Another uneventful commute. The way I like 'em!

Yesterday afternoon I was stuck directly behind a pair of street sweepers. They were not cleaning but put putting to their next destination. Anyhow, I was behind the 2nd one and by god their exhaust stinks!
After a few minutes of riding so slow that my brakes were constantly being used I spied a very wide coned off brand new sidewalk. Incidentally, this is a construction area.
So, deciding that I needed to break my string of VC law abiding riding, I hopped onto the sidewalk and sped past the street cleaners on the right going 25 mph on a sidewalk for roughly 1000 feet. So far that is my most creative means of getting out of a traffic jam. The cars stuck behind the street sweeper must have loved it...not. Now to be flamed by all our law abiding cyclists.....

it could only have been better if you left a nice track down the fresh sidewalk

HAH! Hope you reminded him to admit to the dentist who wanted it installed that he was right and the rest of them were WRONG! Then refer all your bike commuting friends to him! (Assuming the service was satisfactory.)

I guess I'm not too picky; I chose my dentist mostly on the basis of being just around the corner from my job, so I can ride my bike there from work. However, there is no rack so I have to lock up to a picnic table.

Ack!
Thank goodness it wasn't that new. I believe the sidewalk has been in for a few months and is located next to a new park-n-ride for one of the future light rail lines. They seem to be taking their time since it does not open till Nov.

I've done the same thing when stuck behind S-L-O-W moving traffic. Why should I be delayed because of "traffic". I am traffic!!

The worst traffic I encountered tonight, were the fat, waddling women ahead of me getting to the bike. They take up two lanes in the hallway to the building exit. At least they were single file.

Do these people really think I can understand them as they fly by yelling things at 20 over the speed limit? It must tick them off that I am doing the speed limit, so they must go much faster to prove their manliness They all passed safely so I just waved and smiled. The last one today must have said something funny, he had an amused smile and waved back. The ride both ways was fast and smooth. I love timing the lights to get there on green, passing the cars that had to pass me at well over the limit.

after having energy all day long I got on the forza mess bag and all and did a 20 mile run then I sprinted up and down my street till it got late in the night I feeel so much better hopefully I get to go down a big hill ( I love going fast)

I wore normal street cloths on the bike today. Usually I wear pearl izumi baggys to give me some cred and I happened to whip past three road riders fully kitted out but when it came to the down hills they passed me (fancy bikes I think lemonds) then on the uphill I caught up and passed them and then took a left into work and layed on the floor for a good ten minutes waiting for my breathing to become regular

Today was good, weekends are good for commuting.

Friday night I had to work 4 hours over until 3:30 AM, and it was a pretty rough shift. Thank goodness for the commute home to wind down. At that hour there is nobody on the roads and the traffic lights are all blinking, so I got home 2 minutes faster than usual, even though I was pretty sleepy. It was warm, but i was in a light cooling rain the whole way. I usually hate rain but this one felt good.

Friday morning I took a camera along with me to take some pictures of my commute. The battery suddenly died on me a couple of miles from home, but at least I had a pleasant ride since I left early to take pictures and the traffic was light.

The return trip was... painful. I hate my commutes home now. Traffic is heavier (I need a thicker skin... desperately: helps with road rash too ), it's hot, it's all uphill, I am tired...

Wet! No other cyclists seen. That is all.

Fine ride this morning. I'm finally starting to get attached to my knew school-avoiding route. I was doubtful of the hilly backroads at first, but they're actually kind of nice. Woke up to the sounds of my roomate's own brand of soulful contemporary soft rock floating through the apartment. I think that's better than living with a metal band at 7:00 am, but I'm going to have to put on some Zepplin/Skynyrd/Truckers to get that mellow crap out of my head.

Chilly again...I'm having to wear a long sleeve shirt or a jacket in the morning, might need a stocking cap for the wind. And that torks me off, cause the afternoon is a lovely 80 some degrees...so I have to lug home stuff I don't need to use in the afternoon, but I need it the next morning. Grumble.

Other then that, it's nice I'm way more awake in the morning then my coworkers

ended up walking home the other day because I got a flat and the stem on my spare broke while I was putting it on. the metal piece in the presta valve that has the threads on it busted right in half when I was takin off my pump. hopefully that won't happen very often!

Back to commuting after a week on vacation...

Today is the last day of 'summer' for me, kids start moving back to town for the fall semester tomorrow.
NOT looking forward to the influx of confused cagers we'll have occupying the streets this week.

Third day riding in. Getting easier already. Cool, overcast morning. Temp in the low 60s. Met up with a friendly bike commuter and rode together most of the way. Looking forward to predicted sun for the ride home.

Ordered some proper bike shoes & a Topeak frame pump.. Time for a proper taillight for the rack, too.

Did 46 miles last week. Hoping for 3 days/70 miles this week. This is fun.

Nice commute. It was a tad cooler than usual. Time to switch to winter clothing shopping.

Also, after one week off I am restarting my exercise plan. The new goals are: cadence of 100 (from 90).
Push ups and sit ups. Drop 5 lbs initially and 10 lbs in the long run. I plan on being at 150lbs in a month or two.

Just increasing my cadence almost killed me. ugh
That and I have absolutely no upper body strength and could only manage 10 push ups. Oh well. Have to start somewhere.

Going home Friday, I stopped to help a guy with a comfort bike who had broken his chain. He seemed amazed that I had a special tool for popping out the broken link and reconnecting the ends.

Then Saturday, I went for a long ride, got home and discovered that I'd left the zipper slighly open on my seat bag when I stopped to help him and lost the dang multitool somewhere along the route.

I'll try to keep in mind that one of the hex ends in the tool had stripped out two seapost collar bolt heads, and I wasn't liking it much anyway...

No riding today.
It's that time of the month again.


Can't show up hot and sweaty.

I'm amazed at the total lack of traffic today. I could actually merge safely!

It was 48 this morning for me. I had my Performance poly arm warmers on, but didn't wear the knee warmers. I thought the arm warmers were completely useless. Until I got to work and peeled them off while doing my cool-down laps around the back parking lot. As soon as I took them off, I realized how much colder it was than I had thought. Guess they do *something*.

Heavy legs again this morning after Saturday's hammerfest and Sunday's brick workout. I didn't realize how heavy until I got passed by a midtown hipster chick on a 50 lb. cruiser at 16th and L. I called down to the engine room but there was nothing left. She put me in a spot of bother.

I've been commuting again for the last month or so. My route takes me by an elementary school. I wasn't sure if they had started yet or not... until this morning. The answer is they were not open before, but they are open for business now. Kids, cars, parents, everywhere. It was kind of fun today darting between cars, riding on the other side of the road (small side-street), but I could see where it could get annoying, if not dangerous, pretty fast. I'll have to put together a different route.

My rear tire has a slow leak. It will go almost flat overnight, but I can pump it up in the morning, and it's still good for the ride home. Gotta work on it one of these days. I need to take the tire off anyway so I can measure my rims to determine which new tires to get. I currently have 700x35's on my Trek hybrid, I'd like to get something narrower -- as narrow as my rims will allow according to the red & green chart on this page:
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tire_sizing.html

Weather was perfect again. About 62, sunny, no wind.