Holy cow!!! Good job!

Whoa! That's mooovin' right along!

Wednesday 9/01/2010
30.6 miles today
30.6 miles this month
4579 miles this year
149 ride days LY vs. 148 ride days TY
2921 miles needed to hit 2010 goal (7500 miles)
I am @ 61% of my goal.
103 miles ahead of last year at this date

Motivation level 8.5 on a scale of 1-10

Perfect day to ride except for the wind that we are getting from Earl. It was 15 mph out of the NE on my trip back but that was a good thing because I was headed SW. I could have done another 20 but I will save it for another day. This will be a tough month for me to keep up as I did about 750 miles in Sept last year. Need to get the mojo working and have good weather and maby some fried brussel sprouts.

FunkyStickman, the bike looks great! Mine kind of looks like a thrift store. Actually, right now this very second it looks like a clothes drying rack sitting behind my desk at work.

droobieinop, I just looked at your Garmin Edge data and am all nerding out over the stats. STATS! Maybe one day. The Mapmyride/iphone combo definitely has its limitations. Also, if you passed me on the road I'd probably just feel a faint breeze and see speck off in the distance. ;-)

zzOtherlandzz what is that a buffalo?

Slo Spoke, it's not brussels sprouts season yet, but soon...

Even though there was a power outage over night that knocked out my alarm clock, I managed to quickly get out the door so I could ride. Left about 20 minutes later than usual and it's amazing how much more traffic there is. This morning's ride into work was almost chilly. It felt amazing but took me an extra mile or so to warm up. Tomorrow I'm pulling out my jacket.

Last night I cleaned and lubed my chain. In my living room. Probably not the best choice. It's a pain working around the panniers. But would be more of a pain to take off the basket to get the panniers off. Anyway, it was definitely overdue. Now no more "clunk clunk" when shifting. I also had beginner's luck chasing down a creak. It'd been bugging me for a week or so. Turned out it was coming from the seat. I took it off and smeared a little grease around all those metal parts. No more creak! I did get a little lube on my rear rim though. Whoops. I'll try and clean that up tonight.

.


Slo Spoke, it's not brussels sprouts season yet, but soon...



I am really wanting some of those... how do you fix yours?

Slo Spoke, my favorite way is to half them, toss them with olive oil, salt, pepper and a crushed garlic clove or two. Then spread them out on a baking sheet and roast until they can be easily pierced with a fork. Around 400 degrees. Stir them around after about 10 minutes. If I'm feeling spunky I'll add a pinch of red pepper flakes. Oh, and never get frozen ones. They're mushy and nasty.

I'm ready right now. Thanks for the details.

Yep..... Well my two friends (see) picture have been talking about going on a ride with me for awhile. The dark hair guy in the sweats (CRAZY) rode with me quite a bit a few months ago. The other friends hasn't rode much at all. Anyway.... I had plans to do the ride that I was going to do yesterday and didn't... They decided they wanted to ride today and I KNEW they would not make it that far especially into the 13-14mph headwind. Started out just two of us were going to ride... so I was going to ride my mountain bike. Then we picked up the 3rd (blond guy)... And I let him use my mountain bike, because his bike sucks.... So I have one friend in sweats, long johns and a sweat shirt wearing work boots. He says he likes to sweat... I say your NUTS!! The other friend drinks 3 cans of coke in like 15 minutes before we leave... At this point you can probably tell how this ride is going to turn out LOL.... About 4 miles in to the headwind blond guy says.... he has BAD cramps... So I call him a ride. Soooo we continue on... about another mile into the headwind "sweats" guy says he has had enough....... Tells me to keep going.... He made it back to the house though. They both say that they wanna try again though :D Anyway I rode 9 miles into the wind for a 18.13 mile ride total.

abracapocus ... Here is a bit better picture of the buffalo? I dunno what it is.... but its huge.

1st pic... He didn't end up riding that old mongoose... Ended up riding my MTB..
2nd pic.... CRAZY .... way to hot with all those clothes on...
3rd pic.... Friends in front of me..... I COULD not keep up.... :D
4th pic... My BIG friend again....

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I think I've mention that I am fortunate enogh to work at a LBS http://aboutbicyclesop.tripod.com/index.html. I also live less than 10 miles from the shop, this offers me the opportunity to ride about 35 miles a day. If you're ever in the area, stop by and say hey.

Likely my best ride ever. Felt good, took a few really strong pulls, stayed in till the last turn.
It is such a rush riding in a fast large group. Due to drafting, you can go so much faster than riding alone.
The stats are way cool and I only look after a ride or at scheduled stops. My main screen, of three, only has cadense, speed, temp and time of day. When you are going at close to 30 with riders on atleast 3 sides you don't have time to take more than a flash of a glance at it anyway.

Might I suggest, to everyone, get yourselves a multi tool or chain tool and a KMC missing link. If you don't know about these, they are a better "master link" that is easy to pull apart without tools, in case of emergency. Once removed, it can be dipped in mineral spirits, wiped with a rag and reinstalled. I like to use White Lightening or some other wax based lube, it stays dry and sheds grime instead of collecting it.

droobieinop.. Question about the KMC missing link. I have 9 speed shimano cassettes on both my road bike and mountain bike. Would they both use the same size KMC missing link? Thanks...

KMC and Sram both make missing links for basically any size chain. 6/7/8 are all the same width, 9, 10 and 11 are different widths.

Thursday 9/02/2010
30.4 miles today
61 miles this month
4609 miles this year
150 ride days LY vs. 149 ride days TY
2891 miles needed to hit 2010 goal (7500 miles)
I am @ 61% of my goal.
127 miles ahead of last year at this date

Motivation meter today 9.5 on a scale of 1-10 (SloSpoke pats him self on the back)

Perfect day to ride, light wind from the NNW and moderate temps. I could have done more but I will save it for another day. This will be a tough month for me to keep up as I did about 750 miles in Sept last year. On Sept 3 last year I had a 60 mile day so I have got to ride at least 30 tomorrow to be even with last month.

Glad your feeling better again on the bike Slo Spoke... I'm looking forward to a ride later this afternoon with LESS wind.... I don't mind the challenge of a headwind once in awhile... but ugggg 4 days in a row I can live without... (ok ok I didn't ride one of those days. LOL)......

Well they both showed up at my house today asking if we are gonna go riding.... LOL ... Gonna take the mountain bikes (took my basket off the Tassajara) and ride on the un-paved part of the Palatka Lake Butler trail... Update later on how it went......... :D

And, I rode to work again today. So this week I will have only driven in one day. I wore a jacket in this morning, but it didn't breathe very well. Hrmph.

This is a fun bit of Atlanta history that I pass by fairly often. It's a one man jail cell. It's a bit tighter than a phone booth. The police would stick someone in there to wait for the paddy wagon.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4128/...3752ee4a91.jpg

And I'm always taking pictures of the outside of Krog tunnel, here's a pic I grabbed from inside while waiting for the light. I'm always shocked that it doesn't smell like urine. In San Francisco, this would be an automatic hold your nose location.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/...ec1a5a2115.jpg

This week my quads have been kind of cranky. Complaining about working. Wondering if I'm missing something nutritionally or if it's just muscle growing pains. I'll take tomorrow off and see if I can talk my bf into riding over to check out the DragonCon Parade Saturday morning.

zzOtherlandzz I broke out the googles and that is indeed a bison. I can almost smell him from here.

droobieinop I don't look at mapmyride until after my ride. It sort of takes over my iphone, so I just start it up and stick it in my pocket and forget it. For being free, it's great. Also, I figure with traffic and potholes and suicidal squirrels and trash in the road I've got enough to pay attention to. And thanks for the tip about that KMC missing link. It's the one thing that my little bag of tricks is missing.

The KMC chain link is great I have been using them on mine and my daughters bike for some time. I have a pair of Park Pliers to take them apart but I think you could separate the link with out them if you had to. I also have a Third hand Chain compressor on order. It is a handy little tool for working on your chain. If your creative enough they can be made from an old spoke as well. They do make working on a chain easier especially if you are all thumbs like me. They don't take up any room in your seat bag either.

Woohoo! Got out with every intention of going with the B group from the club, but had to fix a cable modem problem and help the firstborn get the lawn mower started. So I went solo on the same old 39th Ave/241/Millhopper loop, just over 18-1/2 miles. Averaged 16.1 this time, and didn't feel totally wiped at the end. Yeah! Getting back in shape is fun! B group is doing a 50miler on Saturday; looking forward to it. Got the first organized ride of the fall season coming up in 2 weeks - Tour de Tow down in Bartow, probably with the road-bike-crazy younger daughter. We'll do the 35 mile option so we have time to get back to Gainesville before kickoff of the UF-UT football game (Feeding time for the Gators - any Volunteers?!?!).

Second ride today, 17.4 miles this evening. Total today 47.8 miles

Everything went great today, this was day 8 of me commuting... on the way home, my right trigger shifter decided it liked 3rd gear, and wasn't going to change when I told it to. Plus there are assorted creaks, clicks, and sounds coming from the crank-ish area, I will probably wind up repacking the pedals and bottom bracket this weekend. Probably will replace all cables as well. I'm also going to get my "loaner" bike in proper condition, in case I need to use it if my main bike breaks down. Overall going to be a busy weekend, and since I can, I'm probably going to drive tomorrow.

Wow..... Great to see everybody riding.... And Slo Spoke twice in one day... NICE!!

Had a great ride.... I hardly ever ride with people so had a great time bs'ing while riding on the trails. Nice and shady most of the way. Also they must have just mowed the trial in the last week or so, so that was nice. We rode about 12 miles on the trail and were getting low on water so we went out to the road and up to Florahome to buy drinks. Those 2 with me can really put the water away... LOL Dark haired friend had enough and stayed at the store to get picked up. Me and blond guy rode a couple of more miles to Grandin where the trail is going to be paved soon :D

Pic 1... Old railroad bridge.... The Florida Trail actually joins and follows the Palatka Lake Butler here.

Pic 2... Nice part of the trail here... not too overgrown with grass & the old railroad gravel is pretty compacted here.

pic 3 .... Small bridge crossing Etoniah Creek in the Etoniah Creek State Forest. There is a small primitive camp site there. It has an old hand pump, but no water would come out of it. I know the Florida Trail goes through here..... but I'm not sure if we were on it or not at this point.

Pic 4 ... Etoniah Creek from on the bridge.... Crystal clear water.... we thought about jumping in for a cool off ... lol

Pic 5... Just a nice shaded section of trail

pic 6... On the way to the store for more water...

pic 7... Getting closer all the time to getting it paved.... :D





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Beautiful pics, zzOtherlandzz!! From what I hear, they're working on getting a trail system built near here soon, when they do, you can bet I will report on it. I still haven't had much luck getting my buds to ride with me, though. I'm going to keep at them.

I love the whole idea of rails-to-trails. Just beautiful.

Finally back out on the road after a week off. I almost got run over by a truck. It was kind of my fault. Just as I started up a large, steep hill on a narrow road with no paved shoulder, a dump truck crept up behind me and held there. I knew he had a few cars behind him, so I was looking for a place to pull off and let them go by, but there were no cuts on my side of the road, just a driveway on the left side. No oncoming traffic, so I veered over and pulled into the driveway on the left to let them go by. The truck continued slowly on up the hill past the driveway, and since the other cars were pretty far back, I pulled back out behind the truck to proceed up the hill. Just then the truck came to a stop and began backing up and turning to back into the same driveway. He backed right toward me now, and squeezed me off the right side of the road in slow motion. I headed for the grass, but couldn't unclip in time, and toppled over onto the shoulder. I scrambled back to my feet cursing loudly at this idiot who is continuing to back across the road, downhill, on a blind hill. I never should have bailed to the left side of the road -- should have just kept going up the hill on the right. The rest of my ride was uneventful, but the adrenaline from that near miss probably boosted my average speed. 23 miles total.

Yep!! Today dark haired friend says i'll ride later (this was around noon). Blond friend calls and says his wife is picking up a child carrier to hook on the bike so he can take his youngest daughter on a ride. Later around 4pm... Dark haired friend is home sleeping NOT gonna go for a ride. Blond friend rides over to the house with his daughter in the seat but says he isn't going to ride today..... So I rode solo today... :D

Took the camera with me but nothing of note to take a picture of on my normal ride. Even Mr. Bison was nowhere to be seen today.. Not much wind today, slight tailwind on the way out and almost no wind on the way back. 20.17 miles. Nice ride .....

Ohh I did pass the guy (Edison) that used to own a bike shop in Palatka 5 or 6 years ago. He was going one way I was going the other. About an hour later I passed him again both of us going the other, other way..... :P Its funny he always rides the crappiest looking bike.... I'm sure full of good components, but they always look bad.... Maybe helps to keep them from being stolen or something.

Saturday 9/04/2010
31.3 miles today
109.7 miles this month
4657 miles this year
151 ride days LY vs. 150 ride days TY
2842 miles needed to hit 2010 goal (7500 miles)
I am @ 61% of my goal.
126 miles ahead of last year at this date

Motivation meter today 10.5 on a scale of 1-10 (SloSpoke pats him self on the back again)

Absolute perfect day to ride, light wind from the W and WNW (5-10 mph)and moderate temps mid 70s to mid 80s. I could have and should have done more perhaps I will go out again later. This will be a tough month for me to keep up as I did about 713 miles in Sept last year but I am off to a good start.

Today is the day of small trips on my bike. And I'm not done yet! Those little trips add up. I'm already up to 13.9 mi. and I still have about 5 miles to get home.

This morning we rode downtown to catch the Dragoncon parade. Too many pics to post them all here. I'll give you a couple of fun ones then send you to my flickr account for the rest.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4129/...13037f51fc.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4152/...975d24be9e.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4137/...9ae63729eb.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/...4da5d193bb.jpg

Oh, and Slo Spoke, sounds like our weather was similar today. Beautiful! I think it was 71 this morning when we went to the parade. Now it's about 78. Blue blue sky. Light breezes. Low humidity. And it looks like everyone in Atlanta that has a bicycle dragged it out and went for a ride. Bikes everywhere.

Now I've got my eye on craigslist for a road bike. My commuter is great for hauling stuff but I'd like something a little more nimble for trips like some of the ones I'm making today. Of course there's a lot of competition right now. Might have to wait until it gets cool out and scares people back into their cars.