That's awesome! I too love seeing super active old guys! That rules that he runs carrying his cane. Gives me hope! I recently did the Albuquerque century and rode with a guy of indeterminate age (but I’d guess he was no less than 65, and probably closer to 70) and he was a maniac! He pulled us for almost 20 miles and pretty much wouldn't let anyone else work. I wasn't complaining too much (not a proud rider here!) and THEN! at the base of "9 mile hill" one of the biggest hills in the ride, HE ATTACKED! He dropped me and half the pack, AND was ripping past guys a third of his age, on much “fancier” bikes, and who LOOKED like they were in great shape. It was very impressive.

Speaking of older folk, this morning I stopped and waited for what appeared to be a really old granny cautiously walking across the road. When she saw I was waiting for her, she gave me a smile and a wave and broke into a fast run! I hope I'm like that when I get older - I can't run at all 'cause of my knees.

Other than the senior, the ride was no less/more dicey than usual.

Stoned Truckers!
 

I normally commute through an industrial area to get to my office. This industrial area includes a concrete plant, and often while I'm riding along, I'll have to wait at a stop sign for a concrete truck to pass through the intersection. Not normally a big deal, but this morning, I heard one of the big rigs gear up while I approached the stop sign, and as it rumbled past, I was shocked to smell POT SMOKE wafting down from the cab.

Now I've puffed my share in the past (so I know what pot smells like), and this is Vancouver, so pot attitudes are pretty lax, but this really scared the hell out of me - to know that some guy is out there threading 20 tons of steel and concrete through the streets of the city, potentially oblivious to other people, cars or cyclists!:eek: :eek: :eek:

Should I call the cops? Should I call the company? I have no way of identifying the driver, other than the time and place where I witnessed the event.

I'd call the company. Tell them the time and place. They should be able to figure out the driver.

Last night's commute sucked big time. I was riding in the bike lane on the college campus I ride through. As I approached the next street for a right turn, several of the cagers must have seen me coming from behind them (and got pissed 'cause I was moving and they weren't) and moved over into the bike lane. A$$holes. :crash: I slowed and got by them. As I moved out of the bike lane to the middle of the lane and made my turn, another @$$hole came up from behind me and pulled to the right. I saw him moving over toward me and moved to the right. He kept coming toward me so I moved farther to the right. By the time he was passed me I was inches from the curb. I yelled and he slowed, looked in his mirror, and pulled father to the right. Gave me the one finger salute and took off. By the time I was able to maneuver back toward the middle of the lane and get moving again he was too far down the road to get a good look at his license. I got most of the numbers but the letters were hard to make out. Was it WRF or WRK?
He parks in the parking deck that I had just passed so I may stop by there tomorrow morning and wander around until I find a white Ford Expedition with the matching license.

In the meantine I've gotta buy one of those handlebar mounted rocket launchers.

I think yesterday's hot weather (94F) had everyone in the "I'm hot so get the F out of my way" mode.


The ride this morning was great. Saw two new commuters walking their x-mart bikes up a hill. I hope they'll be able to ride up the hill soon. The company would be nice.

Two things to report today.

A few days ago a car craaaaaawls past me. It couldn't have been going more than 1 mph faster than I was--and considering I'm going uphill near the end of my ride, that's not fast. I look over to see who would pass me going that slow, and it's a Driver's Ed car. The driver is an Indian/Pakistani woman, instructor looks to be of the same ethnicity. The thing is, not only is she going super sloooow, but passes with MUCH less than a foot of room.

I caught them at the light at the top of the hill. She had the window down, so I yelled over, "You're supposed to give me 3 feet" and held my hands about 3 feet apart. Both driver and instructor nod at me with big smiles that clearly indicate they don't understand English. Sigh. Never mind.

Second item. My wife informed me yesterday that she's pregnant with our first child. :eek:

Congratulations! It's always nice to have compelling evidence against the myth that cycling causes impotence....

Good lord is it going to be hot today. Already 75F at 7:45am and it's predicted to hit 103F by this afternoon. But (all together now!) it's a dry heat. I took the dog for a short run before work so she could get some exercise when it was relatively cool. When we got back to the house, my daughter was waiting downstairs. We watched a little of the first half of the USA-Ghana match--she ate some toast while I ironed a shirt. It was 0-0 when I left the house but 2-1 Ghana when I arrived at the office. Feh.

Rode the beater today. We've got swim lessons this evening and I don't care to lock up my nice bike to their crappy bike rack.

Yeah, hot ride in this morning for sure and going to be extremely hot for the ride home. I am heading out of work around 5, going home and changing for my soccer game then riding the couple of miles to the game. Going to be a test for my body with the heat. The 8 mile ride home will have to be an easy one if I want any energy for the game.

Lucky, I hope you have better results than I did Tuesday. I rode home, changed, and left for my Ultimate Frisbee pickup in Morrisville. Because of the heat, not many people showed up. Instead of playing 7 on 7 with subs, we played 5 on 5 (but with a full-sized field). The other team had one sub; my team had none.

My legs felt like lead, I was slow the whole time, and I left halfway through. :(

103 degrees, 60% humidity. sniff..sniff... smells like burning pizza... Forget the bank, I'll go to the bank tomorrow.
--A

85F and humid. Had a minor "Oh *****" moment when I was slowly squeezing past some cars and almost hit a sideview mirror w/ my head. The ducking maneuver made me swerve in front of a stopped car where I almost fell while trying to unclip. Basically, I looked stupid. I laughed at myself, filtered up to the front and continued my ride home. Riding behind noxious fume spewing buses and feeling the heat of exhausts on a day like today makes me wonder what the dog days of summer will be like.

I picked up my road bike from the LBS, boy was it hot out. 102 degrees and cooking my brain. I might even skip tonight's group ride if it doesn't cool off a bit. I miss Winter. I have a rain bike but no ohmygodiamonthesunhot bike.;)

TUESDAY:
good ride in in the morning. left fairly early and the temps were in the 70's. slowed up a little bit by a headwind, and a driver behind me was not wanting to pass even though I kept waving him around. other than that, great ride in.

after getting out of class I rode over to My Organic Market to get some food then went on my first long ride in a while. went through the tunnel at Lackawanna Street to the Greenbelt Metro station, which is the biggest fiasco of one-way streets, bus-only lanes, and pay-to-park exits I've ever tried to navigate on a bicycle. I seriously spent like 20 minutes just trying to get out of there. rode down to the US Government Agricultural Center for the first time, and rode around there for a little bit... it's a great place to ride... I'll definitely be back there on my next long ride. rode to Berwyn Heights via Cherrywood Lane and around Lake Artemesia back to Old Town through New Leanordtown (rode by my old apartment on the way), then back to campus and back home from there. great ride, slightly marred by the fact that I forgot the sunscreen and got a pretty crucial sunburn as a result.

WEDNESDAY:
another good, if slighly slower, morning ride in. it is hot as hell in Maryland these days, it was in the high 70's at 9 in the morning when I left. definitely remembered to wear sunscreen on this ride so my sunburn wasn't made any worse. was slowed up again by a slight headwind from the south, and was passed by car after car. other than that, good ride in.

got out and rode to the LBS to get some new brown and amber lenses for my glasses... they have to be ordered so it will be a few days. rode to my parents' house from there. WSSC is doing construction on Queens Chapel Road in University Park, and had part of the road blocked off. had to take an alternate route to go around it. other than that minor annoyance it was a very good ride back.

THURSDAY (today):
it's still hot here. 70s in the morning and a high of 93 in the afternoon. the ride in was from my parents house and I took the long way. the ride itself was somewhat sluggish (maybe the extra weight from some extra clothes I packed? maybe I was tired?). had to yell to get the attention of a Shuttle bus driver who was cutting me off in a traffic circle on campus, he stopped and I went on. other than that it was a pretty good commute in.

I was going to volunteer an hour at the co-op but after a slight drizzle while I was in class and predictions of thundershowers later (that never materialized) I decided to just head out. the commute back was also to my parents house and was much faster than the morning commute. had another driver cut me off in a different traffic circle... what is with Maryland drivers and traffic circles? he stopped and froze after I yelled but eventually kept going after it was clear that I wasn't going to go ahead of him. other than that, the commute back was fast and fun.

Uh, 'ello I always promise to participate in this forum more.. but seldom get a chance. Left the house at 0530 this morning after getting about 60 minutes of sleep from the thunderstorms that rocked from 1am-5am. Lots of traffic lights out but no flooding or debris to note. Left for home at 2pm thunderstorms on my tail, hot, humid and sticky! I got home in time to clean my bike and spread some mulch before the storm hit.

I had the LBS put a 16t rear cog (freewheel) on my bike this week... not a big jump up from 42 x 17, but enough to make me feel some burn in the ol thighs again and increase my average speed to 14ish.

I got off work early in order to beat the rain and maybe get a little extra sleep. I instead walked right in to the rain which of course stopped as I pulled in to the garage. Other than the rain I had a nice peacefull 6am ride.

I hope congrats are in order :D

Nice sunny day out but damn that wind out of the north. Whats usually the fast section of Washington Park was a real leg breaker... Lots of lovely young ladies out strolling the kids around make the ride easy on the eyes at least. 35 miles with average of 17mph... Yay. I really need to find the money to go clipless again though. I never remembered my legs hurting like this last year. Not that they hurt horribly, just more than usual.

The commute gods obviously had something against me today:

1) So ... damn ... hot ...
2) Hit by a car (low speed collision, I had turned right on a green light, he was stuck in the middle of the intersection on a red, and decided to drive into me)
3) Hit a patch of rotting garbage with my front wheel as I braked (with front brake) to do a left-hand turn. Almost went down; fortunately, oncoming traffic was completely jammed. Could have been run over from behind, though...
4) So ... damn ... hot
5) Hazy, everything smelled like gasoline
6) Almost got hit by another car... the driver did a right hand turn into the bike lane without looking. When I shouted at him (nothing vulgar, just to get his attention), he didn't slow down or speed up, but stayed beside me, forcing me into the 60/70 km/h traffic lane. He laughed, obviously thinking it was funny I had shouted at him. He then decided it would be fun to practice his English on me: "HELLO! HELLO!", while driving at 30+ km/h in the bike lane, looking sideways at me and completely ignoring the bikes ahead. Scary.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say my commute today really sucked.

a hot day in Gotham city today, Batman.
Rode up town to see a friend and have a very late lunch then we did a lap around CP then crossed over to the path along the FDR at around 106th street and rode the path to just before the UN where it conveniently disappeared. Went 2nd avenue all the way downtown, which wasn't too bad south of 23rd but man, midtown was hellacious. Snaking through the insane drivers and pedestrians. But got to work right on time.

Even though there are occasional thunder storms predicted, I was going to ride this morning. I have a backup plan using the bus in case of severe unridable weather. However I did not get much sleep last night replaying yesterdays World Cup match.

Dam, I had high hope this time for at least the quarter finals. Wait till 2010 I guess. See you in Pretoria.

Another nice morning ride. Looked like it might rain, but it didn't.

I shadowed a woman on an MTB all the way in. Saw several other cyclists heading the other way. Eventually a group of 6 or 7 MTBers popped out onto the MUP and formed a group ahead of us and started to ride. One of them looked behind, saw the woman and me, yelled something, and they all took off like Lance wannabes. I had to fight with myself not to give chase. I was so relaxed that it seemed foolish. I figured they'd blow up soon enough, and then I'd be stuck behind them anyway, so I remained behind the woman.

A quarter mile later we rounded a bend and there they all were, going slowly again. :rolleyes: Eventually they took off onto dirt trails anyway, so I'm glad I saved my energy for beer drinking later.

:beer:

The usual craziness. TGIF.

Commute was awesome!

Picked up my spanking new Kona Jake last night. I'd had an Ibex X-ray Sport in my sights due to the fact that it was $200 cheaper, but I got motivated and sold some stuff around the house I don't use anymore- CD's, climbing gear, my old Trek 720, and stretched a bit for the Kona.
It's a 56cm, everything stock for a while- save the seatbag, and the LBS forgot to give me a bottlecage so I need to head back in and get that.

First commute this morning ~6.5 miles was an absolute blast, coming from the old flat bars and suspension seatpost of my hybrid. Can't wait to ride home tonight, and glad it's Friday so I can take it somewhere other than my commute on the weekend.

It was nice a cool this morning. I rode the Bridgestone XO-4 that I bought at a yardsale for $10. After about $150 it's now safe and reliable.

Awesome ride in. Hit every light green once I made it downtown. Looks like I might get wet on the ride home...Oh well, I won't melt. I actually rode in today so my car wouldn't get rained on. Just washed it last night. Now that's a bit ironic...(or pathetic depending on who you ask)

I was smooth on the ride in. Like buttah...

I did overtake a guy on a mtn bike. He was spinning at what I'd guess was 100 rpm. I hesitated - should I pass him before the corner? Well, it was either going to be then or in another 50m, so I went by. I had to stop at an intersection, and he actually skidded his back tire as he came up to me. I made the turn and that was the last I saw of him. We were on a one-way street with no traffic, so I didn't cut him off. Maybe I should have just sat on his tail for the rest of the block?

Commute was awesome this morning. Great temperature, it was sunny and bright, traffic was light then I got to work and realized there is still 12 more hours till I get to ride home. *sigh*

It must be Friday. I felt tired all the way to work. Or maybe it's the heat.

Otherwise a good ride except for one minor incident. Summer camp for kids has started again at the college campus I ride through. Wednesday there were 8 cars parked in the bike lane. Today there were 5 cars with a line of cars waiting to pull into the bike lane to park. I almost got hit as I was turning out of the bike lane to pass these @$$holes. The driver of the car that nearly hit saw me pulling out and hit the gas to take my place in line -- in the bike lane.
Wednesday I reported the problem to the parking cops. Did the same today. Today they recognized me as soon as I walked in the door, and before I could speak, asked if the bike lane was again blocked with cars.
I fully expect the problem to continue through the summer so they'll be seeing a lot of me.
Hmm. I wonder if the parking cops serve breakfast?

Today's ride was a joy. I rode down past Freeport before turning back towards downtown with the breeze at my back. I was in full roadie mode (CF race bike, bibs, jersey, and freshly shaved legs), but I made a point to wave at all other riders, just in case they're fellow BFers and they can't complain about the stuck-up non-waving roadie jerk in his Lancy-pants.

Cripes, I hope it rains this afternoon.

This 90° heat 70% humidity is sapping all my energy.