Up here in the tundra, our lilacs haven't started blooming yet! The maydays and crab apple trees are resplendent, however.

Pleasant ride this morning on my usual morning loop. The nice thing about riding before starting my work-from-home day is that winds are generally light in the morning. It's been fairly breezy recently, but I get to miss most of it.

66 and pretty humid this morning for the ride. they are calling for rain! I am pretty sure I am getting wet today. There was nothing yesterday, so that was nice. My new prescription sunglasses are in so one day I have to drive because I can not make it from work to their office by bike in time. :( I have a revamped an old pair for Mountain biking. Yellow for higher contrast and some polarized prescription Oakley$$$

It could be like this all year long for me.

Forecast called for thunderstorms today so I drove in. Stopped to help someone change a flat tire and ended up a few minutes late, go figure - when I bike I'm always on-time but the day I decide to drive I end up late. Oh well. I'm on vacation starting tomorrow so the closest thing to a commute the next 6 days will be a grocery store errands.

This is my last bike commute for this week, and not so uneventful. I saw a deer cross the street this am. I know we have deer in our area, I just do not usually see them. The temp was in the low fifties with the sun rising.

A nice low humidity 65F this morning. Clear and sunny too. A very nice morning such that I would have liked to keep going instead of stopping at work. Now that it is light earlier and warmer, I see more morning recreational riders.

Made it to humpday! Starting with the ride home last night - mostly miserable...headwinds, traffic, leg crushing hills, but I can't say I wasn't smiling 95% of the time just spinning along in a lower gear than normal. My legs were definitely tired though and that was the 3rd day in a row I had done that route - enough where I needed a break. So today I did the bimodal thing with the the wife. Last night I finished up on my Canadian Peugeot. I need to tweak the FD set screws a bit more, but other than that it was a pretty pleasant ride. I made 3 miles into a little over 7.

Here she is in all her glory, eh.

http://i1372.photobucket.com/albums/...psv0qb3mam.jpg

Yesterday's 'commute' was 25 miles (round trip) to my LBS to drop of a wheel for some TLC. I wish somebody would have taken a photo of me riding - HA! And it took extra thinking when going through doors! Temps in MN are still stupid cold, yesterday's ride started around 40F, today's warmer... 45F.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/se...E=w552-h676-no

Another nice ride to the office today. Had an "oh yeah, I'm on a fixie" moment when a squirrel ran across my path and my legs instinctively stopped pedalling, except they didn't.

Pretty uneventful otherwise. A bit chilly for a t-shirt (6C/43F) but it felt warmer in the sun and it's gonna be pretty warm this afternoon and I wanted to travel light.

Well put, stupid cold. I did not want to get out of bed - too damn cold. I did not want to go outside - too damn cold. I did not want to ride to work - too damn cold. I did anyway, argh... still better than driving

+1!

I finally rode in to work today, again on my Viscount fixie. My normal complaint is in effect, headwinds, and I think they were stronger today than on any previous day. Very strong. I'm getting used to it. I hope they don't lessen or shift much before I head home. They have a habit of doing that.

Had to dodge an overthrown football from a schoolbus stop it was bouncing back and forth across the road like an indecisive squirrel

My commute this morning, as usual takes me under the George Washington Bridge and right by the Little Red Lighthouse.


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-l...2009.34.29.jpg


And a few minutes later, I pass through the intersection of Seaman Ave and Cumming St. :)


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5...2009.48.38.jpg

The B-tension spring popped out of the claw mount again this morning. Time for this RD to go back in the bin from whence it came, I think.

Weather here is getting hot already. Yesterday I did the long route to work (11 miles around) against a slight head wind. Around 70 degrees by 9:00. Go home and the wind from the north picked up, so I flew home at like record pace. Woke up this morning and the wind was howling. 25mph into my face all the way to work. I was low the whole ride. If I can get out of here soon enough today I'll take the long way home with the wind at my back.

*snicker*

On topic.

There is nothing nicer than riding home when everyone else is sound asleep. So peaceful.

Warm for the ride home last night. Some hanging out at the pool after helped though.

A nice tailwind coming in this morning made for a faster ride than normal. Most rides to work are around 16 - 16.5mph. Today I averaged 18. Funny how it felt like I was so much faster, but it was only about 1.5 mph difference. Maybe I should say I was 10% faster instead.

We have a cold front rolling through which is dropping the humidity and dropping the highs down to 80. Looking to be a nice Memorial Day Weekend here.

Actually saw 3 other cyclists this morning. I think that's a record.

Ride home yesterday was one of those that makes me wonder why I do this - cold, headwind, rainy. The lure of my favorite chicken salad waiting in the frig kept me going. A little warmer today, 48F but same wicked winds.

Well my attitude yesterday was that I wasn't going to ride into work today. Later that night I was changing my mind and my wife told me to just do it. So I woke up this morning feeling pretty good and thought to myself there is no way I am not riding in today. I finally remembered to raise my seat post about 3/4" and what a difference it made. I'm glad I took yesterday easy (total of about 10.5 miles) - my legs felt nice and refreshed (I'm sure raising the seatpost helped). Traffic sucked, but I knew it would based on when I left. I got and returned a one finger salute, so I got under the skin of a cager.....day complete as far as I am concerned.

I brought in donuts. I bought six, because that's about how many people I needed to serve and about how much space I had in my bag. The people at the donut shop will give you a funny look if you ask for six donuts. They didn't know that there were any numbers between 1 and 12.

Wow, what a contrast from what the traffic on the bridge looks like. You've got a nice place to ride.

Encounter with a wily squirrel
 

I'm immensely lucky that I get to ride along this path, and it is most of the length of my commute.

This morning, a squirrel crossed my path, but then once he was out of safety, he decided to head back to danger. He ended up entangled INSIDE MY REAR WHEEL. I felt him thump-thump-thump against my feet as he went by. I couldn't coast, as I'm riding my fixie again today. I took my feet out of the toe clips and stopped as quickly as I could. He was out of my wheel by the time I stopped. I went back to check on him. His front legs were folded under his body, and he was upright. A cyclist coming from the other direction stopped and looked at the squirrel with me. I told her what had happened. Then the squirrel, who must have been just stunned, got up and ran away, though a little wobbly. The cyclist said she saw a bit of blood on the squirrel's tail but she thought he was otherwise fine.

Went out to lunch and ugh...there is a stiff headwind in store for me on the ride home. Oh well...it will help burn off some of that pizza I had