cool, full moon and a little darker. I didn't realize how dark it was until I came across 2 cyclists I have never seen before stopped at a side street. I could barely make out the outlines. One had a front light, and both may have had tail lights. At first,
I thought it was just kids goofing off in the early morning. I went by and they said something, but I couldn't tell if they were talking to each other or
me. They followed in behind me as I past, but they were going slow, then when I started a downhill, I lost them in my mirror. The best I can figure
is that they made a right onto another side street. There have been more people out this year between 5 and 6am, than ever before, but nothing
consistent. I see them once and never see them again, so far anyway.

Oops I meant town but the outskirts of time would have been better. I think I'll look for that way next time.

Very comfortable this morning. 59F with a slight quartering headwind that didn't slow me down. I didn't see a single cyclist going my way, but saw several going the other way. More runners out than I usually see.

This morning the odometer on my bike computer clicked over to 2000 miles total (still a bit shy in terms of pure commuter miles) for the year when I was about half a mile from work. Happy about my milestone.

First ride w/ anything strapped onto my "new" (new for me, that is) lowrider front rack. I have a bunch of extra dressier clothes here at work that I had brought in to wear for some meetings at my organization's recent membership conference. So I used my Topeak rack trunk/pannier set on the rear rack like I usually do, but tossed my two Axiom Lasalle panniers on the front to fill up and take everything home. Experiment successful so far. I was able to appreciate how even the weight of the mostly empty panniers up front seemed to add to the stability of the bike.

Still loving my new rigid fork, too. Oh man, what a nice change from the stock POS suspension fork I had!

All that plus another day of cooler AM temps than we've been having made for a wonderful morning. Another one of those days that make me wish my commute were 15 miles (or more) and not 7.

50F, grey. Sigh.

65F and a wicked headwind. I have a headwind most mornings (and many evenings), but today's seemed to be really pushing against the bike. oh well, I still enjoyed the ride and it was definitely better than driving!

That route sure sounds like it's worth the extra 8 minutes!

Woke up late this morning and set a new record for this bike on the short route in to work. It's a lot cheaper to trim the weight off of me than off the bike!

Weird summer. Apparently it's the hottest year on record globally, but it's been an unusually cool spring and summer here in Sactown. I'm still wearing armwarmers and a windvest most mornings.

I was recently pulled over on 8th and Pine at 8:30 in the morning. The previous morning I saw Officer Mulkey pulling over two commuters in the same spot around the same time. I saw him again patrolling 8th yesterday. He sits and hides on 7th and 8th in between Pike and Pine catching the morning commuters coming down Pine all morning long. The fine is much too high and we need to request that it be lowered to it's original amount and that Mulkey do something more constructive with his time besides pulling over TAX PAYING citizens on the way to work who pay these officer's salaries. Here's an idea...serve and protect your citizens instead of reducing them to dollar signs. More specifically he could park on 2nd and Pike where people are skipping school and have tried to mug/threaten/sell me drugs/aggressively panhandle me and others I know on a many different occasions. Instead he chooses to waste our taxpayer money and time as a glorified meter maid. I think Mulkey needs to grow a pair and focus on criminal activity instead of civil infractions and bothering us!

What is he ticketing cyclists for?

I bought new panniers this weekend. Today was my first ride in this week. I can put all my uniforms in them and my lunch and still have room. I loved them the entire way in and about 3 miles back. I was getting into the 3rd turn lane and suddenly stopped. I mean my back wheel locked up. Of course it was my drive side pannier turn back up between the tire and rack. I picked up the bike and carried it accross 3 or 4 lanes of traffic. I planned to remove the rack, get the pannier out while I waited for a ride. However the tool was in the bag and I was starting to get po'd. So I pushed the bike backward and the bag popped out. Wow too easy. So I gave the wheel a spin. Looked perfect to me. The Blackburn rack was busted, I have had it for 4 or 5 years. I couldnt find any busted spokes. So I thought I would ride a little bit, next thing I knew I had rode back to the Y near my home where I was suppose to meet someone, and my ride had only taken 5 minutes more than usual. I took it out to my favorite shop, they checked it out tightened a coupld of spokes and pronounced it ready to ride. He said the rack has a lifetime warranty and gave me another one, I have alread changed out my old one and will take it back to the shop tomrrow. I have the panniers back on and they do not look like they could get back into the spokes but I lack confidence at this point. BUt man, it could have been so much worse. The rack and the wheel did not cost me a dime, then panniers are scuffed up but look fine. The wrench chagned my brakes while we were shooting the bull. Damn good bike shop by the way.

rant.

I'm seriously considering not using a left-turn hand signal any more. I'm getting effing sick and tired of oncoming motorists stopping to let me turn left in front of them. Frigging morons. It's more dangerous than when they stop for me when I have a stop sign.

I know I need to let traffic behind me know I'm not just stopped in the road like an idiot, though. It's quite a conundrum.

I took the woods & fields paths home today. Dang the corn has gotten tall.

Sorry, kid. I know you're straight up THUG LYFE and all, but when you walk in the middle of the MUP like you own it, I just don't feel the need to warn you that I'm passing on your right.

I try to ride as safely as possible at all times, I very rarely use signals because I try to ride so they could not hit me if they wanted to. If I am in the left turn lane they ought to know I am turning and I need both hands most of the time. Yea, I think when they try to help us it is almost always more dangerous.

20+ MPH headwind blasting up Lake Champlain. Slowed me down a little bit. Nice weather though. 70F & sunny.

I saw some ducklings. Also had to dismount and carry the bike over a big tree that had fallen completely across the MUP during the night.

I passed 6 cyclists going my way today. That might be a morning record. One guy went down on his drops as I was passing and tried to keep up with me. He was unsuccessful. (I pushed it up to 20MPH, and with the headwind... Pretty tough.)

good commute this morning

Good commutes last night and this AM. Managed to stretch my normally 7 miles of pretty flat into almost 15 miles w/ fully loaded panniers and a few good sized hills last night. And this morning, since I couldn't sleep after about 6:30 (very strange for me), I left for work early and took a scenic 12+ mile trip instead of my normal 7 mile route. Nice to put in the extra miles and take different routes than usual...