Great ride in.

Amazing ride in, wonderful weather. I passed a stream & realized that I could only see it because I was on a bike hundreds of cars pass it every day but because of the angle they never see it. Just another reason to bike comute

So much rain

so much rain. I was on vacation it rained everyday, then kept raining, but today it is 82! and sunny I thought I would never see the sun again :) Friday they are calling for rain again but today, today we ride bikes!

worth the wait

today's weather makes it worth the wait. high of 66 and a low of 46, spring is finally here!

not much for commuting in April

So April is a bust as far as commuting goes. did one commute on April 4, then vacation, then one commute on April 11, came down with some type of traveler sickness on April 12 and now kinda behind on schoolwork. so a few more days of this obsessive homework completion and I should be ready to commute again. Only about 40 essay questions and four papers to write before end of month!

wow what a commute

As I was driving home last night on my bicycle I wondered to myself if I was going to have anything to blog about, the commute was turning into 24 miles a day of enjoyable bike riding, but how many times could I type that as a blog entry. and then...

My handlebars slipped!it must've happened slowly because I didn't really notice but all of a sudden they were upside down and I found myself wondering how I had missed it.

So I pulled over and use my bicycle toolkit to realign my handlebars; I've been thinking I wanted them a little higher anyway.

I got started again and that's when I noticed my first loaf of bread.on the shoulder of the road was a round 13 inch loaf, it looked too big to be commercial and to uniform to be homemade. but after 14 miles that day it looked delicious. I resisted the temptation. This all would've been not worth mentioning except I saw another one and another every few hundred feet for about 5 miles. I thought to myself "did they think breadcrumbs were too small to find?"

about a mile after the trail of bread loaves stopped I saw the road was blocked by police cars and filled with fire engines. must've got there at the right time as they allowed me to walk the bike up the sidewalk for the mile that was closed off. guess it's fortunate to that I couldn't tell which house they were all there for.

Finally I came up to the top of Mt.Avenue I saw a shooting star.

commuting again! Its interesting that when I started this 39 degrees seemed so cold. Now after so many days in 18 degrees it actually seems warm. I was ridding home today with my jacket opened.

Whoa! its been how long?!

Okay so here comes the list of excuses. After I brought my bike in the house to attempt to clean the inside (bad idea by the way) I brought it in to get regular service and found out that I deviated a new cassette, new crank, you chain, and had a broken axle...... so I got the axle fixed. the rest I'm afraid far exceeded the value of the bike. But finding all this out took a whole week.

so then I decided to order new bike. I got the rally detour 2.0. it's cool it's got flashed headlights taillights and the servomotor that keeps them going whenever I start pedaling. of course spent 700 bucks on a bike and another hundred on the bags. So the whole idea of saving money by bicycling instead of driving is going to take a little longer to realize.

And while I've been gone I started my tomato seeds and pepper seeds. and I should start at 11 plant hydroponic garden you see all over the Internet. so stay tuned for gardening spinoff blog.

how do you clean a bike in the winter

so how do you clean a bike in the winter with no hose. I've ruled out paper towels with Windex. And I ruled out cleaning it in the bathtub ... I swear it seemed like a good idea at the time and it went (in hind site not surprisingly) horribly wrong

But after just a few short trips in the snow and rain now the bike wobbles and grinds .... concerning

of course it rained

30% chance of rain and sure enough I got to test out the rain gear which held up pretty well considering.

Handle bars seemed to have slipped and the bike seems to be sqeaking but only in low gear when heading up hill. Nothing seems to be rubbing and I cant recreate it when I'm not on the bike.

heck with the rain

and So I remind myself that's why I have rain gear

snow again!

well so much for ridding today. Check weather 80% chance of rain. As I struggled to get out of bed this morning I wondered if it wouldn't be better to hold off on bicycling until march better weather and all.

could the snow be gone?

Looking at the ten day outlook and the worst of it seems to be a 60% chance on Thursday, that seems pretty good. I'll prob ride Mon, off Tuesday, ride Wed. Then see what the weather update is for Thursday.

Back on the road

Well I was happy to be back on the bike again. Looking forward to spring and summer when the concern is running out of water rather than whether or not the water bottle will freeze.

This will be the only day I ride this week. Ride Monday, snow Tuesday, snow Wednesday, off Thursday, snow Friday.

Good grief will I ever be able to ride again

Good grief will the snow ever end. Its been a snowing then single digit temps, then snowing then single digit temps back and for fourth for days. Will it ever be safe to go on two wheels again?!

crashed in the snow

So for the first time in years I dropped the bike. going less then 5mph I let the get caught on a trolley track. Cold and windy today. I got wet on the ride in and didn't think to bring extra socks so I stopped @ rei for dry ones on the way home. While I was there I found a new bike light can't wait to set it up. A winding led cable to illuminate the frame

On a brighter note they shoveled out the bike rack @ work today!

of course after two days of riding in the snow my bike needs a good cleaning ... but how do you wash a bike when it degrees?

Back from vacation

Back from vacation and today was my first bike commute. I actually got back to work Monday but I had a really long list of bad excuses for why I didn't ride in.

1) slept to late on Monday
2) too much snow, sleet, rain on Tuesday
3) overslept again on Wednesday

But today I made it, had to force myself kept hitting snooze and by the time I got out of the house I and to work I didn't have time to workout.

Snow is expected again tomorrow... as of now I plan to ride *checks weather*
They're calling for extreme weather snow just in time for morning commute but its only snow unlike Tuesday when it was snow,rain,sleet jumped to 40degrees then back to 20 perfect recipe for large amounts of ice. So I feel less bad about Tuesday and better about tomorrow. The ride home tomorrow should be great no snow no wind and 16 degrees

vacation

So in LA for the week no bike commuting this week. I looked into bicycle rentals but doesn't seem to feasible for this trip.

It was nice to see bicycle safety signs though. Could really use these along rt 10

whose that girl

skipped the bike commute today, and looking forward to tomorrow! Saw a cute fellow bike commuter at the most improbable hour of 9pm.... who was that girl

got the new base layer

Got the new base layer in today. cant wait to try them out. They seem like they'll be cooler than what I'm using now. Guess we'll find out.

First Comute of the year

first commute of the year today, and included an errand. Earlier shift at work today, surprising how much energy I have 2 hours earlier in the evening, the ride seemed to go much faster.