ground work

This weekend the plan was to scout out my commuting route options.  What I thought would be a "quick" ride turned into a 3 hour tour.... literally.

Going out to school I took the more direct route... which was about 13.5 miles.  This morning I'm going to drive the route to see how busy it might get on a weekday morning.  There is one section of construction that might get a little ugly if traffic is heavy.  Other than that, there were either bike lanes, or the lanes themselves were wide enough that I felt like I had plenty of room.  Plus, it is a bus route and I always feel that cars are prepared for bikes a little better when traveling on a bike route - they are used to slowing/moving over to pass because of stopping buses.

When I got to the school I also looked into shower options.  The boys locker room is tiny - and smells horribly.  There is another locker room attached labeled "Refs Only" which has a shower.  I'll have to make sure that it is cool for me to use those facilities, I might even be able to grab a locker in there, which would make things even easier in leaving clothes/shower stuff.

I tried out a different route on the way home.  I didn't pay attention to mileage when I planned it out, I was just looking for the most bike friendly route (according to google maps).  Although a nice route, it was a round-a-bout way home... taking me all the way over to portions of my typical road loop.  The ride home was about 33 miles... not what one is looking for in a commute!

Overall it was a longer than expected day on the bike and my legs felt it for sure!

I might use the route home on days that I want mileage and there is still plenty of daylight to burn... but for commuting purposes it's going to be the more direct route, depending on how it looks this morning. Of course, if all goes as planned, I'd already be en route at 5:20 am.

If all looks good this morning, and I get the thumbs up on the shower situation, my plan is to drive to work Thursday with the bike and clothes for the next day, ride home from work, and ride into work on Friday.  Figure that would provide a nice test run.

bike to work

Why I need (in no particular order) to bike to work...

I want to
I'm not riding enough as it is
Not enough time with the wife (by the time Annie gets home from work I'm off to bed a few hours later)
...which then leads to not selfishly riding after work...
The pterodactyl could use a break, before it breaks...
I want to

Why I don't bike to work...
haven't figured out the best route yet - haven't truly investigated it... lazy
unsure of the shower availability at work... lazy
would have to plan on leaving clothes (or carrying them with me)... lazy
don't know how to "commute"; to ride at an easier tempo to reduce sweat and whatnot... not wired that way
i would have to get up earlier, maybe?

So, if my language math is correct...
- my mis-wiring which doesn't allow me to not ride at a tempo that would reduce sweat can be rectified by solidifying the ability to shower at work - it's a school, at the very least there are gym showers...
- clothes could be left at work ahead of time... or I can just carry them with me - would just have to deal with wrinkles - ah ha!  leave an iron/board in the office.
-I currently get up at 5(ish) and leave the house by 6:30 to arrive at work before 7 ("start" time is 7:15). If I left by bike at 5(ish) and biked the 13ish miles, I'd be there in under an hour easily.  Plenty of time to stop sweating, shower, iron (if needed) and get dressed.

Anyone see any errors in my computation?  See any reason why I shouldn't get on commuting... other than the fact that it's gonna be getting dark earlier soon? (lights are a glorious thing)

EW!!!!!!!

Ok, ready for the ride of randomness you are about to embark on??  Probably not, so hold on!!

Yesterday morning temps were PERFECT for the ride into work.  The humidity on the other hand was out of control.  On my hardest days on the road bike I haven't had sweat dripping down my brow like I did on the way to work... great way to start the day eh?  But it was good.  Traffic was pretty much nonexistent which was excellent.

So things to tweak for the next one... already have clothes and whatnot at work so I don't have to carry it.  It wasn't soooo bad with the bag of clothes on my back, but I did have to keep adjusting from time to time, so getting rid of that component would be nice.  For the ride home I did leave everything at work so it was just a nice (hot) ride back.  Traffic had picked up a bit, but was not out of control.  Traffic on the bike path was heavier with kids getting out of school, but still manageable.  In the end, 17.7 miles each way.  Not bad - took me about an hour and 8 minutes to get into work.  I think I'll try to at least ride once a week to school for the remainder of the school year.

Over the weekend I had a battle with ticks on one of my rides.  I have some sort of amazing ability to feel ticks when they are on me, so during the ride I knocked two off of me.  After the ride I killed another crawling up my leg.  Since Sunday the pterodactyl has sat parked, alone, and unused.  This morning on the way into work I felt something on my elbow while driving on the highway.  I looked down and saw something black so I brushed it off figuring it was a beetle of some sort.  It was curious as I didn't see anything flying around after that... oh well.

A little while later as I was hitting the side streets I felt something on my forearm again... this time I look and it's a tick!! 

I flick him and hear him hit the windshield... oh great, now where did he go.  I search the dash and see that he is crawling his way back to me.  I pick up a random battery in the center console and squish the bastard right there on the dash.  How many more are waiting to ambush me on the ride home?

Ok... so not wanting to go on forever, ride recaps will come later.  But I did want to mention bike changes real quick.  When I swapped out the new handlebar on the HiFi I was originally nervous that I would be too stretched out and whatnot.  Well, things have been feeling great with the bars.  So great that I finally started adjusting the height of the stem.  Yeah, I've been riding with spacers since I got the HiFi.  Dropped down one initially, but since haven't made any adjustments.  Since getting out on the road I feel like my posture is getting better - less straight up.  So I decided to take out the spacer and slam it down on the HiFi.  Instant magic!!  I felt great, and the HiFi felt like it was more responsive.  I'm loving it!  So now I just have to get the steer tube cut so I don't have a ridiculous nubbin sticking up at me.

I had been slowly working my way down the spacers on Georgia, so with the success and joy of the bar drop on the HiFi I decided that on my way home from work yesterday I'd drop it all the way and see how it felt.  Again, no discomfort from the new positioning, and in reality, I felt that I had much better posture.  I've got to take Georgia in for it's free tune up (already having some ghost shifting) so hopefully they can lop off the undesired nubbin.  I think I may go out for one more ride though on Georgia to be 100% certain before taking her in to the chop shop.

bad bad stuff

Relax, only minor stuff.

So I missed my post on Friday (bad).. then again, so did many people - so I don't feel so bad.  What I DO feel bad about is missing my planned bike commute to work.

I'm not sure what happened.  If I forgot to set my alarm (uhm, after work celebration for Annie on her impending departure from her current job) or if I shut it off in my sleep?  Either way, I luckily awoke at 6:23 - my planned departure time for the ride into work: 6 AM.

So scrap the ride, hustle to get ready and shoot out the door just in time to sit in traffic.... there were a number of accidents which held things up immensely.  Meaning, I could have ridden to work (even with the late start) and STILL gotten to work faster.  Such is life.

On the bright side, still played some dodgeball at school on Friday.  Personally, didn't do phenomenally, but it was still fun!

This weekend was a busy one with riding/exploring, tweaking the rides, and cookouts.  All perfect things for the summer.  Speaking of summer, the heat was up big time for my ride on Saturday... so not ready for the heat... but that's what I'm headed into huh??  Looks like the camelbaks will be back in rotation with the heat up and the need for more hydration will be high.

I'll get into the rides and bike stuff later this week.  Today I hit up the bike commute, for real this time.  Hopefully I'll squeeze between the late night/early morning showers and late after noon (possible) thunderstorms.

I forgot to post this earlier (bad), but better late then never...

On the way back from scouting my bike commute route I noticed a police car blocking a turn off... as I went through the intersection I saw a curious sight so I hooked back through a CVS parking lot and found this.  The MBTA bus didn't quite make it under the bridge.  Yup, ripped the roof right off.  I asked an onlooker if it had caught fire (since the hoses were out) and he said nope.  The dangerous situation was that these busses run on natural gas (pretty neat) and the tanks are on the roof....  oops.

You could smell the gas in the air, and unfortunately there wasn't any wind that day so it was just hanging around.  I took off pretty quick, so I don't know how long it took to get the whole scene sorted out, but I felt bad each time I passed people waiting for the bus on my way back into town... I wondered how long it would take for them to get picked up?

Leaky busses won't slow my commute down!

Could I ride to work?

Saturday I explored the possibility of getting in some bike commutes before the end of the year.  I've driven back roads to and from work using various routes and it looked like a doable ride on a bike.  Utilizing the google a pretty straight forward route popped up.  Once you get out of Boston it's basically one long road.

There were two short sections where google suggested deviating from Washington St but laziness was king and I didn't feel like creating a cheat sheet to help me navigate the back streets in those short instances.... so I opted for the straight forward and stayed on the main road route.





For the most part the route was bike friendly with either a designated bike lane or street signage to share the lane.... so that is cool.  Before I get out of Boston there is a nice big ass bike/bus shared lane... it's beautiful!!

Then of course there is the traditional bike lane which is a pleasure.  Throwing in some street side parking always keeps you on your toes, watching for those ready to throw their car door open into you.  So far so good (fingers crossed).

And thrown into the mix is this guy

Not entirely sure as to the "rules" of this signage... but at least it gives me a sense that bike commuting is accepted and expected, so hopefully drivers will act accordingly.

There is one section along the route that is a divided road with two lanes in each direction, throw in cars parked on the side of the road and it gets a little hairy.  But at each light there are those helpful signs telling bikes where to line up to get the light to turn... so I guess it must be (or city planners hope it will be) used as a commuting route.

So, when will I get a ride to work in??  Not exactly sure, but I'm hoping that this Friday will be my first run.  After that, who knows... I guess I can start with the goal of at least once a week??  Ultimate goal would be to work at a school that I could ride to everyday down in Charlotte.... and with the weather down there that could be a yearly commute - exciting times!!