perfect commute this AM. For some strange reason I had the guitar solo from GNR's "Estranged" in my head the entire ride. You know the one, where slash pops out of the ocean (holding a dripping wet electric guitar...duh). I've probably heard this song once since the nineties. Wow, that song came out 24 years ago. The brain is a strange thing.

Fun ride in today. For a long time, I've been thinking about riding my Viscount fixie conversion but worried it would be hard. What a silly worry. I had to walk up the two steepest grades, as I knew I would, but they're short.

I had a stiff tail wind. I wonder how much the wind contributed to my speed and how much it was the lightness of the bike.

There were occasional breezes off the river which were amazingly cool. I don't remember that happening here before. Very pleasant.

Of course, I'm wishing for a wind shift. But if it doesn't shift, maybe it will be interesting to see how well I do in the headwind on this bike, as opposed to my usual ride, my Bianchi Volpe.

Today's route

Wow, is that the original "death fork"? Very cool looking bike.

Wouldn't call it a "commute", but ran into town to see some friends and decided to make the return trip into a bit of a training session for a group ride this summer. I somehow managed to cover every point of training in one ride; Longer but more shallow climbs, some steep ones, cornering at speed, tempo, position, just a fantastic overall ride.

I basically race my own times to and from work every day but today it happened. Somebody turned onto the road in front of me riding a fully decked out Quintana Roo tri bike. We had full headwind and I gave him a go. I was on a mountain bike but i figured the wind was a great equalizer. I pumped pretty damn hard for about 1.5 miles and when we came to a hill I was able to finally get past him. He gave me a little smile and I was breathing too heavy to say anything, haha, but it still felt good to reel him in!


Needless to say I am waiting to see if a flyby pops up on Strava. :-)

It was a very nice commute in this morning. The temp was 53f degrees and mostly clear skies. I took the direct route this am. The afternoon promises to have gusty winds and I have miles to go before I rest.

Perfect this morning. Little breeze, clear skies and took it easy. Didn't think I was going to make it out of the neighborhood. There was a car driving around I'm guessing by the four scanners on the car scanning license plates. What was odd it had MO plates but was in KS.. I'm thinking it was FBI. Thought about calling KCKPD but didn't want to piss off the FBI this morning!

Have to take another route tonight.. had to climb a huge hill last night I don't want to repeat.! Had a problem last night with a construction crew.. if your going to close a road close the darn thing don't say one lane closed! Not a hard concept to grasp. Called KCMO regarding it but of course anything KCMO=worthless.

Going to be a wet one tomorrow.. but my fenders should be here tonight!

Another day with perfect weather, including lower humidity and a tailwind much of the way. Made great time and averaged over 16 mph for the third morning in a row, which is my standard for a fast commute and surprisingly hard to do (at least for me!) with all of the traffic lights and hills on my route. We've never had such nice weather during Bike to Work Week, and it's looking more and more likely that we will actually have BTW Day with no rain in the forecast, which is almost unheard of. Looking forward to the free food, t-shirts and bike stuff at the BTW event on Friday.

Perfect weather for my ride in this morning too. About 63F and low humidity. And it isn't supposed to get as hot today as the past two days. May has been good.

yesterday was warm and windy, today was cooler and windy.

i don't mind the wind, it keeps cycling not so sweaty which i can appreciate. i don't mind being pushed around on the bike it can get a little crazy tho.

but cycling is far nicer than taking the subway.

Great break in the humidity today 61F and beautiful ride in. I really did not want to stop at work today!

Forgot my breakfast today thankfully coworkers shared authentic Mexican burritos with me.

I finally got to ride in. Ended up getting no storms yesterday, oh well. I also ended up leaving work early and hanging out at my LBS for a few hours then going to over to a friends house to work on my green Peugeot. Put some slicks and fenders on, replaced the plastic brakes for some "real" ones I had hanging around. Anyways, the ride in today was fan-freaking-tastic. Traffic was light, the sky was overcast but it was burning off. The sun is now out. I experimented with a different way to go once the bike lane ends, instead of cutting across a busy 2 lanes to get into the turn lane. Took me past the USC Gamecock baseball stadium (that's the real USC, btw).

The local advocacy group downhere is hosting the monthly Handlebar Happy Hour this afternoon so I am looking forward to that (who doesn't enjoy free wings and Sierra Nevada while hanging out with other cycling folks and pedestrians and talking about ways to make the city better?) - I have never ridden all the way home afterwards. I usually drive to work and ride from my office to the pub, but with long daylight hours and my awesome bike, I decided I finally had to do it all the way.

I felt the same way!

Heads up to those of you east of the midwest - cold front a' comin - 43F this morning. It's all my fault, I put away my cold weather gear

Lovely ride in to the office today: sunny, light winds, 5C (41F). It's windy now, but it may be at least partially in my favour for the trip home.

Had some excitement on the commute home on Monday. City traffic, car waiting to make a left turn into a CVS, another car waiting behind it. There is a parked car to the right, so I figure I can squeeze through and continue. At that point, the waiting car decides to pull around the turning car and closes the gap, leaving me with no place to go. Hit the brakes and stopped in time. The driver never saw me. Then about 3 blocks later a driver door opens as I approach. Fortunately I don't ride in the door zone.

It's not the original one. It's version 2 or 3, and it has a steel dowel in the steerer tube. Not sure if it's still a death fork in that case. I'm keeping it. If I die, I'll have my wife post news here.

I rode it again today. Fun! But today, I had seriously heavy headwinds. I also ran into an event run by Transportation Alternatives, the city's big bike advocacy organization. I got some trinkets and bought a family membership. I spoke to the woman in charge of policy and implored her to speak to police about enforcement of wrong way cyclists. It has become an epidemic.

Also, my chain fell off mid-ride. Nothing bad happened, but I worry about stuff like that on a fixed gear. I think I should tighten my axle nuts now.

My new tires showed up yesterday. Drove home on lunch today, installed them and rode back in.

Feels great to be on the bike again (and to not be commuting on knobbies anymore)!

awesome tailwind last night. I stopped in at the local dirt jumps on the way home and still made it home at the same time as usual.

Dark clouds this AM, but I gambled and didnt bring a jacket. I am lucky it didnt rain. I left the house late so I pedaled faster than usual. BTWW is the last week of May around here.

Wet.. but that wasn't bad the wind on the hand was! Right in my direction of travel. Got way to hot with a jacket and the poncho over it.. only needed one. Put fenders on last night and what a difference. Bike stayed alot cleaner and my basket didn't get dirty.

Fastest commute in quite a while, aided by a tailwind much of the way but hindered by catching nearly every red light. I rode my De Bernardi, which is my fastest and lightest bike right now. I haven't been using it for commuting in a while, so it hasn't been getting much use, and recently decided to work it back into the rotation. It was fun riding it again and commuting at a faster pace, and it was just like the old days because it was my first commuter bike.

Report on the ride home yesterday: Great! Headed from work to a pub for a "Handlebar Happy Hour" - hosted by the local advocacy group. Enjoyed some wings and beer and made my way from there to home. Went a bit of a shortcut - since I know that after 7 pm traffic is super light on the 4 lane that I can take straight from the city to home. Didn't realize my climbing would be almost double though! It was a nice ride, fairly uneventful. Here's the route:
https://www.strava.com/activities/304087150

Here's a picture of the sunset as I was leaving the pub



Ride in this morning was very pleasant. Was bimodal, so only a 4.5 mile jaunt through the city. It looked like it was threatening rain (was completely sunny when I walked my dogs before we left). Put the rain cover over my trunk bag and got a 1/2 mile and all was sunny again. I'll take it!

It was much cloudier this morning and cooler. The wind was blowing all over the place but it ended it up being a good ride in. I thought it was going to rain but checked weather and pressed on. 54F and partly sunny. had to carry a lot of stuff in today and legs are feeling the miles. 4 for 4 so far this week.

Cool at 36 degrees this morning wind was light for a change, half of my 11 mile (one way) commute is around Coast Guard Air Station Airport here on Cape Cod. Great roads to ride on the base but being surrounded by ocean the wind howls quite a bit. I love being on the road as the sun just starts to come up above the horizon.

50, gray, windy, yay