Awesome! It's actually pretty rare to see bears that far into town. I bet it's been following the river through town to get there. I wouldn't worry too much about the bears around here. They are balck bears and [for the most part] are pretty timid and will scurry off if you shoo them [or clip in I guess].

Now, if you encounter a mom with cubs.... that will be a completely different story. Also know that if you ever see a cub, understand that it's not there alone.

Not to raise your hackles, but I'm much more concerned about the Mountain Lions around here. I live in Rockrimmon and have seen them more than once. Riding in the dark in natural areas is spooky when all you can see is your beam ahead on the road/trail :)

You are pretty likely to run across coyotes on that trail in the dark as well. They are there for the multitude of rabbits in that area, not you.

WOW! I get nervous riding in the woods alone, but dang I've never even seen anything!

Oregon city to Lake Oswego commute 11.5 miles, temp 61 F. I forgot it would be so warm, so I left my cool weather gear on- what a mistake. Part way thru the ride I pulled over and removed some of the layers and the light on my head. I was really hot, the rest of the way in to work I was freezing from the sweat evaporating. I have been dong this long enough to know better, must have been a brain cramp. No Bears sighted!

Nice ride in. Caught my wife a mile earlier than last time, so something like 3 miles of zipping (after dropping daughter and trailer at daycare, clearing downtown traffic), 2 miles of cruising, then one last mile of zipping from her place's driveway to my office. Cleaned/lubed chain yesterday, zipping was zippier, or at least quieter.

I really envy you Americans. About the most exiting wildlife we have in the UK is the odd badger. Although I did end up with a cracked rib once when riding my GSXR11 without a protective jacket and an equally suicidal pigeon hit me in the chest as I was doing about 120mph. :p Still, I ended up better off than the pidgeon.

Ride in today was great, nice and cool, dry, legs full of energy as I've driven in the last 2 days due to a broken finger joint.

Currently hissing with rain blowing in all directions out the office window - going to be a soggy ride home... looking forward to a dram or two of whiskey and a hot bath at the end of it though. :D

What about the giant blancmange? I'm sure I saw that on some nature special.

Oooh, it's gonna be a scorcher today. Nearly 80F at 8:05 this morning. Predicted to be 105F this afternoon, which is a notch over 40C for our metric friends.

Beautiful....nicest day of the summer so far in Vancouver, and I was feeling good...really enjoyed the ride today.

Almost got in a fight Tuesday afternoon on the way home. I was riding through my apartment complex at about 20mph in the middle of the road since the speed limit is 15 and there are speed bumps (speed limit is NOT posted on the side of the road, its in the complex manual thing which nobody reads). So a big red Dodge pickup is following me pretty close and finally passes me between speed bumps, I estimate he was going at least 30mph. So he pulls into the mail hut as did I. I proceeded to ask him in a very normal tone what he thinks the speed limit on the property is. He flips his lid and starts swearing and going off at me saying he knows what the speed limit is and that I need to learn the rules of the road. I just stand there and say a few things about the speed limit and that he needs to read the rules of the road while he gets his mail. He punches his mail into the trash can and yells at me to get the f*** out of the way or else. Practically a verbal threat. So he is walking past and I am almost positive he is gonna hit me but he gets in his truck to go to his apartment. I give him the finger is he is leaving for kicks and get my mail. Ended up discussing this with the apartment complex but they can't legally do anything. I am going to make a report to the road rage hotline and see if anything comes from that. If I am confronted by him again I will be calling the cops on the spot, no questions asked. The best part is that he lives in the building next to me so I am more likely than not to see him again. Wow I hate my apartment complex and can't wait to get out of here. Ok, my rant is over. I hope to not see him this afternoon on my way home.

WTH! And I thought suicidal squirrels were bad! We're in a pretty heavy drought here in the South (We've probably only gotten 14 feet of rain so far this year instead of the usual 20 or something :D) Anyway, the black bears have been coming into town because of the drought. It's really awesome when they make the news because they got filmed on a traffic cam or scare some soccer mom half to death.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/met...5cobbbear.html

Weird commute today. I was going to work from home today, but HR called me late Tuesday to arrange interviews for my new job, and wanted to do them this morning. My wife wanted to go to breakfast too, and there's not enough time to commute after breakfast. So...we went to breakfast together and then she dropped me and MY NEW BIKE (woohoo!) off at the building for the interview.

The interviews ended early but I realized I hadn't brought my shoes. Called my wife and asked her to bring them (work's only about 5 minutes from home). She dropped them off and I rode the new bike home.

I'll be posting about the new bike (a Fuji Touring) in a separate thread. :)

Gah! my commute today was HOT. Both ways, actually - I had an appointment this mornign so I headed out at 8:45 rather than my usual 7:20 and it was already hot. Then I rode from the appointment in to work, at noon, and was slightly broiled; and it was even hotter on the way home. I tried to take it easy and drink lots, even stopping to paddle my feet in the river, but I didn't do too well*. I was pretty woozy when I got home and had the edges of a sick headache. Bleh.

*Note to self: just because someone passes you does not mean you have to catch up. It is not necessarily a race even though there ARE two bikes on this road... especially at 34C...

A cool shower, 2 liters of water, some Vietnamese salad rolls and a cup of iced coffee later, I'm much better :)

I saw that on tv last night, some places in BC hit 38. Isn't that something?

We'll be hitting the low 30 this weekend - do they post a humidex rating in Calgary - sorry it's been to long to remember (I was 9 when we lived there).

Around here they will say it's 30°, feels like 39° with the humidity.....


Commute related - I took the most direct, shortest, least scenic, most uphill, most polluted - but shortest route this morning. I seem to be running out of steam at the end of the week. Of course getting to bed late will contribute, so I'm sleeping at 10:00 tonight for sure :) Wait a minute, it's Friday... Oh well we have a kids' soccer game tomorrow at 8 so everybody must get some sleep.

Hot ride home yesterday with a pesky headwind. Had an interesting sighting though...met up with 2 vagabond cyclists. At first I just said hello as I blew by them-they were messing up traffic and going ~16 mph. I was drafting the same traffic that they were holding up, so was moving ~ 25-30 when I passed. I hit a red light though and they caught up to me. When I asked where they were headed, the guy replies "the beach" (Thats about 120 miles minimum from here). That was impressive enough to me that I offered them a gatorade stop at my house if they were interested (if nothing else I could have shown them a better route through town than the 2 lane 55 mph highway they were on). But, for whatever reason they declined my offer. Hopefully they're making out all right. They were totally unprepared as far as I could see. No helmets, no gloves, no pump, riding beater 10 speeds (the girl didn't even have handlebar tape on her bike). It was 92F (33C) and quite humid and they each had 1 small waterbottle on their bikes. Today will be 96 and even more humid and they'll be entering very rural and isolated Eastern NC...Hope they make out OK.

Warm and humid this morning. Saw a few other commuters out and passed the one guy I have been seeing regularly now. Gonna be a hot ride home this afternoon.

Gorgeous morning today. Nice breeze, barely anyone on the trail. Back was heavier than usual due to work I needed to take home last night and I woke up late and didn't stretch so now all my joints hurt.

Nice ride in. Traffic was still unusually light, although a bit heavier at the edge of downtown (Atlanta). It was a bit warm but I kept myself hydrated. I need to call in the traffic sensor at the intersection of Memorial Drive and Grant Street. It's barely responsive to small autos, much less bicycles.

Rode east last night, nothing ground breaking speedwise but it felt nice. I stayed in that side of the city after visiting a buddy, rode in from there today meaning a nice longer 8 mile commute in. If I wasn't running late, I'd have circled the block or something a couple times as I'm now at 798.xx miles on the odometer and wanting to make 800 really (that'll teach me to get lazy and stay over).

Good ride in, weather warming up again - had a nice ride though, lots and lots of bikes heading west into downtown, which was great to see (and 'compete' against :D).

First flat in several months.

I was starting to think that my Specialized Nimbus (non-armadillo) tires were blessed. A staple put an end to that dream.

Worked out ok. The gas station I pulled into even had a picnic table I could work at so I wasn't scrounging in the grass to get it changed.

woo! 11 miles in 40 min, personal best since my ankles fell apart on me in May.

Beautiful day...70 or so. Rode to work/summer camp (me to work, son to summer camp close to work). had emergency in middle of ride.....he forgot to bring brownies...lucky for us a supermarket was two blocks away. Dropped him off and raced for the meeting (I lead) that I was a bit late for. Noticed I was working harder and losing efficiency....figured it out at work...my seat slipped. It is amazing how much more work it is if your seat hight is too low. Life is good.

I finally got off my dead arse and rode today.

Ok, so it's 78F, sunny, and slight breeze. As mentioned above, I also did quite a bit of recreational riding this week on my high end roadies. So, I took it easy today, and only avg'd about 15mph. I wanted to enjoy the sun.

Oh, the horror. :D

{bawk bawk} I chickened out over the high temps. Stupid, really...I swear I could be halfway home by the time I walk out to my car in this god-forsaken parking lot.

On the ride home I was the first person to report a Jeep Grand Cherokee that had crashed into the ditch on the side of the 2-lane 55mph road I ride on...looked pretty totaled (front end caved in to the wheels, rear end less damage but still not too pretty). It had lost control, swerved across the oncoming lane, hit the ditch front first, then spun in the ditch several times before coming to a stop. Looked like a tall boy beer can in a paper bag in the back seat...driver was gone, engine still warm. My co-worker that had just come in to work said it wasn't there when he came in, so I had missed seeing it happen (or being hit by it) by less than 10 minutes. Called the local law enforcement, they came out and started looking around the nearby ditches and farm fields, I headed on my way. Good times.

Nice ride in this morning although it'll be brutal this afternoon with temps around 98. So hot, in fact, that I left my helmet at home-I tend to get really overheated when the temps hit the upper 90's and figure I'll ride a little more cautiously and place a higher priority on avoiding temperature related illness instead.

Had some knucklehead pass without warning, while I was getting ready to pass a jogger. I caught him and suggested he announce his pass next time. His response was to get right on my wheel and catch a pull-some nerve. When I noticed this I put the hammer down and pulled away, he turned off shortly thereafter. Oh well...

Anyway, trying to stay super-hydrated today in anticipation of 2 days of 98 deg. temps. By the time I'm done w/ this I will be on my way to finishing 32 ozs. of Vitamin Water with my breakfast of yogurt, pineapple, and a banana muffin.

Back from 2 weeks of vacation. (sigh) Woke up to thunder and heavy rain. Fortunately the rain had mostly stopped before I left for work, but I still got a little bit damp.

No cyclists seen this morning. Should be a tailwind for the ride home. Yay. :)

76 this morning, at 7am.....and humid. I really hope it storms today otherwise it's gonna be a hard ride home.

On the plus side, I watched a cat try to chase two rabbits. The rabbits had to have been playing with the cat, cause they were confusing the heck out of it :)

Just beautiful! Quiet and still after yesterdays storms.

Great ride this morning. I haven't been on my bike in 2 week, due to the bike being at the shop. Anyways, I saw 2 deer, 1 raccoon, 3 rabbits, a crap load of cats and dogs, 1 hawk, a bunch of crows. Its suppose to reach 95 here in Ohio this afternoon, so it might be a long 18 miles home.